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and everyone that meant anything to him. Not that he had had many intimate friends, but at least he had known people, hundreds of them. They had been familiar, often friendly faces, not like these four hundred hostile strangers.
    More importantly, he had had a career that was, finally, getting back on track. He had been in charge of Technipower Labs for over a year, and don't think he hadn't had to scramble and bluff and grovel to get that post. After the Tajarhi fiasco, even though it had been entirely the fault of those grasping, never-give-an-inch negotiators on both sides, he had begun to fear he would never get another responsible post anywhere in the Federation. But finally, with a slight assist from a skeleton-filled closet or two, he had gotten a halfway decent post. He would have been on his way back up the ladder if it had paid off the way it should have.
    If it had paid off…
    Crandall pulled in a deep breath and shook his head. If he hadn't been so worried that this might be his last chance, if he hadn't been so greedy for one more boost up the ladder, he would still be back on earth, only now beginning to wonder what might have happened to the ship that had been fitted with Technipower's new gravity turbulence sensors. The loss, which his enemies would doubtless blame on the inadequacy of those sensors, would have been bad, but at least he would have had a chance to recover. More work on the sensors, possibly another mission with another ship—a ship with a more capable, more cautious crew—and he might have been on his way up again. Maybe not all the way to the Council, not at sixty-plus, but on his way up nonetheless.
    But he had insisted on going along, accompanying the sensors. "Observing." He had called in a few favors, rattled a couple more skeletons, and he had gotten on board the Enterprise , knowing that if the mission were a success the publicity would open new doors to him, perhaps even boost him over the heads of those same functionaries he had had to beg favors of in order to get on the Enterprise in the first place.
    He had insisted on going along, and now it was all over. His whole life was over, to all intents and purposes.
    And to make matters worse, these people—this Kirk and the rest—they enjoyed what was happening! He had seen it in their faces, heard it in their voices as the orders and responses darted around the bridge. There had been no fear there, only eagerness and anticipation. To them it was nothing more than a game! Another "adventure!" What did they care if they never got back to the Federation? Their lives were here, wherever this blasted ship took them, and the farther it took them, the better they liked it! It had been plain from the moment he had stepped on board that they had little liking or sympathy for Jason Crandall or anyone else outside their own insular ranks. Their looks and their tones, alternately hostile and condescending, had demonstrated that beyond any doubt.
    And that obvious dislike had fed upon itself. Crandall's own impatience and anger had grown ever stronger as it became ever more clear that the mission itself was a failure. From the very start, the data had obviously been worthless, but when he had finally pointed it out and tried to get them to cut the mission short, he had been ignored. The military mind was simply not flexible enough to appreciate the situation. They had been ordered to investigate fifteen anomalies, and they would by God investigate fifteen anomalies even though it was obvious after only a few days that it was pointless to continue.
    But even that blind obedience was preferable to what was happening now, now that they had their freedom from those orders, freedom from Starfleet Command and the Council. They were like children being let out of school. They were ready to play their dangerous games, heedless of the consequences. The fact that they were playing, in effect, on a totally unknown playing field, where no one