The Operative (A Star Trek novel)

Chapter Six

"You wanted to see me, Bones?" Kirk asks as he and Spock enter sickbay.

"Yeah, I did," McCoy drawls, waving them over to where he stands beside a lab computer's screen. "I just analyzed the data I took from our friend after your 'match.' "

Kirk flushes, but says nothing.

"Jim, the man's not normal."

"Oh?"

"Take a look for yourself," he says, waving a hand at the screen. Spock moves to take a closer look. "Most of his biochemistry is just enough out of whack to give my equipment headaches. There were also traces of very strong neurotransmitters and hormones in his system."

"Drugs?"

"Don't know. At least, not like any I've seen before. They look almost natural, but not quite. But then, most good designer drugs do. You make anything of it, Spock?"

"Interesting," he says, still peering into the screen. He touches the pad briefly and symbols fly over the screen.

He straightens. "But no, Doctor, I cannot, though I concur with your analysis. There may be a pattern to all the variations from normal, but it will require more study to discern; and I doubt Commodore Flynn will be willing to submit to tests. The chemicals could be drugs, or they could simply be an indication of an aberrant biochemistry."

"Bones, Spock," says Kirk, "see if you can dig up any other information about similar abnormalities from the computer's knowledge base. Keep at it; even mouse around over the subspace net if you have to, but quietly, and before we get to close to Athena. I'd like to know what we're dealing with."

He thinks of O'Connor.

"Man or monster."

❖

Flynn walks along deserted corridors toward his rendezvous with Kirk. Mealtime; everything is quiet. He is brooding about the incident in the gym, still pondering what it means and what it portends for the mission. He can't figure out how it got so far out of hand. How he let it get so far out of hand. He was as much to blame as Kirk.

Well, almost.

His face has almost completely healed, though one tooth, while no longer loose, still hurts. Soon, there will be no physical trace of what happened. But the crew all knows by now how the captain decked a man in better shape and apparently half his age.

Maybe it's for the best after all, he thinks.

Now, instead of hatred, perhaps he'll be seen as a buffoon, an ineffectual joke, not some monstrous murderer. He would rather have anonymity, but being a laughingstock is almost as good. For a spy.

It's been many long years he's been with the Federation, many years since he's had to watch his back all the time. He feels safe on the Enterprise, even knowing it could harbor his counterparts from Ocht's apparatus.

It is this feeling of security that betrays him.

He heard them, but paid no attention. Two burly men stepped from a side corridor and now are following him at a little distance. At some level, perhaps, he is aware that they are getting closer, but still... The carefully-modulated environment, the nondescript corridors and compartments, designed to be reassuring, almost friendly. No one would try for him here. There is no real evidence that any of Ocht's spies are aboard. After all, Ocht would have no way of knowing that Enterprise would become involved.

"Hey, spy," the larger of the two calls, his sneer as apparent as if Flynn could see it.

He is jolted from his thoughts, but continues walking, trying to ignore them. They aren't Ocht's spies, he reminds himself. If they were, he would already be dead.