'Not really.'

I took another go at the tea. It tasted like sewage but it was hot and there was enough caffeine in it to keep sleep away for a bit and give me the edge I'd need for my meeting with Shatner.

'But in the final analysis,' Holmes said, and I began listening carefully because his voice had gone very quiet, 'what really worries me is that if they decide to put a mission on the board to deal with the McCane incident, and if they give it to you -since you're obviously going to ask for it – you might easily, somewhere along the line, blow everything up.' His eyes watched mine. 'Blow everything up,' he said, 'just because you're a man of too much overweening pride and you can't stand the idea that you've failed someone. Tell me,' he said gently, 'if I'm talking absolute rubbish.'

In a moment I said, 'No. You're not.' Because there was a risk, yes, if I let personal considerations get in the way of the mission. It's one of the really critical dangers we face when we're out there in the field, because it doesn't come from the opposition: it comes from inside ourselves. Pull up the drawbridge and drop the portcullis, but the enemy within the citadel will undo you.

Holmes lowered his head an inch, his eyes watching me from the deepened shadow of his brows. 'I know, of course, that there's nothing I can do to stop you. All I ask is that before you take a risk as big as that, you'll give it some thought before you see Mr Shatner. And if you still decide to see him, be very, very careful.'

Chapter 2: SHATNER

I was on the third floor when they paged me and I saw Shatner coming out of Clearance and waited for him while he ducked his head back through the doorway for a moment.