You Don't Know Me
by Jane Skazki

You give your hand to me

And then you say, hello,

And I can hardly speak

My heart is beating so;

And anyone can tell

You think you know me well.

You don't know me.

You give your hand to me

And then you say goodbye.

I watch you walk away

Beside some lucky guy;

To never, never know

The one who loves you so,

'Cause you don't know me.

Walker/Arnold

"Since you obtained employment by pretending you were numerate, a thinker..."

The young man started up from his intense concentration on the strange device. "I am, but this is… I have never seen anything like this before."

"Come here."

The absolute monarch of the tiny, but powerful, palatinate of Cordes was standing in the shaft of fading sunlight that was the only illumination for the little chamber. She looked very cold and regal. Most of the time she was condescendingly pleasant to her ragamuffin mathematician, so much so that he'd wondered at first if some of the stories of her cruelty were untrue, or perhaps exaggerated — like the current gossip in the palace that she'd had her chief gardener executed for failing to ensure that her flower garden was in full bloom for the party several days previously — but there were moments when a look from her could fill his heart with ice. Today was turning into a long string of such moments.

Standing on the step, she was a few inches taller than him. He came as ordered and looked downwards at her brown feet, criss-crossed with gold straps.

"Whatever all this is, someone made it. That someone knows how it works. Since I employ you, and I only employ the best, you must be at least the equal of that someone. So you can discover how it works, can't you?" She spun away, back into the daylight, leaving him in the gloom.

'Gordo Calibar, why did you send me here?' He went back to the panel and looked at it again, tracing the unfamiliar writings and feeling the protuberances. The thought of Gordo cheered him a little. If Calibar thought he could do something useful here, then he was confident that he could. And the Queen found him useful, kept him to hand. Thus he was in position to hear her meetings with her councilors. And Gordo Calibar wanted very much to know all the most intimate councils of the Queen of Cordes, the better to overthrow her.

But the device. If he couldn't solve this mystery, the Queen might well decide that a pet mathematician was a luxury she didn't need. The knobs felt shaped for fingers to do things. But what things? The panel was set flush into the marble walls of the chamber. Was there something which the knobs controlled on the other side of the wall? He quickly traced out his knowledge of the Queen's palace. He'd entered it for the first time, on Gordo's orders, only seven days previously, and there was much of it he hadn't seen yet. The Queen had only today discovered this little chamber behind the panelling in her bedroom. He could imagine, uncomfortably, how Gordo would tease him for being so close at hand that she should call on him first to share the mystery. Above her quarters was the roof garden with the fountains. You could see the damage to the plaster mouldings in the ceiling where cracks in the tiles had let water through. Below was the vast, arcaded prayer hall, which the Queen seemed to make no use of. So beyond this wall was the housekeeper's office, or maybe cupboards or…

He paused in his reasoning, aware of a ghostly idea that a panel here, like this one, could control things half a world away… but by what ingenious trails of levers he couldn't quite imagine.

He dismissed the silly notion. It was like the unease that stalked him whenever Gordo talked of assassinating the Queen.

Now, the Queen, while she still lived, had scribes, many of whom were expert in foreign or ancient tongues, tongues that a mere tally keeper, lately employed counting bales of silk in a warehouse, couldn't expect to recognize. He went out into her room and looked around for materials to make copies of a few of the inscriptions, to show the learned old men. For his peace of mind, he didn't let himself see the hangings on the bed, with their embroidered erotica.

He found carefully scraped paper, ink and sand on her desk. Beside them was a document already half written, in her own hand. He couldn't help himself reading it.

'The ninth day of the month of golden flowers, in the fourteenth year of my reign, may it last forever - I think I have found another. He says his name is Samon, but that hesitation is there, that lack of certainty that I recognize so well...'

***

It was that lack of certainty that Gordo Calibar, leader of the revolution, had tried to beat out of him when he couldn't overcome it for himself.

"Your name is Samon! I don't care that you can't remember what your parents called you, or what you called them. You have a name now. Say it!"

"Samon .My name is Samon."

"But don't repeat it as if you have to convince me. I know what it is. I gave it to you. People won't want to hear it twice if you don't give them reason. What's your name?"

"Samon."

Gordo suddenly threw the switch down on the floor of the dusty stable. "I'm doing this because I don't want you caught."

"Yes, Gordo." Gordo had been using the switch more as a threat anyway, but just a few times he'd brought it down on flesh rather than the baled straw. His nameless recruit was looking at him with very mixed emotions.

"They'll hurt you far worse than this if they do catch you."

That, the recruit knew perfectly well. A howling mob had swept like fire through the market place in the old town, spinning Samon round and tossing him aside. He began to retrieve the tumbled bales, safe in their canvas covers, and his employer had come out of the drinking den where he was steadily absorbing his profit, to stand and watch while his underling restored order.

"What was that?" the fat merchant demanded angrily of a local urchin, plainly wondering if Cordes was truly a suitable outlet for his luxury wares.

"A man without a name, sir." The boy boldly came and held a hand out for money and the merchant grudgingly pulled one of the smallest sort of coin bearing the Queen's head out of his pocket and dropped it into the dirty palm. "When they catch him, they'll burn him," the informant added, plainly angling for more.

"And so they should," the merchant muttered. He glanced at his tally keeper. Samon was stacking the bales on end and pretending to pay no heed to the boy. But the merchant knew he had no name he'd admit to.

"What's your name, mister?" the boy suddenly demanded, perhaps thinking he'd get more reward for uncovering another untouchable than he would for playing guide.

"Brer," the merchant told him shortly. "And what's yours, young man?"

"Dio." The urchin turned his attention to Samon. "And you? Do you have a name?"

The tally man froze. He couldn't even lie… and what could be simpler than making up a name? Every stall around the market place proclaimed a name, any of which he could have borrowed, or he could have made up something as outlandish as the merchant's single syllable.

"Of course he has a name," the merchant said lazily. "What mother wouldn't give her child a name? Or if she was so negligent, he'd take his father's name, wouldn't he?"

"Only if he had a father," the boy objected. His dark eyes burned gimlet bright, as if he'd turned over a stone and found a snake to show off to his friends, and as if it might bite him.

Samon ran. It was stupid but instinct took hold of him. He was running away from himself as much as anything. To be without a name… He knew it was wrong, indecent, practically occult.

Of course the boy yelled.

The tally keeper ducked into one of the narrow streets that radiated from the market place, dived through the first open door and found himself in a dusty barn full of feed sacks and straw bales. He could already hear running feet and raised voices outside, so he squirmed head first in behind the soft, night-cold bags of beans and grain.

His pursuers went past but before he could wriggle out again an inner door opened and someone came into the barn.

"Make that door fast! How many are we saddling?"

"I've hired six fast beasts, from a good man who'll want our business again, so if there's any talk of people leaving the city by night he won't say much."

"Good work." The creak of leather tackle lifted down from hooks on the walls told Samon clearly enough what was happening. They were on their way out. He had only to be patient and hope the owner of this stable used enough poison to keep vermin at bay.

The first man spoke again. "I don't know when it will be safe for you to return. Perhaps never. But your men and property will be well cared for..."

"Gordo..."

"Yes?"

Something pulled on the sole of Samon's sandal. And he could feel whiskers. He was sure of it. Maybe it was only a mouse…

"My having to leave Cordes suits you well, doesn't it?"

"Not at all. We need all the help we can get."

"But you still have all the help, under your command and following your lead. If I didn't trust you like a brother, Gordo, I'd suspect you of giving my name to the Palace Guard yourself."

There was an awkward silence. The source of the tickling had moved on. Samon held his breath.

"Sally, you know I'd rather have you here by my side than any other man alive. And should things… change, you'll be the first to ride back in triumph. Look outside, Nether. See if the street's empty."

The outer door creaked open and more than one person left. Samon was just about to make a move when a new voice spoke.

"And was he right, Gordo?"

"Do you have that low an opinion of me?"

"Where your intelligence and your honour are concerned..."

"Yes?"

"My opinion of the former is not too high, and of the latter, not too low."

Again silence, then the one called Gordo laughed and Samon, drawing a quick breath, found his throat full of dust and sneezed. They dragged him out by his sandalled feet and hauled him upright with a knife blade pricking his throat.

Calibar was a good half head shorter than Samon had expected, from the stories that circulated in the market place. He also lacked the scars that legend gave him, and not quite all his bulk was muscle. But still, there was no question who he was.

"You're Gordo Calibar," Samon stuttered out, as if to forestall any asking of his own name.

"Yes .And you're dead."

***

Finding himself staring into his own grave for the third time in less than a month, Samon swallowed and blinked, but for once neither ran nor fell on his knees and begged for his life, as he had of Gordo Calibar. Things had changed and Samon had changed with them.

He went back into the secret chamber, but his mind was not on the devices it contained. Another… Why should the Queen say 'another' ?Was she hunting down his kind in order to exterminate them? And if so, why had she said nothing? The entry in the diary was three days old. She didn't need to blackmail him if she wanted anything — she'd already had anything he could offer her — and the mob would lynch him without any encouragement from her.

"Well ?Have you come to any conclusions yet?"

"No!"

"Jumpy, aren't you?"

"No, I..."

"What a terrible little coward, you are."

"Yes, ma'am," he agreed between his teeth.

"The way to find out what these artifacts do is to use them. Go on. Turn some of those keys. It probably plays music, or operates a fountain."

He frowned. She showed no sign of coming into the chamber to carry out her own suggestion.

"There are labels," he pointed out reasonably. "I can't read them, but I thought perhaps the Queen might have scribes. I could copy them out if the Queen didn't want anyone else to know..." The court protocol of Cordes required everyone to refer to the reigning monarch by her title at all times. Samon had quickly discovered why. It meant you could talk to her and pretend she wasn't there at the same time.

"I have been doing that," she informed him coldly. "And no one recognized the script. They all said that it looked familiar but none could read it. They made guesses that made no sense."

He looked round at her, surprised. He hadn't seen her make any copies of the lettering.

"Oh, get on with it!" Suddenly she was by his shoulder. He had to force himself not to step aside. Her perfume was as heavy as it had been the previous night. "Try that one, there. It looks as if it has two positions. Perhaps one when this contraption is operating, another when it isn't."

Samon glanced over the panels and realized that her suggestion was at least more than a caprice. The protrusion she'd chosen was unlike any of the others, and did look as if it was designed to be pressed down at either one end or the other. He licked his lips for luck and pressed the end that was currently proud.

It clicked positively under his finger and the room filled with light so abruptly that he found he was holding his breath. The Queen appeared almost as surprised as he, but then she realized he was looking at her and laughed haughtily. "What a pretty trick!"

"But how is it done?"

"How should I know? Try another."

Clearly she'd decided there was no threat. Samon wasn't yet so sure. "What if the next one is fire, or water?"

"A little coward," she repeated with heavy emphasis. Then she leaned forward and traced her fingers over some of the flat, vitreous shapes set into the panel. One of them suddenly flooded with more light.

"Hm." She withdrew her fingers, clearly startled. "That's pretty too. I wonder if they all light up. Try some of the others."

"Which one?"

"Whichever you like. Just choose one!"

He couldn't see any reason to press one rather than another. The first he touched glowed pale, phosphorescent green, the next blue, and then one of the larger shapes lit too, with patterns that moved.

"What have you done?" she breathed, then: "What… where are we? Chekov? What is this place?"

The ensign took a steadying breath. The lights seemed to have a hypnotic quality. He was unsure how long he'd been staring at them.

"I… don't recognize it..." He turned to look at her, almost as if he didn't recognize her either. "...Lieutenant Uhura. What are we doing here?"

"I don't know, but..." She rested her hand on his shoulder briefly, reassuring him even though she knew no more than he did. Whatever the circumstances, the contact confirmed, they would deal with them together. "Don't touch anything." She went over to the door of the little chamber, through which reassuringly bright sunlight entered. "It looks like someone's bedroom out here. Someone with a taste for the luxurious." She looked back at his inquiring expression. "At least… part of me's saying it's my bedroom." She frowned. "But I never chose those hangings."

Mention of the hangings stirred memories in Chekov's brain, Samon's memories. He came to her side. "It is your bedroom. You are the Queen here. The Queen of… Cordes."

"Yes .I am… the Queen of Cordes. And you work for me as… as my mathematician. Well, at least that's in character. Why am I a queen? With such awful taste?"

Chekov could think of a hundred and one reasons why the lieutenant would make an excellent queen, but since the absolute monarch of Cordes fell something short of the enlightened standards expected of governments in the Federation, he didn't say so. And he was suddenly consumed with awkwardness over the need to tell her that, while she undoubtedly paid his wages, his loyalty in Cordes lay with one Gordo Calibar, who was plotting to overthrow her.

"What is the last thing the Queen — I mean you — remember?" he asked instead.

