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But not in time to keep me from making a stupid rookie mistake, Trip thought bitterly. “Thank you,” he croaked.

“Do not be distressed, Commander Tucker,” T’Vran said. “You became delirious and appear to have revealed your real name only inadvertently. It happened while you were explaining why I should believe your claim that a number of large-scale Romulan assaults are imminent.”

Maybe I wanted to blow my cover, Trip thought. After all, hadn’t he always hoped to put this Romulan spy business behind him as soon as possible? Hadn’t he always held out the hope, however slender, that he would eventually be allowed to go home, to reclaim his life?

“I must confess that I doubted you,” T’Vran continued. “Until you revealed that you knew the identity of the human who briefly carried the katra of Surak. After I had you taken to the infirmary, I checked your story about the Starfleet captain known as Jonathan Archer against the records of Vulcan’s V’Shar bureau.”

T’Vran paused as she nodded in the direction of the woman seated beside Sopek. The woman’s eyes narrowed slightly, indicating clearly that the captain had just revealed significantly more about her than she would have preferred.

The exchange also confirmed Trip’s suspicion that the woman was some sort of intelligence spook or political officer.

“I have conveyed your warnings about the Romulans to my government,” T’Vran said. “Although I must admit that I am still not sanguine about our having found you in an escape pod, in the company of one of those selfsame Romulans.”

“Spying on ’em isn’t the same as working with ’em,” Trip said.

T’Vran nodded, looking almost weary. “Indeed, Commander. Perhaps I am merely approaching my tolerance for spying and subterfuge, necessary though they may be.”

The captain exchanged a quick but significant glance with the woman Trip was coming to think of as his V’Shar minder.

“Regardless of the merits of your... activities,” T’Vran said as she turned back toward Trip, “I do not wish to accept any further responsibility for your safety in this dangerous region of space than I already have. I have therefore decided to return you to Earth, or at least to the nearest Starfleet vessel or United Earth consular facility we encounter between the Gamma Hydra sector and your home planet.”

The vertiginous, queasy sensation that had grabbed Trip by the viscera earlier suddenly abated, replaced by a feeling of liberation that bordered on elation. It surprised him, since he understood, intellectually at least, that the dynamics of his situation had not changed at all during the past few moments. The secret of his human identity was blown. And his primary handler during his operations behind Romulan lines, Tinh Hoc Phuong, remained dead, as did Doctor Ehrehin i’Ramnau tr’Avrak, the premier Romulan warp scientist, upon whom he had been assigned to spy when he had first arrived in Romulan space, months ago. His primary mission, which was to contain, subvert, and/or steal the warp-seven drive the Romulans were even now still in the process of developing, had ended in ostensible failure.

Nevertheless, he felt supremely relieved.

Failure or not, I’m finally at the mission’s finish line, Trip thought. And I didn’t have to die to limp across it in last place. I’m finally going home. I can get my life started again, see my family, finally let my parents and my brother and my nephew know that I’m alive. Maybe I can even see T’Pol again for more than half an hour at a time.

From the beginning of what amounted to his exile on Romulus, he’d tried to tell his superiors in Section 31, mainly Harris and Stillwell, that he was a far better engineer than he was a spy. Now, just maybe, he could afford to relish the prospect of resuming his suspended career in Starfleet, which needed his services in the former capacity much more than the latter, thanks to the current Romulan hostilities.

“Captain T’Vran,” said a voice from the far side