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Papadimitriou still didn’t look up. “Maybe pigs’ll fly out of my butt, but I’m not holding my breath. Right now, the best course of action is to get these people to Starbase 1.” Now she looked up, even as the gurneys were being scooted down the hall to the turbolift to take them to the second-floor transporter bay. The guards had already cleared the way, and three empty ‘lifts were waiting for them. “Unless you think the Hopital V’gran is a better facility. Speak now, Doctor.”

The Rhandaarite, who was apparently from the nearby hospital in question, shook his head, even as Papadimitriou got into the elevator with Ytri/ol. Morrow and DeSoto got into the second one with two of the delegates.

“What do you think happened?” DeSoto asked.

Morrow sighed. “My career coming to an end?”

DeSoto smiled. “I meant to the Trinni/ek.”

“Do I look like a doctor?”

“You look like someone killed your pet.”

Morrow sighed as the doors to the turbolift opened onto the second floor. The two medtechs navigated the gurneys out. “That’s twice the Trinni/ek have done this-and I was the one who pushed the president to give them another shot. This isn’t my finest hour as a diplomat.” As they walked, the other gurneys came out of their ‘lifts and moved to the transporter bay.

“Well, it could be worse,” DeSoto said philosophically as they watched the five gurneys being transported to the large starbase in orbit of Earth.

As they stepped onto the platform for their own transport, Morrow asked, “How could it be worse?”

“They could be dead.”

Morrow’s reply was lost in the transporter effect.

It took all of Ambassador K’mtok’s willpower to keep from wrecking the room in which he sat.

Not that it mattered, since if his willpower failed, he was sure that the four armed guards standing at the doors to the room would not hesitate to shoot him down where he stood if he tried that.

He turned in his chair to glower at Ambassador Kalavak. The Romulan man simply stared at the curtained window. K’mtok was grateful that the curtains were down, as he found human architecture to be intensely dull. He had specifically requested that his offices in the Klingon embassy have no exterior windows.

If he couldn’t wreck the room, K’mtok would have been happy to kill the Romulan ambassador, just on general principles. He didn’t know this new ambassador very well. It had taken the Romulans six months to appoint a new ambassador to replace T’Kala after her cowardly suicide-only a Romulan would find honor in taking one’s own life, he thought with disgust-so this one had only been on the job a few weeks. T’Kala had, at least, been as worthy a foe as a Romulan could be. He wondered if this one would prove as able. I doubt it.

Finally, the doors slid open to reveal the Federation president. “Sorry I’m late, but there was a bit of a problem with the Trinni/ek.”

K’mtok had no interest in the doings of aliens. He rose from his chair; the Romulan did the same. “The High Council demands to know Starfleet’s findings on Klorgat IV!”

Bacco walked over to her desk and said, “K’mtok, good to see you, too. I don’t think you’ve met Ambassador Kalavak.”

Kalavak spoke in a voice that K’mtok immediately classified as mewling. “The pleasure is, I’m sure, entirely the ambassador’s.”

“Unlikely,” K’mtok said with a growl.

Now standing behind her desk, with her hands palm-down on its surface, Bacco said, “Gentlemen-and believe me, I’m using that term very loosely-please keep in mind that you’re in my office and that I’ve got four armed guards in here who know five hundred different ways of killing people, and that’s before you put phasers in their hands, and also that they work for me. Now both of you sit down.”

“Madam President,” K’mtok began.

“Do we have to go three rounds on who gives the orders in this room again, Mr. Ambassador? Sit down.”

K’mtok sat down, but not before he gave Kalavak another growl.

After they sat, Bacco did the same. “To answer your question, Mr. Ambassador, we have definitive proof that Admiral Mendak-or,