Dr. Kang opened his eyes and was immediately shocked back to consciousness with a start. He was breathing laboriously. He groped around mindlessly in the dark before his hand found the white square adhered to his chest.

"I was shot!" he announced, to nobody.

"Too bad it didn't take," replied nobody.

Nobody's voice happened to be identical to that of Lieutenant-Commander Mitzner.

Dr. Kang looked around, but his eyes weren't adjusted enough to the dark to really see anything. By feeling around blindly with his arms he was able to deduce that he was in a cell of some kind.

"It would appear I have a collapsed lung," said Dr. Kang "McAfree, am I correct in assuming you applied the emergency patch?"

"McAfree isn't here," said Mitzner "Don't worry though, she's fine."

"I hadn't planned on it," said Dr. Kang "Where is she?"

Mitzner took a moment and chose her words very carefully.

"She is seducing the Emperor," said Mitzner "It's part of a larger escape plan?"

"What's the plan?" asked Dr. Kang.

"Well..." said Mitzner "McAfree will seduce the Emperor and then... convince him to let us go."

"I never should have let you get my hopes up," said Dr. Kang "The blame for that rests entirely on my shoulders."

"It sounded a lot better when I was lying delirious on the ground in a pool of my own blood," admitted Mitzner "But it's still thousands of times better than your nonexistent plan. This guy really likes her."

"That could have been leveraged in a number of more effective ways than simply asking him to let us go," said Dr. Kang "In fact doing so would probably pro-actively thwart any other means of achieving the same result!"

"You were the one who mouthed off and got shot," said Mitzner "I saved your life, by the way. I know you can't see but I lost an arm in the process, so you're welcome. Then, with my last ounce of strength, I came up with a serviceable plan of escape. I'm sorry though, you're right, the mess you made was too big for even me to clean up."

"The Armstrong never would have been in a position to have been captured by this fool's tractor beam if you had not insisted we stay behind for this dinner party in the first place," said Dr. Kang.

That one hurt.

"There's no sense in arguing about it now," said Mitzner "What's done is done. The important thing is McAfree is on the outside working on getting us out of here. She's a smart kid, she'll think of something."

"She will certainly think of some way to escape herself," said Dr. Kang "We had just better hope her plan coincidentally necessitates bringing us along."

"She's not like you, Kang," said Mitzner "There's a good person under all her arrogance."

"Lieutenant-Commander, I think you'll find that under her arrogance is a terrified street kid. All of her ethics are purely academic. The only thing she really believes in is her own survival."

"I wouldn't expect a psychopath to be able to see the good in a person," said Mitzner "

"McAfree has many fine qualities," said Dr. Kang "Loyalty and compassion are not among them."

"Have I told you lately that I hate you?" asked Mitzner "Because I do."

"I don't harbor any secret fondness for you either, Lieutenant-Commander."

There was a long silence, broken only by the occasional sound of shuffling about.

"We have no idea how long we're going to be down here in the dark with nothing to do," said Mitzner, finally "I hate to have to say it but I think, to maintain our sanity, we should talk to one another."

"Very well," said Dr. Kang "As the person with the smaller knowledge base why don't you propose a topic of conversation?"

Mitzner made a face, because she knew Dr. Kang couldn't see it.

"Ensign Wagner told me you support the New Era movement," said Mitzner.

"I imagine that's how Wagner would characterize it, yes," said Dr. Kang "It would be more accurate to say that the intellectual architects of the so-called 'New Era' and I share the same enemies. Let me ask you something, Lieutenant-Commander: do you ever get the feeling that there's some shadowy cabal of evil-doers back on Mars constantly holding back every positive change?"

"I do," admitted Mitzner.

"That's because there is," said Dr. Kang "And the endgame is either they kill me and bring the New Era to an end or I kill them and peace rules for a thousand generations."

"Nobody believes any of that," said Miztner.

"How do you explain the military cruiser that came to arrest me?" asked Dr. Kang.

"You're just a regular war criminal who isn't special," said Mitzner "And there's a warrant out for your arrest because you deserve it."

Dr. Kang sniffed in disdain, and Mitzner smiled in the dark.