thinkers I’ve ever encountered. I can’t be telling you anything that you haven’t already considered. Am I right?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
“So I’m saying things you already know.”
“More or less.”
“So you’ve been… what? Fencing with me? Just automatically being defensive of someone you consider one of your crew?”
“More like letting you play devil’s advocate in order to solidify things that are already in my mind.”
She carefully projected an air of frustrated helplessness. “Then tell me how this ends, Captain. If you’re as concerned about Morgan as I am—and I believe you are, if indeed not more so—tell me that you’ve got something up your sleeve. That you’ve analyzed the situation and are already making plans to address it.”
“I have, and I am.”
Nechayev immediately perked up. “Really.”
“Really,” and he nodded. “The truth is that I’ve studied the situation, and I’ve been giving it a good deal of thought, and I’ve come to conclusions as to what can and should be done about it. I believe that Morgan poses a threat both to my ship and to the Federation. I can tolerate one, but not both.”
She looked at him in confusion. “Do I even want to know which would be the sticking point for you?”
“Probably not.”
“All right,” she said agreeably. “I won’t ask. What I do want to know is: What do you have planned to deal with it? I assume that you’re going to try and find a way to disengage her or purge her from the Excalibur’s computer core. What methods do you plan to employ?”
His answer surprised her, although in retrospect she imagined that it really should not have: “I would rather not say at this time, Admiral.”
She tried not to look taken aback. She couldn’t recall a time when Calhoun had been less than fully forthcoming with her. “You’d rather not.”
“No.”
“Well then,” and she folded her arms across her breast, “I am now ordering you to tell me.”
“Then I’m afraid we’re at an impasse, Admiral.” Calhoun didn’t seem particularly upset about it. No surprise there. Calhoun had faced any number of threats in his lifetime, many of them involving weapons aimed directly at assorted vital parts of his anatomy. So squaring off against a Starfleet officer, even a superior one, was hardly going to faze him.
Nevertheless, for form’s sake if nothing else, she couldn’t let it pass unchallenged. “You’re disobeying a direct order?”
“I am taking an action that I feel is in the best interests of Starfleet.”
“You’re not the one who gets to make that decision, Captain.”
“In this instance, Admiral, I believe I am.”
She made an annoyed growl in her throat. “Why do you do things like this, huh? I’m going to say it again, Mac. Why do you put me in these sorts of positions?”
“I’m not trying to do anything to you, Admiral. I’m trying to do something for you. Whatever plans I have for Morgan, it is in the best interests of all concerned to have as few people as possible know about it.”
“Are you saying you don’t trust me, after everything you said before?”
“I’m saying I don’t trust the world we’re living in at the moment. Unless you can assure me, with absolutely one hundred percent certainty, that Morgan is completely unaware of the discussion we’re having right now. Can you tell me, with complete conviction, that she wouldn’t have found a way, via whatever monitors you have in here, to be spying on every single word that’s passing between us?”
Nechayev was about to answer readily and quickly in the affirmative. But then she thought better of it, looking around herself in concern and realizing that Calhoun’s point was well taken. Obviously she thought her office was secure, but wasn’t the entire point of her worries about Morgan steeped in the possibility that nothing was safe from Morgan’s prying “eyes”?
“No, I can’t,” which was an annoying thing for her to have to admit. “But if that’s the case, and she is watching us even as we speak, then she just learned that you have something planned.”
“She would already deduce that,” said Calhoun. “She’s a living computer. She knows the threat she represents, and she has to know that I know it. And knowing that, she would safely assume that I’m preparing for a time when her presence can no longer be tolerated. But…”
“But she doesn’t know what you have in mind.”
“No,” and then he added ruefully, “at least I hope not. Let’s be optimistic and say she doesn’t. If that’s the case, then it would