INSURRECTION [065-dcomi]
  BY: J. M. DILLARD
  Synopsis:
  Novelization of the 1998 hit Star Trek the
Next Generation movie.
  Captain Picard and the Enterprise crew must
rescue Commander Data who has suddenly gone
insane--and when an android goes insane it could
result in the briar patch's demise. Excellent
novellization.
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are products of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. Any
resemblance to actual events or locales
or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.
  To Jack Benny, wherever you are POCKET
BOOKS, a division of Simon and Schuster Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York,
NY 10020
  Copyright 1998 by Paramount Pictures. All
Rights Reserved.
  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of
Paramount Pictures.
  This book is published by Pocket Books, a
division of Simon and Schuster Inc., under
exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.
  All rights reserved, including the right
to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form
whatsoever.
  For information address Pocket Books, 1230
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY

  ISBN: 0-671-02447-7
  First Pocket Books hardcover printing
December 1998
  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 I
  POCKET and colophon are registered
trademarks of Simon and Schuster Inc.
Printed in the U.s.a.
  ONE
  The morning of what would become the Day of
Lightning began like all other spring days: cool
first, then warmed by the rising sun. Anij paused in
her walking to gaze up at the mountains, stark and
serene against a cloudless sky. Timeless they were, as
timeless as the sunlight, warm upon her
homespun-clad shoulders; as timeless as the morning,
or the cool air moving through her lungs, or her
consciousness itself.
  She had walked this particular path into town every day
for the past-how many mornings? Always, she told herself,
forever,- for she did not care to remember the Time before this
one. Forever the Baku had lived here, or so it
seemed; forever they had enjoyed the wealth of the fertile
valley. And every day, regardless of season, it was the
same: she set upon her way and saw the same
sights-the valley lush and verdant, fragrant with
wildflowers and herbs, the tilled crops healthy in
the dark, eternally fruitful soil; the imposing
backdrop of mountains sometimes taupe, sometimes
rose, sometimes blue or mauve, everchanging with the
Play of the light. Even when the rains came, they were
gentle: perfect, simply perfect, time enough
to keep her inside.
  And every morning, the intense beauty of her world
startled her afresh and filled her with joy.
  Anij glanced up at the sound of a bleat: upon the
lower, greener hillsides, shaggy pack animals
grazed, a few of them glancing up at the shouts of
childr en playing on a nearby farm. She
followed the animals" curious gazes to a group
of children clearly on the prowl for something hidden. Two
of the boys were scanning the hav-strewn troughs between
mounds of tender young plants comcareful, of course, not
to tram ple the all-important Crops.
Meantime, a mixed trio ran giggling through the nearby
orchard.
  Anij smiled absently at them-she knew them
by name, of course, and their parents-and resumed her
customary stroll as she watched them.
  Suddenly, a golden head popped Out from a
haystack, and glanced about, searching for pursuers.
  "There he is!" one of the girls bellowed, and
Anij's faint smile turned to a wide grin as
small shoulders, elbows, knees, and finally, an
entire body, erupted from the haystack in a
flurry of airborne straw. This was her youngest friend,
the twelve-year-old Artim.
  His mother Barel had been a dear friend, too, and upon
her tragic early passing immediately after the boy's
birth, Anij came to serve as a foster aunt.
Artim had proven such a delight-wise beyond his
years, with his mother's sweet disposition-that Ani
judged the child to be the true benefactor in the
relationship.
  Laughing to the point of breathlessness, Artim
scrambled past the reach of his pursuers and up the
trail that led into the rocky foothills, leaving a
shower of pebbles in his wake. Anij watched as the
others followed him, crying out in happy indignation
at his escape, while she continued her journey. It
would lead her on a slowly upward-winding trail
into the village, where her path would intersect that of the
children as they emerged from their steeper, more challenging
route.
  Sojef, Artim's father, would be waiting there;
Sojef, straight and solemn, always and forever with a question
in his eyes.
  And Anij, with the same answer in hers: Not yet,
not yet ...
  She had always thought her answer was based on
purely solid reasoning: that she was still young, and
  Sojef, too; that there was still time for such
commitments, for children. True, he was a good man-leader
of the entire Baku community, six hundred now, and
growing slowly again after so many were lost during the Time of
Sorrows. She knew, also, from the nowdeparted
Barel, that Sojef had been the most devoted of
husbands, the gentlest of lovers.
  A year after Barel's death, on his son's first
birthday, SOJEF had professed his love
to Anij. Had asked her to commit to a permanent
partnership. Forever, he had said.
  Forever, Anij knew, was a very, very long time.
  Even so, she did not say no; at the same time,
she did not say yes. I don't know. Give me
time, Sojef Give me time ...
  Time to accept that she would wed not out of passion, but
friendship.
  Sojef had given her time, of course; he was
Baku, too mature and intelligent to let something
as foolish as his emotions cloud his judgment. And so,
he and Artim remained her friends, visiting daily;
it was understood in the village that perhaps someday, they would
announce a formal commitment.
  Anij drank in a long breath of cool morning
air as she rounded a sharp curve in the path; the
mountain that had blocked her view gave way
suddenly to reveal the village square, encircled
by the blooms of spring
  in dazzling shades of yellow, fuchsia,
blue-violet. No matter how many times she saw
that particular view, she always experienced pleasure.
  How many springs had she experienced? Many, so
many, and while she had always been aesthetically moved
by the season's heady beauty, she had always reacted
with wisdom and restraint. Only the youngest, most
spoiled children indulged their emotions freely.
  This spring was different; or perhaps it was she,
Anij, who had somehow changed, grown tired of
denying her feelings in favor of responsibility.
The night before, she had dreamed a foolish dream: that
she was free of all commitments, that she flew like a
bird from the village and found her heart's desire
in an offlander, a stranger whose face she could not
clearly see, but whose strong arms held her
firmly, whose whisper evoked in her an intensity of
physical craving and emotion she had never before
experienced.
  She had wakened with a cry of disappointment at
finding herself in her own bed, alone; even now, gazing
upon the village nestled against mountains, sky, and
quicksilver river, she felt a pang of
yearning.
  It followed her across the wildflower-filled
meadow, past the pond into the village square, as she
reasoned with it silently: You are a fool, Anij,
to think such thoughts. You know how craven, how amoral
offlanders are,- how could you even dream of loving one?
Even dream of giving up this ....
  And the beauty and serenity of the valley soothed her,
as it always did; by the time she greeted her first fellow
villager, her smile was once again genuine.
  This was the place she belonged-had always belonged-and the
joy of being here far outweighed any childish cravings
for true passion.
  People began milling into the square. Some of the first
merchants to arrive had already set up their stalls in
the shade of a large rockface, where the mountain met
the village, and were displaying wares: homespun
clothing, honey, medicinal herbs.
  "Genoa, good morning," she called, to a woman
carrying pails of fresh milk for sale, and to her
darkhaired husband, eldest of the Original Group:
"Jat'ko how are you?"
  And there beside the market stall stood Sojef,
dressed in plain homespun. Anij banished all
thoughts of the hddot-blooded offlander and looked
upon Sojef with admiration: he was clothed like everyone
else, yet a stranger could easily have identified
him as a leader. Not because of any affectation or
condescension in his manner or speech; Sojef's
attitude was one of gentleness. But there was a strength
behind it-a strength Anij had seen many times before,
especially during the Time of Sorrows, when Sojef
had taken responsibility for making the hardest
decision of all.
  She greeted him as she had every day for the past
eleven years since his proposal: with a slight,
complicitous smile, as if their agreement to become
engaged someday were a secret unshared by the entire
community. And he responded as he always did, with the
same co-conspirator's smile, the faint
uncertainty in his eyes: Do you love me yet, as
I do you?
  And her unspoken answer: Give me time ...
  He nodded, ending the exchange, and turned his
attention to others headed for market; he considered it his
task to know each villager's challenges, hopes,
reams. Especially dreams.
  needs ... and (i Anij turned from him and headed
for a produce stall, where a vendor was busily
UNLOADING THE SEASONS FIRST
MAJIRA fruit for display. As Anij neared, the
vendor stopped, produced a paring knife, and began
to peel away a piece of the oblong fruit's white
exterior to reveal the juicy, violet-colored
flesh inside.
  He sliced a dripping square of flesh off and
passed it across the wooden stall to Anij, who took
a grateful bite and winced with pleasure at the
tartness. A SUDDEN shudder passed through her-and with it,
the UNBIDDEN, unsettling memory of the Time of
Sorrows, the time when forever had almost stopped.
  Within the rockface, behind the shields that rendered him
invisible, Gallatin watched as the Baku woman
shuddered, then lifted her head and stared right at him.
  Instinctively, his heart had begun to beat
rapidly; impossibly, she had sensed him, perhaps
recognized him No, he commanded himself See, she
is just distracted, that's all, and staring into the distance
... It's your own foolish guilt that has discovered
you, Gal'na, not this woman.
  Still, he gazed down at his monitor to assure
himself that the shields were in perfect working order.
  And of course, they were; she could no more see him
than she could the uniformed Starfleet officer sitting
beside Gailatin at the console, or the other
researchers hidden in the blind-or, for that matter, the
other isolation-suited researchers milling around the
village square, rendered invisible by the force field
that appeared to Gailatin as a bright red glow. One of
them stood right beside her-close enough, at the moment, for
her to touch should she suddenly start flailing her arms
about.
  But she would not, of course; she was a wellmannered
Baku, and like all her people, handsome.
  Particularly so, with her sun-bleached,
close-cropped curls that framed delicate
features ...
  ... and those damnably ageless eyes. All the
Baku had them, even the children, and for the umpteenth time that
hour, Gallatin found himself struggling to master his
hatred and envy.
  Look at her, so casually wiping away the
scarlet juice of the majeara fruit from her chin, from
that soft, unmarked skin ... Gallatin drew in a
silent breath at its perfection. How radiant it
was, how firm and
  UNLINED WHILE he and all his fellow Son'a
were old, irretrievably old and bound soon for
death, their hope of progeny, genes so damaged that
there was no of sons and daughters to remind their
parents of the beauty of youth. Many of the Son'a had
already died.
  With none to replace them, they were an aged and dying
race, destined for extinction within a decade, perhaps
two. The mere sight of the Baku offended him and
filled him with longing.
  Beside him at the console, a Starfleet
lieutenant spoke into a com-panel. "Base
to Ensign Mccauley.
  Please report to area seven and assist the
edaphology team."
  '6Acknowledged." Outside the duck blind, the
glow ing red observer next to the Balku woman
turned and moved away- the lieutenant beside
Gallatin paused to look at him-a' middle-aged
human female with wrinkles beginning to appear in the
corners of her eyes, upon e taken her brow.
Any respectable Son'a would hay prompt action
to have them removed; yet humans

  and most other Federation races tolerated wrinkling
gracefully, as if it were a natural event and not a
disgusting side effect of mortality.
  Somehow, on them it seemed less hideous-but on
a Son'a face, the slightest sag, the
tiniest wrinkle, was a moral affront.
  Gallatin's own facial skin was pulled
taut-like a rotten melon about to spli t, he thought
in disgust.
  Between the daily facial surgeries and this,
genetic damage, he was just beginning to develop the
chronic algal growth all Son'a dreaded, for it
caused an unsightly dark-green mottling just beneath the
skin.
  Over time, it disintegrated layers of delicate
tissue from the inside out.
  The sense of another warm body standing beside him
drew his attention back to the present; he turned,
and discovered another Starfleet officer, this one an
ensign, proffering a computer padd. Gallatin
took the padd and glanced cursorily at the
readings, then at the ensign, a young human male of
Caucasian variety, with skin an astounding
fresh-scrubbed pink. How did the Son'a appear
to him? Grotesque and decadent, most likely, with
stretched, bloodless skin and sumptuouseaornate
robes augmented by precious jewels. Not that
Gallatin considered his own dress excessive; it
was not the Son'a's fault that the entire known
galaxy lacked any sense of style, or that
Starfleet's designers adored the drab and
unimaginative. A little gold-pressed latinum and
onyx at the collar and

  shoulders, perhaps a large central RUBY ON
THE UTILITY belt, just a few subtle changes
here and there ...
  Decadent, Gallatin decided. That is what
they think we are., decadent, decrepit, and dying.
And at the sight of the ensign, and of the vibrant,
unadorned beauty of the Baku woman, he knew
they were right.
  He thrust the padd back at the ensign and
snapped: "Admi ral Dougherty is waiti ng for
this. Transmit it to the ship."
  Before he uttered the final word, the companel, set
on audio, crackled loudly, and an excited
Son'a voice shouted: "Alert, area twelve!"
  The blast of a weapon. Gallatin watched as the
Baku and their invisible observers TURNED TOWARD
THE hills in astonishment.
  On audio, the sound of scuffling; the thud OF
FLESH striking flesh. A groan. The voice
began speaking again, but the signal was breaking up.
  Gallatin could make out only a few
garbled words.
  "dis . . the android has . . ."
  A burst of static. The realization of what could in
a swift lunge to the happen propelled Gallatin
nearest companel. He slammed a control with his
fist.
  "Report!"
  More static; gasping. The words: "... can't bring
him down Next to Gallatin, the pink-skinned
ensign pointed, following the gaze of the startled
Baku to the nearby foothills. "Over there!"
  Invisible to the villagers, a figure in a glowing
isolation suit was running down the rock-strewn
hills with preternatural speed and agility.
  Gallatin stepped toward the main viewscreen.
  "Magnify!"
  The image bloomed abruptly, enlarging to reveal
the foothills with such detail that Gallatin might
have been there beside the fleeing figure as it scrambled
down the steep hillside toward the village,
preceded and followed by a small avalanche of stones
and sand and dust. Two other glowing
figures-Son'a, from their posture and
movements-armed with plasma weapons gave chase.
Alongside them ran a group of Baku
children, clearly terrified by the blast and entirely
unaware that their path-also toward the village
square-kept them in the midst of the invisible runners.
  Something horrible had happened, Gallatin
realized, with a heaviness in his heart, something that
threatened the entire mission here. Even worse, that
threatened to expose the deeper reasons for it to his
Starfleet partners. Unlike the Federation
scientists surrounding him, Gallatin knew that the
first runner was Starfleet, and those following,
Son'a. But there was still time; the Baku had heard the
blast, but 12 probably only the children had actually
seen it. If nothing else happened to arouse their
suspicions, perhaps Too late. One of the Son'a
guards lifted his plasma weapon and took aim at
the fleeing figure. A streak of blinding brilliance
surged toward the runner, barely missing him; at the
accompanying thunder, the children shrieked.
  On one of the companels that still showed the village
square, the curly-haired Baku woman demanded:
"What is it? What's happening.?" In her eyes
and voice was more indignation than fright.
  Anij, Gallatin remembered suddenly. Your
name is Anij, and of them all, you are the mostfearless.
And he felt an intense, fleeting
self-loathing.
  Beside him, the Federation scientists rose as a
group to their feet and watched with dismay as the chase
continued down into the village; another eyescaring
plasma blast caused the locals to scatter.
  Gallatin's worst fears had come true; a
Starfleet intruder had made an unfortunate
discovery. By all rights, the Son'a should kill him.
But if he permitted his people to kill a Starfleet
officer here, in front of all these Starfleet
scientists ...
  "Hold your fire"" he shouted at the corn to the
Son'a guards, then with a single look, conveyed an
order to the Starfleet lieutenant seated beside him.

  She knew immediately what he meant; she was
quick-witted, intelligent, as were all the Starfleet
personnel he had worked with; an grimly, is
precisely the source of our problem now.
  She touched a control. "Base to Commander
Data."
  The voice that answered was halting, dazed-but not the
least bit winded after the wild run. "Rerouting ...
microhydraulic... power distribution ...
  regulating . . . thermal... overload
. . On the viewscreen, the android ran staggering
toward the village square.
  Disoriented, damaged, Gallatin realized; perhaps
there was a way out, after all. To destroy him
gracefully, without insulting Starfleet.
  "Data, report to base immediately," the
lieutenant ordered.
  If the android understood, he gave no sign; his
mutterings seemed self-directed. "Transferring
. . .
  ositronic ... matrix functions ... engaging
...
  secondary protocols As he ran, he lifted
both gloved hands toward the neck of his helmet.
  The Starfleet ensign who had handed Gallatin the
padd cried out in horror: "He's trying
to remove the headpiece!"
  Gallatin tapped his own companel. "All
field units.
  Intercept the android."

  The boy Artim ran gasping through the village in
search of his father ... and an explanation. Father would
explain it calmly; Father would lay his,
Artim's, childish fears to rest. Sojef
was old and wise and knew everything.
  There had to be a simple explanation; there always
was. Yet Artim could think of nothing at the moment
that could account for the strange thunder he and his
friends-Jusa, Nal, and the girls-had heard coming from
down by the lake. Lightning, they all decided; but the
sky was perfectly cloudless.
  "Magic lightning," Nal suggested, and they had
laughed at his foolish explanation. They were almost
adults, after all; the changing time would soon be upon
them, when the girls would no longer seem to be
annoyances, but creatures of compelling interest.
  (or so Father said, but to Artim the idea.was still
repellent.) They had laughed, but then the girl
Je'na had seen another impossibility: pebbles
and dust, and clumps of grass trampled, as if
someone invisible were running toward them.
  "Look!" she had cried, pointing; "look!"
And the fine hairs on Artim's neck and arms had
lifted.
  The disturbance passed, only to be followed
by another-the same trampling of grass and stirring of
dust, doubled-and all vestiges of Artim's
maturity fled. He and the others broke into a run,
away from

  the noise. Ghosts, he thought wildly; only
ghosts could be so invisible; but ghosts were inhabitants
of chil dren's tales, not of reality.
  Then the strange lightning split the air beside him,
dazzling his eyes so that he closed them and saw
streaks of blue. Lightning, yet not lightning; he
could feel no electricity, smell no ozone.
And with it came a boom of thunder so loud that his teeth
rattled, and he shrieked like a shameless infant.
All thoughts were banished save one.
  Find Father ...
  Another blast; another roar of thunder.
  Artim made it, sweating and gasping, past the
pond and into the village, then the square. As he
passed adults, he scanned their faces, hoping
to find comfort-but saw instead only confusion.
  And when at last he found Sojef directing
others away from the approaching disturbance, Artim
cried: "Father ... ?"
  It was a question, a demand for an answer, but there were
no answers to be found in Sojef's expression.
It was the same odd look that came upon him during
those few times he had spoken of an earlier, evil
time: when his own people had killed each other with
weapons. What was the word for it? War.
  And the look on Sojef's face had been fear.
  Only Artim saw it there; only Artim knew
his father

  well enough. To the villagers, Sojef no doubt
appeared the calm village leader.
  But there was panic in the way he roughly grabbed
Artim and held him tightly to him, as with his free ar
m, he directed his people toward the meeting hall:
"Get inside! Find shelter"" A loud splash
behind them, as if someone had just plummeted into the pond.
  Artim wriggled in his father's grasp and broke
free, turning to look behind them just in time to witness the
most impossible sight of all: The floating head and
neck of a man, barely more than an arm's length
away. But not a man-at least, not Baku. His skin
was pale, shimmering gold, except for a deep,
ugly wound across his neck-as if someone had branded him
there with a white-hot poker.
  His eyes were a bright, unnatural amber ... and
they stared directly at Artim.
  The boy screamed and leaped backward, falling to the
ground even as he struggled to turn and flee.
  Father had lied, lied to spare Artim the
hideous truth that ghosts were real, and this particular one
seemed to be after him ... An angry ghost, perhaps
murdered, decapitated by a hot poker.
  Or worse, an offlander.
  The other Baku scattered at once; Father
remained long enough to seize Artim's arm with painful

  strength and pull him away, just as the ghost's head
spoke.
  "Secondary protocols ... active."
  Not exactly what Artim had expected to hear.
He let himself be dragged along, but could not help
looking over his shoulder.
  The head grimaced, grunted, as if fighting off
invisible enemies. A noise Artim had never
heard before, the ripping sound of a material somewhere between
linen and metal, was followed by a flash of red, then the
abrupt appearance of another man. At least, part
of another man, head and torso in strange, torn
clothing, suspended in the air beside the golden head.
  This second one seemed somewhat more Baku, but he
too was clearly offlander, his tight, masklike
face mottled with ugly green sores.
  In the middle of the square, these two wraiths
battled hand-to-hand: the green-mottled man
flailing out, his partially visible arms wrestling
invisible ones beneath the golden ghost head.
  Inside the duck blind, the Starfleet lieutenant
half rose from her seat. "They can see him!"
  "Stop him!" Gallatin bellowed, watching
decades is of work-and the very goal of his life-undone
in seconds before his eyes. "Now!"
  "Commander Data, stand down!" the lieutenant

  shouted into the companel. "That's an order! I
repeat: Stand down!"
  Artim watched as the shrieking mottled man rose
into the air, then plummeted down headfirst to the ground.
There he lay, unconscious, while the golden head
and scorched neck suddenly became a golden head,
neck, torso, arms, and last of all, legs and
feet.
  The first offlander parted the air as if it had been a
cloak wrapped about him, and stepped forth from it.
  In one swift, smooth move, he took the
lightning weapon from the unconscious man's hands.
  He will kill us now, Artim thought frantically;
but ins tead, the golden man turned the weapon toward
the bare rockface, and fired.
  Something within the stone itself sputtered; the man
fired again, again, again, each time filling the air with
light and thunder.
  The rockface shimmered as if made of
moonbeams rather than mountain, then faded away
to reveal a sight more impossible than any other
Artim had yet seen.
  In place of the rock was a small building
sculpted from the stone, the front of which was entirely
glass.
  And in the building were low black tables on which sat
strange m etal devices-squares that glowed
different colors and displayed different pictures.
Hiding

  strength and pull him away, just as the ghost's head
spoke.
  "Secondary protocols ... active."
  Not exactly what Artim had expected to hear.
He let himself be dragged along, but could not help
looking over his shoulder.
  The head grimaced, grunted, as if fighting off
invisible enemies. A noise Artim had never
heard before, the ripping sound of a material somewhere between
linen and metal, was followed by a flash of red, then the
abrupt appearance of another man. At
least, part of another man, head and torso in
strange, torn clothing, suspended in the air beside the
golden head.
  This second one seemed somewhat more Baku, but he
too was clearly offlander, his tight, masklike
face mottled with ugly green sores.
  In the middle of the square, these two wraiths
battled hand-to-hand: the green-mottled man
flailing out, his partially visible arms wrestling
invisible ones beneath the golden ghost head.
  Inside the duck blind, the Starfleet lieutenant
half rose from her seat. "They can see him!"
  "Stop him!" Gallatin bellowed, watching
decades of work-and the very goal of his life-undone in
seconds before his eyes. "Now!"
  "Commander Data, stand down!" the lieutenant

  shouted into the companel. "That's an order! I
repeat: Stand down!"
  Artim watched as the shrieking mottled man rose
into the air, then plummeted down headfirst to the ground.
There he lay, unconscious, while the golden head
and scorched neck suddenly became a golden head,
neck, torso, arms, and last of all, legs and
feet.
  The first offlander parted the air as if it had been a
cloak wrapped about him, and stepped forth from it.
  In one swift, smooth move, he took the
lightning weapon from the unconscious man's hands.
  He will kill us now, Artim thought frantically;
but instead, the golden man turned the weapon toward the
bare rockface, and fired.
  Something within the stone itself sputtered; the man fired
again, again, again, each time filling the air with light and
thunder.
  The rockface shimmered as if made of
moonbeams rather than mountain, then faded away
to reveal a sight more impossible than any other
Artim had yet seen.
  in place of the rock was a small building
sculpted from the stone, the front of which was entirely
glass.
  And in the building were low black tables on which sat
strange metal devices-squares that glowed
different colors and displayed different pictures.
Hiding

  behind them were people, most of whom had apparently ducked
for cover; as Artim and the rest of the astounded Baku
watched, those people rose slowly, sheepishly
to their feet.
  "What is it?" villagers murmured. "Who are
they?"
  Who, indeed? Artim wondered. Here was another
mottled one, apparently a leader, dressed in
garish purple-and-green robes, bejeweled with
glittering gems and gold. Beside him stood a
brown-skinned woman in a more sedate jumpsuit,
just like the others, who were of different-colored skins and
even of different species. They were clearly of one
clan, and the mottled one of another.
  A renewed wave of murmuring passed among the
Baku behind them, and Artim turned to see more offlanders
there, dressed in the same bulky garb as the golden
ghost had been.
  As for the golden ghost, he lowered his weapon and
stood surveying the results of his attack-not with
maliciousness or hatred or any of the other emotions
a homicidal ghost ought, Artim decided. If
anything, the expression on his bland features was one
of simple satisfaction.

  TWO
  In the captain's quarters aboard the U.s.s.
Enterprise, Picard let go a sigh of
disgust as his tenth attempt to fasten the high,
tight-fitting collar of his dress uniform failed.
Immediately, Beverly Crusher turned toward gh he
recalcitrant collar with him, cau t both
sides of t her thumbs, and gave it a yank that
forced even more air out of the captain's lungs.
Picard shot her a dark look, but she continued,
undaunted, and with good reason: they were running late.
  Beside them, Troi-like the doctor and the captain,
attired in formal uniform-paused to glance up from her
padd, but wisely chose not to smile.
  Wisely, Picard thought, because he himself was in no
mood to smile.
  The past several months had worn

  him down, left him weary and irritable; he had
not noticed it until Beverly had insisted he come in
for an unscheduled medical exam.
  I'm perfectly healt hy, he'd insisted, and
she'd replied: You mean you're a Perfect bear.
  Cranky, that was the word she had used, a term that
conjured up an image of himself as a sour-faced old
geezer-emphasis on the old-and indeed, after the
exam, she had admitted that Picard was, after
all, perfectly healthy.
  But not as young as you used to be. You're going to have
to take some time o If soon. Get some rest.
  He'd been insulted. His irritation and tiredness
had nothing to do with age; it had to do with all the myriad
of diplomatic errands, the bureaucracy, the
ridiculous flurry of low-priority assignments
Starfleet had subjected them to of late.
Captaincy of the Enterprise had become more like a
high-stress busi ness than an adventure. So
many annoying details . .
  And he was not the only one to be tired lately
Beverly herself was looking rather wan....
  She had, of course, taken umbrage at that, which
permitted him the wicked satisfaction of pointing out
that perhaps she was the one who was cranky.
  But it was true; they were all tired and irritable.
  Weren't they?

  Meanwhile, Troi continued the briefing. "The
peole are known as the Evora," she repeated,
carefully articulating the pronunciation.
  Beverly, too, seemed to be having great
difficulty fastening the collar; if she pulled it
any tighter, Picard decided, he would have to have an
injection of tri-ox compound just to make it through
the reception without asphyxiating.
  population three hundred million . Troi
droned on.
  "Say the greeting again," Picard commanded. For some
reason, his memory was no longer one hundred
percent reliable of late.
  "Yew-cheen chef-faw, was Troi elaborated,
glancing up at him. "Emphasis on the cheen and the
faw Beverly suddenly clicked her tongue in
disgust.
  "You need either a new uniform or a new neck."
  He glanced beyond her at the bulkhead mirror and
scowled. True, the skin of his neck was not as taut
as it used to be, but he need only make a minor
adjustment to his dietary and exercise programs
to correct it. It changed; not as much as Beverly was
suggesting. He was not old ...
  The door chimed; Troi discreetly avoided the
topic of discussion by answering. Picard heard Will
Riker's voice, but was not about to be distracted from
correcting the doctor's unnecessarily snide
remark.

  "Yew-cheen chef-faw, was he intoned, then
snapped: "My collar size is exactly
the same as it was at the Academy."
  Beverly drew back to look at him with mock
reassurance. "Sure it is."
  And in one brutal move that forced a gasp from him,
she fastened the collar.
  Dapper in formal dress with a freshly trimmed
beard, Riker entered the room looking mildly
sheepish. "Our guests have arrived and are eating the
floral arrangements on the banquet tables."
  Crusher arched an eyebrow. "I guess they
don't believe in cocktails before dinner."
  Picard drew a breath and, relieved that the
collar did not pop open, strode out of the room and
into the corridor at top speed.
  The others followed. Dismayed, Troi scanned
her padd for information.
  "Oh my God, are they vegetarians? That's not
in here. . .
  "Better have the chef whip up a light balsamic
vinaigrette," Picard directed. "Something that
goes well with chrysanthemums. y ew-cheen
chef-faw ...
  As he spoke, a feminine voice filtered through
corn.
  "Bridge to Captain Picard......
He recognized it immediately-so, my memory isn't
going, after allas that of Kell Perim, a
brilliant young Trill recently assigned to the
Enterprise.
  He answered without slowing his pace. "Yes,
Ensign?"

  "Command wants to know our ETA at the Goren
system."
  Picard frowned faintly at Riker. Command had
been dumping missions on them fast and furious
lately; this was just one more thing the captain hadn't had
time to be briefed on yet. "The Goren system
...
  Riker showed no outward sign of frustration, but
Picard sensed it all the same, as his
second-incommand replied, "They need us to mediate
some territorial dispute."
  "We can't delay the archeological expedition
to Hanoran II," Picard countered, knowing that he
was making his argument to the wrong person, and stating
something Will knew all too well. "It would put us
into the middle of monsoon season." He and the group
rounded a pair of engineers working on a bulkhead
panel.
  Riker in turn responded with a fact his captain
knew all too well: "The Diplomatic
Corps is busy with Dominion negotiations."
  It couldn't be helped, of course; but Picard
sighed nonetheless. so they need us to put out one more
brushfire." He paused to scan the faces of his
entourage. "Anyone remember when we used to be
explorers?"
  No one answered; in silence, they all filed
onto a turbolift. "Deck ten," Riker
ordered.
  Picard attempted to refocus himself, to summon
up

  whatever vestige of diplomatic charm remained in
him. "Yew-cheen chef-faw.
  As if cued, Troi looked down at her padd
to continue the briefing.
  "Remember, they have a significantly less
advanced technology than ours. They only
achieved warp drive last year."
  "A year?" Crusher asked, mildly
indignant. "And the Federation Council decided
to make them a protectorate already?"
  "In view of our losses to the Borg
and the Dominion," Picard said, "the council feels
we need all the allies we can get these days."
  The turbolift doors parted abruptly,
revealing the back entrance to the reception area filled
with catering personnel, bearing fresh supplies of
chrysanthemums and champagne, and ship's officers in
dress uniform.
  From the reception suite itself came the sounds of
violin music, laughter, and pleasant conversation.
  Picard immediately realigned the muscles of his
face into a more agreeable expression and stepped from the
lift. Troi stayed at his side, still briefing.
  "You'll be expected to dance with Regent Cuzar."
  "Can she mambo?" Beverly asked, with a small,
wicked smile.
  "Very funny," Picard snapped, though his
diplomatic smile never wavered. He studiously
avoided Riker and Trot's bemused, questioning glances.

