The corridors of the Sternbach were still rather empty. Dhae imagined that most crew was wallowing in their quarters, shivering at every shadow, desperate in their paranoia. Counselor Sakar’s estimate of about one hour of paralysis seemed to hold for now, and was definitely useful for their activities.

“That way” said the Vulcan, pointing at one end of the corridor. They’d have to climb through the maintenance tubes instead of taking the turbolift, due to these being inactive. While the replication of the drug was possible in the sickbay, they had decided to avoid it, reasoning that the situation there would have been quite tense: they could use the wetlabs, which were usually used by the science personnel and would be rather empty right now.

With a bit of worry, Dhae thought about Iskander. He hoped that he was doing well. They had parted in the bar, leaving him in the company of Tinnis Frobenius, Reema Gwa and Peeris Nolen. The Romulan expected that Iskander, just as he had announced, would have retired to his quarters: his beloved was very courageous in his own ways — usually when the idea of self-sacrifice loomed like Damocles’ sword upon his head — but this sort of social paranoia would do him absolutely dead. He’d probably be in their shared quarters, and possibly would be booby-trapping the door or something silly like that. He was a skilled engineer: he for sure had the skill necessary to explode the door.

The Romulan and the Vulcan had debated on whether to arm themselves. Phasers could be found in abundance on a Starfleet vessel — the thought still boggled Dhae’s mind — and they might come to be in danger; however they had reasoned that, in these times of paranoia, the two of them being unarmed could avoid dicey situations. Sakar seemed unbothered by this decision, but Dhae felt uneasy. That was healthy paranoia, though.

“You seem to be unbothered by the spores” remarked Sakar as they started walking, side by side, watchful.

“Not unlike you.”

“Vulcan emotional control is effective at suppressing external influences” said Sakar.

Dhae smiled. “Well, not all emotions, but paranoia is one of our specialties. I had [REDACTED] at [REDACTED].”

Sakar arched not one, but both his eyebrows. “You had a paranoia class at the Romulan Navy Academy?” he repeated, almost incredulous.

“[REDACTED]” confirmed Dhae. “Although it was more of a prolonged-seminar-boot-camp sort of situation, more than a class.”

“A paranoia class” said Sakar a second time.

“Well, it was a seminary was called [REDACTED].”

“Mastering the psychosocial challenges of life in military service of the invisible Romulan State” repeated Sakar. “That sounds quite generic as a topic.”

Dhae thought about that. Did it sound generic? What other psychosocial challenges were worth discussing? “Oh, no, it was almost exclusively about paranoia: how to cultivate it, how to induce it, how much is too much, and how much is too little.”

Sakar seemed for a moment to contemplate the notion. “How much is the right amount?”

“That depends on your talent and training” replied Dhae. This was obvious to him.

They walked silently for a bit. The Sternbach was surprisingly large, but still pleasantly empty for now.

“So” the Romulan said to the Vulcan, trying to ease his mind, “what can you tell me about Iskander?”

The Vulcan didn’t slow his pace in any way. “Noting, logically.”

“But you’re his psychologist. Surely you know a lot against– a lot about him!”

“I’m not going to confirm that I am Mr al-Kwaritzmi’s therapist.”

Dhae raised his finger. “You betray yourself, Vulcan! How did you know that Mr al-Kwaritzmi’s name is Iskander, if he isn’t your patient? You have confirmed that you are his therapist!”

The Vulcan showed no emotional response. They had arrived at a corridor junction, they looked to the right and to the left, and proceeded straight ahead. “I am Vulcan. It took me three minutes and forty seconds to commit to memory the entire crew complement of the ship.”

“Do we have a Tinnis on board?”

“Tinnis Frobenius, born in 2371 in Tallin, Earth.”

Damn, thought Dhae, the Vulcan was good. Tinnis Frobenius had been already on board the Sternbach, so Sakar couldn’t have known him from the Redding.

“Anyway I know that you are Iskander’s therapist because he told me” said Dhae. “I don’t see why you’d deny it.”

Sakar didn’t look at him, nor did he seem bothered. “If you already are sure, I don’t see why you want me to confirm.”

