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“And they’re buying that?” David asked.

“No, they’re not,” Kane replied, shaking his head. “Ambassador Kamarag of the Klingon Empire tells me that the High Council is demanding access to the planet. We’ve assured them that they will be allowed to send a representative, but not yet. Not until the Grissom returns and we know what we’re dealing with.”

David nodded. “What about the Romulans?”

“Ah. With them, at least we’re making a token gesture.” Kane tapped a few keys on the display, and an image of an attractive young Vulcan woman appeared. “Her name is Saavik. Ever heard of her?”

David and Carol shared a glance, and both shook their heads.

“She’s become something of a young celebrity-a Vulcan national, but she’s also half Romulan. I don’t know her entire background, but she was raised as an orphan at the Gamma Eri science station, so her scientific knowledge is pretty formidable. But now she’s become a diplomat.” He pressed another key, bringing up a picture of her alongside a middle-aged human male. “Seems that Ambassador Sarek of Vulcan pulled some strings and got her an internship as an aide to John Talbot, the Federation ambassador to Nimbus III. In her eighteen months there, she met the Romulan ambassador, Caithlin Dar, and apparently they became pretty close. Now that she’s returned…hell, Saavik’s practically the poster girl for Federation-Romulan relations.”

He flipped off the monitor. “Anyway, she’ll be joining you tomorrow, along with whatever team Esteban can recruit in the next twenty-four hours.”

Morrow, sitting with his hands clasped together, nodded and turned back toward the doctors. “Any questions?”

They had none. Morrow and Kane extended their hands, and following a few firm shakes, the Marcuses were dismissed.

As they filed out the door, Carol held her son by the arm. “I mean it, David…please don’t do anything foolish out there.”

“I’ll be fine, Mother,” David said. “Maybe this 'Starfleet experience’ will be good for me.” And then he laughed. “Can you just imagine what my father will think?”

Carol kissed his cheek. “Call me before you ship out,” she said.

“I will,” he replied.

And Carol walked away, leaving David alone with his thoughts, contemplating what his own reaction would have been a few days ago had he known that he would be embarking on a Starfleet mission.

2

David Marcus still found the experience of traveling through the transporter a little unsettling. Unlike Starfleet, which used the devices regularly for moving personnel to and from orbiting ships while assuming the risks and the incredible energy costs, civilian use was much less common. Of course, with all his recent experiences on the Regula One lab and aboard the Enterprise and the Yorktown, culminating in his transfer to the Grissom for the return journey to the Mutara sector, David had been transported more times in the past few days than he cared to remember.

However, the disconcerting notion of having his own component atoms momentarily torn apart and reassembled was quickly forgotten as he and Saavik materialized on the surface of the newly created Genesis Planet. A pastoral scene emerged around them, with fields of prehistoric ferns extending for hundreds of meters in front of them to the base of a large plateau, atop which sat more varied forms of vegetation not easily identifiable from a distance. Behind them lay the edge of a great forest, with tall, majestic trees whose sweeping branches formed a vast enclosed canopy, providing shelter for the more exotic plant life that thrived within. To set foot upon this world for the first time-a world that he played an active role in creating-was an indescribable thrill.

Saavik, with her tricorder in hand, was already actively scanning the surroundings, frowning at the displayed results. They had just met the day before, but already David was rather intrigued with her striking beauty, and her complex and seemingly conflicted affect. In the short time they worked together at the science stations of the Grissom,