She frowned. "Talking to you… wondering what all those panels and switches were… as if I'd never seen them, or anything like them before."

"I mean, what's the last thing you remember as a Starfleet officer, not as the Queen of Cordes?"

After a moment she responded enthusiastically. "Yes .You're right. I have two quite distinct sets of memories. And as myself… as Nyota Uhura… it's having dinner with Doctor Fajez, with you and Scotty, and… and the captain of course and… and Sulu. Is that what you remember?"

Chekov nodded. He remembered Doctor Fajez's daughters too. He'd rather suspected that he and the helmsman had been invited along to provide a little social diversion for the two young ladies: not too onerous a duty. Captain Kirk had been merely enjoying a chance to see Doctor Fajez, who'd taught him at Starfleet Academy before returning to research on pre First Contact worlds. Uhura and Mister Scott had been the only members of the party with real work to do, trying to determine the source of a low-energy but all pervasive 'buzz' that radiated from Forman IV and effectively scrambled the Enterprise's sensors. The survey ship that had first identified the class M world, and left Doctor Fajez behind to gather information at first hand, had been similarly afflicted, but less well equipped to solve the mystery.

"Do you think we are still on Forman IV?"

"That's what I was wondering." Uhura crossed over to the windows and drew back the heavy drapes. The palace sat on a mountainside and the view from it took in almost all the habitable parts of the realm of Cordes. "Weren't you talking to Isabella about the city, near the research station? Wasn't it called Cordes?"

The doctor's daughters had been more interested in hearing news of Earth than telling anyone about their necessarily circumscribed life on Forman IV.

"She said something about a city, and a palace that overlooked it," he replied encouragingly.

"And do you remember beaming back to the Enterprise at the end of the evening?"

The ensign tried very hard to remember. He had accepted an invitation to look around the garden with the younger girl. There had been flowers with a heavy, syrupy scent almost like… no, just like the flowers that should have been in full bloom on the Queen's terraces four nights previously, if the gardener had planted them early enough. That scent was distinctive enough to upset any theory that the two of them were now on a different planet. And no, he didn't remember beaming back. As Pavel Chekov, he remembered nothing further until now. Samon, the tally keeper turned revolutionary and lately the Queen's mathematician, had been having a far more memorable time.

"No, I don't .But I think this is the same planet. It… feels the same."

Uhura smiled at him. "You'd never say that to Mister Spock."

He shrugged. "Then it smells the same. The dust is the same."

It was: yellow dust that blew into the houses off the streets and tracks. Isabella had swept it out of the living quarters of the research station with a dampened broom. Almost every door onto the street in Cordes was similarly occupied by a small girl doing battle with the dust.

"I wonder what's happened to the others." Uhura broke into his thoughts. "They must be somewhere nearby--"

"What makes you think that?" Chekov demanded. "Since we have no idea how we arrived here--"

"If we were scattered at random, I'm sure Mister Spock would say something scathing about the odds against you turning up in my bedroom," the lieutenant pointed out. "It's much more likely that they're somewhere near. And anyway," she admitted, "that's the only hypothesis which gives us a realistic hope of finding them, so we might as well assume that."

She sat down on the enormous bed and gave the hangings a pained look. "You know, I may be Queen of this place, but I've hardly been out of the palace. What's it like out there?"

Chekov looked at the hangings too. He was still sorting out in his mind everything that had happened to him in the last few days, making sense of them as Chekov, rather than as Samon. Making sense of what had happened the night before, in that bed, was not going to be any easier than the rest of it. But looking at the hangings was at least easier than looking at the lieutenant. Maybe she'd ordered so many young men into her bed since becoming Queen of Cordes that she'd simply forgotten…

"Chekov ?What sort of place is it? Come on, open hailing frequencies!"

"Well..." Chekov considered. He felt he knew the capital of Cordes so intimately that he could no more sum it up adequately than he could have described Moscow in a few words. "Uh… poor, superstitious, controlled by a ruthless minority who own the means of production and oppress the working classes--"

"You weren't thinking of leading a revolution were you?" Uhura asked him worriedly.

"No, not exactly."

She frowned. "Then what, exactly?"

The ensign's throat contracted. He couldn't betray Gordo to the Queen. Of course, Uhura wasn't the Queen, and yet… She'd signed execution warrants almost daily since he'd worked here. How was he to know she wouldn't still sign one for Gordo Calibar? As Queen, she'd have good reason.

"There are revolutionaries, who want to overthrow the Queen. I've… people talk about them."

"Of course people talk about them! Even I know that. But you talk like one of them."

An uncharacteristic autocratic note had crept into Uhura's voice. Chekov could feel himself slipping back into being terrified of her. "When you talk like that you make me nervous, Lieutenant."

She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head vigorously. "I'm sorry. I… It's as if half of me's still her and she… She's a very strong character." She thought for a moment, then went on. "You're right. It's probably not safe for you to tell me much, if the Queen isn't meant to know. We need to think about the Prime Directive apart from anything. How easy would it be to launch a search for the others? If I sent my Palace Guard out with descriptions..."

"Anyone who knew the Palace Guard had his description would leave the city," Chekov said simply. "You have to assume, even if they've worked out who they really are, that they have no way of knowing who you really are. There are no recognizable pictures of you anywhere. It's not as if there's a video news service."

Uhura suddenly stood up. "I've got it. Something I realized you and I had in common, even before I recognized you."

Chekov shook his head. "You're a queen and I'm practically a beggar. You're female and dark skinned, I'm male and white. You couldn't even tell by our accents. This city is full of visitors and immigrants. No two people sound alike."

"Our names."

The ensign's pulse quickened. "What about them?"

"There's something odd about names here. Something very significant. People use my title, not my name. But their own names, they're very protective of those. They use each other's carefully too. And you didn't - quite - do it right. Look." She jumped up. "I wrote it in my diary."

She was, Chekov consoled himself, a Starfleet trained communications officer. She could interpret what people didn't say better than he sometimes understood what they were putting into words. Gordo's lesson was probably still good enough.

"They kill people who don't have names," he pointed out, before he could think better of it. "They hunt them down and burn them alive."

"Yes, they do." She swallowed, and made a better job of maintaining a brave face than he did. "I happen to know that at least a dozen nameless people have been lynched over the last ten days. The chief of my guard included that figure in his latest report. So there's no reason to suppose that we're the only ones who don't have proper names. And there's no reason to suppose..."

"There was a mob in the market place, chasing someone. I ran away. What if it was..."

"Chekov, stop it."

"What if it was the captain? Or one of the others?"

"Even if you'd known, if you'd been yourself, not some frightened peasant..." Her words stung him, reviving her earlier accusation of cowardice. "...how would you have stopped a lynch mob single handed?"

"I could have tried."

"You'd have got yourself killed too if you had. What if I decreed that I'd pay a small fortune for every nameless person brought to me alive? It might at least keep them safe, if it didn't winkle them out of wherever they're hiding."

"I don't think it would work," Chekov said grimly. "You haven't felt it close up. It's irrational, like a taboo. There's something… frightening, almost revolting, about just the idea of someone not having a proper name." He looked at her uncomprehending face. "Maybe that's the peasant point of view, but that's what I am — I mean, was — here."

"No… I… I don't think so. I wonder..."

"What?"

"Well… Maybe it isn't just us, just the landing party and the research post. Maybe everyone here has been caught up in this. Whatever this is."

"And?" Chekov said, confused.

"Most people seem to know who they're supposed to be. What if killing 'no-names' is a safety device? A way of sifting out people who haven't been properly prepared for… whatever this is."

"You keep saying 'whatever this is' .Until we know that..."

"Until we know, we need a hypothesis as a starting point," she snapped. "Or were you planning to go back to counting beans until someone shows up and rescues you?"

"No, Lieutenant."

She immediately became apologetic. "I'm sorry. I've been a royal pain for… well, it seems for my whole life. I'm afraid it's become a habit. Do you remember what happened to your uniform?"

"No, I… I don't remember waking up somewhere strange in peculiar clothes at any point, if that's what you mean."

"No, neither do I. And that's another thing. I do feel as if I've been here all my life, but I obviously haven't .How long do you remember being here?"

He thought about it, then shrugged. "I can remember… someone's childhood. I seem to have a childhood here that's nearly as clear as my own."

"Then surely you had a name at some point. You can't possibly recall an entire childhood in which no one ever called you by name."

He was lost for a moment in his additional memories. He couldn't remember what his name had been, but he couldn't remember that it was ever missing, not with the sharp and immediate absence that had so terrified him when the mob surged through the market place. "I think I have been here for..." He counted off days in his head. "...eleven days. I think I somehow acquired an entire set of false memories at that point. But they are not… personal, not very specific."

"Eleven days..." She turned over the loose sheets that made up her diary. "There .I started this exactly eleven days ago. It must be habit again. I always keep a personal log."

They looked at each other. If they'd been here eleven days, and they were still on the original planet, why the hell were they still waiting to be found?

***

"Hey !You!"

Chekov ignored the accented voice that bellowed across the parade ground before the palace. He kept his head down, walking into the strong wind of his reluctance to go back to Gordo Calibar.

"I'm talkin' to you!"

"Me?"

A solid, middle-aged man in neat but worn garments had planted himself firmly in Chekov's path. He had a roll of parchment tucked under one arm and clutched a leather bound cylinder in the other. It looked a little like a telescope, but of course this wasn't a society where every man in the street had a telescope. Chekov, absorbed in his own problems, took a step to one side to avoid the obstacle.

"Now, hold on now, youngster. You may be her majesty's numberer, but that doesn't make you too good to talk to me, and indeed, it is exactly the reason I want to talk to you."

"Excuse me! I'm on the Queen's business!" Chekov tried to put her royal snap into his voice too, but the result wasn't too impressive.

"Ah, screw that!" the man said cheerfully. "There's something important I have to tell her majesty, but I know I won't get an audience on my own account, so I thought I'd tell you instead."

Chekov glanced up at the sky. The sun was just creeping up over the lower rooftops, making the long shadows that spread across the square seem darker than night.

"I'm in a hurry--"

"And do you think I want to waste my time talking to you?" the man demanded unexpectedly. "Listen, you just tell her majesty this. The stars are wandering in their courses, or we have a new moon in the sky. Now, I'm no sage, but it's an uncommon event however you look at it."

"A new moon?"

"Listen, I've been watching the night sky, and charting the movements of the moon and the planets. I've studied the writings of men who've done the same since before our fathers' fathers' fathers were born. The planets keep to their established courses, as do the stars, and as does the moon. Three different families of heavenly bodies, moving in three different patterns. There's been a new one, these eleven nights past, small as a star and sharp as a planet, but its course in the heavens is like the moon. Now, you explain that, as a man of learning. Where's a new moon come from? Will it grow? Are new moons a thing to wonder at or do moons breed like cattle, hm?"

"Eleven nights?" Chekov seized on that reference amongst everything else. Anything that had happened eleven nights previously interested him, even if it was a sudden souring of milk or an unexplained run of luck at dice. "Did you say this was eleven nights ago?"

The man narrowed his eyes. "Why, did her majesty's soothsayers predict it?"

"No, but… if it was eleven nights ago, and nothing has happened since..."

The amateur astronomer looked deeply annoyed. "Ah, you're no better than the others. You can only think about omens and portents. I thought being a man of numbers you might understand, but if you think it's so important, will you not take the message for me?"

The more Chekov considered the matter, the more he was tempted by the desire to take this information to Uhura himself, and see if she too interpreted it as an observation of the Enterprise in orbit. And then there was his unwillingness to carry out his current mission… But the Queen's… no, Uhura's… orders had been plain. He was to return to Gordo Calibar. And it couldn't be the Enterprise. Mister Spock would never let her sit in an orbit around a first contact planet where a medieval stargazer with hand-ground lenses could catch the sun's reflection off her hull.

And even if it was the Enterprise, they couldn't reach the ship without communicators. Gordo Calibar had the communicators.

"I am on the Queen's business already. Ask someone else."

***

"And presumably whenever we lost our uniforms, that's when we lost our communicators too," Uhura had said.

Chekov's memory of handling a communicator — recently — was so sharp and clear that his hand had mimicked the action of taking one out and activating it. "I've seen them. I've seen a communicator somewhere."

"Where?"

The ensign sat down on the end of the Queen's bed and rubbed at his forehead. "Gordo has one… No, more than one."

"Gordo?"

"Yes .He..."

"Gordo Calibar?"

"Yes .He..."

"My mathematician is a follower of Gordo Calibar?"

"Yes .He..."

"By all the names of God! You could have murdered me in my bed. The man's a fanatic, a terrorist, a..."

"Lieutenant!"

Uhura stopped in mid tirade, but only to stare at Chekov in horrified silence.

'It was your idea I should be in your bed,' he thought, then: "He is a revolutionary," he admitted. "But he's not… Well, perhaps I should say that..."