  "Your captain used to cut quite a rug," Beverly
began to explain, but she was blessedly interrupted by a
female ensign who had noticed the group.
"Captain on deck!"
  The sea of officers also headed for the reception parted
in front of them.
  Another voice filtered through Picard's
communicator. "La Forge to Picard. Captain,
I need to talk to you before the reception-was Picard
drew a breath to reply ...
  And released it in surprise as he suddenly found
himself face-to-face with Commander Worf.
  "Captain," the Klingon acknowledged, in his
resonant bass voice. He looked well,
Picard decided; though it had been two years
since they last had met in the desperate struggle
against the Borg queen, Worf seemed not to have
changed. His standard-issue uniform and Klingon sash
(not to mention his fierce visage) distinguished him from the
formal crowd. He still wore his hair long, pulled
back at the nape of his neck; it seemed to Picard
to have grown a few inches.
  "Worp." Picard exclaimed, at once
confused and delighted. "What the hell are you doing
here?" Last he'd heard, he still served on Deep
Space 9.
  The Kli-ngon's stern expression lightened ever
so slightly; it was the closest he could come to a
smile. "I was at Manzar colony installing a
new defense perimeter when I heard the
Enterprise was in this sector."

  As Worf spoke, Picard was equally aware of the
corn exchange between his second-in-command and chief
engineer.
  Riker: "He's a little late, Geordi. Can it
wait?"
  La Forge, firmly: "I don't think so,
Commander."
  Still in motion, Picard turned to Riker. "Tell
him I'm already here ... we can talk when he
arrives."
  Riker nodded, then addressed Geordi again:
"comThe captain wants you to come over."
  Without missing a beat, Picard returned his
attention to Worf. There was no time for pleasantries
now; they would have to come afterward.
  "I have a few ideas I'd like to discuss about
Manzar security."
  Which was true enough, though Picard could have happily
manufactured any of a dozen excuses to catch up
with his former security officer.
  The Klingon nodded and excused himself As the
captain neared the banquet room, Riker remained
a step behind, but Picard could still hear La Forge's
voice on corn: "I'm on my way.
Tell him we've received a communique from
Admiral Dougherty."
  Dougherty? Picard wondered. Dougherty was a
seventy-ish, lower-level admiral from command who was
overseeing the Baku mission. Please, not another
assignment. How do they expect us to be three
places at once?
  But he put the thought behind him. Now was the time
to focus on the task at hand: he mentally checked his
expression, straightened his tunic, and fought the urge
to slip a finger between the damnably tight collar and his
poor, pinched neck. With a gracious smile, he and
his entourage stepped into the banquet room, where a
string quartet launched into a spirited waltz.
  Between that, and the polite babble of voices Terran,
Bajoran, Bolian, and Trill, he did not
hear Geordi's final words: "It's about Data."
  As Picard entered the formal banquet area
escorted by Counselor Troi, Crusher, and the
now-instep Riker, the crowd of Starfleet officers
moved aside to give the captain's party access to the
small Evora delegation.
  Emphasis on the word small.
  Picard's diplomatic smile faltered; through
sheer will, he kept it from disappearing altogether.
There had been nothing in Trot's briefing, nothing in
the data provided by Starfleet, to suggest that the
Evora were not within physical parameters suited to a
humanoid-fitted ship.
  The top of Cuzar's head, adornments included,
barely came to the captain's waist. She was a
matronly but elegant female, clad in sedate
aubergine robes-in contrast to the more brightly dressed
males who served her. Not one of them came as high
as Picard's chest.


  He knew Troi well enough to sense a very subtle
change in her'posture and expression; it had come as
a surprise to her as well. Either someone at command
had forgotten to relay the information, or deemed it
unimportant. Or worst, and most likely, they
had realized that Picard would protest and argue on
behalf of sending a di flerent ship, one more
appropriately sized so that the Evora would feel
neither awkward nor uncomfortable with the accommodations.
This is what came of command's recent hasty
attitude.
  Troi recovered smoothly, and with perfect
gracious ness bowed to the delegation.
"Regent Cuzar, it is my honor to present to you
the captain of the Enterprise, Jean-Luc
Picard."
  On cue, Picard added, "Yew-cheen
chef-faw, Regent Cuzar. Welcome aboard the
Enterprise.
  If Cuzar felt any discomfort due to her
diminutly size, she hid it well; her mood
seemed one of honest delight. With admirably
regal bearing and an authoritative voice far
deeper than Picard expected, she intoned,
"Captain Picard, may I welcome you in the
time-honored tradition of my people."
  She signaled to a male aide, who stepped
forward with an elaborate headdress adorned with
crystalline beads, precious metals, and an
unfortunate native bird's feathers. With
consummate ceremony, she lifted it, and Picard
realized with a thrill of dread that

  she would now crown him with it, apparently as a
sign of respect ...
  though he could not be sure. Troi had forgotten
to mention this little detail-most likely because she knew
the captain would complain about it.
  as high as her arms would allow, Picard stooping as
It was the most awkward of ballets: Cuzar reaching
low as he could while maintaining the gesture's
dignity, stretching the muscles . in his hip in an
effort to avoid a full squat. In the end, he
barely avoided going into one-but only because Regent
Cuzar was enough of a sport to rise on full tiptoe.
  The headdress was, of course, too small; with
valiant effort, she managed to perch it
precariously atop his skull. Picard rose with
extreme caution, lest he commit the unspeakable
Evora faux pas of losing his crown. He felt
like an idiot; the size difference was making a
mockery of these people's tradition.
  Yet to her credit, Cuzar appeared totally at
ease and quite pleased with the result. With genuine warmth,
she said, "We are so honored to be accepted within the
great Federation family." A beat, then: "Please,
I know you have other guests to greet."
  Picard smiled at her and summoned whatever shred
remained of his charm.
  "We have a dance later, I believe?"
  "I look forward to it," Cuzar replied
firmly. An
  31
  admirable liar and true diplomat, Picard
decided, watching as one of her ministers led her
away. And the instant she and the other Evora were out of
earshot, he lifted gaze and eyebrows toward the
wobbling headpiece and said sotto voce to Troi:
"Counselor?" His tone held a mild rebuke,
a wry acknowledgment of her intentional omission.
  Trot's expression remained studiously
deadpan.
  "Nice beadwork."
  "Excuse me, sir," Geordi La Forge
interrupted, his tone one of concern.
  Picard glanced up to meet the gaze of his chief
engineer's alabaster blue eyes-or rather, optical
implants that reminded the captain of the blank white
stare of Greek and Roman statues.
  Picard took the proffered padd and scanned it
while La Forge explained.
  "Admiral Dougherty's aboard a Son'a ship
in Sector four-four-one.
  He's requesting Data's schematics."
  Picard looked up sharply at that, but it was
Troi who voiced the concern. "Is something wrong?"
  La Forge shook his head. "The message
doesn't say."
  There was something odd about the request, something
subtly amiss that troubled the captain. The obvious
explanation was that Data was suffering a serious
malfunction, one the android could not cor rect
by himself, and Dougherty was simply trying to

  help; and yet ... Picard sensed something wrong.
He lowered his voice.
  "Data should have been back by now. They were only
scheduled to observe the Baku village for a week."
He looked pointedly at La Forge.
  "Set up a secured comlink to the admiral in the
anteroom."
  La Forge nodded shortly and moved off to comply
Picard had little time to worry; before he could take a'
single step, an enthusiastic and champagne-cheered
Bolian officer seized his arm and began babbling.
  "Captain, Hars Adislo, we met at the
Nel Bato Conference last year; did you ever have a
chance to read my paper on thermionic
transconductance?"
  Without the faintest glimmer of recognition,
Picard smiled at him, then murmured hasty
apologies.
  Dougherty's call might have caused him
concern, but at least it provided rescue from polite
conversation.
  "He's not acknowledging any Starfleet
protocols, not responding to any of our hails,"
Admiral Dougherty said. Picard had met him
several times at various Starfleet functions, and
taken orders from him twice: Matthew Dougherty,
aged sixty-nine, silver-haired, lean, tanned;
like all those in command, an excellent physical
specimen and self-possessed charmer, looking years
younger than his age. Conversation with him was always a
delight-until last year, when his wife had passed
away. She was retired Starfleet, Picard
recalled, some three decades older than her
husband, who had taken her death hard. He seemed
recovered now, all business and confidence, but sorrow
had definitely aged him, damped his exuberance; he
appeared the near-septuagenarian that he was. The
lines in his face appeared deeper, his eyes harder.
  Picard absently fingered a feather on the Evora
headpiece, which now sat on a console beside him.
  Next to him stood Geordi La Forge;
outside the open doorway, an ensign stood in
order to steer curious banquet-goers away.
  "You have no idea what precipitated his
behavior?"
  Picard asked of Dougherty; they spoke of
Data, who according to Son'a witnesses had gone
berserk and starting firing at shielded cultural
observers. The worst that could possibly go wrong on
a no-contact cultural mission had-the natives,
in this case the Baku, had witnessed the shoot-out and
decloaking of observers, thus becoming aware of the
technologically advanced Federation in the most alarming
way possible.
  Dougherty shook his head. "And now he's holding
our people hostage down there . .
  The captain paused. The chances of positronic
circuitry spontaneously corrupting were
infinitesimal at best; if what Dougherty was
saying were true, that

  Data had turned into a rogue android on the
rampage-and Picard had no reason to believe it was
not-then surely Data had suffered some sort of
physical trauma. The admiral insisted the
android had not-but then, Dougherty knew only as much
as certain witnesses had told him.
  But Picard sensed where the argument was heading.
  If Data presented a grave danger
to the other personnel, and no one there could figure out
how to deal with his circuitry, it would be far too
easy to justify his destruction. Crusher and
Geordi, with their years of experience in dealing with the
android, needed to be there.
  "The Enterprise can be at your position in two
days, Admiral."
  "That's not a good idea," Dougherty countered
swiftly. "Your ship hasn't been fitted for this
region; there are environmental concerns-was Picard
frowned. "What kind of concerns?"
  Dougherty broke off eye contact briefly
to study a point some two feet above Picard's
left shoulder. "We haven't fully identified the
anomalies yet." He once again met Picard's
gaze. "They're calling this whole area the Briar
Patch. Took us a day to reach a location where we
could get a signal out to you. Just get me Data's
schematics.
  I'll keep you informed. Dougherty out.

  Picard acknowledged with a nod; the viewscreen
image faded to that of a Federation logo. He turned
from it to La Forge. "His emotion chip?"
  The engineer shook his head. "Didn't
take it with him."
  Picard paused. "Send the admiral Data's
schematics."
  In the periphery of his vision, La Forge nodded
assent. There was no time to head for the Briar Patch,
of course-any more than there was time to get the
archeological expedition to Hanoran 11 before the
monsoons began while taking care of the situation
brewing in the Goren system. But it was time
to prioritize-and Picard knew with indescribable,
illogical certainty that whatever was happening in the
Briar Patch with the Baku mission-and to Datatook
precedence over all.
  Something was wrong; Dougherty had been too quick,
too adamant, in his insistence that the Enterprise not
be involved.
  Picard looked over his shoulder and called
softly, "Ensign . .
  "Sir?" The young Bajoran male entered at
once.
  "Report to the galley and tell the chef to skip
the fish course."
  The ensign looked mildly askance at this, then
turned without further question and exited. Picard turned
back toward the monitor to see Geordi's
pale implants regarding him curiously.

  "I want our guests to depart as quickly as
etiquette allows," the captain explained.
"I'll ask Worf to delay L his return
to Deep Space 9 so he can join us. We're
going to stop by Sector four-four-one on our way
to the Goren system."
  La Forge caught on immediately. "They.
  opposite directions, sir."
  "Are they?" Picard asked dryly.
  La Forge flashed a small but brilliant sm
before leaving. Alone, Picard stared at the Evora
headdress beside him. As worried as he was about
Data, the incident had at least provided an
excuse to avoid more of the busywork command kept handing
him. It had weighed him down of late; he felt
worn, irritable ... old. Life was too short
to waste doing meaningless things.
  With a sigh, he picked up the headdress and set
it upon his head, and in an act of sheer will forced a
smile .

  THREE
  In the body-enhancement facility aboard the
Son'a ship, Matthew Dougherty struggled to hide
his disgust at Starfleet's new allies. The room
itself made him uncomfortable enough; it smacked of an
old nineteenth-century Earth bordello, with its
scarlet velvet veilseaornate gold-pressed
latinum fixtures, and low lighting. A
brothel-cum-sickbay, with reclining Son'a
figures receiving transfusions of reportedly
rejuvenating chemicals. It even had scantily
clad women, clearly there as slaves and sex
objects, and that alone was enough to trouble him. He sat
straight, prim in his understated admiral's uniform,
upon a couch made for reclining, and reminded himself that,
while he personally did not agree with the Son'a that

  abject hedonism was a virtue, he was still bound
to treat them civilly.
  Beside him, Ru'afo, the Son'a commander titled the
ahdar, lay back languidly and enjoyed the
skilled attentions of a pair of female
aestheticians: one of the Tarlac race, the other of the
Ellora, both dressed in skimpy tunics
designed for distraction, not function.
  And Ru'afo was letting himself be shamelessly
distracted-and looking quite amused by Dougherty's
obvious discomfort. Like his peers, the ahdar was draped
in shimmering fabrics and myriads of latinum chains
bearing the largest collection of precious jewels
Dougherty had ever seen outside a museum; the
wiquitous mirrors before which the race constantly
preened doubled the glittering effect. Of all the
Son'a, Ru'afo disgusted him most of all; had
Ru'afo had his way, the Son'a would simply have
gone in with their plasma weapons and rounded up the
Baku without the slightest consideration of the respect
due sentient beings.
  But at the moment, it was Ru'afo who was annoyed
with the admiral. The Son'a spoke heatedly while
his two alien attendants massaged oils and
creams into his cheeks and forehead. The sweet,
intoxicating floral aroma waiting up from him
contrasted with the harshness of his tone.
  "I should never have let you talk me into the duck blind
in the first place," the ahdar proclaimed. His

  indignation thoroughly incensed Dougherty, who, at
the same time that he worked to master his temper, also found
himself unwillingly fascinated by Ru'afo's skin-or
at least, that part of it not covered with cream or
delicate fingertips. So overstretched and
thin it was that each individual capillary, brightly
abloom now with anger, could be clearly traced.
  "Your Federation procedures have made this mission
ten times as difficult as it needed to be!"
  "Our procedures were in place to protect the
planet's population from unnecessary risk," Dougherty
countered, priding himself on his even tone.
  "Planet's population," the Son'a scoffed, in
a tone that Dougherty, accustomed to the respect due
an admiral, had not heard in years. "Six
hundred people.
  You want to avoid unnecessary risks? Next time
leave your android home."
  At the dressing-down, Dougherty felt a sudden
heat upon his cheeks and neck. He literally bit his
tongue to avoid answering sharply; Ru'afo's
group was even smaller than the Baku's,
insignificant and unremarkable, save for their
reputation as petty criminals.
  Starfleet was dealing with them only because they now
possessed a technology the Federation lacked.
  The minute we have what we need from them ...
  Dougherty promised himself silently. Until
then, he would remain civil to this arrogant alien.
  Fortunately, a voice filtered through
Ru'afo's per 40 sonal comlink, sparing
Dougherty the necessity of a reply.
  "Bridge to Ahdar Ru'afo. We're
approaching the planet."
  With a disinterested, jaded air, Ru'afo signaled
for the cosmeticians to finish, then pressed his comlink.
  "Take us into high orbit." He rose, then
turned to Dougherty, shifting from anger to hospitality
as he proffered his now-vacant chair. "Lie down,
Admiral.
  The girls will take twenty years off your
face."
  Twenty years. Ru'afo appeared a few years
younger than the admiral, if that, and he spent at
least an hour with the aestheticians every day.
  "Another time," Dougherty replied stonily, and
rose.
  The Son'a shrugged as he paused to study the
facial's effects on his complexion in the nearest
mirror. Glancing at Dougherty's reflection,
he murmured, "your self-restraint puzzles me,
Admiral. You continue to deny yourself every benefit this
mission has to offer."
  "I prefer to wait until we can share the
benefits with all the people of the-was Federation was the
last word Dougherty said, but neither he nor the others
heard it. The deck beneath his feet suddenly shuddered,
accompanied by a loud boom. Dougherty had served his
years as a captain,

  and known combat; he had not forgotten the sound and
feel of a phaser blast.
  Ru'afo apparently knew it too; he glanced
know ingly at Dougherty, and was out the door and on the
lift without a word. Dougherty kept pace with him every
step of the way. He knew the origin of the blast, of
course, fbr he had surmised the details
Ru'afo had omitted from the account, and he had
familiarized himself with every Starfleet officer
assigned the Baku mission. But he maintained
silence until the time was right.
  The Son'a bridge-or rather, the sumptuous
parlor that served as a bridge, with its
latinum-plated consoles and the ahdar's fur-lined
chair-irritated Dougherty the instant he and
Ru'afo stepped from the turbolift; the flashing
purple alert lights hurt his eyes.
  On the main screen, the ringed planet of the Baku
rotated lazily, half-obscured by phenomena
common to the Briar Patch: rose-colored
plasma tendrils, adrift in the ocean of space
like Terran jellyfish, and translucent
mother-of-pearl gas clouds.
  "Report," Ru'afo ordered as he took his
chair; the admiral stood beside him.
  The entire bridge crew were either Tarlac or
Elloran, save for two Son'a officers, one
male and one female. The male Son'a,
apparently Ru'afo's Number One, replied
quickly. "Phaser blast. Unknown origin."

  "Raise shields," Ru'afo ordered. As
Elloran officers at the console hastened to comply,
another blast shook the ship. Dougherty took a
few wildly swaggering steps before he managed
to catch hold of a console and balance.
  Ru'afo's tone rose. "Take us out of
orbit." He was concerned, Dougherty knew, about
taking another hit. While the vessel's shields
could probably afford another phaser blast-the dying
race's technology cond to none-every Son'a
Dougherty had was se ever met avoided even minor
physical injury to an extreme degree.
Indeed, the language had no word for It was referred
to by euphemism only, and "death." then in
whispers, briefly, as if it were the most heinous
crime.
  Before the death of his wife, Madalyn, Dougherty,
in his naive arrogance, would have thought them ood. And would
unnaturall' phobic; now he underst do almost y
anything to help others avoid the same cruel pain.
  GGPHOTON torpedoest" a Tarlac officer
shouted.
  "Brace for impact!"
  Dougherty rested his chest upon the console and held
on, one arm grasping the edge in front of him, the
side. Before the ship the other arm holding on to could
move out of range, the first blow hit.
  This strike was hardest. The ship reeled;
Dougherty's ears popped, then shrieked, at the
noise-too

  loud, too overwhelming to specify as any
particular type of sound, to describe as anything
other than pain.
  Through miraculous effort, Dougherty kept his
grip on the console.
  And then the hits came again, again, again. Dougherty
held on, slipping only once to his knees; a
quick glance at Ru'afo showed the Son'a in
the grip of both terror and fury as he clutched the
arms of his command chair. The admiral heard the
sizzle of sparks at consoles behind him, smelled
acrid smoke, saw in the periphery of his vision
bodies tumbling to the deck.
  The lights flickered, leaving the bridge
briefly in darkness.
  It occurred to Dougherty that he might actually
die here, now. He was not naive enough to believe that he
would join Madalyn in some distant, nebulous
paradise; nevertheless, dying now did not seem a bad
thing.
  He was tired of loneliness, of grief.
  Abruptly, the blows ceased.
  "The vessel has broken off pursuit, sir,"
one of the Son'a officers reported behind him.
  "Visual contact!" a female Elloran
called, her face ghostly behind wisps of smoke.
  Ghostly, too, was the sight of the attacking ship
on the main screen, half hidden by a
semitransparent gas cloud. As it sailed free
of the cloud, Dougherty gasped. "That's our ship."
  The small Federation scoutship turned and sailed

  back toward the Baku planet
surface; although its pilot could not be seen from the
Son'a vessel, Dougherty had no doubt as to his
identity: The android, Commander Data.
  At that very instant in the Enterprise captain's
quarters, surrounded by the strains of Beethoven's
Sonata Pathetique as well as padds and star
charts, Picard sat thinking about Admiral
Dougherty.
  "Tea," he demanded of the replicator beside him,
without taking his gaze from the padd on his desk.
  "Earl Grey. Hot." He was still reading when the
fragrance of bergamot prompted him to reach out blindly
and take cup and saucer.
  What possible reason could Matthew Dougherty have
for wanting to keep the Enterprise away? His
excuse of "environmental concerns" didn't hold
water; if the area of space surrounding the Baku
planet was that dangerous, why had Picard heard
nothing of it? Data had not mentioned it himself, when he
was assigned to the mission, and a large contingent of
Starfleet personnel had been there for a matter of
weeks-as had Dougherty himself. If it was safe enough for
Fleet officers for an extended stay, surely it
was safe enough for the Enterprise crew to spend one day
offering the specialized knowledge of Data only
they possessed.
  No, it had to be something else. Picard had even

  checked with command; the Baku project was entirely
unclassified. Even if it weren't, Picard's
security clearance was as high as the admiral's.
They had no reason to hide anything from him.
  What, then? Dougherty's record was beyond
reproach; surely he would never involve himself in
anything of questionable legality. Could he be in some
danger from the Son'a? Picard knew little of the
race; what little he had heard was not complimentary.
  At the very least, Data was in definite troubleand so
were those he might attack. If the android was truly
on the rampage, it was only a matter of time before
he seriously injured or-God forbid-killed
someone. And when that happened, Dougherty and the Son'a
would be within their rights to terminate him.
  Picard wanted desperately to get there before such
a thing occurred-but from the looks of the Briar Patch,
it would be impossible for the Enterprise to make it to the
Baku planet quickly. Space travel in the
Patch was the equivalent of wading through waisthigh
mud.
  He frowned at the padd, whose readout
listed all anomalies present in the Patch, then
rose, tea in one hand, padd in the other, and walked
over to his dining table. It, too, was littered with
stacks

  of padds, charts, and maps. Still focused on the
readout, he sat down in front of a half-eaten
salad and propped the padd on the other research
materials to better see it. Thus situated, he
ate a forkful of salad, then took a sip of tea,
peripherally aware that it was good to be working on a
genuine problem again.
  There had to be some way to make it through more q
nickly-some shortcut, some wormhole, something that
would allow the Enterprise to arrive on the scene before
harm came to Data or anyone else. Surely
he had missed something.... Picard half-rose and
reached for a readout on the planet comupsetting the
salad plate. Pieces of lettuce, arugula,
watercress, scattered onto table, floor,
padds, Picard himself-, dressing spilled onto his
acket, dousing him with the pungent aroma of aged
cheese.
  Concentration broken at last, he sighed and brushed
an oily piece of lettuce from his lap.
  At that instant, the door chimed. Of course.
  "Who is it?" Picard demanded.
  "Commander Riker."
  Picard looked down at himself, assessing the
damage, and shrugged.
  "Come. Computer, end music."
  The first movement of the sonata ceased abruptly as
Riker entered with a padd. Will's gaze was immedi
ately drawn to the captain's stained tunic; the first

  officer's expression remained sober enough, but
Picard knew him well enough to sense the playful grin
that lurked just beneath the surface.
  "I'm a casualty of a working lunch," he
explained unnecessarily. He rose and took off
his tunic while Riker watched in slightly too
respectful silence. As Picard moved to his
cabinet, disposed of the dirtied tunic, and pulled
on a clean one, he continued talking. "I've been
going over the few star charts we have of this Briar
Patch. It's full of supernova remnants,
false vacuum fluctuations . .
  and Gorgonzola cheese," Riker added
smoothly, bending down to flick a piece of errant
comIheese from a chart.
  Picard ignored him. "We won't be able to go
any faster than one-third impulse in that muck."
  Riker straightened as the amusement in his eyes
faded. All business, he handed Picard a padd.
  "Nothing dangerous turned up in the astrometric
survey."
  Picard glanced stunned at the readout, a new
question now taking precedence in his mind. Why had
Matthew Dougherty lied to him? "So where are the
environmental concerns the admiral was talking about?"
  Riker shrugged, as if trying to deflect the
captain's unspoken question, but his gaze acknowledged the
serious implications his statement raised. "The only

  unusual readings were low levels of metaphasic
radiation from interstellar dust across the region."
  Radiation that was harmless even at full
exposure.
  Picard returned Riker's look, but said
nothing; there was nothing to say, not until they arrived
on the Baku planet and made their own investigation.
  It was Worf, on corn, who broke the silence.
"Bridge to Captain Picard. We are
approaching Sector fourfour-one."
  "Slow to impulse," Picard ordered.
"We're on our way.@., On the bridge
viewscreen, the Briar Patch glowed with the
incandescent magnificence of a thousand Terran
sunsets: glittering serpentine coils of plasma
snaked languidly through pearlescent clouds of
gas, dust, and rubble, the legacy of long-dead
stars. At the same time that Picard appreciated
its beauty, he cursed its treachery: once within its
grasp, the Enterprise would be hobbled, cut off from
all outside contact.
  As Picard stepped off the lift with Riker at his
side, he noted with a sense of nostalgia the
presence of Worf at tactical. Troi and La
Forge were waiting at their respective stations of command
and ops. The new Trill ensign, Kell Perim,
sat at conn.
  La Forge turned from his post. "We're about
to lose communications with Starfleet, Captain."

  Picard acknowledged with a look, then, accompanied
by Riker, moved over to the command station and addressed the
seated Counselor Troi. "Do you have everything you
need from command?"
  She nodded. "We've downloaded all the files
on the duck blind mission and the Son'a."
  He drew Riker into the conversation with a glance and said
to them both: "You have two days to become experts."
The counselor and second-in-command were best
suited to remain aboard the ship and deal with the
no-doubt disgruntled Son'a. "Mister Worf
...
  our job will be to find a plan to safely capture
Data."
  In response, the Klingon held up a
tricorder that had positronic circuitry
attached. "I've already had Commander La Forge
modify a tricorder with one of Data's actuation
servos. Its operational range is only four
meters, but it will shut him down."
  Picard smiled in honest appreciation of the
Klingon's initiative.
  "It's good to have you back, Worf."
  He sat, and told Perim: "Slow to one-third.
Take us in."
  It was in the Enterprise library, amid the
monitors and force-shielded, climate-controlled
shelves of ancient paper tomes, that Will Riker
began to feel the first effects. He and Deanna
Troi were sitting at parallel stations in an area
where several other silent

  researchers were working. Deanna picked the
Sonja's recent interest in the Baku planet, and
their joint mission with Starfleet; Will volunteered
to cover culture and history.
  At the moment, Deanna was briefing him on her
discoveries; and for the first time in years, Riker was
suddenly intoxicated by the scent of gardenias-in
fact, he felt as giddy as if he'd been drinking
real, not synthetic, alcohol. It was a scent she
had worn long ago, when they were first lovers. She
wore it in her hair, and he was not sure whether she
washed with it or wore it as perfume. Either way, he
felt an overwhelming urge to touch her soft, dark
hair, to lift it to his face ...
  He straightened in his chair and forced himself
to concentrate on what she was saying. What was she
saying? Something about the Son'a discovering the Baku
planet six months ago ...
  "Timed out it's in Federation space," Deanna
continued in a low voice, "so they came to us to get
approval for a sociological study. The Federation
Council suggested it be a joint mission."
  Riker managed to shake off the effect of the
perfume enough to ask, "Why was Data
assigned?"
  "Environmental concerns, again." She turned
back toward her monitor, displaying the profile
of a classic dark-eyed beauty, and briefly forgot
to lower her tone. "An android could be safely
exposed to

  the elements during the installation of a duck blind-was
"Sssshhh . .
  .
  The harsh whisper made them both turn to see one
of the librarians-this one a middle-aged human
female who struck Riker as being prune-faced.
  He fought back a grin; here they were, Number
One and the ship's counselor, getting shushed like a
couple of high-school kids.
  Troi ducked her head guiltily and went back
to her reading, this time playing distractedly with the
notepad of paper kept beside each monitor for
emergency scribbling.
  Riker huddled closer to her-the better to smell
you, my dear-and whispered softly, "I don't see
anything to suggest the Son'a have any interest in
sociology."
  She turned toward him, curious. "What
are they interested in?"
  He grinned at his monitor. "Wine, women, and
song."
  Deanna sniffed primly. "You should feel right at
home with them."
  Something small and nearly weightless struck his
temple on the side where she sat; he looked down
and saw a little paper ball, rolled from the
scratchpad.
  Riker turned, amused and indignant, to face his

  attacker, and saw her looking innocently at her
computer screen.
  Too innocently. This means war.
  "Nomadic," he whispered, reading from his own
screen, while he busily rolled his own paper
ball.
  "Collectors of precious metals, jewels
. .
  "Hmmm," Deanna purred teasingly. "I should
feel right at home with them . .
  "You're in luck," Riker said, feeling the
giddiness sweep over him again; he really did feel
like a kid in a high-school library. "They use
alien women as indentured servants." At
her scathing look, he added innocently: "A
half-century ago, they conquered two primitive
races, the Tarlac and the Ellora, and then
integrated them into their culture as a labor
class." He gave his hidden-from-view paper ball
a final good roll, and lifted his forearm to loft it comand
just then noticed the prune-faced librarian looking
daggers at him.
  Caught. He turned sheepishly back to his
computer screen and began reading again. What he found
made him recoil slightly in surprise; he
turned to Deanna, and inclined his head at his
monitor. "Look at this."
  She rose from her seat and leaned over Riker's
shoulder, supporting herself with one arm on the console.

  "The Son'a are known to have produced mass
quantities of the narcotic ketracel-white,"
Riker read in a whisper, "their ships are rumored
to be equipped with isolytic subspace weapons
outlawed by the Second Khitomer Accord. .
  "Why would we be involved with these people?"
  Deanna asked, and Will was suddenly keenly aware
of something soft and warm leaning against his upper arm: her
breast.
  "Good question," he replied blankly, and swal
lowed with a faintly audible gulp. All intelligible
thought fled him as he told himself, panicked by the heat
of his reaction: Don't assume she's flirting with
you and say something stupid,- she's just innocently
leaning against you and doesn't realize One glance up
at her convinced him otherwise; they exchanged a
look that was pure heat. Riker broke off eye
contact almost instantly and fixed his attention back
on the screen. Okay, so at the moment he had
entirely forgotten the reason for their breakup and
knew himself to be an utter fool for ever having let
this amazing, beautiful woman go.
  Back to the Son'a. He continued to scan the infor
mation scrolling past on his screen, but could not
ignore-did not want to ignore-the delicious,
gooseflesh-inducing way she began to play with the
hair at the nape of his neck.

  "You haven't done that in a long time," he
breathed.
  She leaned against him, closer; the dark perfumed
hair swung down and brushed his ear, and he drew in
the scent of flowers as she murmured, "What ...
?"
  "What you're doing to my neck . . ."
  Her tone was playful; he heard rather than saw the
little smirk she wore. "Was I doing something to your
neck?"
  Something on the screen caught his eye, distracted
him; he paused the scrolling. "It says here that some
form of genetic anomaly has prevented the Son'a
from procreating."
  "No children?"
  Riker nodded. "If that's true, they're a dying
race."
  He paused, reading further-then winced at the
sudden sharp ping against his cheek. A paper ball,
rolled tight and hard; he looked up and saw
sitting nearby a Trill ensign with a torn
notepad looking-too innocently-at his monitor.
  "Hey, was Riker said loudly-and instantly
realized he had caught the attention of everyone in that
section of the library, including Old Pruneface
herself. She had risen from her chair and was glaring at
both Riker and Troi.
  And Deanna, the little snitch, pointed at him
accusingly. "He started it."