“Because it would be the first step in you telling me all sorts of secrets ag–about him, logically!” exclaimed Dhae.

“It is a first step I’m not going to take” said Sakar carefully.

They arrived at junction J31-0R. Sakar pointed at the maintenance access port. “There, and then two decks down.”

Dhae opened the access port and peered inside. He had wondered whether they’d find someone hiding in there, but it was empty. For a moment he entertained the thought of Iskander finding refuge in such an engineer’s sort of place, but he discarded the idea: his beloved was a transporter expert, not a Jefferies tube guy.

“Do we have to deactivate the security systems?” he asked. Jefferies tubes had not been covered yet in his Starfleet acclimation course.

“Security systems? Do I have to understand that you Romulans place make your maintenance corridors lethal?”

“Forget I said anything” said Dhae.

He climbed into the shaft and started descending.

Soon they were standing outside of the biolab of the Sternbach. Dhae had already been there a couple of times, although he didn’t expect to have to serve there so often: he was an astrophysicist, and his possible contributions to biology were limited in scope, depth, or accuracy.

He picked up his tricorder and ran a scan for lifesigns. “I’m reading two lifesigns in there” he said. “A Denobulan and a Xirrimite.”

“Lieutenant Feezal Rhonnox is the Chief of Biology and, of the three Denobulans on board, the logical candidate to be found here” said Sakar. “The Xirrimite must be Chief Xintirenki Jibolranki, security section.”

Dhae nodded, secretly appreciative that the Vulcan had memorized the crew manifest. He had already met Lieutenant Rhonnox several times. She was a genuinely nice woman, which Dhae found suspicious.

They opened the door and entered.

The biolabs were, of course, actually a set of a dozen rooms, all coordinated by a central one — in which Dhae and Sakar had just entered. The first room was very much a meeting and planning room, with scores of monitors and displays and lounging space, and almost no scientific material.

Lieutenant Rhonnox was standing in the middle of this room, a PADD in her hand, and looked startled when they came in. She looked dishevelled. If someone had claimed that a Protovillian racoon had just played with her hair, Dhae wouldn’t have believed it, but just out of the absence of raccoons: the hair was terrible.

“Lieutenant Dhae? Counselor?” she said when the two came in. “You shouldn’t be here.”

A voice came from a door, from one of the labs, unseen, screaming. “Is anyone there?”

“Silence” screamed Rhonnox, and then looked at the newcomers. “Speak quietly. Chief Jibolranki is extremely touchy.”

“No I’m fekking not, I’m mightily annoyed!” screamed the Xirrimite from wherever he was.

“Silence!” said Rhonnox again. “Please leave before he gets nervous.”

To Dhae’s eyes, she did look nervous: slightly twitchy hands, tense mouth, unquiet eyes. However, she was standing in front of them, rather in control.

“We’ll be gone soon” said Dhae, trying to produce a reassuring smile. “We just have to replicate something and we’ll be on our way.”

“That’s not going to happen” she said. “You can use another replicator.”

“We need to use a high bio-fidelity industrial replicator” insisted Dhae. “We won’t bother you.”

“You can’t get to it. You should leave” said she, again. Her hand was nervously clutching her chin.

“Heeeelp!” screamed Jibolranki.

“Silence!” said Rhonnox.

Sakar intervened, calmly. “You erected a force field, isn’t it?” he said.

Dhae looked carefully and also saw it: a very slight glimmer, cutting the entrance of the biolabs from the rest of it. That explained why Lieutenant Rhonnox was so calm: she felt protected by the force field.

“It is merely for my protection” said Rhonnox. “Please leave now. I’m not going to lower it.”

“You can replicate the material for us and bring it here, if it is more comforting to you” suggested Sakar. “We need roughly two point three seven kilograms of acetodestroteraphtalbenzoic acid.”

“Acetodestroteraphtalbenzoic acid” she repeated. “You know it is Astrolisomyces paranoosferos.”

“We are sure of it” nodded Sakar. “You can easily confirm our analysis.”

“I already have, almost a quarter of an hour ago” she said.