"Yes?"

"I think a policy of active resistance to the current political system in Cordes..." Her eyes suddenly seemed very cold. "… is not impossible to justify," he finished lamely.

He could see her reminding herself that she was Nyota Uhura, and not, at least usually, the Queen of Cordes.

"Well, perhaps," she said eventually, like a butcher being polite to a vegetarian at a social gathering. "But why would Calibar have our communicators?"

"Someone brought them to him. I had no reason to take any particular notice when it happened, but I think… I think one of his… one of his men found them… somewhere."

He was doing it again, assuming that they were really on opposite sides in a deadly civil war. Calibar's men had been setting up a hideout in an abandoned building outside the city. The communicators had been found there, along with other artifacts described as 'occult' but too unwieldy to move. Calibar had concurred with his followers' superstitious desire to find an alternative location for their bunker. But Chekov wasn't prepared to tell the Queen any of that, and to a large part of him, Uhura was still the Queen.

"Chekov, Calibar is rumored to be trying to kill me. Is that true?"

"No, not… not just to kill you. That wouldn't do any good. He wants to bring down the whole dynastic system."

"But, as a first step to doing that, he might just decide to kill me."

"If he… if he was in a hurry to kill you, he could have told me to kill you. Couldn't he? And he hasn't."

"How do I know he hasn't?" she asked pointedly.

"I could have killed you last night," he said. Uhura frowned and stared at him. She glanced across at the bed, and looked at him again. "After you sent the guard away. But I didn't."

The lieutenant shook off what he'd said. Memories of last night were clearly being refiled under some mental 50 year embargo. She continued. "No, but it doesn't look like you're going to help me to find Calibar and stop him setting someone else to kill me either. Chekov, I can't concentrate on getting us both - all - back to the Enterprise if I'm having to worry about tin pot guerrillas sending assassins after me. I can't do it if I'm dead either. All I want to do is put Calibar, and everything else, on ice until we're safely out of here. What's your problem with that?"

Chekov stared at her, unwilling to answer. Gordo Calibar was… "You wouldn't understand. No one who has not met him could understand."

"Why ?What's so special about him? You owe him something?"

My life, certainly, Chekov reflected.

***

Calibar had dragged the merchant's tally man back to his feet with an impatient gesture. "He's not dead yet, not until I've finished with him," he said shortly to his companion. "What are you doing in here? Who are you?"

"I'm… my name is..." The tally man — Chekov — fell silent, crippled by ignorance.

Calibar and the other man exchanged glances. "You might as well cut his throat, or the mob will only do something worse, and you don't want him to try to buy a few more minutes life by leading them here first."

"Don't be in such a hurry, Leoman, old friend. If you had your way, there'd be no one left to thank us once we throw out the Queen. Let me give him a name. Hm." Calibar looked round the barn for inspiration. His eye fell on the name painted crudely above one of the stalls and he reversed the order of the letters. "Samon .Can you remember that?"

"Yes… Yes, I can."

"Good .Don't tell anyone anything else. And remember, if I tell anyone it's not your name, or Leoman here does, you'll be dead. So you'd better keep on the right side of both of us."

Leoman, who had a craggy, unattractive face, split it into a smile. "And what if he has a perfectly good name, and a commission in the Secret Police?"

"What's your name?" Calibar asked, apparently ignoring his henchman.

"It's… it's S… Samon." Chekov floundered.

"See ?He can't even lie about it to save his life, let alone to earn his keep." Then Calibar turned back to his prisoner. "You'll have to learn to do better than that. Tell me your name again."

"Samon." For all it would save his life, Chekov almost choked on the word. Even if he didn't know what his name was, he felt an almost paranoid revulsion for what it wasn't.

Calibar frowned. Then he casually punched Chekov in the mouth. "There, now you have an excuse for stuttering over it, for the moment."

***

"I'll go tomorrow morning," Chekov had insisted stubbornly.

"Chekov, tomorrow might be too late. The Enterprise could give up looking for us and leave in the next five minutes. This Calibar might decide to throw the communicators out. You have to go now!"

"No."

Uhura took a deep breath and reminded herself that as a Starfleet officer, she was entitled to be exceedingly angry that Chekov was refusing to obey her orders, or to tell her why he wouldn't obey her orders, but the queenly response of having him dragged off and thrown into a deep pit somewhere with only assorted large carnivores for company was not open to her on this occasion.

"He… he won't be expecting me now. He'll be suspicious. You don't want to make him suspicious," Chekov insisted.

"He trusts you enough to send you to spy on me. Can't you just tell him I gave you the evening off?"

"I… would just prefer not to go now," he said, shifting his ground yet again. "Really."

"Tell me why, Pavel. If there's a reason..."

"The streets are unsafe after dark. For people without names..."

Uhura hesitated. Chekov's brush with the mob had sounded frightening, certainly, but was an incident which he'd merely observed from the sidelines. Perhaps he'd played down what had really happened in telling her about it. Still, he was a Starfleet officer, and usually one who masked his worries with a show of bombast. She found herself wondering if he'd really fully regained his own personality, the way she had hers. After all, she reasoned, there wasn't a trace of that tyrannous sybarite left in her. She had nothing in common with the woman she had been for the last eleven days. That was plain. Consider last night…

***

"But..."

"Will you stop finding excuses to disobey me!" The Queen jumped up from her chair and snatched her mathematician's pen out of his hand. "I'll do it myself. All I said was that the number of infant children who end up in that mortuary is shameful, and you've spent the last hour making excuses, as if I'd said it was your fault to start with. Now, how many women of child bearing age are there in Cordes?"

Samon stared at her blankly. "I don't know, ma'am."

"Who will know?"

"Um..."

"Come on, it's simple. All you have to do is tell me how many children are born every year, then assume that half of them are girls. Then if a woman is fertile between the ages of fourteen and say… forty, it's easy to…

"But who would know how many births there are every year?"

She stared at him. "The midwives, of course."

"But poor women aren't attended by midwives. Their sisters or their mothers help them."

"I'll pass a law. A woman in labor must call a midwife. Now what objection are you going to make?"

"How will they pay them?"

She opened her mouth and then shut it again. After a moment's thought she announced triumphantly "I will pay them. I shall put a tax on marriage. It can be collected at the temples..."

"Then no one will marry. And where are the midwives to come from? And..."

She snatched up his papyrus and tore it in two. "Stop arguing with me!"

"Yes, ma'am."

She stamped around the room until her temper had cooled a little. It had grown dark while she'd bickered with her stubborn, know-it-all mathematician, just as the light of her dreams had faded. All she wanted to do was improve the life of her realm, make it wealthier, happier, more sanitary. Why was it so impossible to do that?

It wasn't impossible. She could do whatever she pleased. It was entirely this idiot's fault that they were making no progress. He was probably in the pay of her enemies. She went back over to the pool of light round the desk. The young man had ink on the fingers which massaged his obviously aching temples.

She found herself wishing she could lay aside her dignity sufficiently to do the same for herself. She laid the pen back down on the desk. "You're tired."

He looked up, startled.

She was tired. She'd worked hard today, even if there was nothing to show for it. She deserved a reward. Perhaps those two boys the Ambassador from Figeac had given her…

Her mathematician was still looking at her.

But that would be stupid. He wasn't trained for it, disciplined for it. He might turn out to be vicious, as well as being stubborn and contrary. Still, he wasn't stupid. He would probably learn quickly.

"Call a guard in."

"Yes, ma'am."

She watched as the young man went all unsuspecting to the door of the office and spoke to the sentry on duty outside. They returned together. The guard was a short, slender man a little older than Samon, wearing a soldier's jerkin and breeches, his bare arms golden and muscular, his face slightly scarred, probably by a bout of smallpox. The rest of him was pleasant enough, in an oddly familiar way. He'd probably stood on duty outside her door for years, and she'd simply never noticed him until today.

"Prepare this man for my bed."

"For the Queen's bed, ma'am?"

She sighed. It must be infectious. Now everyone was questioning her orders. She'd have the guard whipped. Or perhaps… Or perhaps she wouldn't .

***

"And even if I go now, I won't get the communicators any sooner. They're in his quarters. I won't be able to… to get to them until the morning anyway."

Uhura frowned distractedly. She shook her head as if she could dislodge the uncomfortable memory and concentrated on what Chekov was saying now. No, he could hardly go barging into Gordo Calibar's bedroom in the middle of the night. It was reasonable enough, if she believed Chekov wasn't just lying about where the communicators were.

Uhura decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. She wasn't a barbarian queen, and he wasn't an assassin sent to kill her.

"First thing in the morning," she amended.

***

"I'll go to the Queen myself then," the man with the telescope said shortly. He tucked the instrument under his arm and set off across the square.

An almost impenetrable barrier of civil servants usually dealt with petitioning commoners. If the amateur astronomer got anywhere near her, the Queen would probably have him beaten for his impudent presumption.

Chekov shook his head. It was frighteningly easy to fall back into the parts they were involuntarily playing. Frighteningly easy… And with Gordo, to resist might be almost impossible. The ensign took a deep breath.

The narrow lanes were dark, cool, and busy with traders and customers going to and from the market even at this early hour. The ensign slowed his pace and picked his moment carefully so that no one saw him enter Calibar's hideout, yet no one would think he was loitering suspiciously.

"Well, where were you?" Leoman demanded testily, looking up from the cook stove in the loft that served as mess hall and dormitory. "Here, take him his tea."

Chekov let Calibar's second in command push a steaming mug of herb scented infusion into his hands.

"Where is he?" he asked, looking round the deserted loft.

"Still in bed. He didn't get in till all hours. And didn't sleep well then. I dare say he was worrying the Queen had kept you overnight in her bed again."

It was the sort of unsettling accusation that Leoman threw out all the time so Chekov did his best to ignore it. He sniffed at the tea casually. "No, there was… there was a discrepancy in the harvest census. She wanted me to investigate it."

The lie Chekov had been practicing all the way from the Palace seemed to come out well enough, but Leoman still gave him an odd look. "And what was the problem?"

"Some reports had been omitted from the total. The rent in kind for farms in the districts of Lot and Garonne and..."

"Take him his tea before it gets cold."

Leoman turned away, showing his customary contempt for wearisome detail. Chekov carried the tea over to the door which led to Calibar's office, where he also slept. Gordo was always up with the sun, even when he'd been out half the night. He should have been gone long since, and Chekov should only have needed to find an excuse to be alone in his office.

Instead, this.

Chekov knocked softly on the door. There was no answer, but presumably Gordo had told Leoman to wake him at this time or the tea wouldn't be ready.

Inside sunlight filtered through the shutters in stripes, directly onto Calibar's sleeping form. Chekov put the tea down silently on the floor beside the mattress where Gordo slept and trod softly across to the shelves where he knew the communicators had been put.

"Don't worry. I'm awake."

Chekov stopped dead.

"I like watching you, when you don't know you're being watched."

The ensign turned round. "Gordo..."

"Where were you last night, and the night before? I was worried."

"I was… I had something… I had to finish. I brought your tea in."

Gordo glanced at the cup. "Come here."

"I can't stay long. They'll expect me back."

"Who will?"

"People..." Chekov shrugged unhappily.

"Come here, Samon."

Gordo said the name easily, as if he hadn't made it up by reversing someone else's .Hearing him say it sent cold shivers down the ensign's spine.

"I think Leoman wants to talk to you," Chekov objected, as a distraction.

"Let him wait."

Gordo sat up, letting the sheets fall away from his torso. He was a man of only medium build, very fair skinned: like everyone in this city, not quite like anyone else. His skin glowed in the morning light, throwing the muscles in his arms into artificially deep relief. He beckoned to the ensign. "Come here."

"I'll be in trouble if I'm late."

"Wouldn't it be worth it?"

Chekov bit his lip. "Gordo..."

The man stood up and stretched. "Bring my shirt over then."

Calibar's clothes were slung over a table. Chekov picked the heavy white shirt off the top of the pile and held it out, like a shield between them. Gordo reached round it and took shirt and ensign in his arms at once. "What's the matter with you this morning?"

"N… nothing."

"Nothing?" Gordo touched Chekov's chin with the tip of his index finger. "Nothing ?You're not telling me something." He pushed the ensign away and looked at him. "Has someone..?"

"No .I didn't sleep well last night. I was working very late. I'm tired. That's all." It was so hard to lie to this man. Gordo Calibar, Chekov realized now, was the big brother he'd never had, the impatient, affectionate, slightly brutal hero he'd always imagined, if not exactly wanted.

Gordo mimed a punch, then kissed Chekov's mouth instead. "You're lying to me again."

"Oh, Gordo..." Something inside him seemed to liquefy. Chekov could suddenly believe that Samon really had spent seven nights out of the last nine in Gordo Calibar's bed. Samon, he told himself, not Chekov.