  Riker raised his hands in protest. "I
didn't do anything, I swear it."
  But the glaring Medusa clearly did not believe;
in the face of her implacable glare, Riker
surrendered and left. He and Deanna had finished
their mission there, and he was in a panic to head for the
safety of the bridge-before he forgot he was on duty
and swept her off to his quarters.
  FOUR

  In the secure darkness of his Enterprise guest
quarters, Worf dreamed he wrestled a young male
Kolar beast.
  The creature's size matched Worf s, though
its body was thick and pudgy, all bones and sharp
angles hidden by a layer of what appeared to be
fat. Toothless, it was covered by a short layer of
silvery, down-soft fur, and given its
head-flat-skulled, long-snouted, bewhiskered-and its
wide, softly startled eyes, Worf deemed it
most similar in appearance to the Terran gray seals
he had once seen sunning along the mountainous
coastline of northern California.
  Unlike the seals, however, the Kolar beast stood
erect on powerful haunches, and its black gums


  capable of crushing Klingon bone to powder; each of
its stubby arms terminated in a row of a dozen
claws.
  Claws needle-thin, but strong and sharp enough to shred
flesh in a single swipe.
  Kolar beasts were favored by adolescent Klingons
seeking to prove their courage and strength-for the
creature's thick padding was not fat, but pure,
sinewy muscle. Its favorite methods of
killing foolish young Klingons was by either suffocation (the
muscles in its midsection were prehensile,
capab'ie of engulfing either side of its prey and
slowly squeezing it to death) or disembowelment with its
surgically keen claws.
  At the moment, those claws whizzed by Worf's
ears, slicing the air with a high-pitched, deadly
sound, even as the Klingon pinned back the beast's
arms; the slavering black gums thudded together with
deafenin , head-reeling thunder. Worf had wedged the
top of his skull beneath the animal's jawbone-a
nearperfect fit, the best manner in which to subdue a
Kolar-and now bored into it with all his might, forcing the
neckless beast's chin (and deadly jaws) up, away.
Face pressed against the pungent, animal
flesh of its short neck, Worf himself
snapped-biting into striated muscle as hard as stone.
There was a soft spot hidden here, if only he could
find it in time. But even as he bit, the Kolar's
belly muscles were undulating,

  expanding, slowly engulfing the sides of Worf s
ribs, beginning to apply pressure, until they
began audibly to crack ...
  At the same time, the beast's claws snicked
forward, tearing into Worf's right deltoid and pulling
away large shreds of violet, bloody flesh.
At the hot smell of his own blood, Worf
snarled in pain-fiery, exhilarating, glorious pain
comand in a daring move, kicked out with both feet,
finding the tender spot at the juncture of abdomen
and haunch.
  The beast roared, lost its balance, fell hard
onto its back, belly muscles suddenly
slack. This was the instant when most challengers met
death, losing their hold on the animal's arms or
neck-but with a warrior's grace, Worf held on
perfectly, his bite on the Kolar's neck never
loosening.
  Once down, the creature's low center of
gravity did not permit it to rise; furious,
keening, it champed its jaws harder, harder, until
hot, acrid foam streamed onto Worf's head,
down his face, stinging his eyes.
  The Klingon lay spread-eagled atop its
muscular bulk, Is knees digging into the tender
spots that disabled its legs, his hands clutching its
arms, his teeth pulling, ripping through the rockhard
muscle of its neck, searching for the one delicate
area ...
  At last, he found it: an eye-sized soft
spot of downy

  flesh. He bit into it, and blood-hot, bitter,
saltyspurted against the roof of his mouth, onto his
tongue, down his throat. He howled, intoxicated,
and drank.
  And when he had had his fill, his mouth and face
dripping with the Kolar's wine-colored blood, he
crawled off the beast and was suddenly overwhelmed with
desire.
  He looked up at the sound of laughter-not mocking
or amused, but victorious-and saw before him the
long-dead K'Ehleyour, the mother of his son, now
resurrected. How young she seemed, how
strong and fiercely beautiful, how Klingon. She
stood, arms akimbo, grinning slyly-and at the
realization that she was seen, she laughed again and tossed
her hair, as if daring him.
  S. I die, and all you can do is take up with
measly pale-skinned excuses for females:
Betazoid, Trill. Do you remember what it is
to love a real woman, a Klingon? Touch me
gently, kiss me tenderly, and I'll tear your
arms from their sockets.
  He reached for herbridge to Commander Worf
K'Ehleyour's image paled, wavered; growling,
he tried to seize it and touched something cold, hard,
metallic ... a ship's bulkhead. At the same
time, he became vaguely conscious of a distant
bleating that had

  continued for some time. The shriek of a djabi bird,
he had assumed-but no, this sound was mechanically
persistent.
  His sleep alarm. It was trilling-and had been for
some time. He had overslept.
  The realization pierced the veil of his
unconsciousness. He opened his eyes to darkness and
sat, panicked-had he dreamed it, or had
Picard actually called him from the bridge?
  "Worf.?" The captain's tone conveyed
annoyance.
  "Captain . . ." he gasped, mortified. In
all his years with Starfleet, he had never "I
don't know how they do it on Deep Space 9,"
Picard stated dryly, "but on the Enterprise, we
still report for duty on time."
  In reply, Worf rose swiftly in the
darknesspromptly bumping his crown on the low ceiling
over his bunk. He had forgotten about that particular
quirk in the Enterprise's officer cabins and
that-plus his unthinkable sin of oversleeping-troubled
him.
  As did the inebriating surge of adrenaline
and.passion at the memory of the Kolar's blood in his
mouth, at the memory of K'Ehleyour with arms open
wide, waiting for him.
  He felt like a youth, he realized, as he
hurriedly pulled on uniform, boots, sash (he
had slept in his uniform); a youth lusting for
battle, and love ... And

  he remembered with sudden clarity how, when he was in
the throes of adolescence, sleep had come so
heavily upon him that none could wake him.
  It took Worf mere seconds to dress; as he
strode out the door into the corridor, he realized the
comlink had not been severed; the captain was still awaiting
an answer.
  "I... I must have slept through my alarm," the
Klingon said to corn.
  "I'm on my way......
  Even as he spoke, the sensations of passion and
ferocity evoked by the dream followed him, and he
wondered: What was in the air aboard the
Enterprise, that he should feel so?
  On the bridge, meanwhile, Picard had already
arrived at his own explanation: It was the mission
to save Data, and the clear sense of purpose, that
filled him with exceptional energy that morning.
  "We'll skip the court-martial this time," he
told the dazed Worf.
  "Picard out." And he looked up at the
bridge-at La Forge at ops, Kell Perim
at conn, Lieutenant Daniels at
tactical-and was pleased.
  The captain had risen early and exercised-feneing,
today-with especial fervor, pleased to find all
lassitude, all sense of boredom and
weariness, dissolved. He felt (dare he think it?)
young. All of Beverly's pointed comments about his aging,
and indeed, his own observations that confirmed she was

  right, were entirely wrong. Aging had nothing to do with
his increasing physical and mental tirednessall of it,
even the deepening creases in his forehead, was gone after
one night's rest. Perhaps it was his imagination, but even
his sight and hearing seemed slightly improved.
  To test the latter, he relaxed himself and focused
on the faint hum of the engines. He had grown so
used to them over the years that most times he was unaware
of them, just as he was unaware of the sound of his own
breath-but he knew both well enough to detect any
irregularity.
  And there one was-a barely audible, high-pitched
whine buried within the deeper, constant hum. He
lifted an eyebrow, rose, and stepped forward to La
Forge's and Perim's stations. "When was the last time
we aligned our torque sensors?"
  Perim glanced over her shoulder at him. "Two
months ago, sir."
  The captain frowned. "They don't sound right."
  Both reacted swiftly to the pronouncement,
fingers flying over consoles as they each ran
diagnostics; both reached the same conclusion at the
same time, and stared up at each other in mild
surprise.
  La Forge at last looked over at his captain.
"The torque sensors are out of alignment-by
twelve microns. You could hear that?"
  Picard permitted himself a self-satisfied little
smile.

  "When I was an ensign, I could detect a
three-micron misalignment. .
  .
  ."
  "Excuse me, Sir," Lieutenant
Daniels interrupted.
  "The Son'a ship with Admiral Dougherty
aboard has entered tracking range."
  Amazing, Picard thought, with a glance at the Briar
Patch's murky, beautiful clouds and debris
onscreen, that the sensors could detect anything at
all in this pea soup. "Try to hail them."
  Daniels complied as the bridge doors opened
and a sheepish Worf entered, his sash twisted,
halfbackward. "Admiral Dougherty
responding," Daniels said, rising as the
Klingon moved to replace him.
  Worf settled into the station as Daniels exited
the bridge.
  Picard gave Worf a pointed sidewise
glance.
  "Straighten your baldric, Commander," he said
sternly, with no small amount of hidden amusement.
  "On screen . . ."
  He had been prepared, of course, by Riker and
Trot's briefing on the Son'a's appearance and
culture-as well as their less-than-ethical
involvement with the drug and slave trade. Or
Picard had thought; but he still found distaste welling up
in him at the sight of the Son'a sitting next
to Dougherty. This would be Ru'afo, the Son'a commander
or ahdar.
  He was older, around Dougherty's age comor perhaps
older than the admiral, for whatever youth the

  Son'a still possessed was definitely born of
artifice.
  The skin of his face was pulled taut over the bone
structure (only part of which he had probably been
born with), giving him the appearance of a slightly
startled skeleton; a large scar, where the
skin had apparently torn many times, marred his
forehead.
  Ru'afo's eyes were old, mistru/l,
calculating-and as full of littering artifice as his
jewel-encrusted tunic, designed to push any
less-than-youthful girth into more pleasing lines.
  As for Matthew Dougherty, he appeared ill at
ease in the sumptuously appointed setting; and even
more ill at ease to be looking at Picard.
  His manner was far from cordial. "Captain, I
wasn't expecting you."
  "This was too important for the Enterprise to be
on the sidelines, Admiral," Picard countered.
Dougherty had never given him a direct order
forbidding him to come; he had merely discouraged him.
What had he said exactly?
  That's not a good idea.... Just get me Data's
schematics.
  Picard had responded promptly to the one
order; he'd provided the admiral with schematics
immediately. Technically, Dougherty could not accuse him
of insubordination, and they both knew it.
  Displeased the admiral might be; but Picard
knew him to be a reasonable, compassionate man, who
surely understood the captain's concern for a
crew

  member. Dougherty sighed deeply, and his
expression shifted from one of discomfort to one of
sympathy.
  Ru'afo's remained calculating, glittering.
  "I wish I had better news," Dougherty said.
"Commander Data attacked us in the mission scoutship
yesterday. Ru'afo and I have decided to send in an
assault team."
  "Sir," Picard answered swiftly, "Commander
Worf and I have been working on several tactical
plans to safely-was "Your android has turned
dangerously violent, Captain," the Son'a said,
lunging forward in his latinum-plated chair with the fury
of a coiled serpent on the verge of striking.
"Considerable damage was done to my ship. He must be
destroyed."
  Dougherty's tone remained kindly but implacable.
  "I know what Data means to Starfleet,
Jean-Luc, but our crew is at the mercy of those people
on the planet. Because of Data's wild attacks,
they think we mean to harm them, and they're holding our
entire mission team down there. The effects on the
Baku are bound to be unfathomable, but if
they harm any of the hostages-well, you can see how
delicate the situation is. We can't afford for
anyone else to interfere. And if, God forbid,
Data kills one of the Baku-was Picard replied
in a voice soft, low, steely. "If our

  first attempt to capture Data fails, I will
terminate him." He paused.
  "I should be the one to do it. I'm his captain ...
and his friend."
  Dougherty clearly heard and understood; Ahdar
Ru'afo's expression was one of pure hostility.
"It isn't safe for you to remain in this area," the
Son'a said.
  Dougherty gave his unlikely cohort a
sidewise lance, then told Picard, "He's right.
Our shields have been upgraded to protect against the
environmental anomalies. . . ."
  Picard held firm. "We haven't noticed
any ill effects."
  Dougherty studied him a long beat. It was clear
that he and Ru'afo were far from friends, and had probably
been at odds since the first day the Baku mission
began; Picard did not envy Dougherty the
assignment. But it was also clear that, for some
unspoken reason, the Son'a did not want the
Enterprise here-a reason to which the admiral was also
sympathetic.
  Picard watched as Dougherty wavered, then made
his decision. "All right," the admiral said. "You have
twelve hours, Captain, to retrieve your
android, and no more. Then I want you out of the Briar
Patch. In the meantime, we'll be heading out to the
perimeter to call for Son'a reinforcements in case
you fail.
  Remember-retrieve Data, then get out."

  "Understood," Picard answered gratefully.
  "Good luck. Dougherty out."
  The admiral's image vanished abruptly,
replaced by the incandescent mother-of-pearl glow of the
Briar Patch, leaving Picard to wonder: What
agreement did Starfleet-or Dougherty himself-have with the
Son'a that neither wanted the Enterprise to discover?
  And why were both worried about anyone else having
contact with the planet?
  On the shuttlecraft viewscreen, the marbled
blue Baku planet rotated lazily inside its
gleaming rings.
  No wonder the Son'a were so intrigued
by it; here was astounding beauty without a trace of
artifice, Picard decided, as he sat at the
shuttle's controls. Beside him, in the copilot's
chair, Worf spoke, squinting at his readouts.
  "Sensors are not picking up any ships coming from the
surface."
  "Transmit a wideband covariant signal,"
Picard ordered. "That'll get his attention."
  Complying, Worf touched controls on his panel.
  "He might be using the planet's rings to mask his
approach."
  Picard checked the sensors again. "The
metaphasic radiation in those rings is in a state of
extreme flux.
  Steer clear of them, Mister Worf."
  The two of them contemplated the planet in silence

  for a time, checking and rechecking sensors, watching,
waiting. Picard murmured in singsong to himself, to the
hidden android: "Come out, come out, wherever you are . .
."
  Worf s thick brows came together in
puzzlement; he faced his captain.
  "Sir?"
  was Hmm?" Picard shook off the sudden
strong recoilection of his childhood, of himself in a
long-ago summertime, hiding behind a grapevine thick
with green leaves, redolent with the winy fragrance of
cabemet frane grapes, some of them crushed on the
soft, loamy soil beneath his bare, purple-stained
feet.
  "Oh, it's just something my mother used to-was A
deafening roar; the small craft pitched leeward.
  "Hold on," Picard shouted over the din, and
worked the controls. The shuttle climbed sharply,
evading another phaser blast which lit up the
viewscreen, dazzling the captain's eyes.
  "Open all frequencies," he ordered
Worf-, the Klingon acknowledged and complied before
Picard could draw another breath to speak. "Data
...
  This is Captain Picard. Please
acknowledge."
  A second's silence; then another blast lit
up the viewscreen; on the sensors, a Federation
scout vessel appeared, firing continuously, as it
slipped free from a gas cloud.
  Picard maneuvered wildly, too erratically
for a logical android mind to PREDICT AND
MANAGED TO

  evade the bulk of the shots-but enough connected,
slamming the shuttle about in space, to remind him of the
mission's danger.
  Data, he silently told the android, when I
was the Borg's pawn Locutus, you found me,
helped me find MY way home. How can I
help you now?
  The shuttlecraft reeled at another
ear-shattering blast; Picard kept his wits and
lurched the shuttle seventy degrees aft, then
did a full spiral maneuver.
  In the midst of it, Worf-looking somewhat green,
despite Picard's reminders that looking steadily
at the viewscreen might make him feel
ill-interrupted, his tone one of desperate
inspiration. "Sir, if we force a tachyon burst,
it may force him to reset have' is shield
harmonics. When he does, we could beam him out.
  "Make it so," Picard ordered.
  The Klingon worked a few controls at
tactical; at once, both viewscreen and
sensors confirmed success.
  "Direct hit," Worf exulted. "He's
resetting his shield harmonics."
  was Beam him out!" Picard turned toward the
small transporter pad while Worf, clutching
the modified transporter in his right hand, did the
same.
  The transporter glowed, hummed ... then
flickered, and wheezed, unsuccessful. Worf
frowned at his panel. "He's activated a
transport inhibitor."

  "Prepare to enter the atmosphere," the captain
countered. "We'll use the ionospheric boundary
to shake him."
  Abruptly, he piloted the shuttle into a
straight dive down into the ionosphere of the
planet's daytime half-, on the viewscreen, the
dust clouds and debris of the Patch disappeared. The
darkness of space paled, and the blue atmosphere of the
sky below brightened. But the ride was a bumpy one;
Picard worked furiously to keep the ship from shaking
herself apart.
  "Scanners are off-line!" Worf shouted through the
din.
  "Evasive maneuvers. Heading one-four-zero
mark three-one . .
  A lightning-brilliant blast that thundered
in Picard's ears made the controls in his hands
tremble.
  Then another. Another. Another ...
  Above their heads, a conduit spewed blue-tinged
gas; Worf half-rose, worked to stop it. In the
viewscreen, the Federation scout zoomed past against a
blue backdrop of sky-so close, that Picard
found himself staring into Data's blank golden eyes.
  He saw no evil there, no malice or
madness, only tne mindless focus of an android
carrying out its programming ...
  Picard pulled yet another evasive
maneuver, mutteri ng aloud to himself- "He can fly
a ship, he antici 71 pates tactical
strategies, his brain is obviously functioning .
. ." He paused, groping for inspiration as it
neared. "We've seen how he responds to threats.
  I wonder how he'd respond to-was His words were
interrupted by yet another deafening blast. No time
to explain further to Worf, the shuttle could withstand little
more. He turned excitedly to the Klingon, who had
fixed the leak. "Do you know Gilbert and
Sullivan?"
  Worf blinked, utterly failing to grasp the
implication, and clearly at a loss as to why
his captain would make social conversation at such a
critical moment.
  "No, sir, I haven't had a chance to meet
all the new crew members since I've been
back "They're composers, Worf, from the nineteenth
century.
  Data was rehearsing a part in H.m.s.
Pinafore before he left." And he sang an aria at
the open comlink:
  A British tar is a soaring soul, As free as
a mountain bird, His energeticist should be ready
to resist A dictatorial word ...
  A subroutine, of course-Data was operating off
one errant program at the moment that insisted he
"defend" himself against attackers. But if Picard

  could manage to distract him long enough with anoth er
familiar program ...
  He gave Worf a nod that commanded, Join me!
The Klingon returned the silent command with a look of
pure exasperation: he did not know the lyrics, of
course. Picard's fingers flew over computer
controls as he sang:
  His nose should pant and his lip should curl, His
cheeks shouldflame and his brow should furl. . .
  AND OVER THE COM link, much to the
captain's gratifi CATION ANO their voice
joined in: Data's. Together, he and Picard
finished the chorus.
  His bosom should heave AND HIS HEART SHOULD
  glow, And his fist be ready for a knock-down blow.
  On the shuttle monitor, the lyrics began
to scroll past, with a bouncing ball to keep time.
  "Sing!" Picard commanded, and the Klingon joined in
somewhat reluctantly, in a rich baritone:
  His nose should pant and his lip should curl, His
cheeks shouldflame and his brow should furl ...
  Picard felt a momentary surge of concern when
he realized the android had grown silent; but then
Data joined in once more, in full tenor:
  His bosom should heave and his heart should glow
  And his fist be ready for a knock-down blow.
  Picard glanced at the Klingon at the
realizalion that the android had stopped firing. And from
the corn, Data continued singing:
  His eyes shouldflash with an inborn fire, His brow
with scorn be wrungeaHe never should bow down to a
domineering frown ...
  The captain grinned and in the same soft tone,
told Worf- "Prepare the dockin
clamps." The Klingon obeyed as Picard sang,
triumphant, with his android friend:
  Or the tang of a tyrant tongue ...
  His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His
hair should twirl and his face should scowl
  His eyes shouldflash and his breast protrude, And
thly should be his customary attitude.

  As they sang, Worf retook his chair and the
shuttle glided beneath the scout. Picard launched
into a repetition of the same verse and felt his
vessel shudder as the docking clamp attached itself to the
scout.
  Abruptly, he was singing alone:
  His foot should stamp and his throat should growl, His
hair should twirl and his face should scowl ...
  The shuttle began to rock from side
to side-gently first, then harder, until Picard was
forced to cling to the console to keep from being thrown against the
bulkhead.
  "Sir," Worf shouted beside him, "inertial
coupling is exceeding tolerance. If we don't
release him, he may destroy both vessels."
  "I'm not letting go of him," Picard said
stubborniy-even as the shuttle, still clinging
desperately to the bucking scout, began to go into a
downward spin.
  Through the viewscreen, Picard saw the planet
surface spiraling dizzily toward them.
  "Warning," the computer intoned calmly.
"Impact with surface in twenty seconds."
  "Reroute emergency power to inertial dampers,"
Picard commanded.
  Worf worked the controls, then looked pointedly
up

  at his captain. "The damping sequencer was
damaged by phaser fire!"
  "Transferring controls to manual." Picard
punched the controls furiously-he had not come this far
only to die with two dear friends-while the computer
reminded them: "Warning. Impact with surface in
ten seconds."
  Picard finished transferring the controls;
respond, the captain ordered the ship silently, as
if his will alone were enough to create a cushion between them
all and death.
  At last, the Klingon looked up, exultant.
"Damping field established."
  "Maximum power! Now, Mister
Worf!"
  The Klingon rose and moved swiftly to the docking
hatch. The shuttle responded once again to the
controls; Picard pulled it (and by virtue of the
docking clamp, the scout as well) into a hard are
parallel to the surface, only a dozen or so
meters away.
  In the instant that Worf blew open the scout's
hatch with a harmless compression blast from the tricorder,
he recalled the dream of the Kolar beast, and the
delicious craving for battle that had overtaken him.
A shiver of it swept over him as the hatch thudded
to the deck of the scout's interior; for that flickering
millisecond he contemplated the exhilara 76
tion hand-to-hand combat with the android would bring.
  There was no chance the Klingon would win, of course;
but ah, what a glorious death that would be, at the
hands of such a worthy foe....
  Worf shuddered, casting off the madness, and adjusted
his modified tricorder to Data's actuation
frequency ...
  ... just in time to see Data turn from the scout's
control panel to blankly regard his intruder. In
his eyes, Worf detected not the faintest glimmer
of recognition; at once, he aimed the
tricorder directly at the android, pressed the
control, and waited for Data to fall ...
  Data did not fall. Instead, he tilted his
head with dispassionate curiosity, still holding Worf
with that blank gaze ...
  ... and lunged with feline ferocity, feline
grace.
  Worf s first, atavistic urge was to drop the
tricorder and strike a battle pose; but against
all instinct, he extended the tricorder toward the
android and again pressed the control. Data was his friend;
and it was Worf s duty to both his friend and to Captain
Picard to return with both himself and the android intact.
  Data sailed toward him-and in midair, the
android's amber eyes went abruptly dull; his
body froze,

  immobile, and dropped to the floor with the same
lifeless thud as the hatch.
  With a sigh of relief ... and disappointment,
Worf touched his combadge. "Captain. Commander
Data is safely in custody."
  And almost smiled as he heard the deep intake and
release of Picard's gusting breath.
  FIVE

  Retrieve Data, then get out, Dougherty had
said; but the admiral had not specifically forbidden
Picard to go to the planet surface-and Picard was
determined to test the limits of Dougherty's
patience.
  According to the Enterprise's sensor readings, the
entire Starfleet mission group remained down on
the planet surface, along with a handful of
Son'a-but if there were any real danger to them, the
admiral would certainly have beamed them up. The
agrarian Baku wielded no transporter beam
inhibitors, no shields, nothing whatsoever that could
have prevented such a move. And Son'a vessels were
supposedly technological marvels, with the
capacity to beam up the mission

  team en masse, with no one left behind to suffer the
wrath of their captors.
  Even now, Riker had reported, all on the
planet surface appeared peaceful-and if the
delicate negotiations Dougherty had mentioned were in
fact occurring, both parties must have reached an
impasse. No communications had taken place between
planet surface and the Son'a vessel
for the past hour.
  Whitewash, Picard decided. Everythin,
Matthew Dougherty had told him thus far had been
whitewash-a pleasant exterior that hid something
rotten, rather like the thick layer of cosmetics worn
by the aged Son'a. The admiral had been far too
nice when Picard had shown up unannounced in the
Briar Patch; if there had been real environmental
concerns, the Dougherty Picard knew would have chewed
him up and spit him out, and noted it all on the
captain's record. The real Dougherty would have
beamed up his people the instant the Baku discovered the
duck blind.
  Something was seriously amiss-something that Dougherty
and the Son'a had no intention of revealing, something that the
captain would have to discover on his own.
  So it was that Picard, accompanied by an entourage
of armed engineers, entered the Baku village on
foot.
  Crusher and Troi flanked him, and the three, like the
engineers, kept their phasers drawn.

  It was difficult, if not impossible, to keep a
somber, even threatening expression upon one's face,
Picard reflected, given the natural
beauty of the surroundings-the air fresh, rich with
oxygen, the sky bright with sunlight filtered through the
branches of sweetsmelling trees, the distant
mountains, lavender-gray beside a silver river, the
closer mountains russet iced with green. And the
birdsong ...
  He felt the muscles holding in his abdomen, his
spine, suddenly release and flow outward like ice
melting in the sun, and recalled when he had last
experienced such utter relaxation: in childhood, on
holiday along the southern coast of France. Only
then, the breeze had been more humid, and carried upon
it the astringent scent of salt. He had been running
along the water's edge, laughing at the pull of
tide and dissolving sand as the waves retreated, and
maman had been sitting beside him, smiling, her dark
hair pinned up, save for one errant curl at the
nape of her neck....
  Picard shook off the memory and the beginnings of a
smile. They had made their way to a copse of
trees ithin a wildflower-filled meadow; in the
shade, the Baku sat at handmade wooden tables,
apparently e njoying a leisurely lunch. The
perfumed breeze carried on it the sounds of laughter
and conversation.
  They appeared a handsome, healthy people: paleeyed,
brown-skinned from the sun, welt.-bemuscled from

  a lifestyle dependent on physical labor.
All wore loose-fitting robes of handwoven
cloth dyed in the colors of nature: indigo,
beet, saffron.
  Among them sat their alleged hostages, still
dressed in Starfleet uniforms but definitely off
duty, given the amount of laughter in the air. Some
of them sat observing the children and trying unsuccessfully
to keep up with an extremely sophisticated,
challenging form of patty-cake. The others conversed
happily with their gracious Baku hosts, who
seemed intent on refilling their plates and cups.
A small group of Son'a sat off to one side,
apparently uninterested in either eating or
socializing.
  Picard and his rescue team stopped and regarded the
charming tableau in curious silence; the luncheon
conversation faded away as the observed registered their
observers.
  The Baku looked as perplexed as Picard
felt; the "hostages" looked frankly
disappointed.
  At once, the heads of the mission rose and moved
toward Picard-one Son'a, one Starfleet.
  "Captain. Subahdar Gallatin, Son'a
command."
  The Son'a, a small-framed male with
notably regal bearing and a serious,
matter-of-fact manner, gave Picard an
acknowledging nod almost as natural as an
  Earth-born human's. So, this was Ahdar
Rujafo's second-in-command; but Gallatin
lacked his ahdar's arrogance and flamboyance in
dress.

  "Lieutenant Curtis," the Terran female
said, "attachand to Admiral Dougherty." Her
manner was cheerful and direct; if the admiral were
trying to hide something, it seemed his attache was
excluded from the secret.
  Picard stepped forward so the two stood beside, not in
front of, him; he kept his weapon trained on the
nearest tableful of quizzical Baku.
  He addressed them softly, from the side of his
mouth: "Are you all right?"
  Smiling as if both amused and surprised by the
question, Lieutenant Curtis gestured at
the natives.
  "We've been treated extremely well by these
people."
  If she had been taken hostage, her captors
had obviously forgotten to share that information with her.
  Indeed, the Baku made no move to interfere,
merely watched and whispered among themselves about these new
intruders. Picard and Troi lowered their weapons;
the rest of the team kept their phasers aimed at the
natives.
  Already bored, the children unself-consciously resumed
their android-fast patty-cake game. Deanna
Troi watched, spellbound. She glanced
sidewise at the captain, then returned to watching
the Baku children with a faint smile of admiration and
wonder. "They have an incredible clarity of perception,
Captain. I've never encountered a species with such
mental discipline."

