Lieutenant Uhura knew where Captain James T. Kirk was.

He was elsewhere.

She sat and looked at a dinner that had been very carefully programmed, since no replicator could produce an exact taste without tons of input. You could ask for tea--if you wanted chamomile, you had to tell it : more of this, and less of that. Otherwise, you got a very generic amalgam--passable, but not chamomile or Earl Grey.

The dinner in question was going to waste. She stared, and tapped her fingers.

"Brilliant Captain. A great lover from the first time, on the fields of Tarsus. A father who loves his sons so much, he chooses not to disrupt their lives with that piece of knowledge. Attentive, sweet. Drop-dead handsome. A learned man. An action man. A mature man, willing to let our relationship grow at a pace--sometimes a bit cowardly on our part—that we both agree on."

She stared at the empty chair, across from her.

"A Typical Man."

That she would have revenge was beyond question. Only the manner was yet to be determined.

"Ahh, Jim. Do I bite down when I ought not? Do I fail to send your weekly reports, getting you in Dutch? Do I melt all your medals with a hand phaser---several hand phasers? Do I tell Mister Spock that you want a long dissertation on Kinulitian Canines? What DO I do?"

Since she was in the man's own quarters, she looked for a treasured article to destroy. Being who she was, in the mood she was--she found it. About to begin, she merely stared at it.

"Now, I've always liked you. Is complete destruction called for?"

She smiled, and laughed as she did her work.

The next morning, as a multi-chromatic cube held The Enterprise in place, Kirk's mind was on many things. The large Cube-Buoy, and how it turned radioactive and dangerous. Mister Bailey, and his eagerness to fire upon it.

He also pondered the fact that he had forgotten to have dinner with Uhura. This struck at him doubly, as he stared at her odd golden uniform.

The uniform, he had no doubt, that had once been his first Captain's tunic aboard The Enterprise.

"Damned Chess game."

From then on, you could call The Captain many things--but you could never call him late for dinner. He just didn't have that many material possessions.