"Someone at the palace..."

Chekov shook his head. "No .Really, Gordo. I'm tired and… and worried. The Queen was talking about you yesterday."

"Talking about me?"

"If she catches you, she'll kill you."

Gordo gave him a puzzled grin. "Of course she will. That's why I won't let her catch me. Go and lie down. I'll make you forget the Queen of Cordes."

Chekov found himself looking into Gordo's eyes, which was undoubtedly another mistake. "I can't."

"You can afford to forget her for an hour."

"No, I mean… " I mean I can't go to bed with you, Chekov wanted to say, because normally the thought of doing something of that sort… He realized the fluttering sensation in his gut was a mixture of lust and outright fear.

"I mean..." ...just because Samon did… I'm not Samon. I don't even know who Samon was.

Gordo kissed him again. "What do you mean?"

"Nothing."

***

Two palace guards dragged Chekov by his arms right to the Queen's feet and dropped him face first so that his nose bumped her sandals. "We brought him directly to you, Ma'am, as you ordered."

"Get out."

Chekov lay there and listened to the men march out of the Queen's audience hall before he dared to lift his head and see if any outward change betrayed Uhura's return to being a traditional Queen of Cordes. It was only because he knew her so well that he could tell she'd been crying. She reached out to take his hand and help him up.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

She pushed a strand of hair back from her forehead angrily. "I'm sorry. I was getting worried. I wanted you to come here as soon as you came back. I didn't mean them to manhandle you. Are you hurt?"

"No .Not at all. A bruise or two. Nothing."

The afterglow of Calibar's touch didn't let the pain through anyway. If Gordo hadn't reminded Chekov he was supposedly expected at the palace, the ensign would still be blissfully asleep in the loft. He blinked away the memory and realized that the lieutenant was too upset to be simply reacting to her guards' method of escorting him into her presence. "But what is wrong?"

"I… Uh..." A fresh tear escaped onto Uhura's cheek. "I had a terrible dream last night, about all the people I've… All the warrants for execution I've signed in the last ten days. When they bring them to me for signing, they always bring in the prisoner too. I kept replaying it and one of them looked more and more familiar. Then when I woke up, I realized. It was Sulu."

"You must be imagining it," Chekov said quickly. "You would have recognized him at the time..."

"No, I wouldn't .I didn't recognize you."

"You would have realized sooner."

"No..."

"Then you must cancel the execution."

"Chekov, it's too late. They've already..."

"No .They can't have," Chekov insisted, with nothing to back it up. "It probably wasn't anyone we know," he went on, rapidly. "We'll question the guards… and the executioner."

"Chekov, I already did. I drew a picture of Sulu and showed it to them." She turned round and took a fine, translucent piece of vellum off the great royal desk. The ink was tear smudged. "They recognized it. He was killed three days ago."

Chekov looked at the excellent portrait of his friend. "They would say that," he said hastily, "if they thought that was what you wanted to hear. You don't realize that most of your officials lie to you most of the time, to protect themselves..."

"I'm not stupid, Chekov," she answered angrily. "I didn't ask leading questions. I simply showed them the picture and asked them if they recognized him. They didn't hesitate." She took a breath. "He's dead."

Chekov's instinct was to put his arms round her, since he couldn't actually do anything more helpful than that. But his instincts had been taking a knocking recently.

***

"That's enough!" For once, a telling off from Calibar wasn't accompanied by a blow, probably because they were standing at a stall where a pretty girl with ebony eyes was selling hot pies and cool water and flirting cheerfully with her two latest customers. She'd just turned away to serve someone else when Calibar, suddenly unsmiling, delivered the prohibition in a low whisper.

Samon had looked at his leader — he'd joined the rebels by now, for want of anything better to do — in some surprise. The girl had been favoring him over the older man, in Samon's opinion. But then she was hardly more than fifteen or sixteen. Calibar was probably as old as her father. Was Calibar jealous?

"Look, you little fool," Calibar began to explain, leading Samon away from the stall with his supper still uneaten in his hand. As they went, Samon caught one last regretful look from the girl, who was obviously annoyed at their departure. Still, maybe he could go back later… "You can't… do whatever you're intending to do with her. You're at war, on the run. Consider what would happen to her if you were caught, if someone remembered seeing you with her and questioned her."

"But--" Samon started to object through a mouthful of pastry, but as usual, Calibar didn't let him finish whatever he had to say.

"Think about it. She'll start to ask questions about who you are and where you come from. Women always do. You can lie to her, but she'll see through it sooner than you imagine. And if she's one you can trust with the truth, one you could care about, you wouldn't want to put her in danger, would you?"

"I was only--"

"Being stupid. So we'll say no more about it. It's only what I expect of you." Calibar halted and handed his own half eaten meal to the younger man. "Go on, eat that. You could do worse, if I'd let you. She can cook."

The pie was only spiced vegetables in a pastry crust, but it crumbled on the tongue into a feast of flavor, quite the most delicious thing Samon had eaten since… As usual, specific attempts to recapture the past seemed to lose themselves in a vague fog. He could remember a childhood, a location where it had taken place, a set of people who had been his family but not a family that had ever eaten anything, or talked to each other.

He shook off the unease of being nameless. He had a name now, just like everyone else. Calibar had given it to him. "Leoman can cook, but he is not as pretty."

He regretted the remark as soon as he'd made it. He could see that Calibar hadn't taken it in the joking way he'd intended.

"But Leoman, or Nether, or one of the others, is in the same boat as you," Calibar told him seriously. "They're already running the same risks. You're not putting them in any more danger than they're in anyway, and you're not risking your safety, and everyone else's, for the sake of half an hour with some woman. So that's enough. Understood?" Calibar stood and waited for an answer.

Samon blinked, then agreed: "Yes, I understand," even though he didn't .He frowned as he dusted the crumbs off his fingers and followed Calibar's newly purposeful stride through the minor city gate, where they paused and joked with a couple of bored guards, then down the alley that led to the river bank. They were due to meet some of Calibar's men who were bringing something in from beyond the border of the state. Samon didn't know what it was and didn't really expect to be taken into Calibar's confidence, but the incident with the pie seller had raised questions in his mind. It was all very well joining in Calibar's revolution, but he hadn't yet thought through the consequences. His refuge from the mob, he was now forced to consider, was hardly a secure one. At some point, he promised himself, he'd sit down and really work out whether he wanted to tie his fate in with Gordo Calibar. For now, his feet went on following the man as they had since Calibar had stopped Leoman slitting his throat in the stable.

They turned off the road onto a track, then a chest-broad pathway through the reeds and scrubby bushes that grew in the broad wetlands along the river, then onto a beach of fine sand. Calibar walked along the water's edge, where the river lapped his footprints and obliterated them almost before he'd passed. Samon copied him exactly. Although it was early evening and the sun was weak, the still air seemed as warm as it had at midday. Even the river water was tepid when the ripples covered his toes. Samon imagined swimming out to where the water was deep enough to immerse oneself in the cool lower layers that the sun didn't touch.

"This heat," Calibar said, exasperated by it.

"Will there be much for us to carry back into the city?"

"Yes, but that's for tomorrow. Leoman's organizing it."

They rounded a small spit of higher ground that thrust out into the stream with a fringe of palms along its crest. The beach on the far side was broader and a half dozen or so men were scattered over it, looking as if they'd fallen where they stood, exhausted, having struggled just far enough to reach the lengthening shadows of the trees.

Calibar kept going, and from that, Samon deduced that these were the people they'd come to meet, even though there was no sign of whatever they'd been bringing with them.

He trotted down the slight rise onto the sand and suddenly found himself face to face with a man younger than himself, wielding a knife. Another, similarly armed, was confronting Calibar.

"I was just going to yell at you for forgetting to set a lookout," Calibar said. The guard laughed and pushed his knife into his belt, but Calibar reached out and stayed his hand. "We've been followed," he said, so quietly Samon almost didn't hear him.

Calibar put a hand on Samon's shoulder and gave him a firm push, keeping him heading onto the beach. Samon complied, his heart pounding furiously. Danger… suddenly it was a reality.

Then there was an outraged, female squawk and he turned round.

The pie seller was kicking and snapping at the two lookouts, who were holding an arm each and trying to keep out of range of her mouth and feet.

"Why the hell were you following us?" Calibar demanded of her. "Who sent you?"

"No one. Why should anyone send me? I was just coming down here for a swim."

"Alone?"

"Why not? I'm not a child. And it's hot."

The rest of the men were rousing themselves in response to the argument. She began to seem apprehensive, but Samon noticed mainly that she was looking anywhere but at him.

"I can see this beach is being used. I'll go." She pulled out of the grasp of her captors, only to be caught by Calibar himself.

"Why did you follow us? You haven't answered yet. You were busy when we saw you."

"My sister came to help. I left her with the stall. I told her where I was going and said I wouldn't be long." She threw that out defiantly, hinting at anxious parents who would react decisively if she failed to return in due course.

"Why did you follow us?"

"Because I… I didn't know you, and I was curious about you."

"What are you? The latest recruit to the city watch?"

"I didn't mean for you to see me. I just wanted to know where you were from, and if I'd see you again. I didn't mean any harm."

Calibar firmed up his hold on her arm and turned to Samon. "See what I mean? You smile and talk politely and they want to know who every one of your cousins is." He pulled the girl round in front of him. "So, you wanted to flirt with my friend here? Well, Samon, see the trouble your brown eyes have made now?"

"Let her go, Gor… Let her go. You're frightening her."

"She should be frightened. She could meet anyone down here. There are smugglers on the river, or worse."

"And who are you, then?" she demanded.

Samon's heart contracted. He could see Calibar was trying to play the heavy handed citizen, to leave the girl with the impression that her main danger was of being taken home to her parents and soundly beaten for being so forward. Then at least she could be sent home. If she was really curious about who they were, it might not be safe to let her home at all, and he could think of only one way to arrange that.

He stepped forward and took her arm himself. "My name's Samon. We lost some cargo overboard from a barge on the river and we're looking to see if any of it has been washed up. But if anyone knew it was lying around, other people might come and find it. It's valuable. Come on, I'll walk back with you, to make sure you're safe."

Calibar still scowled at the intruder, but Samon could sense that his intervention was accepted, even appreciated.

"Yes, you do that," Calibar snapped. "And if you see her father, tell him not to let her out until she's grown some sense to go with those tits."

Samon nodded quickly, slid the pack he'd been carrying off his shoulders and steered the girl back towards the path before Calibar could change his mind.

"I'm not that young," she objected, although not until they were safely out of Calibar's hearing. "Is he always such an old fart?"

"He's right. There's no one much around down here. What if you met someone who wanted to hurt you?"

"I can look after myself," she said stubbornly.

"Like just now?"

"There were four of you!"

"And what if all four of us had wanted to hurt you?"

She snatched her arm away from him and began to walk more quickly.

"I don't want to frighten you, but I think you should be more careful," he insisted.

She slowed again and Samon heard a crack of twigs as someone shadowed them along the path.

"But that's silly. I could tell you weren't like that."

"No, I'm not, and neither is… neither is my friend. But the men who were on the beach, they're just porters. They don't even come from round here. They might do anything. You shouldn't take such risks."

"Well, if I had someone to take me swimming, it wouldn't be a problem."

She came to a complete halt as she said this and looked up at him. She wasn't particularly short but she somehow seemed to be looking a long way up. Her mouth had fallen into exactly the right shape to be kissed too.

Two thoughts collided in Samon's head. This particular young lady was trouble, that was clear, but young ladies in general were not something he intended to give up just because Gordo thought he should. He could appreciate the practical argument that Calibar was making, but the answer to security problems was to be careful, not celibate.

"Are you just going to stand there?"

He kissed her. She returned the gesture with unexpected assurance.

"My parents aren't really expecting me," she admitted. "I'm not that young. I just said that."

"I know."

"Oh." She tossed her head and smiled again. "When will I see you again then?"

"Next time I'm hungry. You sell very good pies."

Her smile dissolved slowly into a frown. "Good… pies? Well, thank you very much!"

He watched her stride off into the city and sat down on a half crumbled gate post to think.

Calibar had taken a risk in letting her go home, and beyond that he'd trusted Samon — up to a point — with the task of minimizing the risk that the decision would backfire. The politics of Calibar versus the Queen of Cordes were still a puzzle to Samon. He knew only the accepted wisdom of Cordes, that new rulers were generally worse than whomever they replaced. But Calibar had listened to him. Calibar had paid attention to what he said, and trusted him to handle a potentially dangerous situation.

And for some reason, that was more important to him than kissing a beautiful girl.

"You kissed her." He looked up. One of the men from the beach was standing on the path.

"Yes .Why not?"

"Bossy little bitch. In ten years time she'll be as wide as she's tall and making some honest man's life a misery. She talks too much even now."