  As she spoke, a small group of Baku made
its way toward them; by their demeanor, Picard
judged them to be leaders-although none of them appeared
to be older than forty. The tallest, a male,
walked up to Picard and faced him with a direct,
open expression and an air of friendliness.
  "My name is Sojef, Captain." He was
broad shouldered and powerfully built; a second
male and a female followed and silently flanked
him on either side.
  "Jean-Luc Picard," the captain responded,
then pointed with his chin.
  "My officers, Doctor Crusher ... and
Counselor Troi."
  Sojef favored them each with a look, then half
turned toward the waiting feast. "Would you like something
to eat?"
  "dis"...ationo," Picard answered, "we're here
to He faltered as he gestured at the mission group.
"rescue" them."
  "As you wish," Sojef replied politely.
"But I would ask you to disarm yourselves. This village is
a sanctuany of life."
  Picard glanced down at the phaser still clutched in
his hand and measured the request. A ploy?
Possibly, but ... He studied the apparently
sincere expressions of Sojef and his entourage, of the
smiling Lieutenant Curtis and obviously content
Starfleet personnel, of

  the aloof Son'a, of the children playing,
oblivious to the grown-up conversation.
  Unlikely, that they would place their own children in a
(i angerous situation-or that they would be able
to terrorize so many Starfleet officers into giving such
a convincing performance. Picard holstered his weapon, and
heard the rest of his away team do the same.
  To Crusher and Troi, he said, "Prepare
to transport the "hostages" to the ship."
  Crusher acknowledged with a glance. "They should be
quarantined before joining the ship's population."
  Picard gave a nod. The women moved off with
Subahdar Gallatin and Lieutenant Curtis
to arrange transport, and the Enterprise engineers
left to disassemble the duck blind-leaving Picard alone
with the Baku leaders.
  He turned back to Sojef with a wry smile;
there was no point in trying to hide his embarrassment
at drawin weapons on the Baku. Amazing,
really, that these ostensible primitives were reacting so
calmly to all the recent, startling events; he would
not have blamed them for wielding a few pitchforks and
torches. "We were under the impression they were being
held against their will."
  A petite, small-boned woman beside Sojef
took a defiant step forward.
  "It's not our custom to have guests here at all,
let alone hold anyone against their

  will." There was no harshness in her tone-only
strength, and in her star-pale eyes, a fire that
made Picard draw in a silent, startled breath.
Her sleeves had been rolled up to reveal lean but
muscular arms.
  Sojef spoke next. "The artificial
life-form would not allow them to leave. He told us
they were our enemies and more would follow."
  "Are you our enemy?" the woman asked
pointblank. No hostility in her tone, no
suspicion, only a demand to know.
  "Anti Sojef murmured, admonishing her
gentiy; clearly these two had known each other quite
wel I for some time. But she ignored him, keeping
her unwavering gaze on Picard.
  For a moment, he was almost too overcome by that gaze
to speak, as if he were a giddy schoolboy with a
crush. Good Lord, what is the matter with you, man?
  You're a captain-act like one. He gathered himself
at once and straightened his uniform. "My people have a
strict policy of noninterference with other
cultures.
  In fact, it's our Prime Directive."
  Anij-such a lovely, exotic name-favored him
with a withering smile.
  "Your directive apparently doesn't include
spying on other cultures."
  "If I were in your shoes, I'd feel the same
way after what happened."
  Picard paused, carefully weighing each word in
light of the culture's technological

  advancement-or rather, lack thereof. "The
"artificial life-form" is a member of my
crew. Apparently, he became ... ill . .
  The younger male who flanked Sojef spoke for the
first time. "There did seem to be a phase variance in
his positronic matrix that we were unable
to repair."
  Picard's lower jaw dropped a few
centimeters- for an instant, he stared speechless at
the younger B a'ku.
  Anij's wry smile widened. "I believe the
captain finds it hard to believe that we'd have any
skills repairing a positronic device."
  The ever-serious Sojef nodd'd. "Our
technological abilities aren't
apparent because we've chosen not to employ them in our
daily lives.
  We believe when you create a machine to do the work
of a person, you take something away from that person."
  "But at one time," Anij added, tilting a sharp
chin to look up at Picard with eyes that challenged,
"we explored the galaxy just as you do."
  "You have warp capability?" Picard murmured,
even more astonished.
  "Capability, yes." She lifted her face
toward the sunlight and spread both arms as if
to embrace her entire world. "But where can warp drive
take us, except away from here?"
  It was a question that, at any other time, Picard would
deem foolish, shortsighted, preposterous; but

  at that precise instant, a scarlet
hummingbird, like a red-winged jewel, appeared just behind
her head, and dipped its beak into her sun-lightened
curls.
  Finding no nectar, it moved on-toward Picard,
and for a heartbeat, no more, he felt upon his scalp the
breeze generated by small, invisible wings, heard the
soft, fleeting hum ...
  Behind them, he could hear the affectionate
murmurs of Starfleet personnel taking leave of
their Baku hosts. With sincerity, he told Anij:
"I apologize for our intrusion."
  And he took his leave of them-quickly, before further
contact with Anij, the Baku woman, made it any
harder for him to go.
  and because they have warp capabilities, the consequences
to their society are minimal," Picard finished.
He sat in his ready room, staring at the image of
Admiral Dougherty on the monitor. It had all
gone precisely as he expected: Dougherty had
n ot rebuked him for "rescuing" the "hostages"
on his own initiative. Far from it: he had listened
approvingly to the captain's tale, and had appeared
surprised to hear of the Baku's hospitality and their
technological abilities.
  Picard believed none of it.
  Even now, Dougherty nodded, smiling with an
enthusiasm that seemed a little too forced. "You've

  done a terrific job, Jean-Luc. Now,
pack your bags and get the hell out of there."
  Obviously, Picard thought, Ifailed to find
whatever he was hiding from me, or he wouldn't be so
damned cheerful.
  Abruptly, the admiral's tone shifted,
became both more genuine and concerned. "How's
Data?"
  "In stasis," Picard replied, trying not to be
short, not to let any of the disbelief or disgust he
felt toward Dougherty show. "La Forge is
completing the diagnostic."
  The admiral gave a compassionate nod; then his
expression shifted once again to the brisk, the
businesslike, the feigned. "I'll need all your
paperwork tomorrow. We're heading back your way. Set
a course to rendezvous with us so you can transfer the
crew and equipment on your way out."
  "You're not finished here?" Picard took care
to keep his tone polite, disinterested, despite his
suspi. cion . So, whatever the admiral wanted
was still on the surface itself, and was not contained within the
mission crew, their belongings, or the disassembled
duck blind, all of which were now aboard the Enterprise.
  "Just a few loose ends to tie up," Dougherty
said casually, with a slightly too-big smile.
"Dougherty out."
  Picard touched a control; the monitor darkened,
and he turned from it with a sigh. It was time to
  89
  immerse himself once again in the myriad of annoying
little missions Starfleet had planned for the
Enterprise once she emerged from the Briar Patch,
and he picked up one padd from a stack of them on his
desk and began to study it.
  He'd intended to read it with part of his mind while
delegating another part to subconscious rumination about
Dougherty's hidden agenda-if, indeed, he could be
certain the admiral had one. He prided himself on
his ability to work on two projects at once, so
long as one was strategy and the other detail.
  But at the moment, he seemed able to concentrate on
neither. Instead, his gaze was drawn toward the
observation window, where the beautiful planet of the
Baku, wearing its rings like opalescent jewels,
rotated.
  And he thought only of Anij; Anij, with her
cool voice and fiery eyes, wearing the crimson
hummingbird like an adornment in her hair ...
  At the same instant, Deanna Troi sat on
her office couch making notes on a padd-or at
least, trying to.
  Her concentration was definitely off-had been,
since that incident with Will Riker in the library. She
had flirted with him mercilessly as a
schoolgirl, and had enjoyed it. Why?
  Only one answer would come: Because I wanted to.
  But why did she want to? She and Will had long
ago

  agreed to keep old feelings just that-old
feelings-so why was she now in the throes of what felt
like an adolescent crush?
  Counselor, counsel thyself All right, then: she
had acted irresponsibly with Will, had flirted with
him because-because, well, she had been attracted to him.
And it seemed to her that he had enjoyed the attention.
Perhaps it had been only a game to him; perhaps it had
been only a game to her.
  Okay, it had been a game to her, a
deliciously fun one. She had adored flirting with
him when they were lovers, because he was sly and
sharp-witted and had always caught on immediately to the
subtlest innuendo. And he was a master at the game
himself, especially at telegraphing the most erotic
proposals at public social situations without
another soul suspecting. (never on duty, of
course-nor would she have permitted it.)
  But beneath the flirtatious game, she felt something
deeper in herself-a real stirring of emotions
she'd thought long gone, and that was a problem,
especially if Will thought she had only been joking
For gods' sake, Deanna, shut up! Stop thinking
about yourself, and start behaving like a ship's counselor.
  She drew in a deep breath and studied her padd
again, with its list of new assignees to the
Enterprise,

  scheduled for pickup the coming week. There were
archeologists, of course, who were accustomed to starship
transport and would have little trouble adjusting-but there were a
handful of first-time Starfleet ensigns from various
cultural backgrounds and planets who would
require orientation and a bit of hand-holding until
the first wave of homesickness wore off ...
  The door chimed. "Come in," she said, barely
glancing up from her padd comand narrowly avoiding a
double take at the sight of Will, smiling a bit
sheepishly. Her pulse immediately quickened at a rush
of pure adrenaline (much to her chagrin), but with
consummate self-control, she managed a cool,
"Hi."
  As if he were not the one person in the universe she
most wanted to see; as if she did not want to leap
immediately into his arms.
  The hell with maturity, she thought with sudden,
mischievous vehemence.
  Somethingeawonderful was happening between them; she would
enjoy it, would play it to the hilt. The game was
afoot: she had last been pursuer, he the
pursued. Now it was time to switch roles.
  "Got a minute?" he asked, a little
awkwardly.
  "I ... need a little counseling." She looked
askance at him, and he shrugged; a bit of the old
playful Will crept into his tone. "First time for
everything." He

  glanced about the room, looking for a place to sit.
  "Do I ... lie down ... or what?"
  It was the smooth, unctuous way he said lie
down that was the signal flirtation had officially
begun.
  Deanna pretended to miss it-why not make him work
a little harder?-but inwardly, she smiled. In her most
professional counselor's tone, she answered:
"Whatever makes you comfortable."
  He lay down, all right ... with his head in her
lap, and gazed up at her with a look of pure
desire.
  "This isn't one of the usual therapeutic
postures," Troi said coolly, fighting the
desire to stroke his hair, to lean down for a
kiss....
  Will grinned wolfishly. "But it's comfortable."
  Ah, she had him quite desperate now; primly,
she said, "Why don't you try sitting up?"
  "Why don't you try lying down?"
  She feigned a sharp, exasperated breath, but could
no longer entirely repress the grin that played at
the corners of her lips. "You're in quite a mood
today."
  He sat ... and kissed her, swiftly, holding
back from a longer kiss, just in case he had
misread her smile. She rose and pretended to be
shocked. "Do you really need counseling, or did you
come down here to play?"
  Riker rose as well, matching her step for step:
she took one step back, he took one step
forward, toward her.

  "Both," he said, quite seriously; she blinked in
honest surprise. "I think I'm having a
midlife crisis . . ."
  "G I believe you." She retreated
again; he followed.
  The look in his eyes was one of such pure, heated
desperation that she at once rejoiced and quailed. So,
he felt as she did-passionately in love-but did
they know what they were doing? Was this wise?
  Ah, the hell with it....
  I'm not sleeping well," Riker breathed,
advancing.
  'Doctor Crusher has something that'll take care
of that. . . ." She retreated two steps more, then
stopped, and watched him slowly move nearer,
nearer....
  andL What I need, I can't get from Doctor
Crusher. .
  He hovered, his face mere inches above hers; she
could feel his breath upon her skin as he asked:
"Counselor, do you think it's possible for two people
to go back in time to fix a mistake they've made?"
  "On this ship," she said, in a voice so coy, so
beckoning, that he flashed a full grin and looked
exactly as he had twenty years before, "anything's
possible."
  Slowly, slowly, he brought his lips down
to hers, and they kissed "Augh." Deanna shivered,
repulsed by the sensation of a thousand tiny
beetle legs crawling upon her cheeks, and pushed
him away.

  "Augh?" Will repeated, aghast.
  "I never kissed you with a beard before." Massaging
her offended skin, she gathered the confused Riker up
and shoved him out the door.
  He stood in the doorway, arms spread, palms
faceout in a gesture of total disbelief. "I
kiss you and you say augh?"
  She pressed the panel and watched the door
slide over his pathetic, tortured expression, through
some miracle of will managing to keep from smiling
until it was completely closed.

  six
  "I had to reconstruct Data's neural net
and replace these," Geordi La Forge told the
captain, as the two of them made their way down the
corridors of engineering. "They contain memory
engrams."
  With great interest, Picard studied the pieces of
gouged, scorched circuitry in La Forge's
palm. The instant Geordi had called, the
captain put aside all thoughts of the
Edenlike Baku planet and Anij and focused on
the issue of Data. La Forge had promised
to share some extremely interesting-and
sensitiveinformation. "How were they damaged?" the
captain asked.
  "By a Son'a weapon," La Forge stated
firmly, and at Picard's swift, sharp look,
added: "There's no

  doubt about it, sir. That's what made Data
malfunction."
  Picard considered this, then said cautiously, "The
Son'a reports claim they didn't fire
until after he malfunctioned."
  La Forge was unmoved; he squared his dark
shoulders. "I don't believe it happened that
way."
  The chief engineer was not one to make hasty
judgments; only hard, irrefutable evidence could
prompt him to make such a pronouncement.
  Convinced, Picard took the step to the next
logical conclusion. "Why would they fire at him
without provocation?"
  La Forge briefly put his fingers to his dark
brow, as if to massage away a headache,
then repressed the gesture and shrugged. Picard
noted the move simply because La Forge seemed to be
the only crew member lately who was not in
exuberant spiritscaptain included. Not that Geordi
was in a bad mood, but that he seemed somewhat
distracted, irritated.
  "All I know is that he was functioning normally
until he was shot," La Forge said-squinting, or
was that merely Picard's imagination? "Then his
fail-safe system was activated."
  "Fail-safe?" It was the first time Picard had
heard of it.

  "His ethical and moral subroutines took
over all his basic functions."
  "So," Picard reasoned, "you're saying he still
knew the difference between right and wrong."
  La Forge confirmed with a nod. "In a sense,
that's all he knew. The system is designed
to protect him against anyone who might try to take
advantage of his memory loss."
  "And yet he attacked us, was Picard mused.
"And told the Baku we were a threat......
Dougherty knows why, he thought, though, of course, he
could not imagine the admiral actually
approving of the act.
  Somehow, this had to do with Dougherty and the unpleasant
Ahdar Ru'afo.
  But instinct did not constitute proof, Picard
forced himself to negate the thought and keep an open mind.
  He paused alongside La Forge as the engineer
stopped at a closed panel, sealed off with
security codes. Normally, Geordi was able
to get past such devices with the ease of a virtuoso
practicing scalesbut today, he blinked down at
them and actually squinted in an effort to see.
  "Implants bothering you?" Picard asked.
  He shook his head, of course; Geordi was always
last to admit to any physical complaint. "I'm
all right.
  I think I'm just tired."
  The panel slid open, revealing a deactivated
Data

  serenely mounted in a diagnostic device
attached to the bulkhead. La Forge touched a
control; immediately, the android's eyes sprang open.
  For an instant, they were perfectly blank, and
Picard experienced an instant of horror: was their
friend beyond rescue?
  Then the amber eyes softened with recognition and
Picard smiled at the android.
  "Geordi?" Data asked, disoriented.
"Captain ...
  "You're on the Enterprise, Data," Picard
said gently.
  Data considered this, then paused, half lowering his
eyelids, as he ran a self-check. "I seem
to be missing several memory engrams."
  Geordi opened his palm to reveal the scorched
circuits.
  "Oh," Data said matter-of-factly. "There
they are."
  Picard took a step nearer. "What's the last
thing you remember?"
  Again, the android half lowered his eyelids, then
drew in a deep breath and sang.
  His nose should pant and his lip should curl ...
  "From the mission," Picard corrected dryly.
  "I was in an isolation suit collecting
physiometric

  data on Baku children," Data responded.
"My last memory is going into the hills, following
a boy . .
  And a handsome child he was, Picard thought, as he and
Data followed Sojef to the copse of shade
trees, where the boy, Sojef's son, sat playing
with a small wriggly toy wound about his fingers. Artim
was his name-after one of the songbirds, Sojef had
explained-and he looked to be a year or so away from
the onset of puberty, with sky-colored eyes and
sun-kissed hair and skin. As Picard neared, he
saw the toy in the child's hands was not a toy at all-but
a brown creature that squirmed and slithered about the
child's fingers like a cross between a tiny caterpillar and a
seal.
  As the group of adults approached, Artim
scrambled to his feet, taking care not to harm his
pet. At first he seemed cheerful enough-then blanched
with sudden fear as he recognized Data. The
android noticed it, of course; a small,
vertical crease appeared on the pale golden brow
... and Picard was not sure which of the two he felt
sorrier for.
  "Artim," Sojef said, without introducing the
others, "do you remember where you were on the Day of
Lightning, when the artificial life-form appeared
to us?"
  "In the hills," Artim answered, his
blue eyes owlish as he glanced from his father to the
android; he held

  his squirming pet as far as possible from Data, as
if frightened the android might suddenly attack it.
"By the dam."
  Picard leaned down to the boy's height and asked
gently, "Can you show us?"
  In reply, Artim slipped his pet into his
pocket and began moving toward the mountains. By that
time, a small group of Baku had gathered about
them-the smaller the town, thefewer the secrets,
Picard reflected wryly-and followed curiously.
  It did not escape his attention that the woman
Anij was among them. He had come to find out why the
Son'a had attacked his friend, and had no intention of
losing his focus ... but if fate should bring her his
way during the investigation, he would not resist. As
they walked, he gazed at her, openly inviting her
to join him ... and to his delight, she did.
  Her welcome, however, left something to be
desired.
  "Haven't you disrupted our lives enough?"
Painfully candid, she was-but he would have it no other
way; and this time, there was gentleness with the
honesty.
  "I understand how you feel," he answered simply.
  "I just want to retrace Data's movements,
that's all."
  L'Why?"
  He almost answered truthfully, then caught himself.
It would be foolish to make statements about the

  sion; he censored the thought immediately, clearing his
throat at the same time with a vehemence that prompted
a glance from Data.
  At last they arrived at the softly gurgling
brook. The group held back to let Artim
cross first; with the unself-conscious abandon of a child, the
lad hopped on one foot across the stepping-stones in
the moving water. Impulsively, Picard followed
suit, marveling at the act's ease, at the sudden
lightness of his feet. It was not until he reached the
other side that he saw Data's curious
expression, and the small, odd glance Anij
directed at Sojef-, at once, he collected
himself, adjusted his jacket.
  Lightness of heart or not, he had come
to investigate. And so he watched somberly as the
others crossed in adult fashion, walked
somberly until the group made its way over a
rise, and Artim pointed at a distant spot near
a trio of boulders: "I saw the first bolt of
lightning over there ......
  Will Riker forced himself not to wince as the blade of the
razor flashed, moving toward him in a graceful
gleaming are. Had the hand that wielded it been his own,
he would have been even more nervous as it connected first with the
cream-swathed hair of his beard, then with the tender skin
of his chin; but the hand was Deanna's, and her touch was
swift, delicate, sure.

  And sensual. Will sighed deliciously,
deliriously, as she-bubble-and-water-hidden siren,
glorious cascades of hair pinned atop her
head-withdrew the blade with a flourish, flicking it
clean.
  For the first time in a very long time, he felt the
coolness of air directly on that particular patch
of skin. The rest of him-except for his head,
naturally-was currently submerged in a private
sea of divinely warm water and jasmine-scented
bubbles.
  Private, except for Deanna, of course, and
her flashing blade: that had been the
agreement. First, the removal of the beard, and then
...
  It was m adness, of course; the madness of love,
which at the moment made perfect sense. Why, Will
wondered, shivering at the sweet, sharp sting of the
blade, have we denied ourselves this joy for so long?
  Now that was crazy....
  "Bridge to Riker."
  Worf's deep bass invaded the moment. Deanna
instinctively dipped lower into the tub, hiding shining
s houlders beneath a floating mountain of
rainbowreflecting bubbles, leaving only her siren's
grin and the straightedge blade atop the surface.
  Riker groaned inwardly. "Can I get back
to you, Worf. ?"
  The Klingon's tone was sympathetic but
circumspect, as if he sensed rather than saw Will's
predicament. "Admiral Dougherty's on the
comlink, sir."

  Riker let go a sigh of infinite frustration, and
sat up straight, into a more professional position;
immediately, the muscles of his abdomen and spine tensed.
  "Patch him through," he ordered, yielding, and fought
the urge to scratch at the foamy soap
bubbles that clung to his chest hair and tickled as
they slowly popped. Beside him, Deanna's
expression went from gleeful to glum; she set down
the blade and settled against the side of the tub,
careful not to cause any audible splashing.
  This had better be good, Riker thought as the computer
bleeped softly at him; but he forced a pleasant
tone. "Yes, Admiral?"
  Riker had had few dealings with Dougherty, but from
them (and from what he'd heard from the captain), he
expected to hear a cordial, pleasant tone.
  He heard anything but; the voice that came over the
corn was harsh, impatient. "Why haven't you left
orbit yet?"
  In the periphery of his vision, Riker caught
Deanna's look of surprise; he managed
to mask his own, and answer smoothly, "Captain
Picard is still on the surface, sir."
  "Doing what?"
  Dougherty's increasing irritation only served
to spark Riker's determination to remain uncowed; perhaps
it was stubbornness, perhaps professionalism,

  but Riker made his tone deliberately calmer.
"He didn't want to leave until we
could adequately explain why Data
malfunctioned. Data's future in Starfleet could
depend on it."
  A lengthy pause as the admiral considered this;
then Dougherty snapped, "Remind the captain his
twelve hours are up."
  "Yes, sir," Riker responded
impassively.
  "Dougherty out."
  Will turned at once to Deanna; they shared a
grim look.
  "Something's rotten in paradise," she said; a
few damp, errant strands of hair clung to her
neck and shoulders. The humid mist above the water
had brought a youthful flush to her cheeks, a brightness
to her eyes. Beautiful as she was dry, Will
decided, she looked even better wet. "Why is
Dougherty so desperate for us to leave, when his own people
have been exposed on the planet surface for much
longer?"
  "I only know one thing for certain," Riker said,
with mock seriousness, as though he were about to share a
startling revelation about the admiral. Deanna moved
to him, bringing a small wave of water as she put
her hands upon his shoulders, her gaze
xpectant, curious; she fell for it, of course;
she always did.

  "I can't report for duty like this," Riker
finishedindicating, of course, the large swath of
beard miss" ing from his chin.
  "I can fix that quickly enough," she said slyly, and
seized the razor, flicking it so that it made an
unsettling swoosh as it sliced through the air.
  Riker gave a small yelp of delight, and
dove beneath the water.
  Inside the Son'a body facility, Dougherty
turned away from the companel to observe Ru'afo,
undergoing yet another cosmetic procedure-this one more
medical in nature. As the Son'a reclined,
eyes closed, a male medic lanced the ugly
boils on his neck with a long syringe, which regularly
filled with a disgustinglooking substance the color and
texture of algae.
  "Your body is producing far too many toxins,"
the medic was saying softly. "We've reached the
limit of genetic manipulation......
  Ru'afo's small eyes opened with the languor
of a sunning reptile; but the pointed look he
directed at Dougherty was far from mellow.
"I won't need any more genetic manipulation if
our Federation friends allow us to complete this mission."
  Dougherty looked away, cursing silently; he
had hoped the Son'a hadn't heard the conversation.
  From the beginning, Ru'afo had been furious at
Picard's interference, had insisted the admiral
order

  the Enterprise away; but Dougherty was
unaccustomed to taking orders, much less those of a
walking cadaver. Besides, he had explained
to Ru'afo, it would stir up far more curiosity on
Picard's behalfcuriosity that might cause the
captain to contact command for verification-were he,
Dougherty, to give an uncharacteristically harsh,
unexplained order.
  But Picard had not simply collected his android
and gone home, as the admiral had fervently wished;
instead, the captain kept pushing. And if he pushed
much further ...
  In truth, Dougherty had no idea what he would
do: he could no more harm Jean-Luc than he could
break his promise to his dead wife, his beloved
Madalyn.
  The question was, how long could he keep
Picard out of harm's way ...
  his
  Along with the Baku, Picard and Data had made
their way down the hillside toward a primitive
earthen dam and neighboring lake-the exact area where
Artim claimed to have seen the first blast of the strange
"lightning." Thus far, Picard had seen nothing
unusual-except, of course, for the landscape's
haunting beauty. Colors were more vibrant here: the
russets of earth richer, the meadow greens deeper,
the floral reds and violets more dazzling, the blues
of sky and water more intense. Even the air was
sweeter than

  any he had ever drawn into his lungs; all of
it filled him with an extraordinary sense of
exhilaration. An hour on the planet surface
felt like the equivalent of a months-long vacation;
he felt younger, clearer, refreshed.
  Beside him, Data frowned down at the tricorder.
  "Tricorder functions are limited due to heavy
deposits of kelbonite in these hills," the
android reported somberly, unmoved by the beauty
surrounding him; if anything, he seemed mildly
troubled by Artim and Sojef's rejection.
  Picard reined in his thoughts and focused on the
business at hand.
  "How about a passive radiation scan?"
  Data at once adjusted his tricorder, then
quizzically drew back his head, tucking his chin,
at the readout.
  "Curious. There appear to be strong neutrino
emissions coming from the lake."
  Picard felt a surge of vindication ... and
disappointment.
  Vindication, because he had instinctively known there was
something hidden here, some secret to be discovered;
disappointment, because he had never wanted to learn for
certain that Matthew Dougherty was a liar. Emotions
warring within him, he watched as the tricorder readings
led Data to the edge of the lake, then into ankle-deep
water....
  Deeper and deeper, until, as the astonished
Baku murmured in surprise, Data walked
straight into the

  lake and disappeared beneath the water. It parted before
him, then covered the top of his head and swirled a
moment before settling glassy smooth.
  Nearby, Artim gasped, and moved over
to Picard.
  "Can he breathe under water?"
  "Data doesn't breathe," Picard replied
matter-offactly.
  At the captain's utter lack of dismay, the boy
calmed a bit and gazed back at the still surface
of the water for an instant. Sojef moved alongside
him, hovering protectively as if to shield him from
the very idea the android represented. Not even
noticing his father's presence, Artim persisted.
"Won't he rust?"
  Picard smiled to himself. "No."
  An expectant hush fell over the Baku as
they waited. Alongside the child, Picard silently
watched the glittering play of sunlight on the
turquoise water where Data had disappeared. With a
graceful swoop of dark wings, a long-legged
waterfowl landed and sailed on the very spot.
  A moment later, a large ripple appeared at
the lake's far side, and Data's head emerged-then
shoulders, torso, legs, until he at last
stood on the other shore, drenched and dripping.
"Sir," he called, moving purposefully toward
the dam, "I believe I know what is causing the
neutrino emissions....
  And he climbed to the dam's top, to a great iron
wheel whose circumference equaled his height. Two
strong Baku, perhaps three, were needed to move it; but
Data turned it easily, opening a floodgate that
emptied the lake.
  Fascinated by the display of strength, Artim
watched with intense, innocent curiosity. "Are there
other machines like him in the offland?"
  Up to that point, Sojef had maintained a
polite, if distant, demeanor; now he started,
stung, as if the boy had slapped him. "The offland
is no concern of yours," he countered-hotly at first,
then cooling as he registered Picard's intrigued
gaze upon him.
  The water continued to rush out of the deep lake with a
roar; as it did, the remaining water was oddly
displaced by air-or what appeared to be nothing but
empty air, but within a matter of several seconds,
it became clear that something was there, something large and
oblong. One of the dark waterfowl fluttered
overhead, then landed upon the top of the invisible
structure, a sight that made the Baku surrender
a collective gasp. Another duck blind,
Picard at first thought, but as the lake drained
further, spilling off the sides of the
object, the shape became unmistakable.
  A ship.
  The still-dripping Data rejoined him. "The
vessel is clearly Federation in origin,
Captain."
  ""Just a few loose ends to clear up,""
Picard quoted

  bitterly. What possible reason would Admiral
Dougherty have for hiding a large cloaked ship-a
transport one-third the size of the Enterprise-in
the Baku lake?
  Determined to find the answer, he headed for one of the
rowboats on the shore; Data followed. Artim
attempted to follow, but his father clamped a hand on his
shoulder.
  "We're not interested in such things," Sojef
told the boy firmly; at that same instant,
Anij appeared and gave the Baku leader a contrary
look.
  T am," she said, and before Picard could push off
from the shore, she hopped on board.
  He could not deny that he was glad to have her
accompany them, despite the fact that her reason for
doing so was distrust; at the same time, there was
no predicting what type of reception the ship's
inhabitants, if any, would give them. "It might
be wiser for you to stay on shore," he said.
  She responded by grabbing an oar and pushing the
small boat into the water.
  Picard's reactions were two: the first, indignation,
that she should so blatantly ignore an order-no, not
an order, he reminded himself swiftly. A
suggestion.
  She was, after all, a civilian, and this was her
world, not his; she had a right to investigate any
threat to her people. His second reaction was to suppress
a smile of admiration as he watched the lean,
well-defined mus 113 cles of her arms and
shoulders working beneath her tanned skin as she rowed: this
person knew what she wanted and did not hesitate
to make it known. She'd be perfect for command....
  He seized the oar from her and began to row himself,
toward the invisible ship; it did not take long before
they arrived at the edge of the invisible vessel.
  Data pressed a sequence of controls on the
tricorder; there came a loud metallic click,
then a hum. And in the midst of the air, a slice of the
ship's interior appeared-and grew, until the three
of them stared into the entranceway, colored a
familiar Federation taupe.
  No security locks to prevent entry, Picard
noted; these people were not expecting visitors.
  He drew his phaser; beside him, Data did the
same.
  The three of them climbed up into the hatch, and
stepped inside ...
  to the Baku village, complete with marketplace,
meadow, and mountains.
  Anij gasped, her pale eyes wide.
  Data glanced up from his tricorder readout. "It
is a holographic projection." He stepped
over to a gap in the illusion, where a sliver of
metal hologrid showed through rockface.
"Incomplete, I might add."
  Picard leaned toward Anij's ear and said in a
low voice, "What you're seeing is a
computer-driven image created by photons and force
fields."

  Gaze still riveted on the illusory village,
she murmured, "I know what a hologram is,
Captain. The question is: why would someone want
to create one of our village?"
  Indeed. Picard considered the situation:
Dougherty's evasiveness and desire for him to leave,
Data's scorched memory engrams ... He
turned to the android. "Data, if you were following the
children and it is conceivable I was shot to protect the
secret of its existence."
  The captain nodded. "What possible purpose
could a duplicate village have, except ...
to deceive the Baku?"
  Anij swiveled her head about and glanced at him
sharply. "Deceive us?"
  "To move you off this planet," Picard said. "You
go to sleep one night in your village ... wake
up the next morning in this flying holodeck,
transported en masse.
  Within a few days, you'd be relocated on a
similar planet without ever realizin it."
  Data tilted his head quizzically. "Why would the
Federation or the Son'a wish to move the Baku?"
  Picard sighed. "I don't know......
  The next instant, he was dazzled by a
brilliant flash of plasma; it streaked past,
close enough for him to feel its heat, smell the scent
of ozone. The blast surged discovered this ship . .
."
  The android finished the thought.

  between him and Anij, struck the bulkhead behind them,
dissolving rockface to reveal more of the metal grid.
It ricocheted off, baptizing the three of them with
skin-scaring sparks. Data at once returned
fire; Picard ducked, seized Anij, and shoved
her out the' hatch. She landed in the water outside with a
loud splash, while Picard crouched in the hatch and
himself began firing.
  The exchange was intense, blinding; bit by bit, the
holovillage grew pockmarked with metal grids,
while Picard grew increasingly dazzled by the
afterimage of the brilliant blasts. Many more, he
knew, and he would be unable to see what he was firing
at....
  At last, a figure-a male Son'a, the
captain discerned, after much blinking to clear his
vision-fell unconscious to the deck. The firing at
once ceased.
  "Computer," Picard ordered. "End program and
decloak the vessel."
  The computer obliged; Picard leaned out the hatch
just as its silvery exterior appeared, reflecting
sunlight off its bow.
  Outside, Anij thrashed in the water,
choking and coughing. At the sight of Picard, she
shouted: "I can't swim!"
  Picard-and Data, who had heard as well-dove
promptly into the cold water; within a heartbeat, the
captain reached for her, pulled her to him. She fought,
flailing....

  "Don't panic," he said soothingly. She
held on to his arms and calmed a bit, but looked
up at his words, sunlight-pale eyes shooting
sparks of indignation. Her short curls were dark,
dripping; her coarsely woven clothes clung to her
like a second skin, so that Picard could see the
gooseflesh beneath.
  "I've been shot at," she wheezed, "thrown
into the lake out of an invisible ship that's come
to abduct us all ... what's there to panic about?"
Yet despite the --- irritation and fear in her
voice, he sensed a sly undercurrent of humor.
  Data suddenly appeared in the water beside them.
  "In the event of a water landing," he stated
pleasantly, "I have been designed to serve as a
flotation device. He twisted his neck with a short,
sharp motion; a series of soft clicks followed,
and the android rose waist high above the
surface, fully buoyant in the water.
  If Anij shared any of her people's disdain for
artificial life-forms, she failed to show it at that
instant; instead, she clung gratefully to the
floating android while Picard swam over
to retrieve the rowboat.
  With each stroke, Picard grew more furious.
Surely Matt Dougherty could not be willingly
involved in deceiving an entire race; this had to be the
Son'a's doing. Perhaps they were threatening the
admiral, holding him hostage....

