Captain Christopher Pike had recently finished his second five-year mission, handed over the Enterprise to Kirk, and accepted a land-based post. Wandering around San Francisco, he comes across The Captain’s Table and enters it to get out of the rain. There he starts talking with a seaman from the 19th century, who liked to be known as Nowan, and a Klingon lady captain, Hompaq. He tells the story of when the Enterprise had been called to assist the Aronnians. They used a type of creature (titans), somewhat like a space-going whale, for interstellar transport, and their titans had all gone missing. Along with the Aronnian director of spaceflight, Perri, the Enterprise sets off for the titans’ breeding grounds at Devernia, where they find a raging battle going on between the Devernians and the titans. It turns out that the titans lay their eggs on the planet Devernia, and the young titans devour the inhabitants as food. While Pike can sympathize with the Devernians in their wish to exterminate the titans, he also sees that they could never do it. Spock realizes that the titans must not be native to this system, and, along with a Devernian known as Lanned, they set off to try to find the titans’ homeworld, and see what controls their number there. When they find the homeworld, they discover a very simple ecology, and, while avoiding attacks by titans and titan–eating kraken, they manage to collect samples of the creatures that the titans feed on, and some eggs of the kraken. They also discover that all of these creatures were genetically engineered by a long-dead race as a protection against outsiders, and that there may be a way to reprogram the titans. Back at Devernia they start to establish an ecology that will keep the titans under control, and allow them to continue to be used by the Aronnians for interstellar transport. A gecko leaves the Captain’s Table about the same time as Pike does, and ends up snuggled on Sulu’s lap, just before Kirk takes Sulu on his first visit to the Captain’s Table. [Timeline: story told on Stardate 1626.8, October 2266.]