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Now, how would this look! Eric Stiles, the man who let First Officer Spock get buried alive!

The rabble scratched his hands. Some of the stones were hot to the touch as he pushed them off the ambassador. “Sir? Are you hurt?”

Dust and pebbles sheeted into the muck and Spock sat up. “Quite well, thank you… where are we?”

Stretching off to both sides of them, bending into infinity not far away, the octagonal passageway was lit only by mediocre pencils of light through wrist-width drainage holes. Stiles knew that they could only see at all because the sun was almost directly overhead and the sky had cleared. In another couple of hours, the tunnels would be pitch dark.

“It’s a network of tunnels. We built them fight after my first Constrictor. The civil engineers thought the gravity effect would be lessened by a layer of planet strata and that maybe people could hide below, but it didn’t work. They were deathtraps. Eventually we just gave up and sealed them. I used to imagine using it to escape.” “Why didn’t you?” “And go where?” “Mmm… pardon me.”

“I couldn’t get off the planet and nobody would help an alien. And I didn’t exactly have a way of cutting through the floor either.”

Spock accepted Stiles’s support as he got carefully to his feet and tested his injured leg. “How long do you suppose our escape will go undiscovered?”

“Depends on whether Orsova wants to auction off a visit now or later. We’ll know, because we’ll hear the alarms go off. Until then, we can just make our way through to the freshwater ducts and get out. Darker in here than I remembered… looks like the roots are getting in too. Watch your step, Ambassador. With that comm link implant, can you tell me the direction the CST is in?”

“Yes.” Spock paused a moment, and even though it seemed that he was doing something psychic, Stiles knew there was nothing like that going on. “East northeast… by north. Four miles… one eighth.” “East by-four miles from here?” “Yes.” “Are you sure about that?” “Very.” “Perfect. I know just what they’re doing.” “Why do you ask?” “Because we’re splitting up.” “That may not be wise,” Spock protested.

“Well, it wouldn’t be my first time,” Stiles flatly told him, and left no room for alternatives. “Come this way.”

Picking through the crushed flooring into the muck-layered tunnel bottom, even with Spock’s bad leg they moved along faster than Stiles expected. The stink was incredible. Heavy roots searched their way down from the surface, hairlike ancillary tendrils unbroken until his hand tore them away, proving that no one had come down here in years. He led Spock in a direction he knew the search would never go if they were discovered gone. That was the plan, all part of where he had told Travis to bring the ship down-away from the mountains, which was the natural place to hide. Hmm… been thinking ahead all this time and never knew it.

“Up at that intersection there,” he said to Spock, “you go left. You’ll be able to get out in about a half mile. That’s where the municipal slab ends. I’ll go to the right and find Zevon and catch up, and I’ll be better alone in case it’s a trap. All due respect, you’ll slow me down and I’m tired of being slow. I’m sorry if this isn’t what you had in mind.” “I had nothing in mind.” What’d he say? Must be clogged ears. Didn’t hear fight. Stiles looked over his shoulder, seeing only the gray silhouette of the Vulcan two steps back. As he held aside a thick root for the ambassador to step by, he heard that sentence again in his head and finally just asked.

“You didn’t have a plan? I thought the great amazing Mr. Spock always had a plan.”

The ambassador tipped his head in a kind of shrug and spoke as they picked their way along.

“You remember what I told you about captains. I know my shortcomings. Discipline can be limiting. This is why Vulcans, with all our stringent codes of behavior, have not generally prevailed as great leaders, and humans, with your elastic spirits, have. I’ve learned over the years to provide information and opportunity, then step aside and rely upon the