  Or so the captain hoped. At any rate, he
was determined to find out....
  Picard was still wet and angry by the time he and
Data materialized in the Enterprise
transporter room.
  Worf met them; Picard barely glanced at the
Klingon as he strode off the transporter pad
toward the corridor.
  "Did any of the hostages mention a cloaked ship
during their debriefings?" Picard demanded.
  The Klingon shook his head. "No, sir."
  The captain stopped short and looked up at
Worf.
  "Debrief them again." He turned to move
away, then did a double take at the sight of a
massively swollen red sore right on the tip of the
Klingon's nose. "Have you been in a fight,
Commander?"
  Worf dropped his gaze, clearly humiliated.
"No, sir.
  It is a gorch.
  Picard frowned. "Gorch?"
  Data leaned over and whispered the translation in the
captain's ear; Picard straightened, embarrassed
for the Klingon's sake. "Oh.
  Well."
  He directed a weak, sickly smile at
Worl "It's hardly ...
  noticeable."
  Which was a lie as huge as the gorch itself, of
course; refusing to acknowledge Data's deadpan
gaze upon him, Picard hurried out into the
corridor, with the unfortunate Worf in tow.
  Riker was on the move toward them, prompting the
captain's second double take. At first, Picard
thought simply that Riker had somehow grown ten years
ounger in the past few hours ... and it was true, his
second-in-command did look younger, as
if he'd just enjo yed several hours with a
cosmetician. But it was more than that: Will was missing
something, something vital ...
  Riker grinned at the reactions of his three
fellow officers: even Data was staring openly at his
freshly denuded cheeks and chin. "Smooth as an
android's bottom, eh, Data?" Will joked.
  The android blinked, amber eyes wide as he
somberly digested the comparison. "I ... beg your
pardon, sir?"
  But Riker didn't answer; instead, he
directed all his attention to the captain as the four
moved toward the nearest turbolift. "Admiral
Dougherty wants to know why we haven't left
yet."
  Picard felt his expression grow stony.
"We're not going anywhere." He stepped inside the
door to the waiting turbolift; the others follo
X.
  "Deck five."
  Meantime, Riker had finally gotten a good look
at Worf, and asked casually, "You Klingons never
do anything small, do you?"
  Worf gave him a sidewise glance that spoke
of death and daggers, but otherwise ignored
Riker. To the

  captain, the Klingon said: "Doctor Crusher
asked to talk to you when you returned."
  In reply, Picard touched his comlink. "Picard
to Crusher."
  The doctor's voice immediately answered.
"Captain, the Son'a hostages declined to be
examined. I had them confined to quarters."
  The news was less than surprising. "And our
peoples" Beverly hesitated only long enough
to take in a breath, but Picard recognized that little
hesitation all too well. It meant the doctor
had something unexpected to report. "They all have
slightly elevated levels of endorphin
production," Crusher said.
  "Probably the result of the environmental
anomalies here."
  Picard gave a nod, even though Beverly would
never see it. His exceptional exhilaration while on
the Baku planet suddenly made sense.
  "Are they in any danger?"
  Another little pause and intake of breath. "Not at
all. They're fine ... in fact, they're better
than fine.
  Increased metabolism, high energy, improved
muscle tone. We should all be so lucky."
  "Very good, Doctor. Picard out."
  The turbolift halted, opened; accompanied
by his entourage, Picard stepped out and headed for his
quarters. At the entrance, he paused and turned to the

  Klingon. "Worf, don't release the Son'a
officers until I've met with Ahdar Ru'afo."
  Worf nodded. "Aye, sir."
  Picard turned to enter his quarters, but before he
did, he caught a glimpse of Data, running a
finger along Riker's clean-shaven chin, and heard the
android proclaim: "No, sir, it is not. As
smooth as an android's bottom. . .
  The door snapped shut behind him, sealing off
Riker's response.
  "Computer, music," Picard ordered-then cringed
at the first notes of a grim Beethoven piece.
  "No. Not that. Something else. Something ...
  Latin."
  "Please specify," the computer said
pleasantly.
  He scowled to himself an instant, then brightened as
inspiration struck. "A mambo."
  At once, the room filled with trilling and the
festive sounds of Latin brass. Picard felt the
muscles of his neck and shoulders ease, felt his
hips begin to sway in rhythm; he smiled faintly.
"That's more like it."
  Still keeping time, he moved to the bathroom and began
to unfasten his collar. It was still damp, and his skin
cold and clammy; the uniforms definitely did not
dry as well as the old ones. He really ought
to tellthe thought stalled midway as Picard finally
regis 121 tered what his sense of touch was telling
him. He had pressed his hand to his throat to try
to warm the coldness there....
  The collar had been loose.
  The collar had been loose, because the skin of his
neck-which a day or two ago had been wrinkled,
sagging, causing Beverly to complain-was taut,
firm.
  Young.
  Young, as though during his day with the Baku, he had
aged in reverse five, ten years. Marveling, he
ran a finger beneath his chin, and saw the impossible. As
the mambo swelled in the background, Picard
searched for the familiar wrinkles around his eyes, upon
his brow....
  The newer ones, gone. The older, distinctly
fainter ...
  He thought of the Son'a-aged, decrepit, a dying
race-and at last understood.
  Night on the planet of the Baku: an indigo
sky so bright with tens of thousands of stars that Picard
barely registered the absence of a moon.
  He knocked upon the wooden door of a house
sculpted from clay, rather like the adobe dwellings of the
Navajo-certainly just like all the other homes
built on the flood-resistant rise beyond the
meadow.
  But this one was different, because he knew who

  lived in it. And when Anij opened the door and re
garded him with stellar-pale eyes-eyes, Picard
realized, that were beautiful not solely for their calm,
determined strength, but also for their wisdom-he
hesitated not an instant, but asked straight out.
  "How old are you?"

  SEVEN
  "We came here from a solar system on the verge
of annihilation," Sojef said, "where technology
had created weapons that threatened to destroy
all life." He paused to accept a steaming cup of
liquid from his son, then gazed at the crackling
hearth; firelight danced in his calm, somber
eyes, reflected off the few streaks of silver in
his hair.
  Picard sat beside him, on a comfortable chair
fashioned from a dark native wood; though
extremely simple in design, it had been wrought
with artistry and elegance by carpenters long practiced
at their skill.
  In response to the captain's question, Anij had
(with typical Baku proclivity to do things in
groups) summoned Sojef, as well as the younger
leader known

  as Toumel. Although no one had formally introduced
Anij as a leader, it was clear that the two men
valued her opinion. She sat on a cushion
facing the hearth, upturned face orange with
fireglow, arms wrapped around her knees. She
stared frankly at Picard, trying to gauge his
reaction.
  As for Artim, the boy returned to the large
kettle hung from a spit over the fire, and began
to ladle another cupful while his father
continued: "A small group of us set off to find a
new home ...
  a home that would be isolated from the threats of other
worlds." He paused and glanced back at Picard
with a small, sudden smile. "That was three hundred
nine years ago."
  Picard looked at him in awe. "You've not aged
a day since then?" By all accounts, the man appeared
to be in his early forties.
  Sojef shrugged. "Actually, I was a good deal
older when we arrived ...
  in terms of my physical condition."
  Anij unwrapped her arms and leaned forward.
  "There's an unusual metaphasic radiation coming
from the planet's rings. It continuously regenerates
our genetic structure. You must have noticed the
effects by now."
  Picard gave her a small, sheepish smile.
"We've ...
  just begun to." He took the cup proffered
by Artim, and inhaled the steam: it smelled of
pomegranates

  and flowers. He looked up at the boy and said
wryly, "I suppose you're
seventy-five."
  Artim blinked at him, then with charming childlike
candor said, "No.
  I'm twelve."
  The adults smiled. "The metaphasic radiation
won't begin to affect him until he reaches
maturity," Toumel explained.
  Picard took a sip of the hot liquid,
apparently a type of fruit cider, and by any
cultural standards delicious, with a perfect balance
of sweet to tart. For a beat, he gathered his thoughts,
then said: "To many offlanders, what you have here would be more
valuable than gold-pressed latinum. And I'm
afraid it's the reason that someone is trying to take
this world away from you."
  Artim's large eyes widened. "The artificial
life-form was right?"
  It Picard gave a reluctant nod. "If not
for Data, you'd probably have been relocated
by now."
  "How can we possibly defend ourselves?"
Tournel asked.
  Perhaps it had been a rhetorical question, perhaps not;
in either case, Picard had no chance to reply.
  Sojef rose from his seat, and with sudden,
startling vehemence, said: "The moment we pick up a
weapon-we become one of them. We lose everything
we "It may not come to that," Picard countered
swiftly. As the others turned to him, he added,
"Clearly, the architects of this conspiracy have tried
to keep it a secret. Not just from you, b conccrom my
people as well." He paused. "I don't intend
to let them."
  Outside, the air was redolent with the fragrance of
night-blooming flowers; Picard and Anij strolled
down the deserted main street, having escorted the
others home. The danger at hand had been thoroughly
discussed, strategy agreed upon; there was really nothing
more to keep Picard from beaming back up to the ship....
  Only Anij. As she walked, she looked up
at the stars, still twinkling in a sky that was lightening
to lavender-gray in the predawn; in her eyes was a
muted sorrow. "We've always known that to survive,
we had to remain apart. It hasn't been easy.
Many of the young people here want to know more about the offland;
they're attracted to stories of a faster pace of
life."
  "Most of my people who live that faster pace would
sell their souls to slow it down," Picard answered
softly.
  She looked over at him, her expression gently
are .... teasing. "But not you."
  126 127
  He smiled at her. "There are days . .
  She studied him with a gaze so intense he almost
flushed. "You don't live up to your reputation as
an offlander, Picard."
  He looked down, embarrassed by her frank
admiration. "In defense of offlanders, there are many
more like me . .
  who wouldn't be tempted by this- promise of
perpetual youth?" Her eyebrows and one corner of
her mouth quirked skeptically upward. "I don't
think so.
  With a rush of sudden warmth to his cheeks, he did
blush, something he hadn't done since a teenager; the
fact clearly charmed her. "You give me more credit
than I deserve," he said. "Of course, I'm
tempted.
  Who wouldn't be? But ... some of the darkest
chapters in the history of my world have involved the forced
relocation of a small group of people to satisfy the
demands of a larger one. I'd like to believe we learn
from our mistakes." He thought of Admiral
Dougherty and sighed.
  "Obviously, some of us haven't."
  He paused in midstride as they passed a
courtyard; beneath an awning, an exquisitely
handcrafted quilt was stretched out in a wooden
frame.
  "Extraordinary craftsmanship," he breathed,
reaching out to touch it-then stopping himself, lest his fingers
somehow mar its beauty.

  Anij smiled with amusement. "That's the work of
students." And at his amazed reaction, she added,
"They're almost ready to become apprentices. In
thirty or forty years, some of them will take their
place among the artisans."
  "Apprenticing for thirty years," Picard
marveled, as they continued their stroll. "Did your
people's mental discipline develop here?"
  "more questions." Her eyes narrowed teasingly, and her
expression became childlike, alive, full of the
same impulsive playfulness that had overwhelmed
Picard on his first visit here. He wanted to chase
her, seize her, laugh aloud-but instinct held him
back.
  "Always the explorer. If you stay long enough,
that'll change."
  "Will it?" he murmured, challenging her.
  "You'll stop reviewing what happened yesterday,
stop planning for tomorrow, until you find-was She broke
off abruptly. "Let me ask you a question-have you ever
experienced a perfect moment in time?"
  He gazed at her, puzzled. "A perfect
moment?"
  She looked about, as if literally searching for the right
words. "When time seemed to stop ... and you could almost
live in that moment......
  He nodded enthusiastically, understanding, and smiled
inwardly at the memory. "Seeing my home
planet from space for the first time . . ."
  In her excitement, she seized his wrist.
"Yes, ex 129 actly. Nothing more complicated
than perception."
  She paused, casually letting go of him as if not
even realizing the two of them had touched-though Picard
had been exceptionally aware. "You explore the
universe. We've discovered a single moment in time
can be a universe in itself, full of powerful forces.
  Most people aren't aware enough of the now to ever notice
them."
  Her face glowed incandescent with an interior
joy; smitten by her passion, her youth, her
age, her wisdom, Picard gazed at her with a
gently rueful smile. "I wish I could spare a
few centuries to learn."
  She laughed softly. "It took us centuries
to learn that it doesn't have to take centuries
to learn."
  They were at her door; as she turned to him to take
her leave, he said, with feigned seriousness, "There's
one thing I don't understand." And at her questioning gaze,
continued: "In three hundred years, you never
learned to swim?"
  For once, he had her at a disadvantage; she
grinned, embarrassed. "I just ... haven't gotten
around to it yet." She stepped onto the threshold,
then paused and turned in the doorway, the grin
suddenly gone, her tone gentle. "I wonder if
you're aware of the trust you engender, Jean-Luc
Picard. In my experience, it's unusual for an
offlander?" he teased.
  Her lips curved upward. "For someone so young."

  A nd she gave him a look that was pure
electricity; for an instant, all else in the
universe vanished, and nothing existed for him save
Anij, and h er star-bright, depthless
eyes. How was it possible, he wondered, ke that one
so jewelli , so s trong, so amazing and beautiful
should be alone?
  She turned away from him-too soon-and stepped
over the threshold into her house, lit only by t he
dying fire; it took all of Picard's restraint
not to call to her, not to follow, not to ask to stay.
  Once inside, she glanced back over her
shoulder at him and smiled, so dazzlingly that he
drew in a breath; and then she was gone.
  He could very well have beamed up at that instant-but
he could not let go of the moment, not so quickly. Instead,
he turned and walked out onto the pty street, through
the quiet town, and watched the horizon brighten with a
coral glow.
  As he did, he noticed in the feeble light the
solitary silhouette of a man also watching the
encroaching dawn. He neared, and recognized one of
his own.
  "Geordi ... ?"
  La Forge turned ... and Picard was momentarily
struck dumb. Gone were the engineer's white
optical implants; in their place- were ordinary
human eyes, with irises of soft, deep brown.
  Geordi smiled at Picard's
amazement. "Funniest thing, Captain. There
wasn't anything wrong with my

  implants; there was something right with my eyes.
  When Doctor Crusher removed the ocular
connections, she found the cells around my optic
nerves-was "comhad regenerated," Picard finished for
him.
  La Forge nodded. "It may not last after we
leave. If not, I just wanted, before we go . . ."
Emotion crept into his tone; he cleared his
throat, then continued evenly. "I've never seen a
sunrise. At least, not the way you see them."
  Picard considered this, then without a word, turned his
attention back to the coming dawn. Geordi followed his
gaze, and together they watched as first the sun's rays,
and then the orange solar disk, peeked over the
distant mountains. The sky gradually lightened from
indigo to gray to lavender to coral and cr"
  imson; the lake glowed incarnadine, as if
aflame. Slowly, the homes, the meadow, the
square, began to lighten, from gray monochrome to the
entire brilliant spectrum of color.
  The air, chilly on Picard's face, began
to warm; he felt renewed, reborn. He
looked, smiling, to La Forge-then turned away again
at the sight of a single crystalline tear sliding
down Geordi's dark cheek.
  In the'ready room, Picard sat trying
to concentrate on one of the padds taken from the stack
spread out on his desk-the mundane clutter
spawned by running a starship. His thoughts were elsewhere:
on the

  Baku planet, and the two announced visitors
bound to arrive any instant.
  He had detained the Son'a officers for
precisely that rea son: to force Dougherty and
Ru'afo to react, to come onto his, Picard's,
turf for a confrontation.
  The door slid open without chiming; Picard moved
only his gaze upward, keeping his face downtumed
toward his work.
  Ru'afo swept in a full step ahead of
Dougherty.
  Against the backdrop of the Enterprise's muted
decor, the Son'a's costume seemed even more
garish: crimson and aubergine brocade robes
embroidered with latinum and embedded with black
pearls, topped by a heavy latinum yoke
studded with amethysts and rubies. Compared to the
innocent, sun-kissed beauty of the Baku, the ahdar
was all artifice-a Halloween houl with
kohl-shadowed eyes and a pallid, taut mask for a
face.
  A furious ghoul, at that; even the carefully
applied powder on Ru'afo's cheeks could not hide
the dark flush of anger there. While Dougherty stood
a respectful distance from the captain, Ru'afo
charged forward and leaned down, manicured hands
gripping the edge so tightly that blue-green veins
stood out in has relief.
  nauseating wave of cloyingly sweet perfume
mixed with an undercurrent of decay emanated from his
robes.
  Picard studied the Son'a's hands briefly,
then pre 133 tended to return his attention to the
padd in front of him. It was an affront
to ignore a higher-rankin officer, of course; a
part of him wanted desperately for Dougherty to take
offense, to demand to know the reason ... to be
surprised when Picard told him the truth. After
all, Dougherty had not grown any youn ger since the
Baku mission; if anything, he seemed to have aged.
  The logical part of Picard's mind,
however, knew it could never happen; Dougherty's
involvement was clear. Considering the recent loss of
his wife, it was more understandable-but no less despicable.
  "Am I to understand that you're not releasing my men,
Captain?" Ru'afo thundered.
  At ast, the captain set t he padd aside
and fixed both men with a look.
  "We found the holoship," Picard said softly.
  The Son'a immediately let go the desk and
straightened; but his anger only increased-as if it were
Picard who had committed the crime, and not he. He
turned, furious, to Dougherty as if the admiral was
also to blame.
  Dougherty shifted uncomfortably, his gaze
directed inward and clearly unhappy with what he
saw there; at the same time, he was resolute.
  "Ru'afo," he said, in a low, even voice,
"why don't you let the captain and me-was "No!" the
Son'a shrieked, his face contorting so

  vehemently with rage that the tightly stretched scar
on his forehead split open, leaving rills of blood
in its wake. Oblivious, he ranted on. "This
entire mission has been one Federation blunder after
another. You will return my men, or this
alliance will end with the destruction of your ship."
  Andwitha darkly glittering swirl of robes, he
left, leaving Dougherty and the captain to appraise
each other silently. Picard could not entirely
hide the disgust he felt.
  Uncertainty and shame fled the admiral's
expresion, replaced by a cold defiance as
Dougherty frankly studied Picard; after a
measure, the admiral spoke.
  "You're looking well, Jean-Luc. Rested."
  "Your Briar Patch turned out to be more
hospitable than I expected."
  Dougherty gave a reserved nod. "That's why we
put chrom odynamic shields in place-so our people
wouldn't feel the effects from the metaphasic ra
lation-was "comor understand that they were participating in the
outright theft of a world," Picard finished. "I won't
let you move them, Admiral. I'll go to the
Federation Council....
  "I'm acting on orders from the Federation
Council." A lie, Picard thought at first, but
Dougherty's tone was heavy, flat,
matter-of-fact, his gaze unwavering; he was telling
the truth.
  135
  The captain drew in a startled breath,
incredulous.
  "How can there be an order to abandon the Prime
Directive?"
  "The Prime Directive doesn't apply,"
Dougherty said, so easily and reasonably that he must
have given the speech several times before.
  "These people are not indigenous to this planet. They were
never meant to be immortal. We'll simply be
restoring their natural evolution."
  Picard stood, aghast, unable to believe thatthe was
hearing such words from a Starfleet admiral's-much
less Matthew Dougherty's-lips.
  "Who are we to decide the next course of
evolution for these people?"
  "There are six hundred people down there," Dougherty
said, tensing; heat crept into his tone.
  "We'll be able to use the regenerative
properties Of this radiation to help billions."
He paused. "The Son'a have developed a
procedure to collect t he "A planet in
Federation space," Picard reminded him.
  "Right." Dougherty let go all pretense of
civility; 11 moved in until only the desk
separated the two men his expression hard.
Gesturing at the air, he said, We have the planet,
and they have the technology-a technology we can't
duplicate. You know what that makes us?
  Partners."
  136 metaphasic particles from the planet's
rings .... It was a difficult, if not impossible,
question to "Our Picard leaned forward with equal heat.
partners are no more than petty thugs."
  Dougherty dismissed the notion with a wave. "On
Earth, petroleum once turned petty thugs
into world leaders. Warp drive transformed a bunch of
Romulan thugs into an empire. We can handle the
Son'a; I'm not worried about that......
  Picard thought of the four nearby Son'a ships,
each of them dwarfing the Enterprise, and said dryly,
"Someone probably said the same thing about the
Romulans a century ago."
  "With metaphasics," the admiral continued,
ignorng him, "lifespans will be doubled. An
entire new medical science will evolve. He
looked at Picard, his gaze one of hope mixed
with a grief so profound that the captain almost took
pity. "I understand your chief engineer has the use of
his eyes for the first time in his life. Would you take that
away from him?" answer; Picard thought of
all the loved ones lost over so many years. His
parents, grandparents, greatgrandparents, might all still
be alive this moment.
  Was it right to take from the Baku to give to them?
  There had to be another way. If the technology
were ible, then a way could be found, and soon, poss
without destroying a culture, a world.
  "There are metaphasic particles all over the
Briar Patch," Picard reasoned. "Why does it
have to be this planet?"

  "The concentration in the rings is what makes the
whole damned thing work," Dougherty interrupted.
  "Don't ask me to explain it. I only know
they inject something into the rings that starts a thermolytic
reaction. After it's over, the planet will be
unlivable for generations."
  "Delay the procedure," Picard said. "Let
my people look at the technology."
  Dougherty shook his head, with a heaviness that spoke
of sleepless nights spent trying to solve the
dilemma; light played on his silver hair.
"Our best scientific minds already have. We can't
find any other way to do this."
  "Then the Son'a can establish a
separate colony on this planet until we do."
  "It would take ten years of normal exposure
to begin to reverse their condition," Dougherty said.
  "Some of them won't survive that long. Besides,
they don't want to live in the middle of the Briar
Patchwho would?"
  "The Baku," Picard said softly. He shared a
long look with Dougherty: clearly, the admiral would
not yield-but the captain was bound to try.
  "We are betraying the very principles upon which the
Federation wasfounded,- this is an attack on the very
soul of the Federation." He paused, remembering
Anij in starlight, the quiet village streets,
the sunrise. "This will destroy the Baku. Just as
cultures have been

  destroyed in every other forced relocation throughout
history."
  Dougherty sighed with pure exasper ation.
"Jeanluc, we are only moving six hundred people."
  "How many people does it take before it becomes
wrong?" Picard asked him. "A thousand? Fifty
thousand? A million? How many will it take,
Admiral?"
  Dougherty's expression and voice went
cold; a veil had descended and could not be pierced.
"I'm ordering you to the Goren system," he said, with a
harshss Picard had never time heard in him. "I'm
also ordering the release of the Son'a officers.
File whatever protests you wish to.
  By the time you do, this will all be done."
  Then he was gone. Picard sat down heavily
to contemplate not only the future of the Baku ...
but his own.
  And more. Something about RUDAFOS OUTBURST HAD
stirred in the captain an unpleasant memory, one
which refused to surface at the moment.
  Picardsuspected that the key to the Son'a lay
buried in Ru'afo's anger and hatred-the timbre
of which struck Picard as hauntingly familiar.
  Yet, try as he might, he could not remember
...
  it was Riker, really, who noticed it first: something
in the cant of Picard's head, his carriage, the
peculiar intensity in his eyes as he stepped from his
ready

  room onto the bridge. The captain was trying
to hide it, of course-and usually was damned good at
subterfuge; but Will had known him too many
years, had seen him step down onto the bridge in
just that way too many times.
  Indeed, over the years he had noticed the barely
perceptible slowing as Picard took that step-and, in the
past few days, had seen the captain's pace quicken
with the same youthful lightness Will himself felt.
  Now, however, there was gravity in Picard's step,
a solemnity that weighed down every slightest movement.
  Riker straightened in his seat at command, and in the
periphery of his gaze, noticed that Data at ops
and Worf at conn were both studying the captain with the
same concern. Obviously, the Baku had lost the
battle, and whatever Dougherty and the Son'a were hiding
was not illegal; if it were, the Son'a ships would
be firing on them by now, and Picard would have already sent
off the shuttle to carry word to Starfleet Command.
  Yet there was something more amiss here, something Riker
could not read. He waited patiently until
Picard moved deliberately over to him and issued
the quiet order: "Prepare the ship for departure
at oh-sevenhundred hours."
  The commander did not reply, but waited expec
140 tantly for further explanation, which was surely
forthcoming. He met the captain's gaze
directly, silently asking; in
response, Picard's manner was cool, veiled.
  He was hiding something from his second-incommand; and
Will knew Jean-Luc well enough to realize there was
only one reason the captain would ever keep information
from his crew: to protect them.
  "Aye, sir," Riker answered at last.
  Picard turned away, his back toward Data,
who shot a look at Riker; the android's golden
eyes were frankly quizzical. Riker gave a
faint, minimal shake of his head: he had no
explanation to give. Instead, he watched along with the
other crew members who knew the captain well,
watched as Picard crossed slowly to the
turbolift. Before entering it, the captain paused
...
  ... and as subtly as possible, swept his gaze
over the bridge.
  Memorizing it, Riker realized with a flash of
intuition. Imprinting it on his memory, because he
never expected to see it again.
  And in his quarters, Picard stood quietly a
moment beside the table covered with star charts and padds,
remnants of his research into the Briar Patch, the
Baku.
  Others would find a way soon enough
to replicate the Son'a's technology, given the
recent discovery of

  metaphasic radiation by Federation scientists.
Give the Vulcans a year or two, and they would
find a way that would not require the destruction of a
planet, the relocation of a people. Grief had clouded
Dougherty's mind; he was letting the Son'a
influence him they were desperate. comand Dougherty had
said as much himself- It would take ten years of normal
exposure to begin to reverse their condition. Some of them
won't survive that one.
  So an entire world-a true paradise-would be
destroyed in order to accommodate the impatience of
criminals. A more peaceable solution could be found in
far less than ten years; surely the Son'a, with
their astounding technical skills, could develop one
far sooner. Why were they insisting on stealing and
destroying the Baku planet?
  Instinct told Picard there was something deeper here,
an answer hidden in the hatred in Ru'afo's
eyes.
  But Dougherty had finally called his,
Picard's, bluff, had issued direct orders:
release the Son'a officers and head for the
Goren system. Picard had every intention of obeying the
first order; Ru'afo seemed quite capable of destroying
the Enterprise, and the captain would do nothing to endanger
her.
  Once the Enterprise was safely out of the Briar
Patch, however, the Son'a were no longer a threat
...
  and whatever Dougherty and the Son'a had told the
Federation Council, it had not been the whole truth.

  The council members needed to understand more clearly
what was happening....
  And Will Riker was just the man to explain it to them.
Afterwards, he could obey Dougherty's order and head
for the Goren system-unless, of course, the council
saw fit to supersede the admiral's command.
  Picard would remain behind, in direct violation of a
superior's order-a court-martial offense. And so
he slowly removed each pip from his uniform, setting
the first one carefully atop his dresser; then the
second, third, fourth ...
  Aboard the Son'a flagship, Subahdar
Gallatin entered the body sculpture chamber and
chided himself for his newfound perspective: after weeks
among the Baku, he was beginning to find the
Son'a love of artifice offensive. It had been
hard enough to watch the Baku from the shelter of the duck
blind; but after the android destroyed it, it had been even
harder to sit among them, to see the joy they took in
each other, in their children. To remember a way of life
that called not for deceit, but trust....
  Gallatin passed by a cubicle and caught a
glimpse of Natirim, the eldest Son'a, his
mouth agape as a clinician implanted the last of a
startlingly whiteeaset of teeth into his worn gums.
Poor Natirim-he was so Id, so worn that even
the cosmeticians could not

  hide the signs of death's approach. With the last
of his new teeth in, the old Son'a sat forward and
smiled at himself in the mirror-a bright, gleaming
smile set in aged, corrupt flesh.
Natirim's complexion was cracked, scarred where the
delicate skin had split from too many facial
surgeries; beneath its surface, dark, mottled
green boils festered-too many for the doctors to keep
drained.
  For Natirim, we do this, Gallatin reminded
himself, even as the image of the Baku meadow came
unbidden to him, and the memory of its sweet
fragrance.
  Who could say how much time the poor old fellow
had left to him? One year? Ten?
  At the same time, a different voice in his head
whispered: And what right have you to destroy this world?
  He censored the thought immediately with another: Will I
stand by idly and watch the first one of us die?
  Impossible; he could never permit such an
outrage.
  And yet ... it had been difficult, on the
planet surface, to hold on to the anger.
  He moved quickly past the cubicles, until he
arrived at the most private, luxurious one of
all. There the ahdar sat, his head locked in a
face-tautening frame; an Elloran
cosmetician worked the device until it pulled
Ru'afo's skin so tight, his closed eyelids
slanted upward at an alarming diagonal. The
recently

  eru pted scar upon Ru'afo's forehead had already
been resealed.
  Gallatin came to a halt a step away from his
ander, just as the Elloran woman gathered the comm
loose skin at Ru'afo's left ear, and
snipped it off neatly with a laser. As she did,
Ru'afo sensed a presence and opened his eyes.
  "Gallatin! So the righteous Starfleet captain
finally released you.
  Did you encounter any problems on the surface?"
The ahdar's tone smiled, even if his facestretched
far too tightly now-could not.
  "No, sir." Gallatin hesitated, then came
forth with the truth. "But it wasn't easy ... being
among them . .
  "I'm sure," Ru'afo replied promptly,
dismissing Gallatin's distress without an atom of
empathy. It was Ru'afo who had masterminded the
plan to extract revenge on the Baku; Ru'afo
who had always been the one in favor of violence, of
lawlessness. "Just don't forget what they did to us.
We'll have them rounded up in a day or two ... we
needn't bother with the Federation's holoship anymore.
Just get the holding cells ready."
  Gallatin acknowledged with a nod-at the same time,
forcing himself to remember the day, long ago, when all of
them had been given, in effect, a death sentence.

  You're being more than kind enough, he told himself.
They sent you off to die. All you're doing
is returning the favor.
  He turned and left, not before catching Ru'afo's
words to the cosmetician: "I'm going to miss these
little flesh-stretching sessions of ours, my dear."
  Inside the cockpit of the captain's yacht, an
out-ofuniform Picard worked the transporter controls
and watched as several cases of military supplies
materialized on the platform. That was worth a
court-martial in itself-stealing Federation military
supplies, not to speak of the way he intended to use
them....
  He paused to study a translucent
geological scan of the planet surface.
  Data had mentioned that the amount of kelbonite in
the mountains had disrupted use of the tricorder. If
that were so, then The android's voice emanated from behind
Picard, as if the captain's very thoughts had
summoned him.
  "Rerouting the transport grid to avoid
detection was wise," Data said, as Picard
swung around to stare at him. "But the transporter
is rarely used after ohtwo hundred hours."
  Beside the android stood Deanna Troi; Beverly
Crusher; Geordi La Forge with his soft, dark
eyes; Commander Worf, and Will Riker.
All but Riker and La Forge were out of uniform; in a
flash, Picard

  realized what was afoot- ust as his senior crew
had obviously inferred his intent.
  Troi tilted her head and gave him a
cat-caught-them ouse smile.
  "Taking the captain's yacht out for a spin?"
  Worf had already moved onto the transporter
platform and was inspecting the cargo. "Seven metric
tons of ultritium explosives, eight
tetryon pulse launchers, ten isomagnetic
disintegrators com7 "Looks like you're planning on
doing some hunting," Riker said. His words carried a
hint of humor, but his tone was all seriousness.
Clearly, he had divined what his captain was about
to do; Picard silently blessed-and cursed-him.
  "Return to your quarters," Picard told them,
taking care to keep voice and expression as cold and
unyielding as possible. It was acceptable for him
to risk courtmartial, but he would not permit his crew
to do the same.
  No one moved.
  "That's an order.
  No one moved.
  Will gave him a look as impenetrable as his own.
  "No uniform? No orders."
  La Forge stepped forward. "Captain, how could
I look at another sunrise, knowing what my
sight cost these people?"

