How Much for Just the Planet?
John M. Ford
 In the novel, large deposits of dilithium are detected on a colony planet, and delegations are sent by the United Federation of Planets and the Klingon Empire to negotiate for mining rights (neither able to openly fight against the other because of the "Organian Lightbulbs", a reference to the Organians from the original series). They find the planet Direidi and its inhabitants to be very strange indeed. Planet inhabitants occasionally break into song to explain their narratives, and both crews (as well as the three person crew of the Federation prospector that found the planet in the first place) get into various adventures with the planet's inhabitants. In the end, it turns out that the inhabitants have set everything up according to "Plan C" - Comedy. All of the adventures the two crews encountered were designed to soften them up so that they wouldn't mine the whole planet, but would be willing to work with the inhabitants and each other.