Samon shrugged and stood up. "Did Gordo send you to make sure I didn't run away with her?"

The man shook his head, tossing blond hair. "To make sure you didn't meet her father coming after her. Are you coming back now?"

"Yes." Samon followed the man back to the beach, thinking. Didn't Calibar allow any of his men to have women, then? That must be difficult. Maybe they went to the brothels by the docks and that didn't count. He'd have to ask Gordo. There was quite a list of things he needed to ask Gordo.

On the beach, someone had lit a fire and broken into Samon's pack to find the food he'd carried down to the river for the party, but most of the men seemed to be in the river, fooling around like a gaggle of children.

Calibar was among them. He turned as they came to the water's edge.

"Coming in, Samon?"

"Yes." He knelt down to unhook the fastenings on his boots, then peeled off the rest of his sweat stiffened clothes. As he folded them into a tidy bundle, he felt the knife on his belt. Danger… Presumably Calibar had thought about it, but was it sensible for them all to be playing about, unarmed, in the river?

"Something wrong?" Calibar was looking at him.

"What if..?"

"If anyone comes along, we're just having a swim. No one can object to that."

"But..." There was no sign on the beach of whatever precious cargo the men had brought. He frowned.

"It's safe. Don't worry."

Samon looked for the hiding place. Among the stunted trees around the beach… No, they weren't thick enough, and their roots would make digging impossible. On the beach itself… No, the sand was clearly undisturbed, and probably not deep enough to hide anything substantial.

"In the river?"

Calibar smiled.

Samon waded in up to his waist, coming level with his leader. The upper layer of the water was warm but underneath it was cold and he gasped at its icy touch. Calibar grinned now and splashed him.

"But..."

"Always 'but' .What?"

"I thought… What if it gets wet?"

"It won't come to any harm." Calibar suddenly launched himself into the water and tackled Samon's legs, dragging him under. He came up spluttering.

"I just… I assumed it was gunpowder," he continued, worrying at the problem.

"Gunpowder ?No, and no again. It ignites if you so much as look at it, until you want it and then it's damp. I don't trust the stuff. I don't trust the merchants either. They'll sell you sand and salt and run off with your gold."

"Oh." Samon followed as Calibar began to swim out into deeper water. "Then… Well, then what is it?" It was all very well, not expecting to be told, but he'd been happy in his own mind that the load was gunpowder, so a lack of improper curiosity was easy enough to fake.

Calibar rolled over onto his back and paddled lazily against the negligible current. "Counterfeit coins."

They'd come level with the man Samon had identified as the leader of the new arrivals. He'd pulled himself out onto a tree branch that hung far over the river from the opposite bank and sat, watching his platoon at play.

"Yeah, Gordo. What do you want it for? Cordes coinage, with the Queen's head on it, what's the point of that? You can't use it anywhere but Cordes, and if we buy weapons here, or pay bribes, word gets back to her. You don't let us out to spend it. What's the use of it?"

Calibar heaved himself out onto the limb, causing it to sag under the surface of the water. "Let me see if I can explain..."

"I know," Samon said. "Cordes has base coinage."

The platoon leader frowned mightily. "What?"

Calibar extended a hand to Samon, the branch parted from the tree with a groan of shearing timber and the two men toppled back into the river on top of Samon.

***

"You could create chaos." Samon was still thinking about the cargo hidden in the river, even as he helped himself to the last spitting skewer of meat from the fire.

"I intend to," Calibar admitted.

The merchant's tally man stood and let the meat go cold. Economic warfare. Safer than gunpowder, but probably even more effective. There would be shortages of goods, as people suddenly found they had more money in their hands than they were accustomed to. The merchants would try to profit by driving up prices. Foreigners would step in to take advantage, bringing more goods in, and the Queen's treasury would be forced to relinquish the gold it kept to back up its tin money to settle the state's debts and pay the merchants who were withdrawing their deposits to finance their imports. If Calibar had calculated correctly, the Queen wouldn't have enough gold. Then she'd find she couldn't do business with people who no longer trusted her to pay: foreign mercenaries, armourers, grain shippers — maybe even her own army. She'd probably have to strike more coins herself, to deal with the rising prices, making the situation even worse. If Gordo had calculated right…

"How do you know how much gold the Queen has to back the coins she issues?"

Calibar smiled. "Samon, you're a marvel. I think fate must have chased you into that stable. That's our problem. I don't .She won't let anyone know, for fear of the bankers getting the upper hand with her, as they have in half the states round here. They daren't ask, and they daren't pull the plug, for fear they'll lose everything if they've lent her too much."

"Then how can you..."

"I've been wondering about that. And I think I have the answer. You. You worked for a merchant. You can tally. Not many can. All you have to do is go and ask for work at the Palace."

"But why would she… the Queen, why would she ever employ me, if you say she doesn't want anyone to know how much gold she has..."

"Three reasons," Calibar interrupted. Then he stopped and looked at Samon, as if he expected to be told what the reasons were.

The younger man shook his head. "What three reasons?"

The meal all but over, Calibar's men were sitting in the deepening dusk, drinking and gambling. Someone began to pile sand over the embers of the fire and the river seemed twice as loud now. It was beginning to be cold too. Samon pulled his shirt more tightly closed. Calibar hadn't warned him they'd be staying out here with the men.

"I'll show you. Come over here, Samon."

Rubbing tiredly at his eyes, he obeyed. Most of the men they'd come to meet were clustered around two of their number who were playing a game that was common in the drinking houses of Cordes. They'd scooped a series of hollows in the sand and were taking turns to place pebbles in them.

"Yes?"

"Who's going to win?" Calibar demanded from the other side of the improvised playing board.

Samon smiled. With the game this far advanced there wasn't much doubt of that, so long as the player with the advantage didn't make a gross error.

"He is." Samon nodded towards the man who was about to place his next pebble.

The rest of the spectators looked skeptical, but seven moves later, Samon was proved right.

"A lucky guess," one of the other men insisted. "He can't do it again."

"He certainly can."

Samon experienced a glow of pleasure. It wasn't much of a trick if you knew how it was done, but he liked the sensation of being useful to Calibar, if only as an accessory to whatever game Calibar was playing.

"Go on then." The cynic placed his first pebble for a new round of the game.

"I can't do it before the third move," Samon objected.

"All right." The moves were made and the group of men looked to Samon for his verdict.

"He will win." Samon pointed at the cynic's opponent.

The projected loser looked outraged. "How much are you prepared to wager on that?"

Samon began to shrug. Calibar didn't seem to think he did anything to merit pay beyond his board and lodging. He was broke.

"He'll sleep with you if you win," Calibar interrupted.

"Fair enough." The gambler bent over the playing field and placed his next pebble with exaggerated care.

"And you'll pay him three crowns if you lose," Calibar added, smiling at the outrage on Samon's face.

The other man straightened up. "Three crowns?" He looked Samon up and down. "Is he worth that much?"

"If you don't think so, you can pull out now," Calibar assured him. The predicted loser grunted and placed the next stone.

Samon watched the rest of the game, stomach churning. He had no idea if he was being teased or not. But if Calibar insisted his men had no contact with women… The gambler was a swarthy, black eyed man a few years older than Samon, with a broken tooth that his ready smile kept revealing. He glanced at Samon after every move.

The outcome was exactly what Samon predicted and the three crowns were paid promptly and good-naturedly.

He stood watching the next game commence, wondering whether to go and throw his winnings in Calibar's face.

"I didn't mean to offend you."

Calibar had moved round to stand next to Samon so quietly, he hadn't noticed.

"You didn't offend me," he lied.

"I saw you watching them playing in the tavern last night. I saw you work it out. I can see it, but I've never known anyone else who could."

Samon didn't answer.

"I thought you'd be pleased to have some money."

"It's a stupid trick. After a few games no one else would take the bet."

"Three reasons, Samon. First, you're quicker to understand anything than almost anyone I know. The Queen will want to use that. Secondly, you look like you were born yesterday. She'll never dream that you're three steps ahead of her the whole time. And thirdly..." He stopped.

Samon felt like a cat, stretching to be petted. Calibar's praise was like wine, despite its occasional barbs. Then he remembered the other half of the bargain and snapped, "Yes ?What's the third reason?"

"I wanted to know if you had enough faith in your own abilities to take a risk. I couldn't think what else you had to gamble with. And I wanted someone else's opinion of whether you might be worth three crowns. You see, I think that could sway the lady's judgement a little. As you said, she'd be mad to take you, someone she doesn't know, from nowhere, but then I'd have to be mad to do that too, and here you are."

"You were… You were mad too? What are you saying?"

"I took a risk, because I made a judgement you were worth saving, and I trust my judgement."

"Oh."

"What did you think I was saying?"

"That… that the Queen might… might..."

"Think you're as attractive as you're useful. Yes. After all, that girl chased you all the way out here, and Gidon was prepared to wager his savings to have you. I gave him a way out; he could have turned the bet down because you weren't worth the stake, not because he was going to lose. Now, I think you are worth the stake."

"You..."

Calibar raised his eyebrows. "It's getting cold now, and it's a clear night. I'm just saying you needn't sleep on your own if you don't want to." Then he turned to the bedrolls lying on the sand and pulled a blanket out of one of the bundles. "Don't get cold," he admonished, and handed it to his wide eyed follower.

***

Chekov took the picture firmly out of Uhura's hands and started to put it back on the desk, but stopped when he saw the second of the three pictures. "Mister Scott..."

"I asked about him too. I was afraid I..."

"No !He's alive. I saw him this morning."

"You did?"

"Yes," he answered urgently. "He was… I spoke to him… or he spoke to me. He wanted to see you… That is, he wanted to see the Queen, because he..." He found himself almost laughing with relief at the good news he'd somehow forgotten until now. "He made a telescope and he has observed the Enterprise in orbit. At least I think it must be the Enterprise. She is still in orbit. But Mister Scott… He thought it was a… a sign or something. He wanted to report it to you. He could be in the palace now."

Immediately Uhura was at the door, ordering a servant to take the picture and scour the palace for the man it showed, then bring him — gently — to her. That left Chekov looking at the picture underneath. The picture of Gordo Calibar.

***

Scott groaned and rubbed his forehead with the balls of his hands. "Where the hell am I, lass? And why don't I remember the answer to that for myself?"

"It takes a moment to get used to it, Mister Scott. Do you remember beaming down to Forman IV?"

"Aye, to check over Doctor Fajez's equipment. But..." The engineer blinked at the monitors and indicators that lined the hidden chamber. "He didn't have anything like this."

"No .This is an extremely sophisticated device that seems to be able to suppress a person's own personality and memories and give them new ones. It turned me into the absolute monarch of a pre-technical city state and Chekov into a revolutionary masquerading as my court mathematician."

Scott wrinkled his brow. "Sounds more Leonard McCoy's field than mine. I'm still a mite confused though. Who else was..."

"Chekov thinks he knows where he can find the captain. He's gone to look for him now. And Sulu..."

"Aye?"

"He was killed," Uhura said. "Before any of us regained our memories. Before I knew what I was doing."

Scott gave her a look that said he knew she wasn't telling him everything. "Well, we can… we can think about that later. What about Doctor Fajez and his family? Those two lasses..."

"Chekov met you this morning and didn't recognize you until he saw a picture I'd drawn of you. The same with Captain Kirk. It's as if our memories are in compartments. The moment something makes a link, it's all there, but… I'm not sure I'd recognize them. Can you remember what they looked like well enough to draw them? I can't."

"I can't draw well enough," Scott answered. "What about our communicators? Did they go the way of our uniforms?"

"We found them, or rather someone else did, and Chekov managed to get hold of them. Only they don't work."

"Interference?" Scott suggested. "Jamming?"

"No .They've been code wiped."

The engineer looked stunned, as well he might. If anything, a communicator or a tricorder usually, couldn't be retrieved, a coded signal could be sent, causing the more delicate inner workings to self-destruct. What was left would be no more use than a child's replica from a toy store.

"Why in God's name would they have done that, Lieutenant?"

"I can't imagine." Uhura's voice caught. "And I've tried. I didn't tell Chekov that was the problem. He's… a little too shaken up by all this already."

"Could it have happened by accident?"

"To all six communicators?" Uhura looked skeptical. "I don't see how..."

"That radiation buzz we were getting — this planet is obviously a good deal more advanced than we were giving it credit for. What if that was leakage from some kind of communications grid?"

Uhura nodded thoughtfully. "But even so… That would imply an incredible volume of traffic..."

"Big enough for six thirty four digit codes to come up while we've been here?"

She smiled. "Maybe .Thank you. I'd rather believe that than that Mister Spock just gave up on us."

"That was always the least likely explanation," Scott said cheerfully. He climbed to his feet and began looking around the control panels. "You used this to restore my memory?"

