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“And equally urgent questions,” T’Pau said. “Or so Kuvak has informed us.”

T’Pol nodded. “Yes.”

“You confronted him yesterday about our secret shipments into Rihannsu territory.”

“He left me little choice, Administrator. It would appear that answering my questions forthrightly was beyond the scope of his authority. I presume that is why he brought me to you.”

“You are correct,” T’Pau said with a nod.

“And am I also correct in being concerned that Vulcan may be supplying armaments to a deadly enemy of the Coalition?” Now seemed the perfect time to come to the true nub of the matter. “That would be consistent with Vulcan’s decision to abandon the humans during their time of greatest need, would it not?”

T’Pau stopped walking abruptly and lowered her gaze from the horizon. She fixed her dark eyes squarely upon T’Pol’s as she appeared to weigh and measure with the greatest of care whatever response she was contemplating.

T’Pol allowed herself some small degree of satisfaction at the glimmer of anger she thought she saw behind the young woman’s stern gaze.

“It would appear that our decision to enter the Kolinahr cloister here at Mount Seleya was indeed the correct one,” T’Pau said after a lengthy pause.

She never left the planet, T’Pol thought. She lied to keep her true location concealed. Or Kuvak lied, or maybe they both did.

But why?

“I am a Syrrannite, T’Pol,” T’Pau said, stepping into the lacuna opened up by T’Pol’s momentary speechlessness. Her eyes were aflame. “Syrrannites are followers of Surak’s tenets of peace. Our government was founded upon Syrrannite principles, which is why our first official action after the fall of the V’Las regime was to reverse every existing initiative to make war on our neighbors, the Andorians. We will not make war, nor will we abet war.”

Although T’Pol appreciated the administrator’s vehemence, she knew she could not afford to accept it uncritically. “Perhaps Minister Kuvak has violated those Syrrannite principles on his own authority. He may have sent war matériel to the Romulans without your consent or knowledge.”

The storm clouds of anger T’Pol had thought she’d seen behind the other woman’s eyes now were nowhere to be seen, replaced by something that might best be described as vague amusement, had she been human. “Kuvak has neither the desire nor the ability to do anything without our knowledge.”

T’Pol still wasn’t quite convinced. “But his ties to the last administration—”

“Those have served us well in ensuring continuity and institutional memory, and have helped greatly in our ongoing efforts at department-by-department reform. Had Kuvak been capable of the sort of base betrayal you suggest, V’Las would never have let him rise as high in the governmental hierarchy as he did.”

T’Pol felt the scowl on her face intensify. “And yet a number of secret deliveries of weaponry and related technology have left Vulcan for Romulan space. That is at odds with what you have told me.”

“So it would appear. But frequently things are not what they appear to be.” Seeming satisfied with the answer she had given, the administrator resumed walking with all the calm of Surak himself conducting a peripatetic desert colloquium for T’Klass and the other early Adepts of Gol.

T’Pol stood and watched the other woman walk away for a moment. She found T’Pau’s belief in both herself and Kuvak impressive, and had never felt more certain of the solidity of the administrator’s Syrrannite convictions. But she also believed in the objective evidence she had collected.

Illicit shipments had left Vulcan, bound for some point beyond the Romulan border region. That much was incontrovertible, regardless of appearances.

Trotting to catch up with T’Pau, T’Pol said, “I suppose your government could have been sending arms to some distant adversary of the Romulans, rather than to the Romulans themselves. Doing that would give you a way to avoid actually abandoning our human allies to whatever