"Spock. This is no time for logic."

"Doctor. There is always time for logic."

"Are you saying, Mr. Spock, that Jim is lost out there somewhere and we are powerless to do anything about it?"

"It is a big galaxy, doctor."

Vinnie Angus quickly finished up. The recording thanked him, there were another series of clicks and the extension was broken.

"Viki?" he exploded. "Is that you?"

Far in the distance, he heard Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise answer: "Warp Factor Eight. Now!"

"Viki? Are you there?"

His oldest daughter answered over the extension from upstairs. "Yes, Daddy. Who you talking to?"

"That's really none of your business, young lady," Vinnie said.

"Really, Daddy. I should think you would be much more respectful to this quadrant's representative from the United Federation of Planets. You're not doing much for intergalactic cooperation."

Vinnie Angus shook his head, despite the fact that he could almost see the smile on his daughter's face over the telephone. She was obsessed. Her room was filled with posters of the Star Trek crew, models of the Starship Enterprise, the Star Trek technical manual at $6.95, the Star Trek Concordance at $6.95, the Star Trek Reader, $10 in hardcover, six dolls of the Star Trek crew and one Klingon and cheap plastic replicas of the phaser, tricorder, and communicator.

"Try cooperating with this, Viki," Angus said, "I pay five thousand a semester to Yale so you can become a Trekkie?"

Victoria's voice lowered, conspiratorially. "You a spy, Daddy?"

"No. I've been doing this for years. For… for the Bureau of Agriculture."

"I never knew they had spies."

"Forget spies, will you. Here you are, 19 years old…"

"Almost 20."