Dhae studied a bit the room, trying to see the emitters of the force field. He had already studied in depth the layout of the astrometrics laboratories, but hadn’t yet extended the same courtesy to the biolabs — in which he was projected to work very little. He didn’t know where the security weaknesses were, or how to attack them.

He wished this had happened on the Koruba, which he knew perfectly well. But then again, the Koruba wouldn’t have been susceptible to mass paranoia.

The Denobulan was scrutinizing them. “And you wouldn’t have anything to do with that fungus, Lieutenant? Odd that it appears on the ship just after we accept a Romulan on board.”

“It is a spaceborne fungus” said Dhae. Her suspicion wasn’t entirely unwelcome on a personal gratification level, but was definitely a hinderance. “A spore probably just stuck to the hull.”

“Conveniently untraceable to you, right?”

Dhae could feel his paranoia rising. He should have done breathing exercises, but this wasn’t the place. “Fine. How about first we give the cure to everyone, and then we can discuss this? Certainly the cure should take precedence.”

Rhonnox made a grimace.

“Lieutenant Dhae is correct on this” intervened Sakar. “You know what Astrolisomyces paranoosferos can do. It is imperative that we administer a cure. If we can’t be allowed in here, please replicate the amount and bring it to us.”

“I can’t” said the Denobulan.

For a moment the three people stared at each other.

“You can” affirmed Sakar, in a perfectly logical tone.

Rhonnox turned, shaking her head. She was clearly losing her temper.

“No, you don’t understand, Counselor. I can’t be sure that the formula in the replicator hasn’t been tampered with. If this is someone’s plan, then that someone would know that we’d replicate acetodestroteraphtalbenzoic acid. So an attacker would corrupt the database and make sure that the substance that gets replicated isn’t the cure, but… a POISON!”

Dhae tried very hard not to sigh. Like most paranoid thoughts, it didn’t lack internal logics or purpose — it lacked connection with reality. This was unrestrained paranoia. Romulans, in their wisdom, knew how to distinguish them.

“Did you think you were giving me poison?” screamed, unseen, from another room, Chief Jibolranki.

“Silence!” screamed Rhonnox.

“Wait — you are using the Chief as a guinea pig?” asked Dhae. He had just skimmed them, but this broke an enormity of Starfleet rules and regulations.

“I have to be sure that the output of the replicator is what it should be” said Rhonnox. “I have to be sure. It was the only way to be sure.”

“Yes and it worked like a charm” screamed Jibolranki. “I’m not feeling paranoid at all!”

“You’re screaming!” screamed Rhonnox.

“You bloody tied me to the medbed!” screamed the Chied. “I’m bloody mad! You’re not even finishing yer experiment! Fekkin’ come here and scan me and see if the darned mushroom has disappeared from me brain or if I’m actually fekkin’ dead of poison!”

“He’s being extremely paranoid” whispered Rhonnox to Dhae and Sakar. “Don’t pay attention to what he’s saying. He could want to deceive you.”

“Lieutenant, I need to believe me. There is no attacker” said Sakar. “The database hasn’t been corrupted.”

Rhonnox looked at him with unease. “That’s exactly the sort of thing that a saboteur would try to convince me of. Now that I think of it, is it a coincidence that you’re working together with the Romulan?”

Dhae looked at the Denobulan and noticed that not only had she closed her hands into fists, but the knuckles were bone-white: she was clearly in much more distress than she managed to appear.

“We are losing time we don’t have” whispered Dhae to Sakar. “Can you… shock-therapy her or something? Something about… mothers? Or cigars?”

“Cigars?” repeated Sakar.

“I don’t know how Denobulan psychology works!”

And, right at that point, the Jefferies tube at the other end of the room opened. From it emerged slender legs, followed by the rest of a diminutive Vulcan female.

“What!” screamed Rhonnox. Now she was definitely terrorized, suddenly realizing that her force field was also a cage that impeded her escape.

“Good evening” said the Vulcan woman. “Can Lieutenant Rhonnox be reasoned with, Counselor Sakar?”

“Not in useful times, Ensign T’Vylin” answered the psychologist.

“Stay away!” screamed Rhonnox.

T’Vylin, efficiently, Vulcan-pinched the Denobulan to the floor.