"And my own, and Chekov's .We didn't know what we were doing: it just happened."

"Then I'm not going to start taking it apart. We should be needing it shortly when Chekov gets back with the captain."

"I hope so," Uhura said.

***

The stable was totally empty: feed sacks, harness, animals all gone. Chekov swallowed the bitter taste of panic and ran quickly up the stairs, only to collide with Leoman.

"I have to speak to… to Gordo."

Leoman dropped the kit he was carrying and grabbed Chekov's arms. "Too right you do."

The sheet that curtained off the bunks from the improvised kitchen had gone, along with the bedding and most of the cooking gear.

"Look who's come back!" Leoman declared. "I think maybe you and I should leave by the back door. After we've killed this weevil."

Calibar was just closing the door to his room. No, Kirk, Chekov told himself. It was Captain Kirk. Only for the moment, the captain didn't know that himself.

"Well, Samon? Ah, no. Of course. Samon was just what I called you. You have a perfectly good name of your own, don't you? What is it?"

"Gordo, I..."

Calibar crossed the room in four long strides and snatched Chekov bodily out of Leoman's hands. "I don't care that you made me look a fool. I do care for the safety of my men and my cause. And it makes me sick that you weren't even honestly working for the Queen: if you were there'd be a troop of guards mounting the stairs even now. Instead, you sold her information. In exchange for what? Have you come back to try and make yourself a little richer at my expense?"

"Nothing .I didn't sell her anything."

"You're lying — again." The man's fist sent Chekov stumbling across the room. "You drew my likeness, for her guards to use in seeking me. Where else could they have obtained it?"

"I didn't draw it," Chekov protested.

"Then who did?" Leoman demanded, splitting Chekov's attention between the two men. "Who is the traitor? Come on, if you're honest, tell us." He took a step in Chekov's direction.

"The Queen drew it herself. She showed it to me."

Gordo shook his head. "How could she? She's never seen me. Or do I inhabit her nightmares?"

"She..." Chekov tried to think himself back into the mind set of a Cordesian. "She says she knows you from… from another life. She didn't even know the face she had drawn was yours."

"Until you told her?"

"She wants to talk to you. She sent me to… to offer safe conduct."

Gordo looked at Leoman and laughed. "With what guarantees?"

"Well… I could stay here until you return. With Leoman. I'm certain she won't harm you."

"A generous offer," Gordo agreed. "But how does she value your life?" He pulled a couple of very small Cordesian coins out of a pocket. "One penny? Or perhaps two?" He held them up for Chekov to look at. "Still, Leoman would enjoy killing you… slowly. I think it would be better from your point of view if I killed you now myself."

He dropped the coins onto the floor and pulled a knife from his belt. "Hold him tight, Leoman. I want this to be quick and clean."

"Cap… Gordo..."

Leoman firmed up his grip on the ensign's arms. Gordo stood behind him, pulling Chekov's head back to expose his throat. The knife gleamed, and close up, it seemed to smell of blood and rust.

"If you're trying to frighten me… I can't tell you anything else. I didn't betray you. Gordo..."

"I'm not trying to frighten you. Tell me, before you die, what is your name?"

"Chekov, Pavel Andreievich. And if you kill me, you will..." He stopped. In a few hours he'd seen Sulu's death eat into Uhura like a cancer. Now, he had visions of his words echoing through the rest of James Kirk's life, poisoning everything they touched. "I don't blame you."

"Don't you?" Calibar frowned.

"Kill him, before something else goes wrong. Or I will if you're too besotted with him." When Calibar still hesitated Leoman snatched the knife from him. "I'll do it cleanly."

"Gordo..."

"And quickly."

Chekov struggled as Leoman brought the knife to his throat. There had to be something he could say or do… Something that Gordo Calibar wanted badly enough to…

"I know your name."

"What?"

"Your name."

The knife was back in Gordo's hand and a safe distance from the ensign's neck.

"What are you talking about?"

"You took me in because I was nameless like you, didn't you?"

Calibar's eyes met those of his second in command and Leoman shrugged. "I didn't tell him." He released Chekov. "And I don't know how he found out. You're Gordo Calibar as far as I'm concerned."

Just like Kirk, assured of the support of his officers, Calibar returned to the immediate problem. "How do you know it? What is it?"

Chekov climbed back to his feet. "James Kirk," he pronounced. He waited for some reaction but the revolutionary, after a moment's thought, shook his head.

"Is it? I never thought it would mean so little to me to find out. Are you sure that's my name and not someone else's?"

"Yes, I am sure."

"And that's what the fuss is all about? Some label that means as little as the nonsense I made up for you? Is that all a name is?" Calibar turned the question on Leoman.

"Your name is… who you are," the Cordesian explained. "And yours is Gordo Calibar, now. You couldn't be anyone else."

Calibar shook his head. "No .He's right. Calibar is not my name. But I don't think… what did you say?"

"James Kirk," Chekov repeated determinedly. "Captain James Tiberius Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise, from Earth."

"It gets longer," Calibar mocked. "And what was your name again?"

"Ensign Pavel Andrei'ich Chekov, also of the Enterprise, also from Earth." Chekov was beginning to lose hope. He'd relied on the revelation of his name to open at least some of the locked doors in the captain's mind.

"Did you know your name when I first found you?"

"No, sir."

"Then when did you learn it?"

"Gordo..." Leoman interrupted. "We don't have time."

"Have patience. This is important. And if he's lying, you can still kill him."

"We have to go now," Leoman continued with stubborn desperation. "Gordo… or whoever you want to think you are..."

"You have to go now," Calibar agreed. "I don't .I have to find out what he's up to, and on whose behalf."

"If you say so." Leoman began to pick up the equipment he'd dropped when Chekov arrived. "I'll see you at… or not. You realize he could be trying to trap you, to find out where we've moved to?"

"We won't be hiding much longer."

Leoman shook his head. "I know. And I suppose you have to do this. But you..." Now he grabbed Chekov's shirt and shook him. "If any harm comes to Gordo, and I see you alive, I will take great pleasure in killing you just as slowly and messily as I can. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, I understand."

The door at the top of the stairs swung shut behind Calibar's second in command.

"When did you learn your name?" Calibar repeated, as if Leoman had never existed.

"Yesterday."

"Then this morning..."

"I did not only discover my name. I found I had memories of being someone else, someone from a different place, a different world. Someone who would not..."

"So, today you just came back for those devices?"

"Yes, I… No. No, Gordo."

"Someone sent you to sleep with me so you could get them."

"No .You don't understand."

"I think I do."

"I didn't know what I was doing," Chekov protested, although the excuse only related to an awfulness that Calibar wasn't aware of.

"Samon… No, Pavel? Is that it?"

"Yes."

"Why did you come back now? You have the devices now. Why have you come back again?"

"To ask you to come with me now, to the Queen."

"What ?Are you mad? Or do you think I am?"

"She is… your friend. You can trust her. She's like you and me, not really who she seems to be. This is all the wrong way round. Both she and I are your officers."

There was a glimmer of uncertainty in Calibar's eyes. Then his face hardened.

"Now I wonder, if the Queen wants me, and knows where I am, why would she not send soldiers, and burn out this nest of trouble at the same time?"

"She sent me because she didn't want you to get hurt," Chekov insisted doggedly. "She knew that if she sent soldiers, there would be a fight. And she didn't know until today that James Kirk and Gordo Calibar are the same person. I didn't realize until I saw the picture she had drawn, the picture of James Kirk. I'd forgotten. I had forgotten who you were and who I was. But we know how to make you remember."

"Yes .I've heard the Queen's torturers can hang you up by your ankles and keep you there until you remember whatever pleases her."

"No .Really. Uhura is not the Queen. She's a friend..."

"A friend." Calibar left the word hanging in the air for a moment before he continued. "Only it hadn't occurred to me that perhaps it was all an act, so that I wouldn't realize you were working for her."

"An act?" Chekov was genuinely puzzled.

"Come on," Calibar said impatiently. "You knew you're not the only person I have reporting from the Palace?"

"I… I hadn't thought about it," Chekov stuttered. He could feel his face beginning to glow.

"Oh, I don't believe that. You think about most things, sooner or later."

"No, I..."

"So, when she ordered her guards to have you chained up in her bedroom, was it just… a display of affection, from a 'friend' ?Or a masquerade, for the benefit of anyone who might otherwise tell me you were working for her, rather than me?"

Chekov shook his head miserably. "She didn't know who she was. Like me, just like you, now. She didn't know what she was doing." Then he looked directly at Calibar. "If you knew she'd done that… why did you ask, this morning...?"

Calibar looked oddly embarrassed. "You might have wanted to… to talk about it. Or not. I felt responsible for getting you into that position, not that I had any choice." He shook his head. "I could have just ignored it, I suppose. Sometimes, you can know too much for your own good. After all, I had a pretty good idea it would happen. That's why you were the obvious person to send to the Palace. I knew she wouldn't be able to keep her hands off you." He shrugged. "I told you that. So, did she order you into her bed? This friend of mine?"

"She didn't know..."

"Yes or no, Samon."

"Yes."

A very bitter smile settled on Calibar's face. "So, this friend, of yours and mine, affectionately invited you to share her bed, and you, not knowing that anyone was watching who would bring the story back to me, had to be held down by a trio of palace guards while she made love to you so tenderly that by the end you were weeping. Is that so?"

"We didn't know each other!" Chekov protested. "And anyway… There was only one guard. And he wasn't yours. Was he?"

Calibar shook his head. "No, but you can imagine the story went round the guardhouse, getting worse at every telling, so I'm leaving out most of the details."

"I didn't weep."

"Of course," Calibar agreed. "I know. But you see, Samon, I can't help wondering if she didn't do something even worse to you, or frighten you with the threat of it, or maybe even offer you some reward..." He paused. "I want to know if you're lying to me."

"I have lied to you," Chekov admitted. "But not now." He kept his eyes quite steady, meeting Calibar's gaze. Kirk had never looked at him like that, never had reason to wonder if Chekov could be trusted, or if he was plotting betrayal. And of course, in a sense, he was plotting to betray Calibar.

He looked down.

"You can't lie to me, can you? Your mouth might say something that's not true, but the rest of you..."

"I can't tell you everything, that's all."

Calibar walked off down the length of the attic room and sat on the window ledge. "I've lain awake nights, because I'd sent you to the Palace, knowing what happens there… I chose you because I knew what happens there. I thought I was… selling you, for information. But it seems that someone else was already playing exactly the same game with me. Who are you working for?"

"You," Chekov said. "Not Gordo Calibar, James Kirk."

Calibar took a long moment to consider that.

"And I can't be both, can I? Either I'm… Kirk, or I'm Calibar. Which would you prefer?"

"Captain Kirk is… he's real. You know Calibar is… unreal. Don't you? The way Samon was unreal."

"Not in my arms," Calibar said. "Did he find Gordo Calibar unreal?"

Chekov shook his head. "That was a mistake."

"Then is this Kirk allied with the Queen, or with the old families?"

"Neither .You are not from Cordes."

"So I am not the Queen's enemy or her ally?"

"She is… your friend. She's as loyal to James Kirk as Leoman is to Gordo Calibar."

Calibar smiled and shook his head, then he stood up and paced the attic again while Chekov watched him. The ensign forced himself to superimpose a mental image of Starfleet uniform and starship decks, in place of Calibar's white shirt and dusty black pants and the scuffed wooden floor of the attic.

It was at least five minutes before Calibar came to a halt. He turned to Chekov with a very hard expression on his face. "I found you hiding in my stable, spying on me. I sent you to spy for me, and you didn't tell me everything that happened, you kept things back. The next thing I know, the Queen's guards are looking for me, with a detailed description only someone who knew me well could have provided. And there's this picture too, apparently. Your explanation for all this is — well, unbelievable. Isn't it? If we're both honest? I think it's far more likely the Queen has terrified you or bought you, or perhaps both. So, Pavel Chekov, what am I to do with you? Should I trust you and give myself up? Or kill you and sneak away out of Cordes before I'm found? What would you do in my place?"

***

"There's no one up there," the landlord told Scott in an artificially bored tone of voice. "I haven't been able to let those rooms above the stable in years. The alley's too narrow and the stairs are too steep for anyone to run much of a business there, and the rooms are too big for a dwelling. I've been meaning to put in some partitions, make it more snug, and maybe..."

The key turned and the door at the top of the steep flight of stairs up from the stable opened easily, letting sunlight into the almost black stairwell.

A voice within cut off the instant it became audible. Unsurprised, Scott looked around, his eyes taking in the cleanliness of the attic, the lack of dust and webs. "No one here?" he echoed.

