At the captain's table, Emery talks about the possibility of transporting people from Earth directly to Vulcan. Quantum makes the same dumb joke about being put out of a job that he made in the opening. Nobody cares about this. Emery waxes on about the transpossibilites, and I start to clean the mildew that's building up around the bathtub. "I remember you and my father having similar discussions," Quantum brags. Yeah, well, Quantum, your father's wife committed suicide, he locked his kid in a Wee One's Asylum, and he murdered one neighbor only to frame another neighbor for the crime, so maybe you shouldn't bring him up in polite conversation. I'm just saying. They drink a toast to the murdering psychopath anyway. More boring transporter discussion about everything Emery went through to get the transporter accepted. Protests, brain cancer, psychosis, sleep disorder -- all things that this episode did to me. Emery grims about his tough fight but says the result makes everything he fought for worthwhile. And he just happens to be a black man. And this just happens to be MLK weekend. This anvil was brought you by UPN: The Sensitive Network.

They enter an area called "The Barrens" which is so, you know, barren that it's the ideal place for Emery's test. Trip and Emery talk shop. I'd rather take shop. At least I'd be doing something productive -- you can never have too many birdhouses or pipe racks. Emery acts cagey about his plans and won't reveal them to Trip. Trip gets shirty about it being his ship and his responsibility to have control issues. Emery cites small print on his Starfleet orders that gives him complete autonomy to kill everyone on the ship if he wants to. Trip's irritated.

Quantum and Dani walk around the ship to give Dani the opportunity to show off how much she knows about the ship. And why hasn't she signed on? I'm glad you asked -- the reason is so very interesting! No, no it's not. She thinks her father needs her because fifteen years later, he's still not over his son Quinn's death. If the transporter tests go well, Emery might get over himself. If not, she doesn't know and I don't care. Quantum thinks Dani needs to take care of her own needs. He adds, "I know it's difficult taking advice from someone who used to chase you around the backyard with a plastic laser pistol." Wait, what are they trying to put over on us now? She's like my age and he's like fifty, so how exactly does that work? Assuming that she had to be old enough to walk when this was going on, doesn't that make him really screwed up to be running around with a plastic water laser at eighteen? Then again, it might prove something I've long suspected, namely that Quantum is the village idiot.