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“Your office.”

“More generally.”

“Paris.”

“Exactly. City of Light, famed in song and story, seat of the Federation Council, and location with the second-heaviest amount of shuttle traffic anywhere in the entire sector. Do you know what gets the heaviest?”

Ne’al shook its head.

“San Francisco.”

Now Ne’al nodded again. Z4 suspected that it was intimidated into silence by Z4’s demeanor, which was fine, as it meant his demeanor was having precisely the desired effect.

“Shuttle trips for the president are security nightmares. Do you know what Starfleet Security’s code word is for when the president takes a shuttle trip?”

Ne’al shook its head again.

” ‘Golden Gate.’ Know why?”

A third head-shake.

“It refers to when the Breen invaded Earth and, among other things, destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge. It’s a tidy way of summing up what a security nightmare it is when the president flies out in the open, a nightmare which is compounded by being in the two highest-traffic zones in the sector.” Z4 stood up and walked around his desk so he could loom over the still-seated Ne’al-something he couldn’t do once the much-taller Ne’al got up, so he wanted to take advantage. “Now, I want you to change the itinerary so that President Bacco leaves for the noon event at 2050. She will be taking one of the transporters. I don’t care if you have to drag Montgomery Scott over from the S.C.E. office in San Francisco, I don’t care if you have to animate the statue of Zefram Cochrane in Montana, but make sure one of those damn transporters is working at 2050, clear?”

“Zefram Cochrane invented warp drive.”

Z4 was thrown off-kilter by Ne’al actually speaking, then again by what it said. “What?”

“The transporter didn’t exist when Cochrane created warp drive. In fact, I don’t think it existed until after he retired to Alpha Centauri. If we animated his statue, I don’t think he’d know what to- “

“Just get it done, Ne’al.” Z4 touched the control on his desk that opened the door.

Ne’al took the hint and ran out of the office.

As Z4 sat back down at his desk, his assistant, a fellow Nasat named Q2 Brown, commed him. “You’ve got a call from the Tzenkethi embassy.”

That got Z4’s attention. “Is it Emra?”

“Yes.”

Emra had served as Tzenkethi ambassador to the Federation for years. Once, he’d tried to open up trade relations with Nasat, but the talks had fallen through when the Tzenkethi had refused to agree to terms that had been in any way favorable to the Federation as a whole. The Tzenkethi only traded with outsiders if they had to, and the situation had been sufficiently desperate that they’d made the overtures to Nasat in the first place, but nothing had come of it.

Still, Emra had always been an unusually reasonable person for a Tzenkethi politician-which was probably why he’d gotten the job, but also probably why he wasn’t able to be effective at it-and they had stayed in periodic touch, both while Z4 was a forest quadrant governor on Nasat and now that he was in the Palais.

Activating his comm, he said, “Mr. Ambassador, how are you?” There was no visual image-Tzenkethi never used visual communication.

“I am fine, Mr. Blue my old friend, but I am afraid that I will need to speak with your president as soon as possible.”

“Why not just request to speak before the council? They’ll be in session tomorrow, and- “

“No, no, no, my friend, it cannot be the entire council. I have too many enemies on the first floor of the Palais-but President Bacco may see reason.”

Z4’s antennae curled up again. “Emra, what’s this about?”

“I cannot say over an open channel, Z4. Suffice it to say that it is urgent and it involves the Tzelnira . Can you do this for me?”

Z4 hesitated. “Let me talk to Esperanza Piniero and get back to you.”

“Do so quickly, please.”

“I’ll be in touch.” Z4 cut the communication, then asked Q2 to get the first free moment Esperanza had.

When she was done going over the amendments to the allocation bill for Betazed, Esperanza Piniero checked her schedule and saw that