  Picard had always fancied himself the most stubborn
person in the galaxy; that was before he had worked with this
particular crew. He sighed, yielding, and no
longer tried to hide the gratitude he felt toward
each of them. The change in his expression must have
tipped them off immediately, for they all suddenly
smiled, relieved.
  Data interrupted the warmth of the moment. "I
feel obliged to point out that the environmental
anomalies may be stimulating certain rebellious
instincts common to youth that could affect everyone's
judgment." He paused. "Except mine, of
course."
  Crusher turned to him, only half serious.
"Okay, Data, what do you think we should do?"
  The android tilted his head, and studiously
regarded each person in the group ... then blinked,
took a phaser rifle from the bulkhead rack, and
activated it with lightning-swift grace.
"Saddle up.
  Lock and load."
  At that, the crew turned their attention back to the
captain-awaiting instructions, Picard realized,
with a welling of affection that tightened his throat. He
collected himself, then said, "They won't begin the
procedure while the planet is inhabited. So our
job is to keep the planet inhabited." He
looked to Riker and La Forge. "Will, Geordi
... go back and put a face on what's happening
here. Make the council see the

  Baku. It's too easy to turn a blind eye to the
suffering of an unfamiliar people."
  Riker acknowledged with a confident nod. "I'll be
back before you know it."
  Picard held his second-in-command's gaze a
second longer; Will always faced danger with a
cavalier attitude, but the captain's instinct-and his
odd emotional understanding of Ru'afo-told him the
Enterprise might very well not return. And Will was
just as aware of the fact.
  Softly, he told Riker: "We'll hold out
for as long as we can."
  149
  EIGHT
  Padd in hand, Gallatin strode into the
tactical room, feeling the painful pull of a
deep frown in his too-taut brow. The information on
the padd had him con cerned; he resented any
interference in the Baku project and had counted on it
going swiftly, cleanly ...
  in part, because he did not want to have to think about what
the Son'a were doing here.
  We're doing good We're taking this incredible
healingpower not onlyfor ourselves-who deserve it most
ofall-butfor the entire galaxy. We're not even
killing them It was Gallatin himself who had convinced
Ru'afo that the Federation would swoop down hard on the
Son'a. True, the Son'a had the advantage of
better

  technology, but in terms of sheer numbers, they
could not withstand an assault by the Federation. Why not use
the Federation instead, with an eye to one day consuming it?
  comwe're only moving them.
  (taking their home, their privacy, their way of
life ... were
  No. Simply moving them, so that the rest of the
galaxy might live.
  Might be healed.
  It was easy when Gallatin thought of them objec
tively, as a race; it was much harder when he
remem hered the specific individuals. When he
remembered what it was like to think innocently, as they
did, to wish no harm ...
  But they harmedyou, Gallatin. Look at the
diseased, decrepit thing you have become.
  He stepped up behind Ru'afo, who was for the
umpteenth time watching a simulation of the injection
procedure. Over Ru'afo's shoulder, Gallatin
watched the screen as the streamlined, elegantly
small injector assembly sailed into the outermost
of the planet's rings and fired bright blasts that flared
blue, then surged through violet to red, flaring brighter,
ever brighter, until at last the ring itself was consumed,
trembling as if ablaze.
  And then the next ring, and the next, until
Gallatin beheld a world afire.
  At his first viewing of it, he had thought it
beautiful,

  glorious; now it simply annoyed him, and made
him anxious for it all to be done with. He judged
Ru'afo's constant replaying of the
simulation to be obsessive.
  Ru'afo apparently sensed his second's
presence, for he spoke first, without turning from the
screen. "The injector performs perfectly in every
situation......
  "Sir," Gallatin said urgently, "as the
Enterprise left orbit, one of their support
craft went down to the surface."
  Ru'afo swiveled in his chair at once, and
took the padd Gallatin proffered him.
  "It appeared to be the captain's yacht,"
Gallatin continued. "Five persons on board."
  As he studied the padd, Ru'afo's expression
grew stony-he was careful not to resplit the newly
healed skin-then he looked up with eyes as hard, as
determined, as Gallatin had ever seen. "We're not
waiting until morning."...Take the shuttles and get
everyone Off the surface tonight."
  Gallatin nodded, and moved to turn-but paused as
Ru'afo spoke again.
  "Gallatin ... if Picard or any of his people
interfere ... eliminate them."
  It was the end of the world, Artim decided, even though
the stories his father told him spoke only of a
different world's demise. This world was
supposed to go on forever....

  But as the boy stood in the dim, torchlit
village : atching Toumel ring the great summoning
bell, he had never felt so afraid. Fear was in
the night air: in the swift urgent movements of those
who tied sup 'lies onto the backs of pack
animals, in the eyes of the children dragged along by their
parents, in the voices of the adults-hundreds of
them, the whole village-who cried out questions.
  what is it?
  What's going on?
  What's happened?
  Is something wrong?
  There was even a faint undercurrent of terror in
Tournel's shouted replies: We're leaving the
village ...
  ake only what you need ... bring food ... we
may not be back for days....
  Artim choked on the dust kicked up by the
scurrying of so many people and animals, then started as a
brilliant burst of light twinkled beside him. He
swung about to see the artificial life-form, who had
apparently just activated the device; the creature
smiled slightly, comfortingly at him, and
Artim wondered whether the smile was as artificial
as its owner.
  "It is a transport inhibitor," the
life-form said. "It will help prevent Son'a
ships from beaming anyone off the surface."
  Overwhelmed by fright, Artim backed away, toward
the group where his father-calm, solid, a

  fortress in the midst of all the chaos-stood
talking with Anij and the starship captain.
  At the moment, Picard was holding up the
geoscans of the planet surface to Anij and
Sojef. "These veins of kelbonite running through the
hills will interfere with their transporters.," he
explained.
  He paused as the boy Artim, wide-eyed as a
frightened deer, stepped up and clung to his father. If
Picard had harbored any doubts about the rightness of
what he was doing, that single act erased them.
  "When the terrain forces us away from the
deposits," he continued, "we'll use
transport inhibitors to compensate. The mountains
have the highest concentrations of kelbonite; once
we're there, transport will be virtually
impossible."
  "There are caves in those mountains," Anij said.
  Like Sojef, she had been listening keenly; but
compared to his stolid calmness, she was a coil of
energy waiting to spring, to take action.
  Picard acknowledged her comment with a nod.
  "We can hold them off a long time . . . once
we get there... But they will not make it easy to get
there."
  He half turned, expectant, as Data and
Worf approached.
  "Captain," the android said. "We have activated
transport inhibitors around the village."

  "Good," Picard replied. "Let's move these
people out."
  Worf hesitated. "Should I distribute
phasers to the Baku, Sir?"
  The captain shook his head. "No. We'll be
responsible for that, Mister Worf."
  There came a sudden roar overhead, in a sky that
up to that instant had been silent; with the others,
Picard looked up to see the lights of a Son'a
shuttlecraft, bright, blinking, and malignant against
the starlit dark.
  Aboard that shuttlecraft, Gallatin
studied the sensors, and came to the same conclusion just
as his Still unningly beautiful Elloran lieutenant
stated, with a modicum of alarm: "Transporters
are not functionin ."
  Riva was her name-her only name, as the Ellora
were not given to suror prenames, and she had a pale,
exotic attractiveness and the wide hips much
admired by the Son'a. Gallatin was expected
to drool over her, and take sexual advantage of
her as he wished; but in truth, he admired her
professionalism, her intelligence, too much to do
so.
  Ru'afo would be indignant if he found out, would
say Gallatin was going soft-and perhaps he was.
  But he treated her with as much respect as he could
without the other Son'a noticing-the first time in his

  life he had ever done so with one of his
lieutenantsand it seemed to him that she appreciated
it, and returned it. The Ellora always feigned
devotion to their masters; but all those who were able
to betray their masters in order to escape did.
  Gallatin was not so certain that Riva would do the
same to him. At the very least, she would hesitate a
long moment....
  At the time, however, he ignored all thoughts of
Riva and her loyalty; right now, the sensors showed
something disturbing-something the damnably upright Picard
was responsible for, no doubt.
  "They're blocking the beams with some kind of
inhibitors," Gallatin said; his voice was calm,
though inwardly he cursed the starship captain.
"We'll have to locate and destroy them."
  He had wanted it to go easily; wanted to do
whatever he could to avoid having to execute
Ru'afo's order concerning the Starfleet group. But
Picard seemed determined to make that
impossible....
  Most of the villagers had made it through the open
fields into the meadow, with the uniformed Starfleet people
helping the village leaders to guide the crowd.
  However, as they reached the narrow pass leading up
into the mountains, their progress slowed. By this time, the
exercise and his father Sojefs fearless de 156
meanor had calmed Artim somewhat; he stood
close beside Sojef at the mountain pass as his father
called out-calmly, rationally as always-to the others:
"Don't try to carry too much.
  We've got a long climb ahead of us. . .
."
  I'm safe, Artim reassured himself. I'm
safe, because my father's here, and he always knows the right
thing to do....
  Suddenly, the ground beneath him lurched, with such force
that pebbles leapt into the air, slid down the pass;
overhead, the sky boomed as if with mortally close
thunder. Some of the people cried out; others dropped what they
were carrying and began to move faster. Parents swept
up children into their arms. Artim reached for his father's hand and
caught it.
  As long as Father's here, I can bear it....
  Another painful blast overhead; beside them, one of the
brightly lit devices-a transport inhibitor,
the artificial life-form had called it-exploded,
then darkened. A brown-skinned Starfleet officer
with a forehead that seemed made of wind-sculpted wood
cried out to Captain Picard: "We've lost three
transport inhibitors! There's a gap in the
field......
  Artim was not entirely certain what that meant, but
he knew it boded ill. Sojef began to move, and
Artim followed, trying hard to hold on to his
father's hand in

  the moving wave of Baku. They moved
slowly at first, then faster, faster, pushed by those behind
them, until they were running ...
  . . . running, beneath the roar of low-flying ships.
  Suddenly, to the front and the right, running Baku
shimmered and then simply disappeared. Artim at first
doubted what he saw; but no, there was surprise
too on Sojef s face, and a concern that made the
boy feel a fresh thrill of fear. And it was not just
one or two people who disappeared-no, it was a dozen,
then twenty, thirty, fifty....
  A man in the crowd screamed; a child cried out a
mother's name. Any semblance of civility was
replaced by outright panic; the crowd began pushing
harder now, harder, in its frenzy to reach the next
transport inhibitor. With the peculiar helplessness
one feels in the worst nightmares, Artim tried
to hold on to his father's hand; tried, but felt himself
slowly pushed away until he could touch nothing but his
father's fingertips, even though Sojef struggled
valiantly to maintain contact with his son. And then
even fingertip-to-fingertip contact was broken, though
Sojef's very gaze seemed enough, so determined it was
to keep hold of the boy. Then even that was gone, as with
horror Artim watched his father's form shimmer, then
disappear as if it had never existed, had
never set foot upon this path.
  He stopped, as if waiting there might cause
Sojef to

  reappear in the same spot; but the crowd in its
hysteria knocked him down. The colorful palm
pet slipped from his pocket, out onto the ground, in
enormous danger of being trampled. Through sheer will,
Artim managed to recapture him, just as someone
stepped hard on the crook of his upturned elbow.
  The boy cried out in pain and surprise as a new
problem presented itself- He himself was in danger of being
trampled. He glanced up to see a stream of
everchanging figures, dark and frantic against a
night sky brightened by the lights of ships, by the shining
transport inhibitors. Once, twice, three
times Artim tried to push himself to his feet, but the
Baku were rushing like a flood, knocking him down,
stepping on his feet and legs.
  Artim lowered his head; terror and defeat
overwhelmed him. Perhaps he should just accept his fate
die here, for he had no idea whether his father and still
lived.
  And then a strong-a very strong-arm scooped him up,
and held him against a warm chest as if he were
still a small child. Artim looked up in total
bewilderment at the pale golden face of the
artificial life-form. His first instinct was
to struggle, to break free of the alien grasp-but he was
too tired, and also suddenly filled with an odd
sense of trust. His own people had not stopped to help
him; but this one had.
  "My father . . ." he said plaintively.

  "I know why," the boy said swiftly. Data
gave him the curious-bird look again, as if
to say, How did you guess? "So people like us won't be
afraid of you anymore."
  The answer seemed to surprise the android; but
once again, he considered it thoroughly, then allowed,
"Perhaps."
  The trail grew abruptly steep; Artim
groaned as his thigh muscles burned with effort. He
remained speechless, gasping, until the slope
eased; then he turned again to the android, who was
carefully matching his pace to the child's.
  "Don't you ever get tired?" Artim asked, with
just a hint of irritation.
  is ead. "My power cells continually RECHARGE
THEMSELVES.
  Data studied the boy for a long time. "Perhaps it
u surprise yo to imagine w iat it would be like
to be a child."
  "Really?" For some reason, Artim found this
surprising.
  "Really." Data's amber eyes focused
steadily on Artim, and the boy realized that the android
wanted to learn from him.
  The path grew steep once more, and Artim sighed
with effort; once again, he noticed that the android

  compensated by taking smaller steps. "For one thing,"
Artim gasped, "your legs are shorter than everyone
else's."
  "But they are in a constant state of growth,"
Data countered. "Do you find it difficult
to adapt?"
  "Adapt?" Artim frowned at him, puzzled.
  He tried again: "A child's specifications are
never the same from one moment to the next. It is a
wonder out do not trip over your own feet."
  Artim blinked at him, suddenly understanding his own
clumsiness.
  "Sometimes I do."
  Data nodded, frowning slightly as if
making mental notes. "My legs are
eighty-seven-point-two imeters. They were
eighty-seven-poi imeters paused to look down at
his lower limbs. "I will never know the experience of
growing up or tripping Artim absorbed this,
intrigued, his own weariness temporarily forgotten.
"But you've never had adults telling you what to do
all the time ... or bedtimes ...
  or having to eat food you don't like. . . ."
  "I would gladly accept the requirement of a
bedtime in exchange for knowing what it is like to be a
child," Data said simply.
  There was a wi/lness in his tone that made Artim

  want to help, to do whatever he could to help this kind
...
  life-form.
  He thought a moment, then asked, "Do machines ever
play?"
  "I play the violin," Data said, "and my
chess routines are quite advanced. . .
  "No." Artim shook his head. "I mean,
haven't you ever just played for fun" ?"
  Data drew back his head slightly, tucking in
his chin. "Androids don't have ... fu not.
  With an air of authority, Artim told him:
"Look, if you want to know what it's like to be a child,
you need to learn to play."
  Data digested this quietly; the two of them
fell silent and continued, along with the others, the
ascent into the mountains and the day.
  A tired but exuberant Picard made his way
along the trail, amazed by his own endurance,
by Anij's. She had remained beside him for the entire
hike. Though they had remained silent most of the
way, their breath had fallen into the same rhythm, as
had their pace, and it seemed to Picard that they were no
longer two separate entities, but one....
  A few hours ago, they had entered a part of the
trail flanked on either side by towering peaks, so
beautifully carved by wind and sand Picard was reminded
of his homeland's great Gothic cathedrals. Now
dawn was peering through the latticework, over the tops of

  stones, turning the rock from black to aubergine
to purple-brown.
  Behind them, a long line of Baku with occasional
pack animals trailed, in a scene reminiscent
of the biblical exodus ... though, Picard
remarked to himself grimly, that one had not
taken place in Paradise.
  The scattering of pebbles behind him, the thud of someone
scrambling up the trail; Picard turned to see
Worf hurrying toward him. The Klingon had
definitely lost a wrinkle or two in his time on
the Baku planet, and his hair seemed to have grown
thicker, wilder, giving him a leonine look.
  The captain paused in his trek to allow Worf
to catch up to him; once the Klingon was alongside
him, Picard smiled faintly. "Mister Worf, you
need a haircut."
  Worf glanced downward, clearly embarrassed.
  "Accelerated hair growth is often experienced
by Klingons during Jaktahla.
  Anij took a step closer to Picard.
"Jaktahla?"
  Under his voice, Picard explained: "Roughly
translated: puberty.
  Although for a Klingon that's not doing it justice. . .
." Aloud to Worf, he said, "Any severe mood
swings, unusual aggressive tendencies, be sure
to let me know right away."
  "Yes, Captain," the Klingon replied, eyes
downcast with embarrassment; at last, he revealed the
reason he had come. "The Baku could use
some rest, sir.

  According to the geoscan, this may be the safest arrit
for the next few kilometers."
  "Very well," Picard said. "We'll take an
hour. Break out some rations."
  Worf nodded again, then gave a reverberating shout
and waved his arm in the air. Gradually, the moving
column of people stopped, and sat down along the
trail. The Klingon returned to his position lower
on the trail, while Picard, with Anij at his
side, moved forward through blooming sage-scented
brush in order to better see the path ahead. On the
banks of a running brook, not far from a mountain
waterfall that sent cool shimmering droplets into the
air, the captain stopped to rest.
  The two of them sat cross-legged, his left
knee pressed against her right; as aware as he was of
her touch, he pulled from his belt a pair of field
glasses and examined in more detail what faced them.
More brush, then another ridge, this one not so
steep....
  Anij pointed with a graceful arm. "Right beyond that
ridge is where the caves begin. We can hide for
days."
  He did not share her enthusiasm; he remembered
the fury in Ru'afo's eyes. The ahdar was not going
to let this be easy. "By now the Son'a have scanned the
area and know that just as well as we do."
  She had no answer for that, but did not seem to

  share his seriousness as he lifted the glasses
back to his eyes and surveyed the territory still
to be crossed.
  The openness of it disturbed him, as did its distance
from the main veins of kelbonite. It should be safe,
but if it wasn't ...
  He jumped and pulled the glasses down, startled
by a soft, tickling stroke across the bare crown of his
head.
  Anij was smiling, her gaze frankly
seductive. "It's been three hundred years
since I've seen a bald man."
  He grinned back at her, surprised ... and
delighted. With sudden boldness, he asked, "How
is it a woman like you never married? And don't
tell me you "just haven't gotten around to it yet. .
. ."" She blinked her eyes, coyly innocent.
"What's the rush?" And she swiveled about so that they
sat face to-face.
  So, his feelings for her were returned; the knowledge brought
with it a thrill of exhilaration. Huskily, Picard
said, "I should warn you....
  I've always been attracted to older women. . .
."
  In reply, she took his hands in hers.
  At that instant, Picard's world slowed: until that
ment he had not noticed the delicate breeze upon
his skin; now he felt it, heard it sigh in his ears
as it lowered in pitch. Sight took on an intensity
nearanguishing in its beauty: the droplets spawned
by the

  waterfall took on prismatic brilliance,
each hovering in the air like a miniature gem; the
cascade of water itself took on the indistinct
texture of velvet.
  Following Anij's lead, Picard knelt beside the
water, watched as, with one hand, she plucked a single
cobalt bloom from the bank and blew the petals
into the air; she smiled with childlike glee as the
petals slowly, slowly ascended into the shimmering
air, hovered seconds, then just as slowly descended
to earth.
  "How are you doing this?" Picard breathed,
fascinated.
  She smiled. "No more questions."
  She turned her gaze from him, and he followed it
across the brook to the other bank, where a hummingbird
drank from a crimson flower, the beat of its wings
languid, lazy.
  Then she guided his hand in hers into the brook beside
them, and he felt the cool water flow through his fingers,
embrace every atom of flesh, bone, and muscle with
tactile pleasure, with sheer aliveness almost too
pleasurable to bear.
  And when he thought he could bear it no longer,
Anij drew their hands from the water, skin glistening.
  With her other hand, she touched his arm-and now it was not
just the world, but Anij and Picard themselves who
slowed....
  He heard his own heart beating slowly, heard the

  gentle thrum of blood" n his veins, and the sigh
of his own breath, uneven with excitement. Anij
blinked, and he heard the whisper of her lashes, the
drum of her eyelids as they came together, then opened
over those starlit eyes-eyes that were bright, then brighter,
as if aglow with a growing life force ... and he knew
at once why he loved her, just as he
loved the stars: because she was radiant, mysterious,
ancient.
  Her fingers brushed gently against the hair at the
top of his chest.
  Each hair felt alive, separate, reacting
with pure sensual enjoyment to even the lightest
touch.... Picard half closed his eyes at the
rapture of touch, even of sound, of her fingertips
against his flesh.
  And then she leaned forward, and brushed her
lips-soft, delicate, full-against his.
Gently, her teeth nipped his lower lip, and tugged
it lightly, teasingly....
  At last her lips found his, and pressed full
against them for eternity, as Picard surrendered himself
to bliss....

  NINE
  Aboard the Enterprise, Will Riker sat at
command and checked the viewscreen for the thousandth time:
nothing, save spectacular white and rose-gold
displays of gaseous debris. At one-third
impulse, the Enterprise was still wading slowly-too
slowly, Riker decided-through the Briar Patch. A
sixth sense, one developed after years of
starship duty, had set off a silent alarm in his
head. Something was about to happen, something not good.
  Perhaps, Riker reasoned with himself, at least part of
his apprehension came from his rekindled passion for
Deanna; it had been enormously difficult to leav
e her on the planet surface, at the mercy of the
Son'a.
  He missed her presence on the bridge, though it
was

  now in the hands of Perim, La Forge, Daniels
... and himself. He had a great deal to lose now, and
if she were injured or, God forbid, killed before the
Enterprise managed to reach the outskirts of the
Patchknock it off, he told himself, and mentally as
well as physically straightened in his chair. You're
on duty, Mister... The reminder worked, just as it
had during the first affair with Deanna, so long ago;
Riker set his brain back to work on strategy for the
inevitable.
  Admiral Dougherty would not, of course, permit
the Son'a to pursue the Enterprise-or at least,
Riker could not conceive of such a thing.
  However, Riker didn't trust the Son'a; they
could still come after the Enterprise.
  And if they did ... Well, they had faster
ships and stronger weapons.
  The outcome would be inevitable....
  Would be, except that Riker had come up with a
plan of his own to deal with them-Plan A, which might very
well backfire, so he was searching for a Plan
But....
  He was lost in thought a few minutes
before-ineyitably-the Trill, Perim, swiveled her
head so that a singular cord stood out on her
delicate neck, with its neat rows of irregular
taupe markings against beige flesh. "Commander," she
said, with the ancient calm associated with her race,
"I'm showing two Son'a ships on an intercept
course."

  "How long till they reach us?" Riker asked.
  "Eighteen minutes."
  From ops, Geordi La Forge said, "We're not
going to be able to get a transmission out of here for at
least another hour. . . ."
  Daniels spoke up from tactical. "They're
hailing US.
  Time for the first part of Plan A. Stroking an
absent beard, Riker ordered: "Tell
them our transceiver assembly is down, that we can
send messages b Ut can't receive them."
  Daniels complied, hands moving swiftly over his
companel. A long moment passed on the bridge before
the lieutenant looked up and said, "I don't think
they believe us."
  Riker looked askance. "Why not?"
  The answer came in the muted boom of an
explosion well off-target; the ship shuddered
gently. Riker glanced down immediately at his
monitor for a sensor reading and curled his lip at the
predictable result. "A photon torpedo." His
tone went wry. "Isn't that the universal greeting
when communications are down?"
  La Forge countered quickly, "I think it's the
universal greeting when you don't like someone."
  Another off-target explosion rocked the ship
gently.
  "Full impulse," Riker demanded.
  Just as he expected, La Forge took issue.
"The

  manifolds can't handle full impulse in the
Patch, Commander......
  It was true, of course; even so,
Riker silenced the engineer with a look. "If we
don't outrun them, the manifolds are going to be the
only thing left of this ship."
  La Forge drew in a breath, then nodded
obediently.
  "I'll be in engineering."
  As Geordi left-his post quickly replaced
by another officer-Riker called out: "Red alert!
All hands, battle stations!"
  Picard, his heart open with joy, was walking
handin-hand with Anij back toward the
others-specifically, toward Worf and Data-when
he saw the Son'a come.
  Twelve shuttles in formation, shining and sinister in
the morning light; at once, his joy dimmed, then
transformed into fear, anger, and determination all at
once. The vessels neatly, evenly, divided the
airspace above the Baku encampment, then hovered a
moment-a terrible one. Picard felt a cold
thrill descend on him despite the sun's growing
warmth, and thought: Ruafo has had his way, and they have
come to kill us.
  But no, the vessels never fired; they were
pregnant with a different evil. As Picard and the
others watched in horror, each shuttle
gave birth to a dozen or more

  drones-silver, whirring, twice the size of a
large human's fist.
  And alive-blinking red, blue, white, scanning,
sensing.... Then, like furious hornets, they
descended from the sky in swarms and assailed their
targets.
  The Baku scattered. Picard instinctively
grabbed his phaser and began firing, as did Worf
nearby-and Data, who stood protectively in
front while his you ng charge, Artim, retired
intelligently behind the nearest boulder.
  The captain managed to destroy one drone, the
Klingon another, but a third drone in the swarm
managed to launch a small, nonplasma weapon.
  Swiftly, it struck its mark-the back of a
Baku woman, just beneath her left shoulder-and before
Picard or anyone else could react, she
dematerialized in front of them. The captain
fired on the drone; it dissolved with a small burst of
flame and a sizzletoo late, too late.
  Around the Starfleet officers, Baku were
scattering, and dematerializing....
  "Isolinear tags," Worf shouted,
telling the captain what he had already figured out for
himself. "Their transporters can lock onto them."
  "We have to find shelter," Picard countered, but he
was looking to Anij for the answer.
  She pointed with admirable self-possession, if
not calm. "There's a cavern at the base of the next
hill......

  Picard made a large, sweeping gesture to the
entire encampment. "This way!"
  The Baku began to move, as close to a run as
possible, given the number of people. The captain and his
officers continued firing-but the odds were against them; for every
drone they managed to destroy, two or three more
arrived to take its place.
  It was going to be difficult to hold on, Picard
knew; and he wondered whether the Enterprise had
made it out of the Patch....
  At the moment, the Enterprise bridge was a
study in battle damage: cracked conduits leaked
plasma, smoke streamed from a few off-line
consoles. The ship was still exchanging fire with the two
pursuing Son'a ships, though in the Briar Patch,
the weapons were as likely to miss as hit their
targets. The crew, too, were looking a
bit worse for wear, their faces and uniforms
smudged with soot.
  As for Riker, he was on his feet, Son'a
plasma weapons be damned. The instant engineering
took the Enterprise up to full impulse, he could
hear the engines straining; Geordi had been right about
the ship not being able to handle the speed, but Riker had
gambled on the Son'a intercepting them a little
later.... Apparently, full impulse was not a
huge difficulty for them.
  Time to start thinking again about Plan B.

  "Shields at sixty percent!" Daniels
announced.
  Almost simultaneously, La Forge's
plaintive voice filtered over the corn..
"Engineering to bridge. We're burning deuterium
down here."
  Riker heard hissing in the background: no doubt
the sound of engineers spraying coolant on the engines
to keep temperatures from redlining.
  "We're going to blow ourselves up," La Forge
continued. "We won't need any help from the
Son'a."
  Riker listened, then ended the communication
without comment; he was distracted by the sight on the forward
viewscreen. He took a step fo.-ward to stand
directly behind Ensign Perim's chair at conn.
  "What's inside that nebula cluster?" He
gestured with his chin at the screen.
  Perim checked her sensors. "Cometary debris,
pockets of unstable metreon gas.... We
don't want to go in there, Sir."
  "Yes, we do." Riker ignored her sharp glance
up at him. "I'll take it from here, Ensign."
  She rose and moved over to ops; Riker slid
behind the conn and smiled grimly to himself "Time to use
the Briar Patch like Br'er Rabbit did......
  Picard stood close enough now to the mouth of the cavern
to feel the steam and smell the sulfur of the hot
mineral springs hidden inside, but he never took his
eyes off the sky and the swarms of drones that kept

  coming. More and more Baku were dematerializing
despite his firing his phaser until his fingertip was
numb on the trigger, despite his shouting again and again,
until his throat was hoarse: "Into the cavern!
  Move!"
  Beside him, Worf roared as his phaser
malfunctioned; Picard watched with
peripheral vision as the howling Klingon swung his
rifle like a bat'leth at a drone. His first
attempt missed, but a second drone, then a
third, were not so lucky; Worf struck them full
on with the rifle butt, disabling them and sending them
flying what Picard imagined was a full
kilometer.
  Afterward, the Klingon glanced at his captain and
growled, "Definitely feeling aggressive
tendencies . .
  Once again, Artim saw how technology could be
used to do horrible, hurtful things; at the same time,
he felt safest running next to the artificial
life-form Data, who kept firing what he called
a phaser in order to destroy the miniature silver
ships. In fact, as the two ran together, surrounded
by a cluster of Baku, Data did his best to shield
Artim with his body from the terrible little ships. That
morning, Artim had thought he could walk no farther-but
the terror generated in him by the attack fueled him so
that he ran full speed up a very steep trail
alongside a sheer cliff.

  Suddenly, one of the bad people-a Son'a,
accompanied by two soldiers of a different
race-appeared in front of them all on the
treacherous ledge. They had come to take prisoners,
Artim realized, and cried out in fear; at the same
time, he looked to Data, wondering: would the android
fire his phaser and disintegrate them, just as he had the
little ships?
  Would he kill? Father would rather die himself...
  Artim barely finished the thought when Data ran,
lunging low and spreading his arms, into the three
males-knocking them cleanly off the cliff. It was
a long, fatal fall to the bottom, Artim knew,
and the boy released a silent sob. He had trusted
Data to be different from what he had heard of
offlanders; he had credited him with morals and a
heart, but now ...
  Father was right. All technology was wicked. The
artificial life-form could not be trusted, after all.
  Yet even as Artim wept inwardly, the android
snatched one of the little ships clean from the air, and
aimed it at the three falling men. The device
whirred, then shot an almost invisible blur toward the
three: tiny metallic objects, Artim knew,
that looked like a piece of jewelry.
  They must have hit their falling targets, because one
instant, the three men were there-then the next,
they were gone. Dematerialized, Data called it,
which meant they were now safe back aboard their own
ship.
  Despite his fear, Artim grinned, faith
restored, while Data crushed the device in his
hands. Almost instantly, he returned to Artim's
side, and began firing again at the little ships
overhead.
  The ride aboard the Enterprise was rough, so rough
that Riker fancied he felt his internal organs
vibrating; so rough that when Lieutenant Daniels
spoke, it was in vibrato: "Sir, they've
detonated an isolytic burst. A subspace
tear is forming."
  "On screen," Riker ordered.
  The scene on the main viewer shifted to show an
actual rift in space-a jagged, growing no-thingness
that was darker than black; certainly, darker than the
glowing Briar Patch. in an instant, it would consume
the Enterprise and spit her out into normal space,
where she would be a sitting duck for the fast Son'a
ships.
  From ops, Perim murmured, "I thought
subspace weapons were banned by the Khitomer
Accords......
  "Remind me to lodge a protest," Riker said.
It came out a little more sarcastically than he'd meant
it to-he didn't want Perim to think he was
implying she was an idiot to state the obvious-but at
the moment, he was too busy thinking of ways to save
the Ship to worry about her feelings. He was on the
verge of contacting engineering when La Forge's voice
came over corn.


