What the hell does the space-time continuum have to do with your hat size?

Captain's Log:  Stardate Bacchanal 411 Supplemental:

We have crossed into the Varnishkes Asteroid Belt, which has come back into fashion of late. It looks well for its age, normal wear and tear excepted. We had no sooner entered this airspace when the ship was boarded by a party of Klingon auditors hell- bent on sniffing out irregularities in our financial records. The Klingons have been shadowing the ship’s bookkeepers ever since the Intergalactic Commerce Commission put the kibosh on Star Fleet's hostile takeover attempt of the Zeon Group.

  While the IC-gC cleared SF of any improprieties, suspicions have been running high because of the Commissioner’s conclusion that the proposed merger "had all the earmarks of a monopoly in the offing."  As a result of the unauthorized leak of that little bit of easily misinterpreted dicta, the Klingons have been on a hair trigger.  Even they don't know what they're looking for, but this just makes them all the more determined to uncover something -- anything.

  Naturally, the crew is on edge, and the inevitable whisper campaign has begun.  Everyone is in the dark, and is worried that his, her, or its (as the case may be) job could be on the chopping block.  I'm chomping at the bit to convene a simulcast to set the record straight, but am under strict orders from HQ to keep mum until the audit is complete.

Meanwhile, Spock has assured me that everything is shipshape in re affaires des argent, and that we have nothing to worry about inasmuch as we have adhered faithfully to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. I am strangely discomfited by Spock's nonchalance in this regard, not because I have anything against GAAP -- au contraire! No, more likely, it's that offhanded remark Spock made in the commissary the other day about "cloaking" a second set of books.  I didn't pay it no never mind at the time, but in light of recent events, I have nagging questions.

Truth be told, it wasn't even really Spock's sotto voce delivery that raised the red flag, it was more that annoying hyper-attenuated wink of his. (I swear, that eyebrow could cut through an entire roast flanken). It's maddening, because Spock has such a knack for making it seem as though his tounge is planted firmly in his cheek when he talks despite his suposedly being emotionless.

Everybody claims that Spock doesn't joke, but lately, I've had my doubts. I tried telling him a joke once, and he claimed not to “get it.” But I’d bet real money that I heard giggling coming from his quarters a few hours later, as though the punch line suddenly came to him. Crafty Vulcan!

It's well known that Vulcans are good with money, which is why they are generally tolerated on SF ships (even though some people think they have too much power). Still, whatever shenanigans Spock may be involved in as it pertains to the accounting, I don't want to know about it. This is his bailiwick, and as long as we maintain a Valtese Wall between us, I can’t be prosecuted.  This comes straight from Legal!!!

     Mr. Sulu says I see a conspiracy under every extra-terrestrial, but I don't think so. Has he forgotten the time that Scotty's computer told that cockamamie story about a worm hole sucking up a third of our recreation budget a few years ago when we had to cancel a weekend retreat in the Archanis Sector? The machine really had us all going for a while, until we discovered that it had been making some unscrupulous trades in  time travel futures and then tried to cover them up. It took months to scrub that software virus, and ads for penis enlargement were popping up all over the ship’s communications apparatus. (“Schlong-o-Fyer?”  Who comes up with this stuff?).

As Einstein said, "eternal vigilance is the price of relative fiscal security."  Einstein correctly predicted worm holes, of course, but even he couldn't possibly have foreseen that Klingons and those folks who are painted half white and half black would be holding most of our paper today. How the worm has turned!

       Speaking of Einstein, just saw a little 3-D musical about the Uncertainty Principle. It was pretty good, but the bicycle chase scene around the Princeton Campus was so gratuitous – all Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Just out of place. Einstein trying to explain the Uncertainty Principle to the village haberdasher was priceless, though.

     As I write this, I am reminded that we have seen many strange things on our 5- year mission (which, oddly, is still going on 45 years later), but nothing stranger than derivatives.  In deep space, we have discovered a whole new slew of dimensions where everything is unpredictable and  nothing follows the laws of physics as we understood them at the Academy -- except for derivatives, which are as unpredictable and lawless as Niels Bohr said they would be, especially at the subatomic level.

A lot of Romulans on the Planet Farbissen (the ladies there were stridently cool to my charms) where we sojourned a while back are sure eating a lot of derivative crow right about now for failing to cleave to Bohr, even though they were armed for bear.  They all laughed at our landing party when we advised them to “Sell! Sell! Sell!” Well, well, well, they all laughed at Christopher Columbus when he said the world was round.  But Ho! Ho! Ho! Who's got the last laugh now? Hmmmmn? That's what I say.

     Anyhoo, I'm due in sick bay for my monthly physical. How Dr. Bones runs an entire hospital serving the medical needs of 33,000 creatures all by himself with a single gadget that looks like one of those wands they wave over you at airport security checkpoints, I'll never know. But he's the medicine man in these stomping grounds, and the IRR of his diversified portfolio consistently outperforms everybody else's on board. It’s uncanny. (Could he be part Vulcan?).

Cantankerous and kvetchadic he may be, but I don’t question his investment acumen. As it is written, nothing succeeds like success. The next time he gives me a hint on a tech start-up, I think I'll throw caution to the solar wind and see where it leads. 

When I’m finished with Bones,  I’d better check in on the doings at Final Frontier, LLC.  I’m re-thinking my initial decision to make Spock a 50% member.  Lately it’s been keeping me up nights. Especially after he beamed aboard last week from the Planet Cardassian with some voluptuous hussy he tried to palm off as an experienced manager. Some manager! She tried to con me into amending the operating agreement to give her a right of first refusal. I don’t care how beautiful she is, I’m the only manager on this ponderosa.

 Sulu’s right.  I am a little conspiratorial.  But with good reason. As soon as the Klingons are done with their due diligence, I’m going to order Chekhov to steer a course for some place safe,  like the Goldene Medina System. Shields up. Warp speed.  

Kirk out.