Christopher L. Bennett

"Spock!" McCoy interrupted. "For someone who's supposedly learned to understand emotion, you still seem to have an inordinately hard time telling when you're irritating someone!"

Spock threw him an innocent look. "Since irritation is your normative state, Dr. McCoy, it can be difficult to distinguish the individual causes."

"Well, whenever you're around, Spock, there's no need to look very far." He harrumphed.

("This is the country whose history is basically one foreign army after another marching through and ravaging the place, right?" Hikaru had once asked. "Leading you to live in a constant state of paranoia? This is your idea of paradise?"

"Of course!" Pavel had countered. "Why do you suppose everyone else was so eager to invade us?")