"Probably some vagrant," the landlord breezed unconvincingly. "Some deserter on the run from the army. I'll soon kick him out." He spoke loudly, to alert his tenant, Scott guessed. The engineer walked confidently across the floor to the only door out of the big room and stopped dead in the open doorway. Beyond was Calibar's office, as empty as the rest of his hideout but for a pallet bed in the corner behind the door, a canvas wrapped bundle of some kind and two men.

"What are you doing here? Who gave you permission to..." the landlord blustered from just behind Scott's shoulder. Then he too stopped as he saw. The younger of the two men lay bound on the makeshift bed, gagged with strips of his own shirt. The other occupant of the room stood over him, his posture suggesting that he'd just made sure his prisoner was secure.

Scott turned and pushed the stable's owner back out of the room. "This is the man I want, thank you, and I suggest that you go and count the rent he pays you and keep your mouth shut. You can leave us."

"I had no idea..." The landlord backed a couple of paces away. He hesitated then suddenly turned and scurried off to the stairs.

Kirk was looking Scott up and down. "Why were you looking for me?"

"Sir, I… I wasn't exactly. I was looking for him." Scott gestured at the prisoner. "You'd better untie him."

"Untie him? Why?" Then in an even more skeptical tone. "'Sir'?"

Scott scowled uncomfortably. "Because..."

"What business is it of yours what I do with him?" Calibar waited a moment for an answer, then shrugged and knelt down by the bed. The gag was quickly loosed. Chekov shook his hair away from his face as he sat up and looked in grateful surprise at the engineer.

"Why did you come after me, Mister Scott?"

"It occurred to the lieutenant that Calibar might have got wind of the investigations she'd ordered." Scott looked at Kirk through narrowed eyes. "Captain Kirk?"

"So I'm told," Calibar agreed cagily.

"Well, you are, whether you realize it or not… sir. Now if you'll untie the lad, we can be going..."

"You call me 'sir' and yet you order me around as if I were a foot soldier and you were a general. Who exactly are you?"

"Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott, sir," Scott said. "Are you injured, Mister Chekov?"

"No, Mister Scott, sir." Chekov frowned.

"Good." Scott stood, undecided. He wasn't sure Calibar wouldn't run, or worse, attack him, while he untied Chekov.

"Could you not persuade the captain that he can trust us?" he asked Chekov in desperation.

The ensign raised his bound hands. "He doesn't trust me. He thinks I gave the Queen… I mean, Lieutenant Uhura, his description. And he thinks that she… I mean, the Queen, wants to kill him."

"If she wanted you dead, sir, she'd have sent the Palace Guard, not me."

Calibar frowned. "We've been through all that. But who the hell are you?"

Scott looked at Chekov for clues. "How much have you explained to him?"

"I don't think I really explained anything. I have told him that we are not his enemies."

"And it doesn't look like he believed you." Scott sighed. "We should have just sent the Palace Guard in the first place."

"But people would have been killed," Chekov said indignantly. "Calibar wouldn't have given up without a fight."

"No." The engineer laughed shortly. "What we need, lad, is for Captain Kirk to talk this Gordo Calibar of yours around to our way of thinking."

Chekov stared at him.

It was Calibar who saw the joke. He shook his head, smiling. "Well, since Captain Kirk is unavailable, I'll just untie my young friend here and then I'll leave you." He pulled the strips of fabric free, then hesitated before tousling Chekov's hair . "You'd have got yourself free in a few minutes. I only wanted a head start, but I don't want to leave you vulnerable, since I don't know your friend here. Look after yourself, Samon."

"Captain..." Scott pleaded one last time. "I swear to you, we mean you no harm. You must come with us to the..."

Calibar bent to pick up the canvas roll from the floor and Scott delivered a double handed blow to the back of his neck while he was off balance.

Chekov stepped back in surprise as the two men sprawled on the floor at his feet.

"Get those rags," Scott ordered briskly, pinning Calibar to the boards with one knee in a businesslike fashion. "If we can't persuade him, we'll just have to use force."

The ensign held out the bindings but Scott shook his head. "No, you do it. Properly, mind."

Chekov hesitated before taking hold of Calibar's wrists and pulling them together behind the man's back. Calibar flexed his muscles and tugged against the ensign's grasp experimentally, but the ensign continued to obey the orders of the only man who seemed qualified to give any.

Scott watched, then, hearing a door banging below, said "Be careful, lad," and went to investigate.

Calibar waited a moment before clamping his wrists hard against his back, stopping Chekov from tightening the last knot. "Chekov, don't," he said softly.

The ensign froze uncertainly. "Captain?"

"I didn't want to have to tell you this, because knowing it could be dangerous for you. Yes, I'm pretending to be Gordo Calibar. And if you take me to the Queen now, you'll be signing my death warrant."

"But Uhura is the Queen."

"Yes, I know that. You don't understand what's happening here. And neither does Scott. It's not his fault. It just wasn't safe to let him in on what's really happening. Let me up, quickly."

Chekov considered. "No." He made the knot fast.

"How can you be so certain I'm not telling the truth?" Calibar asked. "Is it because you're lying too?"

"I am not lying, and I am certain."

"Why?"

"I am absolutely certain," Chekov repeated grimly.

***

Taking Gordo Calibar unwillingly to the palace was going to be impossible, even if they waited until after dark. Scott went to fetch Uhura instead.

The moment he stepped out into the alley, it was plain that something was wrong. At first, he couldn't extract any information from the hubbub as streams of people began to fill the alley, as many rushing in one direction as the other, but odd words and phrases had got through.

"A coup."

"An assassination."

"A massacre at the palace."

The name of Calibar was on most lips. Scott stood for a moment, undecided. Eventually, he opted for finding out, if he could, what was happening. He joined the press of bodies trying to reach the square outside the palace. As soon as he reached the mouth of the alley, he realized why so many were going the opposite way. A line of guards, angry and wielding sticks, were trying to empty the square of the mob that had assembled. He couldn't see across the heads of the crowd to the palace.

"She's dead."

"Murdered by an assassin. Throat slit. All her jewels taken..."

"Don't be stupid. Her jewels are in the treasury."

"I heard she sold her jewels to the king of Sarlat in return for the use of his army..."

"All her personal guard slain, twelve of them. The assassin got away..."

"...was disemboweled on the spot..."

"..is being tortured now, to find out who sent him..."

Scott's heart was thumping as he pressed nearer to the front of the crowd. A soldier's baton flicked into his face, narrowly missing his eye, and he could feel the blood trickling down over his cheek.

"Is it true, the Queen's dead," he yelled to an officer who was moving along behind the line of guards.

The man focused on him. "What's it to you? Go home. Get off the streets."

"I was talking to her majesty only this morning. She sent me to fetch something for her. She can't be dead."

The officer frowned and came closer to the line. The soldiers reformed around him and Scott, separating the two men from the crowd. "Yes, I remember you. Well, if you want paying for whatever she wanted, you'll have to speak to her heirs. And..." he lowered his tone confidentially, "...I wouldn't make so much noise about having been in the palace this morning, if I were you. If we can't find the real assassin, they'll hang whoever they can get their hands on."

"She is dead then?" Scott persisted.

The officer flicked his finger across his throat meaningfully. "Yes."

As Scott hurried back to the stable, the crowd was thinning, leaving space for groups of soldiers, never fewer than ten or twelve at a time, to pass along the streets. The engineer ducked into the stable and slammed the door closed behind him. He barred it by slotting a piece of timber as broad as his own arm through the keeps in the door frame. It wouldn't stop soldiers for long, but the noise of them breaking in would give some warning. He ran up the stairs three at a time.

Chekov came out of Calibar's room to meet him. His eyes widened at the blood on the engineer's face. "Is something..."

"There's a rumor that the Queen has been assassinated. The palace guard are keeping everyone away from the palace, and the army is on the streets. Is this Calibar's doing?"

The question became an accusation. Chekov shook his head slowly. "No .No, he was planning something else, not to kill her. He said it wasn't worth killing the Queen, because..."

"Is it possible any of his followers are responsible?"

Chekov blinked. "I don't think so. Why? If she's… if she's dead..."

"Why ?Because if they were, the palace guard might arrive here in search of Gordo Calibar at any moment. If the assassin was caught and knows about this place..."

"I don't know where they've all gone to," Chekov admitted. "I don't know what they were doing. I know Leoman wanted to kill the Queen, but Gordo told him it was pointless. I don't think Leoman would do anything..."

"No, I never thought he would," Calibar said, from the door of his office. He was leaning up against the frame, looking a little shaken by the news. "But… We had the devil's own argument just before you arrived, Samon. He's never been able to understand anything but killing, not that he didn't have reason. And then when you turned up and delayed us further..." Calibar shook his head. "I didn't think he'd ever do this, though. A year's work thrown away, and nothing to show for it but the expense of another coronation to be met by more taxes. I should have — I don't know — sent him on some adventure where he could get himself killed without doing any harm. Gods!" He tugged at his bound hands. "If it was him, more than likely he's been caught, or whoever he talked into this idiocy has. Samon, take your friend and get out of here now, but if you've any regard for me, untie me first and let me get away myself!"

"We daren't go to the palace now," Scott said, ignoring Calibar's entreaty.

"I could go," Chekov offered, and then amended, "Only that's no use."

"Aye, so where do we go?" Scott looked resentfully at Calibar. "That's two deaths, and more maybe that we don't know about. Uhura said you got the communicators from someone who found them, Chekov. Who was that?"

The ensign's face fell at the mention of the lieutenant's name. Scott bit his lip. "Look, Mister Chekov, she was a grand friend, and an excellent officer, but for now… we need to find either the research station we were taken from, or another room like the one at the palace. Either should give us an opportunity to contact the ship and get help."

Chekov turned hesitantly to Calibar. "Gordo..."

"Those boxes you took away? They found them at a farmhouse, a ruin, some way out of the city. The place was deserted. That's why we were interested in it."

"A ruined farmhouse?" Scott shook his head. It certainly didn't sound like the Fajez family's neat and deceptively primitive residence.

He and Chekov talked on, debating whether every seat of local government would conceal a secret room like the one in the Palace, whether they could hope to find Doctor Fajez' base: all they knew was a set of transporter co-ordinates, meaningless on the ground with no map and no idea of their present location. They turned the various options over and over, trying to pinpoint the strategy which gave them the best hope of achieving something. To some extent the talking was a way to stop themselves thinking. Chekov didn't even know if Scott was aware how Sulu had died.

Calibar sat silent, listening to them but saying nothing until their deliberations brought them round to the concealed room again. "How did the Queen find it?"

Chekov started at his voice, as if he'd forgotten about the third, unwilling member of their party. "She… " He stopped.

"Go on," Scott said.

"The plaster on the wall was damaged. There was a… a struggle..."

"Another assassination attempt?" Scott demanded impatiently. "If you knew that..."

"No .Just a… a struggle. I fell against the wall, and the plaster came away. There was a skin of it, of plaster over the panel and it just flaked off. The panel wasn't locked. Once you saw there was something there, you could easily open it and get inside." It was, in fact, curiously like the arrangement in the observation station, where the communications hardware was hidden in the thickness of the wall of the ancient house, behind a carefully fitted whitewashed panel.

"Where?" Calibar demanded.

"In the palace."

"Where in the palace?" Calibar snapped impatiently.

"Is it important?" Chekov snapped in turn. "In her bedroom, if you want to know."

"Mister Chekov," Scott admonished absently. "So there was nothing external, to let you know the hidden room was there?"

Chekov tried to remember everything about the room, the wall itself. When the Queen had asked for him again, in the late afternoon, he'd come reluctantly from his official place of work in the treasury office. She'd given him some papers to check over, something to do with taxes on imports of wine and preserved fruit. She'd said nothing about the previous night's events, but he'd been aware of her, looking at him out of the corner of her eye as she discussed household business with her chamberlain. He didn't care for the fact that she'd called him now, near the end of the working day, and to her bedroom once again. He wasn't flattered by her continued interest. He wanted to go back to Gordo.

Eventually, he'd finished totaling the lists of payments and crossed the rugs on the tiled floor to where she stood, to give it to her. When he'd flinched away from her kiss, she'd slapped him, hard enough to knock him back against the wall. That was all it had taken. He'd been terrified for a moment, by the almost silent fall of the plaster like snow from a roof at the end of winter, until he'd realized she was immediately more curious than angry.

"No .Until the wall was damaged, there was no sign of it."

Calibar scowled at Chekov, for no reason the ensign could see. "And what did it look like inside?" he probed.

The ensign frowned. The Queen had watched as he cleared the debris and revealed that the door was just what it seemed. Then she had sent him in before she entered herself.

"It was dark, with panels of switches..."

"Of what?"

For a moment, he'd thought he was talking to Kirk. He bit his lip and pulled his useless communicator out, opening it and showing Calibar the little control panel. "These are switches. But there were many more of them."

"What are they for?"