  "Commander, our warp core is acting like a magnet
to the tear. We're pulling it like a zipper across
space."
  "Options?" Riker demanded.
  On the other side of the link, La Forge drew a
long breath. Then: "We could eject the core."
  "Will that stop the tear?" Riker didn't miss
even a beat; there wasn't time. On the
viewscreen, the tear kept moving closer.
  "You got me, Commander."
  Riker drew up, scowling; that was not the answer he
wanted. "That's your expert opinion?"
  "Detonating the warp core might neutralize
the cascade," Geordi explained swiftly. "But
then again, it might not. Subspace weapons
are unpredictable.
  That's why they were banned."
  "The tear is closing on us," Daniels
called. "Impact in fifteen seconds."
  "Eject the core," Riker told La Forge.
  "I just did."
  "Impact in ten seconds," Daniels counted
down.
  "Detonate!" Riker ordered.
  And he drew in a breath as the
blacker-thanblackness came looming toward them, as
if space itself were a delicate centuries-old
piece of cloth being ripped down the middle, with the
Enterprise at dead center....
  Abruptly, the darkness dissolved in an
all-consuming flash of whiter-than-white, one that
blinded Riker

  even through his instinct-closed eyelids. This, he
knew, was the warp core exploding, with such
magnitude that, for an instant, the entire
universe, Riker himself included, seemed made of
pure light.
  Then the first wave hit, and threw him down hard.
  His chin struck the console with dazing force;
disoriented, still blinded by the afterimage, Riker was
slammed to the deck. He fell hard on his right
shoulder, sending a jolt of pain down his spine, his
arm.
  He gritted his teeth, waiting: either the
Enterprise would now be destroyed, or the spatial
disturbance would ease, permitting him to get back on
his feet and assess the damage to the ship.
  And there was damage to her: he could hear the thud of
panels being blown off bulkheads, of other bodies
falling around him; could smell fire and smoke. As
his vision gradually cleared, he could see the bridge
lights flicker, then dim.
  Slowly, slowly, the ship righted herself. As quickly
as he could-which wasn't very-Riker crawled back
to conn.
  As he pulled himself up into his chair,
Danielswho was first to make it back to his
station-called out, excited: "It worked, Commander! The
tear's been sealed"" Immediately, La Forge's
voice filtered over corn

  (and Riker permitted himself a small, inward
smile of relief to know Geordi had made it through
the particularly rough ride). The engineer's
tone was somber, warning. "There's nothing to stop them from
doing it again-and we're fresh out of warp cores."
  Ensign Perim-her delicate features
smudged, her long, formerly bound hair hanging
half loose onto her shoulders-turned toward
Riker. If she looks that bad, then what the
devil do I look like? the commander wondered, as he
listened to her deliver the final blow.
  "We're still thirty-six minutes from
transmission range, sir."
  Riker nodded, releasing a heavy sigh as he
instingtively clutched his right upper arm, to prevent
further stabs of pain. Plan A had failed;
Plan B had worked, but was only a temporary
fix. He was forced to go to Plan
C-reluctantly, because it was the riskiest plan of
all.
  Aloud, he announced: "We're through running from
these bastards. . .
  With Worf and Anij resting by his side,
Picard stood near the mouth of the hydrothermal
cavern and stared at the small silver drones hovering
menacingly on the other side of a force field.
Occasionally, one of the drones would bump the field,
causing it to spark and hum ... but for the most
part, the drones simply waited.

  And time might just be on their side; Picard was
beginning to nurse serious doubts about the
Enterprise's safety. If Ru'afo-with or without
Dougherty's consent-was this desperate to get his hands
on the Baku ...
  The cave's interior was humid as a sauna,
thanks to an underground hot spring; briny,
sulfurous water pooled on the ground, requiring the
Baku and their pack animals to slosh through mud before
finding a dry spot to settle in. Worf's dark
face had taken on a glistening sheen; Anij's
paler one was flushed and shining. Picard wiped his
forehead with the inside of his wrist and drew away
sweat.
  He turned from the cavern's mouth to regard the
scene behind him. The cavern's entrance, where he,
Anij, and Worf sat, was dry-but the path immediately
descended and was filled ankle-deep with thin, pale
mud, a mixture of water and the limestone-based
rock that formed the cavern walls. The Baku had had
to wade through several meters of this until they made it
to dry ground, and the largest "room," where most of them,
including Data's little friend, Artim, sat
exhausted alongside their pack animals. The rest
had wandered farther back into the cavern along narrow
corridors" and settled on other suitably dry
places.
  From one of these corridors, Data emerged, and
walked without a trace of gingerness through the slippery
mud toward his captain.

  "How many?" Picard asked darkly, when the
android had arrived.
  "Another forty-three people reported taken, sir."
  The captain frowned, sighing-but the sound was immediately
interrupted by loud booms overhead; beneath his feet, the
earth shuddered.
  Fearful murmurs came from the nearest Baku
encampment. One of the pack animals bleated and
tried to run; its owner rose at once and tried
to calm it. Data turned to visually locate
Artim, with a paternal concern that was touching; the boy was
clearly frightened, as was his little "palm pet," which had
crawled out of his pocket onto his arm.
  Another blast came-then another, and another,
until the ground beneath shook continuously, and sand-damp
though it was-began to drop from the cavern's ceiling.
  The captain exchanged a grim look with
Worf.
  "They're trying to force us out so their drones can tag
us," the Klingon said, staring outward and upward from the
cavern entrance.
  Picard nodded. Given the amount of sand starting
to rain down, it seemed Ru'afo just might get his
way....
  Data, meantime, was calmly studying a readout
on his tricorder. "With all the hydrothermal vents
in the substrata, the structural integrity is not
going to hold for long, Captain."
  Picard stared back at the mouth of the cavern, and

  the half dozen drones hovering behind the force
field.
  Waiting ...
  Hands spread, beseeching, he turned toward
Anij.
  "Is there any other way out of here?"
  Grimly, she shook her head.
  "Tracking the water's course may reveal
another exit," Data suggested.
  Picard made a "please do" gesture, then
followed the android as Data began scanning the
pale walls with the tricorder.
  The two of them moved deeper into the cavern,
deeper, until they passed all of the frightened Baku
and skittish animals. The passageway gradually
narrowed, until they were forced to proceed single file
through pungent, slippery mud, with Data and his
tricorder leading.
  At last, Data stopped-at a place where the
water had become a trickle and disappeared beneath a
graywhite wall of stone.
  During all this time, the overhead booms continued;
the ground-as well as the android's voice-vibrated
as he aimed the tricorder at the wall and
reported: "I'm showing a nitrogen-oxygen flow
behind this calcite formation, Captain."
  Picard considered this. "Will the structure hold
if we blast through?"
  Data aimed the tricorder at the supporting
walls, then looked up. "I believe it is
safe, sir."

  The captain drew his phaser; Data followed
suit, and together they burned a hole into the limestone
wall.
  Picard stepped through first into a lighter, airier
cave with a large natural exit. What
he saw beyond it made him smile faintly; several
different paths led up to the nearby mountains, where a
half dozen cave openings could be seen.
  "Spread out as far as you can," Picard ordered, his
gaze still on the goal. "Get everyone into those
caves, set up force fields once you're
inside. .
  Data nodded, and the two of them hurried back,
sloshing water as they ran, to gather up the Baku.
  Aboard a barely functional bridge, Will
Riker sat at conn, staring hard at the main
viewscreen. On it, irregularly shaped gas
pockets adorned the cosmic debris with glints of
red, green, gold shot through with starlight.
  By now, Riker's shoulder and back were causing him
real anguish-but rather than dim his determination, the pain
only served to fuel it.
  He'd be damned if he'd let the Son'a win
now; damned if he'd let the Enterprise be
destroyed, and leave the away team, especially
Deanna, at the mercy of those criminals.
  "Geordi," Riker demanded of the comlink, "are those
pockets of metreon gas?"

  From engineering, La Forge answered-sounding
as bedraggled as Riker felt. "Aye, sir.
Highly volatile. I recommend we keep our
distance."
  "Negative," Riker said. "I want to use the
ramscoop to collect as much of it as we can." The
instant he said it, he became aware that every eye on
the bridge was focused on him; and he heard, on the
other side of the comlink, Geordi's slow intake of
breath.
  "The purpose being ... ?" La Forge asked,
with a tone that hinted the explanation was going to have to be
exceptionally good to get the chief engineer's
approval.
  "The purpose being I intend to shove it down the
Son'a's throat," Riker told him, with an
intensity that said, This is what I'm going to do,
Mister, and the hell with what the rest of you think.
  "Commander." Daniels spoke up, clearly
dismayed. "If one of their weapons hits that gas-was
Riker turned to Daniels with eyes so steely the
lieutenant fell silent at once. "It's our
only way out of here, Mister Daniels." iggown in
engi neering, Geordi La Forge cursed silently
as another drop of sweat slid from his forehead into his
eyes; he used the edge of his index finger
to wip his brow, then wiped the dripping finger against the
side of his uniform. Before she left, Doctor
Crusher had coached him on the use of his natural

  eyes, but she had never mentioned the fact that
sweat-and a surprising number of other things, including
smoke-would make his eyes sting.
  And engineering was hot, still hot after the ejection of the
warp core, and still filled with a steamy haze from the
coolant sprayed on the engine. Not only had
Doctor Crusher not mentioned the business about sweat
stinging, she'd never said anything about steam or gas
interfering with his vision. During the battle, La
Forge's efficiency had been seriously hampered
by his natural-and curtailed-eyesight.
  But despite his frustration-and his fear of what the
Son'a might do next-La Forge nodded with pure
admiration at Riker's words, even as he,
Geordi, moved to the nearest engineering console and
worked feverishly to deploy the ramscoop.
  It's our only way out of here, Mister
Daniels.
  As he manipulated the controls and squinted at
the readout that showed the scoop gathering up gas
pockets, Geordi said to corn: "I
wouldn't be surprised if history remembers this as
the Riker maneuver."
  "If it works," the commander countered, with typical
Rikerian drollness.
  La Forge grinned. "Even if it doesn't,
they'll be teaching kids at the academy not to do this for
years to come." Another drop of sweat stung his
eye; again, he swore silently as he blinked,
trying to force his

  vision to clear. It was an annoyingly slow
process, gathering up information from all the different
readouts via natural eyesight-and time was one thing
they didn't have.
  Without lifting his. gaze from the console, La
Forge complained aloud to the nearest ensign: "How do
you people get anything done with such limited eyes? I'm
ready to get my implants back." Sensors
indicated that the ramscoop had reached its limits;
the engineer hit his combadge. "Bridge."
  On the bridge, Riker listened as Geordi's
voice filtered over corn.
  "Storage cells are at maximum capacity,"
La Forge reported. "Five thousand cubic
meters of metreon gas."
  Riker wasted no time acknowledging. Salvationor
death-would occur in a matter of seconds now.
  'Computer-access manual steering column."
  In less than a heartbeat, the sleek column
popped up from the console.
  "Transfer helm controls to manual," Riker
ordered, grabbing the device, which fit comfortably in his
palm.
  In reply, the computer bleeped. The screen
display shifted to reveal the two Son'a
vessels-looming ever larger as the Enterprise
closed in on them.
  "They're powering their forward weapons array,"
Perim reported tersely.

  "Blow out the ramscoop," Riker said, staring
intently at the hostile ships. If death was coming, it
would arrive in the next heartbeat or two-and he
wanted to see it coming. He programmed the main
screen to keep the Son'a in sight, despite the
upcoming maneuver.
  "Ramscoop released"" La Forge called from
engineering.
  Riker pressed a control on the column. At
once, the Enterprise lurched, swinging
away in a 180-degree are-at the irritatingly
slow pace of one-third impulse. Move, he
urged the ship silently. Move ...
  If she failed now to put enough space between herself and
her attackers, she, too, would be destroyed.
  On screen, a brilliant blast of plasma
emerged from each of the Son'a vessels-only to be
caught in the large translucent globe of gas
directly in front of them.
  For a breathtakingly beautiful instant, the globe
flared, radiant as a star gone nova ... then
exploded in a fiery burst.
  Once again, Riker was slammed against the
console-by momentum, as the force of the explosion sent
the Enterprise hurtling away at full impulse.
With enormous effort, the commander managed to raise his
face and arms enough to grasp the manual control.
  At the same time, he caught a glimpse of the
re 194 ceding Son'a ships-one disintegrating
into fiery debris, the other intact but ablaze. For
an instant, a faint, grim smile played on his
lips....
  Until, that is, the manual control proved
unresponsive. Riker fought desperately
to regain control of the helm, but the ship was
careening out of control....

  TEN
  Ground and sky still thundered as Picard and his officers
led another group of some seventy Baku through the
hole drilled in the pale calcite wall, then out
through the new exit where several paths led toward other
nearby caves. They had already herded several groups
to safety; only one-which included Anij-remained in
the original cavern. She had refused to leave with the
first groups, insisting that her unofficial status as
one of the secondary town leaders required her
to help Toumel keep those remaining behind calm, and
to ready them when the time came to leave.
  Picard did not argue, could do nothing but respect
her decision, admire her bravery. And while he
left a

  good deal of his heart behind with her, he as always took
his entire mind and attention with him when he helped the
Baku cross the short but unsheltered path from old
cavern to new.
  With Worf nearby, Picard ran at the head of the
group of Baku. Most of the group was coughing: the
explosions had contaminated the sweet air
with dust that slightly obscured vision and stung the
back of the throat. The evacuation process was
ungainly at best, with the pack animals now
squealing, surly, and sometimes bolting (and, Picard
noted, none too sweet-smelling), small children
stumbling, and overburdened adults occasionally
dropping supplies in the path and stopping abruptly
to pick them up. Most of all, the captain pitied
Crusher, who was in the center of the group, and Data and
Troi, who were bringing up the rear-all of them
following where the animals had already trodden. But the
Baku men and women were strong and surefooted,
despite their exhaustion, over the steep, uneven
terrain.
  The group was not far from the targeted cave when
Picard's peripheral vision was scared
by spontaneous brilliance-once, twice. Again.
  Beside him, Worf halted abruptly and pointed.
"Up there!"
  Behind the crest of a nearby ridge, a small
squadron of Elloran and Tarlac soldiers
squatted, along with their more elaborately dressed
Son'a commander.
  Picard blinked to dull the afterimages; at the
same

  time, new blasts of plasma came perilously
close to the weary evacuees.
  "Data, Troi," the captain called, through his
temporary blindness.
  "Keep these people moving. Worf, with me..."
  At once, the android and Troi raced to the
front of the crowd and began leading their charges away
from the attack, toward the mountains.
  Picard detached his phaser from his belt while
Worf took an ominously large weapon-a
double-barreled isomagnetic disintegrator-from his
backpack.
  The captain fired-once, twice, three
timeswounding one of the Tarlac and eating away at the
ridge overhead, until Worf at last hoisted the
huge disintegrator in his arms and took aim.
  The blast provoked scaring pain in Picard's
ears, rattled his teeth; half deafened, he watched
as part of the crest vibrated, then spilled down the
hill as individual grains of sand. The force of the
explosion hurled the soldiers backward-all
except the Son'a officer, who fell forward and
rolled, head, legs, and arms limp, downward.
  All the way down, until he at last
lay only meters from the entrance to the cavern where
Anij waited with the last of the Baku.
  "I suspect it won't be long before the drones
get here," Picard called to Worf. They turned
and headed quickly back to the cave, passing Beverly
Crusher, who had stopped to kneel in the dust beside the

  wounded Son'a. The male officer lay
spread-eagle, motionless except for the pronounced
up-and-down movement of his rib cage.
Unconscious, his face seemed even more masklike
than those of other Son'a Picard had seen, the
pale skin pulled so taut that his open mouth did not
gape, but opened in a millimeters-wide slit.
Around the edges of his face, especially at the
jawline, was the festering crust of all those of his
race.
  With professional intensity, Crusher lifted her
tricorder and scanned her patient; at the readout,
her head drew back sharply, slightly.
  She did not look up from it. "Captain . .
  Picard moved cautiously to her as she proffered
him the tricorder.
  "Look at this medscan."
  He took it from her, studied it
briefly. At first glance, he saw nothing
surprising. He had seen this readout before himself,
didn't understand what Beyerly was talking about. It was
perfectly normal forand then he stopped himself,
looked down at the unconscious Son'a, at
Beverly, whose expression was one of grim confirmation,
then back at the readout.
  This was a normal readoutfor a Baku. But the man
who lay in front of them was Son'a. The captain
gazed back at Crusher. "How could this be
possible?"
  Crusher gave a little disbelieving shake of her
head that set her copper hair swinging, and looked
over her shoulder at the cavern exit, where Anij and
Toumel 199 were busy organizing the last group of
Baku for departure. "Maybe we should ask them."
  Inside the exit cavern that led to escape,
dozens of Baku blocked Artim's vision so that he
did not see the wounding of the Son'a; but he had heard
the earsplitting force of the Klingon's weapon, had
heard the landslide, had heard the murmurs of his
elders reporting what had happened.
  Up to that moment, Artim, sweating from the moist
heat, water up to his ankles, bare toes
squishing smooth mud, had managed to calm
himself despite the teeth-chattering explosions that never
stopped.
  Everyone with him was an adult; all the other children
had already been moved. But Artim had refused: as the
village leader's son, he felt obliged to stay
and help Toumel and Anij-both of whom had
ignored his offer and told him to stay out of the way as
they readied each group for departure.
  Now, they were readying the very last group. The boy
pressed against the warm, damp stone wall and
briefly closed his eyes in revulsion. He had
known all along that the Starfleet officers were firing
weaponsbut he had convinced himself that they were more
deterrents than anything else, or perhaps some sort
of protective devices.
  Was it right for Picard to hurt the Son'a back?
In the context of the quiet Baku village, listening
to his

  elders talk about peace, Artim could easily
understand the senselessness of all violence. But he had
never before faced an unprovoked attack. Right now,
the Son'a were acting as if they wanted to kill the
remaining Baku.
  Did it make sense for Artim and all
the others to give up, to die for the sake of peace?
  Is he dead? Is he dead? Is he dead?
  The murmur moved quickly through the crowd.
  Tournel answered, and was echoed.
  I don't know.... I don't know....
  No, wait, he's alive ... Alive...
Alive ... The healer is with him.
  She is helping him....
  Artim breathed a sigh of relief, then opened his
eyes, just as Anij said quickly, "It is time." At
once, she and Toumel organized the group into six
pairs, and began filing them, two at a time, through the
gap in the wall out into the day. Artim was in the final
pair; and slowly, as they approached the
burned-away wall, he could see more and more of what
lay outside: captain Picard and the burly,
intimidating creature called a Klingon ... the
listless Son'a ... and at last, Data and the
beautiful dark-haired officer returning.
  At the sight of the android, Artim smiled with
relief. Artificial Data might be, but there was
a constancy to him, a gentleness that reminded the boy of
his father, Sojef ... and that caused Artim to fight
back tears of uncertainty and sorrow.
  201
  Don't be a baby. Data promised you that Father
was someplace safe, Artim reminded himself-, he
did not consider that. if the Son'a were now desperate
enough to try killing the Baku here on the ground, they
might Don't even think it.
  Data could be trusted, and that was that. And the other
Baku-especially Anij, the closest thing Artim
had to a mother-seemed to trust all of the Starfleet
officers, especially the brave Captain Picard.
  Did that mean they all now agreed that weapons were
okay? Artim sighed; grown-ups were sometimes a
mystery. As he neared the opening in the wall, he
absently gave his pocket a gentle pat ...
  ... and started as he realized it was empty. His
palm pet had run away.
  With a low cry that was swallowed up by a series of
overhead explosions, Artim rushed back into the
belly of the cavern.
  Anij, meantime, was working hard to ignore the
overhead blasts that made the bones in her head
vibrate, made the earth beneath her feet tremble,
made silt from the cavern ceiling float down and
settle on her head, in her eyes. Working hard, as
well, not to choke on the dust stirred up by the constant
explosions or the landslide that brought the
Son'a down.
  She forced her focus to remain on the last group
of her

  people to make a run for the higher caverns-at least,
most of her focus was on the group while she quickly
checked her row of refugees, with Toumel doing the
same to his row. But as she helped here to tighten a
backpack, there to soothe an animal, some of her
thoughts were with Jean-Luc Picard, and the danger he
faced on her people's behalf-, other thoughts were with
Sojef.
  After all the centuries, all the questions, she had
finally learned one thing: she was not in love with
Sojef, had never been. She respected him,
esteemed him, loved him as a friend; indeed, was now
terribly worried about what had happened to him....
  But her heart belonged to an offlander. Baku
wisdom taught that romantic love was a joy
restricted to a very few, that most should content themselves with a
marriage based on friendship. But Anij had
experienced that joy now, that passion, and would settle
for nothing less.
  Even so, she was mature enough to know that Picard was
too restless to settle among the Baku; and
that she did not have it in her heart to leave her eople.
Surely he would have to leave, and she p he fact
made no difference in the way she stay ... yet t
felt.
  And the bravery both Jean-Luc and Sojef had
shown inspired her. Anij had always been cool,
leveleaded during emergencies, which was one reason she

  was an unofficial leader; now she worked
especially hard to show calmness, to reassure.
  Again, the ground beneath her shuddered, and an overhead
explosion rattled her bones; she ignored it and
began counting the number of Baku in her row.
  There were fourteen of them remaining now, including
herself and Tournel, which meant that, without the leaders in
front, there should be twelve people, six pairs. Six
in her row, and she counted silently to herself as she
stood back to review them.
  One, two, three, four, five....
  Only five, yet there were six in Tournel's
row, where a terra-cotta-haired woman stood
alone, unpaired, at the end of the line, all her
belongings rolled up inside a single exquisite
patchwork spread. This was Da'nea, unwed,
opinionated, and a brilliant quilt
artist; normally, Ann welcomed conversation with her;
now, she could only ask (without appearing too
frightened): "Is that everyone?"
  Da'nea's head jerked up suddenly as she
registered her friend's question; like most of the others, she had
been utterly distracted by the sights and sounds of what
was going on outside. She looked at the unoccupied
space beside her, then, panicked, said: "Artim . .
  Artim, Anij realized, with a thrill of dread.
She loved the boy as her son; and if Sojef
survived this, she would never be able to face him again if
she let his only child perish.

  She absorbed her immediate surroundings with a sweeping
glance, then clutched Da'nea's upper arm.
  "Wait here."
  She knew Artim well-well enough to know that only
one thing would cause him to disobey his elders, to do
something this foolish-and so she spun about and ran back,
back through the narrow, muddy corridors beneath the now
ominously shaking ceiling to the large room where they had
first taken refuge.
  And there was Artim, on his knees as he scooped
up his palm pet from the damp ground, then held his
open hand level with his nose and smiled at
the little creature.
  "Artim!" Anij snapped, with more anger than the
boy had ever heard in her tone. He turned
to regard her owlishly, clearly unaware of the crime
he had just committed. But there was no time for pity or
explanations; she seized his arm and dragged him along
with her.
  Overhead, the ceiling rumbled frighteningly; a
cascade of pebbles spilled down, grazing
Anij's shoulder.
  Collapse would occur in a matter of seconds
now. For the boy's sake, she prayed. For the boy's
sake, let us make it out in time....
  Picard was gasping by the time he and his away team
made it back down to the cavern exit, where
Tournel waited with the last evacuation group.

  Anij was not there.
  The realization pierced Picard like a plasma
beam; the dread he felt must have clearly shown, for
Tournel said, the instant the captain stepped
into earshot: "Anij went to find Artim."
  A distant voice, muted by thick cavern
walls, called from inside: "I've got him!"
  Anij. Through sheer will, Picard hid- the
deep surge of relief that ran through him at the knowledge
she was alive; at the same time, he felt dread
upon learningwhere she was. Upon returning from higher
ground, he could see the aerial attacks as he-and
Data, Crusher, Worf, Troi-approached the
cavern where the last of the Baku remained. The roof was
on the verge of giving way, reducing the whole
structure to a heap of rubble; the captain had
arrived intending to make sure that everyone was out of the
cave.
  Upon hearing Anij's voice, Picard acted
without an instant's thought, without the reflection that
might have made him choose Data instead for such a
dangerous rescue mission; at the sound of her
voice, he ran, so quickly that those remaining behind had
no opportunity to dissuade him.
  So quickly, that within a matter of two heartbeats,
he met her and Artim in the corridor that led to the
largest part of the cavern.
  She was literally pushing the boy ahead of her, forcing
him to run faster as pebbles rained down from the ceiling.

  And then the mountainside where the cavern rested took
a direct hit; Picard heard it at the same time
Anij did, and technophobe or no, she
knew exactly what it meant. The ground swelled
like an ocean wave, then settled, while above them,
there came the roar of solid rock separating,
falling....
  At that very instant, he looked at her, and she at
him. Their shared gaze could have lasted only a
millisecond, no more, yet to Picard it seemed
timeless. A silence overtook him, one in which the
noisy chaos surrounding them receded abruptly, and for
that moment, there was nothing in the world at all save
Anij.
  No fear, no defeat in her shining eyes: only
love and gratitude toward him, a real joy that he
had shared in her life. He drew in a breath at the
beauty of those eyes, all apprehension toward death
vanished. If he was to die, let it be here, now, in
the company of this amazing woman; surely he had
loved no one better, and his one hope was that she could
read that in his own gaze.
  And then the roar and dust and stones intruded; coughing,
Picard caught the boy Artim by the arm and flung
him, reeling, out of the cave. He turned back and
stretched a hand toward Anij, who was reaching back
toward him.
  Reachingeareaching ...
  A stone struck the back of his head; he dropped

  groaning to his knees, then looked up, only
to find that the hail of rocks was so thick now, Anij
had disappeared from sight. Another rock struck his
shoulder, then his kidneys, then his whole back, forcing
him facedown into the mud. Through effort, he managed
to get onto his side and breathe, but by then the rocks
kept coming, coming, until his lungs were full of dust
and he felt himself spinning down into darkness....
  Picard's final shove sent the boy Artim
hurtling forward, forced to run to the exit or fall
facedown into the slippery mud. Artim rarmarrow
chest heaving with gasps that were very close to sobs. Around
him, behind him, the world was collapsing in a deafening
hailstorm of stone.
  He dared not glance over his shoulder at those
following, concerned though he was; if his father was
alive, then it was Artim's duty to remain so as
well.
  Abruptly, the boy stumbled through the opening, and
Data's strong arms caught Artim's thin ones.
  With astonishing ease, the android pulled the boy
away from the danger.
  At the sight of Data's steady,
placid expression, Artim felt a surge of
relief-, that relief vanished at once when the
boy turned to see the devastation he had left behind.
  The mouth of the cave had collapsed into a heap of

  rubble-and left no trace of the two people who had come
to save him.
  "Anij!" Artim screamed with real anguish.
She had risked her life for his ... and so had
Captain Picard.
  How could he live if they both were dead? And if
Anij and Father were both gone ... his
  Data gently turned the boy about to speak to him.
  Artim braced himself to hear the typical grown-up
lie: that Anij would be all right, that he should not
worry....
  How can she be all right with all those stones crushing
her?
  But in Data there were no lies, no condescension.
  He bent down so that his straightforward amber eyes
were on a level with Artim's own, and said in a tone
firm but considerate: "Toumel will take you the rest
of the way."
  Artim's first impulse was to scream again, to weep,
to plead; but in the face of Data's calm,
the boy summoned his own fledgling self-control.
He looked over at Tournel and the group, all of
whom stared aghast at the collapsed cavern, dust
streaming outward from it like smoke.
  Already the other Starfleet officers were preparing a
rescue operation.
  One of them, a dark-skinned man with strange
bony growths on his forehead (rather like the hide of an
ichoto lizard, Artim decided), pressed a

  button on his chest and boomed, in his gruff
voice: "Worf to Picard."
  Beside him, the red-haired healer held up a
black box and reported, "Two lifesigns.
One extremely faint . .
  Two lives. Artim's heart fluttered.
Anij is alive, and the captain, too....
  Still, he couldn't leave at that moment, not until
lie saw Anij for himself. Besides, he felt safest
with Data.
  Data told him the truth, and even the Son'a,
with all their weapons, couldn't defeat the android.
  "No," Artim told Data at last. "I
want to stay with you." At the same time, he heard the
childish petulance in his own tone and was
embarrassed.
  The android was entirely unmoved. "It is safer
there. I will join you shortly."
  Behind them, the beautiful dark-haired woman was
looking down at her own black box. "There are
almost four metric tons of rock blocking our
way. . . ." She drew a weapon, the same one
Captain Picard had fired at the Son'a, and
pointed it at the rocks.
  At once, the bony-browed man put his large
hand on her wrist. "That might cause another
cave-in."
  Artim turned away, sighing; Data was, as
always, right. Obediently, the boy took the last
place in line in Toumel's group; immediately, the
group began to run.
  Somehow, Artim managed to keep his balance while
glancing back over his shoulder, at the sight of the

  four Starfleet officers digging desperately through
the rocky ruins....
  Blackness. Pain.
  Pain in his head, in his neck, in his back. Pain
from a thousand bruises, a dozen cuts. He moaned
softly, and even that slight movement of his
lips and jaw caused a fresh jolt of agony
to move down his left cheek, from eye to chin.
  It was tempting to slip back into unconsciousness
and escape the misery ... tempting, except for one
thing.
  "Ann ...
  He cried her name out hoarsely, using the pain itself
like a lifeline to pull himself back to full
consciousness. With both arms, he reached out, groping for
her in the darkness, touching nothing but silt and rubble.
  "Worf to Picard . .
  How m"...tny times had the Klingon patiently
called for him? Several, the captain realized, but this
was the first he had registered. "Yes," he called,
hearing the weakness in his own voice. He cleared his
throat, tried again, this time a little stronger. "Yes,
I can hear you......
  "We're trying to get to you, sir." In the
background, Picard heard the thud of rocks against
earth.
  With a groan, he pushed himself from his side onto his
knees, causing a small landslide as soil and
rocks,

  none of them smaller than a fist,
rolled off him. The ground, an uneven landscape
now of rocky shards, was hardly hospitable to his
palms and knees, but he gritted his teeth and
persisted, testing arms and legs: nothing broken.
Outside of the bruises, what felt like a mild
concussion, and the painful cut on his cheek, he was in
fair shape-and extremely lucky. Yet the blow
to his head had disoriented him somewhat: he had been
running toward Anij, reaching for her, and she for him.
Picard remembered waking up on his side, but where
was she now in relation to him? His surroundings were now
unrecognizable heaps of silt, pebbles, boulders,
jagged monoliths of stone; he dared not guess which
way he had come.
  He chose what seemed like the likeliest
direction, and crawled forward a ginger half-step,
then paused as his movement caused the stones and pebbles
beneath him to shift and scatter. The interior of the
collapsed cavern was dark as a moonless night, but
as his eyes slowly adjusted, he sensed that a large
slab of the ceiling had come down in one piece, and
wedged itself atop a large pile of rocks so that he
had been protected from being crushed by it. As best he
could tell it was stable-for the moment-and so he continued his
slow search, his heart and mind numbed to all
possibitities but one: that he would find Anij,
find her alive and well.
  Had it not been for the dark purple of her robe,
he

  might not have noticed her at all, surrounded by a
pearl gray caim of stones, so pale was her skin
... as pale as the blond curls that lay fanned
about her head.
  Gray-white, Picard thought at first sight of her
face, like a waning moon-but he reassured himself that
everything in such darkness was painted in shades of gray.
  "An'll he said urgently. She would open her
eyes now, smile, and sit up. She would speak and
reassure him. Never mind that she was lying there so
motionless, so limp.
  In the dreadful silence that followed, her eyelids
twitched, fluttered gently open for a heartbeat
to look at him-long enough to reveal eyes the same
dull whitish gray, all starlight extinguished.
By then, he had found his tricorder still on his belt and
trained it on her with trembling hands.
  Massive internal bleeding. She was in shock and
could die at any moment.
  "Help is coming," he said, with a faint,
reassuring Smile; he got the heart-wrenching
impression that she recognized him and was trying
to smile back, but it was beyond her strength. Her
dimmed eyes closed with a slow and terrible finality.
  Picard pressed his combadge. "Worf, you must
hurry. . . .
  "We can't risk using phasers, sir," the
Klingon's voice replied.

