Sarek discovers that leaders of the Federation and its enemies have been subjected to outside mental influence. He suspects that the interference is linked to the Freelans, a race which has been part of the Federation for decades, but which no offworlder has ever seen due to a cultural taboo. Sarek once inadvertently discovered that the Freelans look like Vulcans, but later dismissed the incident as a hallucination induced by the Pon farr. After secretly accessing the Freelan computer system, Sarek discovers that the Freelans are in fact Romulans, and that their Vulcan aides are the children of Vulcan spacefarers kidnapped by the Romulans and forced to reproduce. The Freelan ambassador Taryn is actually the Romulan wing commander in charge of the plot to spy on the Federation from within. The mental influencing of various leaders is carried out by the Vulcan aides, who were raised as Romulans without the telepathic ethics taught on Vulcan.