"You press them and… If it's working, that makes things happen. There were screens too." Chekov sighed. "Like windows, but with nothing on the other side, until… until you press the right switches. Then you can usually see things in the windows. The first switch we tried just turned the lights on."

"The room lit up?" Calibar asked.

"Yes." Chekov glanced at Scott for guidance. "How did you..."

"There was something like that where they found your..." Calibar gestured at the communicator. "Only no one lost their memory, or found it."

"The observation station," Scott said, triumphantly. "That's where we need to go." He turned to Chekov. "Do you know where this was?"

Chekov shook his head and looked at Calibar, who smiled. "I know. I can take you there."

They decided, after some discussion into which they all put their different knowledge of the city of Cordes, to head out of the city at early evening. There was likely to be a curfew at dusk, Calibar reckoned, and something of a rush to get everything done before then. Of course, anything that meant moving around the city in the present state of unrest was likely to bring them face to face with soldiers. They had no idea how widely Uhura's instructions to search for Scott and Kirk had been spread, or what reason she'd given for wanting the two men. There was the danger that they'd be recognized and arrested, but also the continuing risk that soldiers would arrive shortly at their present location. They had to move, and once they did, there was little to be gained by staying in the city.

Scott sent Chekov out to buy food. When he returned with provisions, Scott was pacing in the main attic. Calibar was sitting on the pallet bed, his hands still tied. Chekov took his purchases through into the smaller room and spread the food out on the window sill then turned back to face the engineer who had followed him in. "Are we going to untie the captain now, Mister Scott?"

Scott shrugged. "We'll have to once we move out of here, and now you're back, I suppose there are two of us to watch him."

It took Scott a moment to remove the bonds, allowing Calibar to stand up, stretch his arms and rub his wrists.

"Thank you, Samon," Calibar said quite deliberately, as if Chekov alone had the discretion to free him.

"That is not my name, sir." Chekov had been congratulating himself on the professional way he was behaving towards Calibar. He was determined to continue.

"Oh, no. I forgot. What was it again?" Calibar moved over to the window and looked at the food on offer.

"Chekov .Ensign Chekov."

"No .That's not what you said before." Calibar tore a piece of crust off one of the loaves.

"That is what you call me," Chekov said firmly.

Scott looked between the two men. "Well, now you're free, Captain, or Calibar, if you'd rather, why don't you tell us exactly where you found the communicators?"

Calibar ignored him. He poured a few drops of oil onto his bread from the bottle Chekov had brought, then reached out to take Chekov's chin in his still greasy fingers. The ensign jerked his head away. "Leave me..."

Scott took a step forward, then stopped abruptly, as if unsure of his right to interfere.

Calibar smiled oddly. "Well, now. You tell me you're both mine to command, but I don't see myself being allowed to do anything much. I'd still be tied up if you didn't need me as a guide." He took hold of a handful of Chekov's shirt and pulled the ensign round to face him. "I'm not quite sure yet what's going on with you two."

"Leave him alone!" Scott protested, but still didn't actively intervene to stop Calibar.

The rebel ran the edge of one finger down Chekov's cheek, and then pulled him into a hard, passionless kiss.

Chekov jerked away and stood there, looking at Scott.

Calibar shook his head at the engineer. "Are you going to stand there and let me do whatever I like to him?"

Scott fidgeted. "Captain… Calibar… there's no call to bully the lad. He's trying to help you, the best way he can. An' so am I. You don't belong here. You don't..."

"I know," Calibar broke in, unexpectedly. Then he grimaced at the disbelieving expression on Scott's face. "I'm not joking. I believe you. I know I'm not Gordo Calibar. It's like wearing a mask, too big, too noisy, too bright… But what are you offering me in return for giving that up?" He turned to address himself to Chekov. "I can see the difference in you. I could see it when you came back from her that morning. The morning after the struggle. In her bedroom. You knew who you were. And I couldn't see it then, but I can understand now, what happened when you remembered who I was too."

"Yes, I..." Chekov started to explain then stopped again. "Because..."

"Because now I'm someone you're frightened of. You were never frightened of Gordo Calibar, Samon. Of your own shadow maybe, but not Calibar."

"You saved my life," Chekov protested as if he was being accused of something.

"That's not all I did for you."

"Lay off him!" Scott raged, his patience suddenly snapping. "We should be eating and getting away from here. Let the lad have his meal in peace. Stop bullying him."

Calibar dropped his teasing smile. "A bully, am I?" His eyes slid across to Samon and his mouth tucked up at the corners again. "I suppose you could say that, but not in the way you mean, Mister Scott. You must imagine that I dragged your shy young friend here into my bed. Not quite the way it happened, was it? If I remember right, no one forced anyone. In fact I seem to remember..."

***

Samon wrapped the coarse, threadbare blanket around himself and wished again he'd realized they were planning a night in the open. He could have brought an extra blanket. Still, next time…

That was a comforting thought. At last he could honestly feel he had something to offer Gordo, that there was some reason why the man fed him and clothed him. His knees were beginning to ache from being pulled up close to his chest but it was too cold to stretch out. He turned over and all the comfortable moulding of the pine needles to his body became a series of rock hard ridges. He turned back.

A low hooting call drifted down from the trees and he heard someone climb to their feet. Then there was a soft muttering of men's voices getting a little louder as the new arrivals came across the beach. Someone who'd been expected, clearly. Leoman's voice was recognizable, a little harsher than Gordo's, a little more grating.

"You're being a fool about this, Gordo."

"Am I?"

Samon scowled to himself. No one but Leoman would dare say such a thing to Calibar.

"And for what? That's what I don't understand."

"I know you don't like him..."

"I don't know myself if I like him or not. All I say is that I don't trust him. And you know why that is. The mystery is why you have such a high regard for this no-name. Why take the risk, Gordo?"

Gordo didn't answer. Samon lay there and waited for him to make a case, to repeat some of the strokes of the previous evening.

"If it's for his backside, he doesn't seem to be earning his keep," Leoman goaded.

"Then I'll have to make him work harder," Gordo said lazily.

There was a snort of disapproval. Samon couldn't tell if the sounds he heard next were Leoman's departure or someone unrolling a blanket and settling for the night. His head was spinning. Not compliments, but flattery. Not companionship but seduction. Of course Gordo Calibar had a use for him, and not for his mind or any other talents.

The cold in his arms and legs seemed to have concentrated into his gut. Samon curled up tighter, trying to still his shivering.

He could run away. There had to be somewhere he could go. He tried to work through his options. He had a name now, at least, one he could say with as much confidence as any other man. The name Gordo had given him.

Everything he was, Gordo had given him, even the useless blanket and the food that lay like clay in his belly.

Samon kicked free of his tangled bedding and walked over to where Gordo lay. He knelt down by the sleeping man and touched one shoulder lightly with his fingers. Calibar shot upright like a bolt from a crossbow, his hand clamping Samon's wrist. Then he subsided, his breathing still fast and shallow.

"Damn you. What are you playing at?"

"I don't want to sleep on my own tonight."

Calibar looked at him as if he was mad. "What are you talking about?"

Samon took a deep breath. "You said, I didn't have to sleep on my own. So… I don't want to."

The moon was bright enough for him to see understanding dawn in Calibar's eyes.

"You were listening..."

"I couldn't help it. I was awake."

Calibar released his wrist. "You don't have to worry about Leoman. He means well. And however much he complains, he won't disobey me."

"I'm not worried about Leoman."

"Then what..."

"I don't want you to send me away. I don't have anywhere else to go."

Gordo shook his head. "Go back to sleep, Samon. Or if you're just cold and lonely, wake someone else up to take care of it."

"If this is what you want me for..."

"I won't send you away."

"You won't?"

"No .Not against your will. I won't sleep with you against your will either."

"It's not against my will."

"Then why are you quivering like a blade of grass?"

"It's cold."

"Not so cold as all that," Calibar disagreed.

"For all the stars in heaven, Gordo, do you have to seduce him out loud?"

Samon started. He didn't recognize the voice, but half a dozen sleepy laughs greeted the comment. Calibar's grip on his arm firmed up as their leader joined in the laughter. "We're sorry if we disturbed you. He'll try not to make too much noise."

Samon found himself being pulled down onto the ground and under Calibar's blanket. The older man was naked, and a minute later, he'd pulled off most of Samon's clothes and pushed them out of their shared bed. Calibar's skin felt deliciously hot but icy draughts of night cold crept in under the blanket with them as Calibar moved to lie on top of him. Samon folded his arms underneath his face.

***

Chekov turned his back on Scott and Calibar, and concentrated on putting together a cold meat sandwich he didn't want.

Scott was staring at Calibar in frank disbelief.

"What the hell did your James Kirk do to him, Scott?"

The engineer shook himself as if to dispel a bad dream. "Nothing .He's not frightened of anyone. He's just..."

"And you hate me," Calibar said baldly. "Don't you?"

"I don't like Gordo Calibar," Scott agreed grimly, "but that's beside the point."

"And this Kirk? What about him?"

"He's my captain and… and my friend, and I'd be best pleased to get him back to help us out of this mess, if I had the first idea of how to do that."

As usual, an honest statement of feeling seemed to work with Calibar where mere reason failed. He tapped Chekov lightly on the shoulder. "Are there still so many of the Queen's guard in the streets?"

The ensign hastily swallowed a mouthful of bread and meat. "No, and people are saying there will not be a curfew tonight. They've caught the assassins, two of them. They were killed trying to escape from the palace. I didn't ask any questions about who they were, but people were saying they were foreigners."

"How can they tell, if they're dead?" Calibar asked irritably.

"They probably can't," Chekov agreed.

Calibar thought for a moment. "Well, if they are looking for foreign involvement, they'll be watching the main routes out of the city, up and down the valley. We'll wait until just after dark, and go across the river between the two bridges, then out into the fields. Even if there are soldiers about, it should be easy to avoid them."

So they found themselves following the path down to the river again.

"You can swim, can you?" Calibar asked Scott once they reached the beach.

"Aye." Scott looked worried.

"It's not that wide or fast," Chekov said, surprised that Calibar anticipated problems.

The rebel laughed. "This is only the narrows between the shore and that island, Samon. It's wider and deeper on the far side, and visible from the road."

"Maybe we could borrow a boat..." Scott suggested.

"It would be seen," Calibar objected. "And then they'd wonder why we weren't using the bridge. We'll be invisible in the water once it's dark. The water's not too high at the moment, and the bottom's clear — gravel and pebbles. So long as you can swim, you'll be fine. You couldn't drown yourself in it for trying, could you, Samon?"

Chekov glanced up at the man who unaccountably wasn't Kirk.

***

He'd woken. Either Calibar had rolled and taken the blanket all to himself, or Samon had somehow wriggled out from under. He was itching all over. Some animal life in the litter of leaves and needles had fed on him. And he was just beginning to be cold again.

It was almost light, and everyone else still slept soundly. The river was louder than ever, rattling and splashing its way down to the city. Samon stumbled through the sand to the water's edge and drank. He watched the river's load of leaves and twigs eddying in the shallow water before catching the current again. The water was cold, clean, carrying everything away.

He decided to bathe, to wash away last night's sweat and… and everything. Last night's memories. What had he achieved? Proved that Calibar could have him? Gordo hadn't seemed very interested. In two minutes of brisk, impersonal friction, he'd made use of the body under him and fallen asleep, rolling off Samon's back just when the younger man had begun to think his ribs were going to collapse. The heat was nice. The glow enveloped both of them long enough for Samon to sleep too.

The water was cold, making his legs ache, making him pull in his diaphragm sharply as he walked out past waist depth. He didn't splash, just crouched down and rubbed over his skin, his hands scratchy with the sand his feet had stirred up. Then he leaned forward and swam strongly out into the main flow.

The water was cold, carrying him away. Who knew where he'd fetch up?

There was a sudden splash and he flipped to an upright position, looking back at the camp. A large, long necked bird was ruffling its feathers on the water while its mate sat on the far bank and wondered whether to join in the early morning dip.

Samon couldn't feel his legs or his arms any more. The water was too cold. He rolled over onto his back, letting the river carry everything away.

***

The moon was poised just above the rim of the valley, casting the palest of shadows from the tree branches onto the water. Just as Scott was about to slip into sleeping, at last, Chekov turned again, crunching the pine needles under him. The engineer opened his eyes. Calibar had been breathing evenly, deep asleep, for nearly an hour, but the ensign still lay on his back, staring at the moon in the black sky. Off in the water margins, small creatures croaked and whistled to one another. After swimming the main river, the three men had walked a while up the tributary that joined it here, replacing their clothes as soon as the night breeze had dried off their skin, and then walking on long enough to begin to feel warm again before stopping to sleep.

"Captain Groves needs an experienced navigator on the Agincourt."

The ensign rolled to face Scott, rising on one elbow. "The Agincourt? What...?"

"It's none of my busin