  Of course, of course; the ruins were too unstable.
  Silently cursing the situation, Picard
replied, "I understand. Tell Doctor Crusher
to have a hypospray of lectrazine ready. .
  Beverly Crusher's voice, now, filled with both
professional and personal compassion, not only for her
patient-but for her friend, Jean-Luc, as well. So
she knows, Picard realized, how I feel about
Anij. Perhaps the whole crew knows...... How
bad is she, Captain?"
  He fought to keep the emotion from his tone, and did not
quite succeed.
  "I'm losing her."
  "We're coming as fast as we can," Crusher said,
with a resoluteness that made him silently bless her.
  Picard reached down for Anij's hand-so
cool now, and limp-and lifted it to his cheek. He
had always envied the Vulcans for their longer
lifespans, and had never quite fathomed why they seemed
to regret the deaths of their elders so greatly.
Surely the great tragedy lay in the deaths of the
younger, in the unused potential. A 250-year-old
being had enjoyed a full, useful lifespan, and those
around him or her should be ready to let that being go.
  Before he had met Anij and the Baku, he had
always thought that after two centuries or so, one would
become bored with life, would know all that there was to know.
But now he understood. Anij was so vital, so
alive, such a treasure of accumulated maturity,
insight, and knowledge, that her accidental death seemed no
less than a crime of nature. Age had made
her more valuable, not less so.
  He pressed her hand more firmly to his cheek,
and with all the intensity of will and heart that was in him,
told her: "Stay with me.
  Don't let go of this moment, Anhelp me find
the power to make you live in this moment. . .
  Her eyelids fluttered, then remained one
quarter open; she meant, he knew, to look on him
once more before dying. But that he would not permit.
  "Just one more moment," he whispered. "And
then one more after that ... and one more after that......
  As Picard held her gaze, it seemed he could
hear her very heartbeat, and the breath in her lungs,
both growing slower, calmer, stronger, merging with the
Sound of his own. He heard the gentle sweep of her
eyelashes as she blinked, then widened her eyes
slightly. In her eyes, he saw a glimmer of
radiance, and watched it grow, merging with his own inner
light until the darkness surrounding them eased and the
airborne dust, descending softly and slowly as
snowflakes around them, glittered diamond-bright.
And in that moment, there were no Son'a, no Baku,
no struggles, no death, no danger, no fear, no
Enterpriseeathere were only Anij, and himself, and the
light.
  How long that endless moment lasted, he could not say,
but it was broken by the sudden sharp intrusion

  I 5 of sunlight. Beverly Crusher suddenly
appeared on Anij's other side and emptied a
hypospray into the Baku woman's neck, then ran
a tricorder over her.
  The doctor smiled over at Picard. "She's
stabilizing."
  Squinting as his eyes adjusted to the
light, the captain nodded with relief. "Is it
safe to move her?"
  "Safer than leaving her in here."
  Aches and bruises forgotten, Picard balanced
himself on one foot and one knee, then lifted Anij
into his arms and began to follow Crusher out of the
collapsed cavern. On the way, Anij spoke
weakly, but Picard heard the teasing undercurrent.
  "And you thought it would take centuries to learn . .
  He could only smile down at her with genuine
affection.
  The far end of the cavern, where Worf had burned
an escape exit into the calcite, was still standing; and as
the group-Worf, Troi, Data, Crusher,
accompanied by the captain and Anij-stepped out into the
open air, Picard's sense of timelessness was
replaced by urgent immediacy.
  Agleam with sunlight, five silver drones
hovered trembling like hummingbirds in the air,
blocking the path to the mountain caverns.
  Waiting.
  There was no time for reflection, no point in
returning to what remained of the collapsed cavern

  for shelter. As if linked by a group
mind, the officers immediately took battle positions,
shoulder-toshoulder, an arm's breadth apart, and drew
their weapons. Picard gently lay Anij upon the
ground, then straightened to catch the phaser rifle
pitched him by Worf. The captain went down on one
knee in front of her, his body a shield.
  Abruptly, the drones gave birth, quicksilver
hives spewing forth armies of tiny, barbed insects.
  The air filled with phaser fire, some of it
generated by Picard. He remained motionless,
determined to protect Anij as best he could; he was
aware of Worf nearby, ducking and rolling to miss
a hail of small projectiles, of Troi
dropping and firing from the ground.
  One, two swift drones destroyed in a
fleeting ruby blaze; the captain could not have said whose
phaser fire was responsible. The third one he
hit neatly, c leanly, before it could fire again. More
firing, and at last the fourth was destroyed, leaving
only one....
  The last drone fired, launching another shining
swarm-this one directed squarely at the captain and
his ward.
  Picard fired instantly, creating a
significant gap in the center of the group,
but it was not enough. The sound of small projectiles
whizzed past his ears; he looked down at Anij,
and to his horror saw the tiny metal tag
protruding from her shoulder ...

  ... less than a second before he felt the sting
in his own side, and saw the barb sticking out of his
jacket.
  Desperately, he tried to pull the tag from her
shoulder, but it would not give, and he found himself staring
into her startled eyes as the world around them began
to glimmer, shift, and dissolve....
  ELEVEN

  It was Sojef who greeted them first, inside the
massive brig that was so comfortably appointed
Picard knew at once he was aboard a Son'a
vessel. Some eighty Baku were quietly seated
on the thickly padded floor, some with children nestled in
their laps; clearly, Sojef had taken charge of the
situation, quickly reuniting families and comforting those
who had been separated from their loved ones.
  As for the Baku leader's own concerns, he kept
those hidden until he was seated facing Picard, with his
back turned to his people; only then did the
absolute calm on his features, in his voice,
waver as he sked: "Artim ... Do you know what
has become of him, Captain?"

  Anij answered from where she lay between the two men,
her head propped up on Picard's thigh; she
lacked the strength to sit up on her own, and her
voice was weak, though determined. "Your son is
well, Sojef.
  Data-the artificial life-form-is taking
excellent care of him now. And Jean-Luc himself
saved him from great danger when the cave collapsed."
  Picard smoothed her hair. "You're forgetting,
Anij.
  You were the one who went back for the boy. . .
  "My gratitude to you both," Sojef said, with
forced evenness; abruptly, his voice dropped to a
nearwhisper. "And you, was he said to Anij. "You have
been injured because of this?"
  Picard nodded on her behalf.
  Sojef did not lift his gaze from the wounded
woman's face. "And seriously so," he told
her, with utter frankness. "Will you survive?"
  The captain opened his mouth to reply ... then
closed it as he caught a glance of
Sojef s expression.
  There was compassion there, and the concern of a very old, very
dear friend....
  And something much more. For an instant, Picard felt
something akin to guilt; it passed and was re placed
by pity. Sojef was obviously in love with Anij,
and had been for-how long? Centuries? It must have
been enormously difficult for him to see another
man, an offlander no less, stroking her hair.
  "I'll live," Anij answered, smiling back
at the Baku

  leader with more platonic, but no less genuine,
affection, at the same instant Picard said:
  "She was bleeding internally. We stopped that, and
she'll survive without further treatment, but it would be
best for her-was He broke off, suddenly aware that the
background hum of a force field, as well as the
gentle murmurs of Baku voices, had ceased.
He followed the others' gazes toward the brig
entry, where Subahdar Gallatin, whom Picard
recognized from the "rescue" of those on the Baku
planet, escorted Dougherty into the brig.
  The admiral appeared ravaged. Physically,
he was the same: tall and straight of
stature, silver-haired, lean ... but only the
body was unchanged. The essence of the man-the
confidence, the directness, the near-palpable mental
intensity and will that marked a Starfleet admiral,
especially one as respected as Matthew
Dougherty-had fled.
  Dougherty entered the brig, scanning every face; he
was looking for the captain, of course, but Picard found
himself too overwhelmed by loathing to call out, to hasten
short the inevitable. Instead, he wound one
protective arm around Anij, and with the other stroked
her hair, until at last the admiral spotted
him and made his way over, accompanied by the silent,
expressionless Gallatin.
  Dougherty looked down sternly at the trio on the
floor; Picard returned his gaze with such
repressed

  rage he was surprised the sheer emotional force of
it did not knock Dougherty from his feet. It did,
however, cause the admiral to avert his eyes for
half a heartbeat, but he rallied himself and said
firmly:
  "Order them to surrender, and I promise you
won't be court-martialed."
  It was a pale imitation of the old Dougherty: there
was nothing behind the gruff tone, the hard glare, the
attempt at authority, but a lost man.
  Despite Picard's effort at control, the
corner of his mouth curled in disgust. "If
court-martial is the only way to tell the people of the
Federation what happened here, then I welcome it."
  Dougherty blinked, cleared his throat, briefly
looked over at the uniformed (albeit subtly for a
Son'a) Gallatin as if seeking an answer; but
the subahdar merely held his gaze steadily.
Clearly, the admiral had had no plan to deal with
Picard beyond this, and was now at an impasse.
  Time to choose, Admiral Me and the Baku, or
the Sona.
  Suddenly Dougherty was spared: there came
murmurs in the brig, then the rising and scattering of
Baku as the ahdar, Ru'afo, came storming in,
furred and feathered robes swinging, a padd clutched
in one pale-knuckled hand. He ignored those
surrounding him, stepping in the midst of or directly
onto the sitting prisoners, until he came
face to face with

  Dougherty. The Son'a commander seemed
to notice no one else in the room-not even
Picard.
  "The Enterprise has destroyed one of my
ships," Ru'afo hissed, his voice low and
trembling with rage.
  "The other is on fire, requesting assistance."
He shoved the padd in front of the admiral's
nose; Dougherty seemed to deflate ever so
slightly.
  "The Enterprise would only fire if she were
defending herself," Picard told the besieged
Dougherty.
  "Ru'afo must have ordered an attack." He
paused. "I can't believe he would have given that
order without your consent, Admiral."
  The older man stared at him then-apparently with the
intent of silencing Picard with a stern look.
  But Picard's words had clearly hit their mark;
Dougherty was too proud to let himself look away, but
his eyes went hollow; and Picard, sickened to see
the truth so confirmed, said softly:
  wonder which of us will be facing that
courtmartial......
  The admiral turned heavily away, and said
to Ru'afo in a dulled voice, "There's
nothing further to be gained from this."
  "You're right," the ahdar replied with quiet
vicious glee. "This is going to end now." He
turned to Picard, for the first time acknowledging the
captain's presence. "The Baku want to stay on
the planet. Let them. I'm going to launch the
injector."

  Except for Ru'afo's, every other face in the
group went slack-jawed with horror-including,
Picard noticed through his own dismay, the face of the
sedately dressed Gallatin. The subahdar
composed his features at once, but not before Picard
caught his gaze.
  As if ashamed, Gailatin looked away ... but
the captain already had learned an extremely
important fact: All aboard the Son'a ship
were not in total agreement regarding the fate of the
Baku. It made sense: Gallatin had been
hidden in the duck blind for weeks, had been watching and
remembering family and old friends; and there was a
compassion in him that the ahdar seemed entirely
to lack.
  Dougherty spoke first, and in his indignant voice
and words, Picard heard the admiral he
had known.
  "You're not going to launch anything until-was "In
six hours," Ru'afo countered, in a tone of even
greater authority, "every living thing in this system will be
dead or dying." He turned, again with a flourish of
fur and feathers, and strode toward the exit, sending
Baku scurrying out of his way.
  Again, there was something in his demeanor that struck a
chord of memory in Picard: he felt as though he
knew Ru'afo-and Ru'afo's yearning for
revenge-intimately, knew also that the ahdar would
make good on his threat unless something could be done
to stop him.
  Picard called softly after him. "You would kill
your

  own people, Ru'afo? Your own parents, your
brothers, sisters . . ."
  At Dougherty's sharp astonishment, he added,
"Didn't you know, Admiral?
  The Baku and the Son'a are the same race."
  The admiral turned in amazement to Ru'afo,
who had stopped and half turned; the Son'a would not
return Dougherty's questioning gaze, and his mouth and jaw
twitched with hatred when Sojef rose and
stepped forward to face him. Clearly, Ru'afo
feared splitting his newly repaired skin again, for
he seemed to be struggling hard to keep anger from
contorting his features.
  "Picard just told us ... our DNA is the
same.
  Which one were you?" Sojef asked gently,
compassionately. "Gal'na?
  Ro'tin? Belath'nin ...
  Ru'afo's voice was cold, his eyes narrow with
contempt. "Those names, those children, are gone forever."
  "What is he talking about?" Dougherty demanded,
honestly astonished.
  Sojef turned to him to explain. "A century
ago, a group of our young people wanted to follow the
ways of the offlanders. They tried to take over the
colony, and when they failed-was "When we failed,"
Ru'afo said poisonously, "you wled us. To die
slowly."
  In Picard's arms, Anij stirred and raised
her head.
  "You're Ro'tin, aren't you ... ?" she asked;
the Son'a leader's silence was confirmation enough.
"There's something in the voice."
  She turned next to regard the
subahdar. "Would you be his friend, Gal'na?"
  The officer looked away, clearly pained.
  "I helped your mother bathe you when you were a child,"
Anij reminded him, her tone fond and faraway, from
a lyrical, happier time. "She still speaks of you."
  To Dougherty, Picard said, "You've brought the
Federation into the middle of a blood feud,
Admiral.
  The children have returned to expel their elders, just as
they were once expelled. Except Ru'afo's need
for revenge has now escalated to parricide."
  At that, the ahdar emitted a small hiss, then
turned and left without further comment-due to the vain
fear, Picard suspected, that if he remained
another instant he would lose his temper and again
damage his stretched, brittle complexion.
  Gallatin turned to follow, then paused, and cast
a final, reluctant glance at Sojef before
following the outraged Ru'afo.
  Dougherty remained behind, a soul in tatters, staring
first at Sojef, then down at Picard with a
transparent need for forgiveness. "It was for the
Federation," the admiral said numbly. "It was all
for the Federation......
  Yet even Picard could see that the
admiral was deluding himself-, there had been something far
deep 226 er, far more personal at stake; but he
said nothing to Dougherty. There was nothing more to say. It
was up to the admiral now to redeem himself ... or
remain in his own personal hell.
  He and the Baku watched as Dougherty turned and
silently, heavily followed the same path
Ru'afo and Gallatin had taken out of the brig.
  Picard looked down at Anij and heard the hum
of a force field leaping back into place, and the receding
sound of a slow, even footfall....
  For Matthew Dougherty, it was a very long walk through
the spacious corridors of the Son'a vessel.
  He had not lied to Picard, he told himself, he
had done it for the Federation. For every sentient being who had
suffered and died in the Federation, and that included
Madalyn. He still could not see so much the harm in
relocating these people in order to grant the galaxy
healing, youth, virtual immortality ... but harming
them was unconscionable. What he had done in
allowing Ru'afo's ships to go after the Enterrise was
unconscionable; more than a thousand people, and he had
been willing to allow them to be exterminated. Why had
it been so easy?
  Because they had been distant. Because he
knew he would not have to witness the destruction firsthand.
It was cleaner, neater that way ...
  easier to kill.
  Would he have felt that way about relocating the

  Baku if he had first lived among them, gotten
to know them as people instead of simply observing their
culture as an intellectual exercise?
  He sighed, and noticed that he had instinctively
headed toward the Son'a bridge. A quick check there
showed Gallatin, but no one knew where the ahdar had
gone. Dougher*ty wandered back out into the corridor
and let instinct be his guide.
  The fact was, Ru'afo had never intended to deal
honestly with him, the Baku, or the Federation....
  Indeed, with every step, it became clearer and clearer
to the admiral that Ru'afo would never share the
lifegiving properties of the Baku planet with
anyone but the Son'a.
  Grief and weakness, Dougherty realized, had
made him easy prey. Had made him listen
to Ru'afo's glib reassurances without considering the
Baku's point of view, made him champion the
Son'a's cause, made him convince the Federation
Council to support it.
  How, so late, could he now make amends?
  Chances were that he could not. He was a lone
Starfleet officer aboard a ship of Son'a with
extremely sophisticated weaponry and an agenda
that was now the opposite of his. Even so, he was
morally boundby whatever shred of ethics I have left
  comto try to stop what was happening.
  He let go a deep breath and felt a wave of
repressed self-revulsion, a burden carried for
months, leave

  him; at once, he felt lighter, more serene.
Decisiveness, which had eluded him for just as long,
returned.
  He knew precisely what he would say
to Ru'afo; he also had the realistic understanding that the
ahdar would react with increased rage.
  But he was willing to risk it-willing, at the
moment, to risk everything for a chance at redemption.
  He found himself standing at the entrance to the body
sculpture chamber. If Ru'afo had been
serious about deploying the collector, then all
personnel would be on duty, and the chamber should be
deserted. But Dougherty's instinct told him it was not
entirely so.
  He drew a breath and stepped inside the
spacious structure. Indeed, not a single
Elloran attendant greeted him, and the
individual treatment booths were dim and deserted
comall but one, where Ru'afo sat, eyes closed,
face still creased with anger, in front of a device that
bathed his features in green, pulsating light. A
living, rotting corpse, Dougherty thought.
  Slowly, deliberately, the admiral walked
over to him and stood at his elbow. The Son'a
clearly heard, for his body involuntarily tensed;
but he kept his eyes closed, refusing to acknowledge
Dougherty's presence.
  "We're taking this ship out of here," Dougherty
said, and meant it.
  "This mission is over."

  Ru'afo's eyes and mouth opened narrowly. "It
is not over."
  "It is over," Dougherty insisted. And he
turned to move away, to go to the bridge and give the
commands that would take them out of the Briar Patch,
in!communication range with Starfleet.
  But before he could do so, Ru'afo rose, seized
him by the shoulders, and with brute force moved
him backward. Dougherty resisted, but Ru'afo was
the larger man, and was possessed of startling,
overwhelming strength.
  "I do not take orders from you!" the ahdar roared.
  With equal fury, Dougherty shouted back, "If
you launch the injector while the planet is still
populated, the Federation will pursue you until-was
He broke off, air pushed from his lungs as
Ru'afo slammed him down into one of the treatment
chairs, then forced his head into a face-lifting
device.
  "The Federation," Ru'afo said, sneering, "will never
know what happened here."
  And in the split second before the Son'a hit the
controls, Matthew Dougherty realized that he was going
to die: not later, in the brig with Picard and the
Baku, or after a period of house arrest, but now,
this moment.
  And something very curious happened. Although his body
struggled wildly, thrashing so hard that

  Ru'afo had to exert considerable force to hold him
down, the admiral's consciousness calmed at once;
indeed, observed the goings-on like a disinterested
spectator.
  The device pulled his ears upward first, in the
facelift procedure he had seen carried out on
Ru'afo so many times-stretching, stretching, until
at last he felt his skin begin to tear; and then there was
pain, terrible pain as the device pushed and pulled,
first breaking his nose and then crushing his jaw, and finally
his skull, with deafening crunches.
  Yet observer Dougherty remained
preternaturally calm. This was certainly a horrible
death, as deaths went, and yet ... the realization of
what was happening to him brought with it a sense of
relief and release far deeper than the one he had
e moments before. The suffering itself was a bad thing,
surely, but it was only temporary, transitory;
was an unutterably peaceful, freeing event.
  At the same time, he felt mild regret that
he should have to leave Picard to face this alone. He
would have liked to have helped them, after all he had done
to harm them; but there was nothing he could do now, nothing but
wish them all well and let them go....
  As for his body, his head and neck were now so
contorted that his trachea was crushed, and his limbs had
stopped their thrashing and now simply trembled.

  Even that ceased as anoxia took hold,
and whatever consciousness remained in his body dimmed,
then darkened forever.
  Yet his observer self had more clarity than ever;
and as he looked about himself he realized it was no
longer Ru'afo who stood over him, hovering ...
  But Madalyn, Madalyn with her swinging silver
hair and dimples, grinning down at him, saying,
See? Who says dying is such a terrible thing?
  He reached up for her, smiling.
  TWELVE

  On the Son'a bridge, Gallatin sat in the
ahdar's chair overseeing a full complement of
crew-Son'a, Tarlac, Elloran. To an
outside observer, the scene was ostensibly calm:
officers working silently at their stations, the subahdar
sitting, arms folded, staring blankly at the
viewscreen, where the Baku planet-with the radiation
collector in place-rotated lazily behind a
gossamer veil of glittering cosmic dust.
  Inside, Gallatin seethed. Not with anger
alone-although there was enough of that, directed not only at
himself but at Ru'afo, and at the Starfleet captain
who had forced them to take such desperate measures.
  He had never meant it to come this far, had
never meant for anyone to be hurt. He had only
wanted to

  be what temperament and talent had urged him
to be-a scientist-but he had had the misfortune to be
born into a community that feared the very thing he loved.
  As a child, he had asked many questions. At first they were
answered honestly and directly; over time, they were
discouraged, and when in his youth he discovered a hidden
treasure trove of cultural and scientific
history in the eaves-all on computer-he swore
to devote his life to refining the exquisite
technology of his ancestors.
  For months, he secretly traveled to the cave
and slowly unraveled the secrets of the computer, and his
forebears. Someone in the community, one of the original
immigrants-he never discovered who-had decided
to leave a complete record of the world from which he or she
had come.
  His ancestors called themselves the Ka'bu (and the
pacifistic dissenters made a linguistic play on
the name by reversing the consonants to call themselves the
Baku, which meant "the Peaceful").
  The Ka'bu had traveled the galaxy in
sophisticated space vessels; they had
lived elegantly, in the pursuit of beauty, art,
and physical perfection, relying on mechanization
to do their labor for them, insteading of sweating out in the
fields in coarse homespun. But the artist class
had separated from the warrior class, and squabbling

  began-that class separation, Gallatin (then
Gal'na) had decided, caused their downfall ...
not the availabitity of weapons.
  His mother had taught him the importance of honesty,
especially self-honesty; so it was that Gal'na could
not bear the realization that his elders had eschewed
science-which by its own nature was truth itself-in its
entirety.
  What was inherently evil about spaceships?
Gal'na had asked Sojef one day, and was
frustrated by the calm reply: There is no evil in
the vessels themselves-but in the attitude that spawns the
vessels.
  Technology is a weed., once it takes
root, it strangles all other philosophies,
all other ways of doing things. It cannot be
controlledddonce our culture embraced it, it had
to accept both the good and the bad truths it brings. The
good aspect of technology helped to heal
our ancestors,- the bad, to destroy them. Here the
world itself heals us. We have the good,- what need have we
of the bad?
  Gal'na had a thousand logical replies: We
don't have to make their same mistake. We can
learn from them.
  Why should we not be free to travel? To live more
comfortable lifestyles?
  But he kept silent, for he had heard the
subtext in Sojefs apparently logical
explanation: fear. The Baku who had experienced the
Wars had been terri 235 lied for their lives, and
that terror made them completely reject something that was
neither bad nor good in itself, but neutral.
  So Gal'na observed his friends closely,
discovered who in the village was curious, even
interested, in reviving the old technology and
science: all of them were younger, second-generation.
None had lived on the original home planet;
all had escaped the Wars.
  Many agreed with Gal'na-especially Ro'tin, a
young farmer with an athlete's strength and grace.
  Ro'tin also had a gift for leadership: he often
spoke out on behalf of the younger generation at village
meetings. Some said Sojef should consider
train' ing him as a second-in-command instead of the
young Toumel, but others felt that his occasional
temperamental outbursts made him unfit.
  Gal'na's technological vision and genius
impressed Ro'tin deeply; he immediately befriended
the young scientist and became the unofficial
organizer of the Science Movement. This relieved the
shy Gal'na, who was much more at ease with computers and
numbers than rhetoric; when at last the Son'a
demanded a leader, Gal'na insisted the right fall
to Ro'tin.
  By then, they had taken on new names, taken from
Ka'bu historical records; they were Gallatin
now, and Ru'afo, and inseparable friends, each in awe
of the

  other's talent. Ru'afo ruthlessly guarded the more
sensitive Gallatin's research time, and received
public censure from the elders for barring them from
inspecting Gallatin's laboratory.
  in time, the Son'a group grew so large that
Ru'afo and Gallatin went to Sojef and announced
a takeover.
  A peaceable one, of course, they added pointedly,
quick to prove that their exposure
to technology had not tainted their ethics.
  The leader of the Baku countered that such a thing would be
fair only if it represented a majority: heady
with confidence, Ru'afo agreed, and so the villagers
were polled.
  The loss was crushing-in terms of both numbers and
emotional effect upon the two disgraced Son'a
leaders. Consensus of the loyal Baku doomed the
Son'a to exile ... not from the village, but from the
planet itself, word had leaked out long ago that the
Son'a were in the process of constructing a
spaceship out in the desert, a ship large enough to carry
all eighty of them.
  If you change your hearts, you are welcome
to return, Sojef had said, without a trace of
animosity. Indeed, there had been only sorrow in
his eyes, and the eyes of every remaining villager.
  Never, Gallatin had vowed, his own heart
poisoned with hate by such a betrayal. Could they not
see how

  fear controlled them? Why could they not listen to him?
Why send him away, from his own people, his own village,
for something that was not a crime?
  Some months later, when the ship was at
last completed, the Son'a left.
  Far from easing, the hatred only increased over
time: for it was over time that Gallatin and the others began
to understand the full impact of their exile.
  They had been doomed to age, and then die.
  Youthful, feeling immortal when they left, they
had never considered such a fate until it began
to strike them: skin that slowly lost its tautness,
jaws once firm that began to sag, hair that grayed
or fell out altogether, teeth that chipped and yellowed.
Bones and j'o' ints, once reliable, began
to creak and ache, and-the worst of all horrors-disease
born of aging struck unpredictably. This was a
hell they had never known, had never seen their parents
experience; indeed, the time came at last when they
realized that they were older than the elders they had
left behind.
  At the first signs of decrepitude, they had
taken extreme measures to reverse the aging
process: had engaged in Gallatin's attempt
to mimic the unique form of radiation encountered on the
Baku planet. It had left them sterile, unable
to bear children, to experience even that limited form of
immortality....
  In his fury, Gallatin had designed
the collectorwhich guaranteed that the Baku would share
in the

  misery of exile. Perhaps he might have found a
way, given several more months of research,
to collect the unique metaphasic radiation that
encircled his home planet without destroying the
latter; but at the time, he was interested only in
justice. The Baku would know, as he had, the pain of
homesickness; would know, as he had, the horrors of
aging.
  But he would not condemn them to die, as they had him.
He would show them that he was morally superior, after
all; the healing properties of their planet would be
gathered and distributed freely throughout the Federation.
  And when he was young again, healthy again, he would
confront Sojef and show the elder how wrong he had
been, all those decades ago.
  Now, Ru'afo's threat echoed in Gallatin's
mind as the subahdar stared at the viewscreen. He
understood how Ru'afo felt; over the years, as
death approached them all, it only seemed more and more
appropriate that the Baku received the same penalty
they had meted out to their children.
  But Gallatin had never meant to kill
them-had never dreamed of it-and Ru'afo's suggestion
that they simply activate the collector and
destroy everyone down on the planet surface ate
at his, Gallatin's, soul.
  After a hundred years, he had sat among them;
his own aunt had offered him food and failed
to recognize

  him. He had seen his mother playing with a young child in the
distance, and wondered: might that be his brother? He had
felt their warmth and acceptance, regardless of the fact
that he was a rebel, a Son'a, a spy ... and he
considered the last one hundred years of his life and
found them lacking.
  True, the Baku were wrong about technology; but
Gallatin had been surprised by how very right they were
about so much else.
  The bridge doors slid open; Ru'afo
entered, hands folded stiffly behind his back, eyes
peculiarly bright.
  Gallatin rose as the ahdar stepped up to him and
said, "Admiral Dougherty will not be joining us for
dinner."
  The forced lightness in his tone sent a wave of
nausea washing over Gallatin; the
admiral, an intelligent, gracious man
by Gallatin's standards, was no doubt dead, murdered
by the ahdar's own hands. Ah, Ro'tin, what have we
become?
  Continuing, Ru'afo said, "Deploy the
collector."
  And at his second-in-command's hesitation, his
voice hardened. "Do you have a problem with those
orders?"
  "May I talk to you alone?" Gallatin asked,
his voice polite, low.
  Ru'afo looked beyond him, at the next Son'a
in command, Ra'eb, and ordered loudly, "Deploy the
collector!"

  Ra'eb complied at once, while, with Ru'afo
in tow, Gallatin moved out of earshot of the others.
"Moving them is one thing," the subahdar said softly.
"Killing them all-was He had braced himself for
another display of Ru'afo's temper, which had grown
increasingly violent of late; to his surprise, the
ahdar replied with perfect calm. "No one hated
them more than you, Gal'na." He paused, then added
gently, "We've come a long way together. This is the
moment we've planned for so many years. .
. ." He laid a reassuring hand on
Gallatin's shoulder.
  The subahdar released a silent sigh. In the
past, Ru'afo had always supported him and his
research, had served as friend and mentor a thousand times
over, even though Gallatin had never necessarily
approved of Ru'afo's ethics. In his youth,
perhaps, he had even admired Ru'afo's boldness in
flouting laws and ethics, as proof that the Baku
elders and their old-fashioned morals no longer had
any hold on the Son'a. Up to the present,
Gallatin had gone along with everything his friend had
ordered. But now ...
  . "Separate the Starfleet personnel and
secure them in the aft cargo hold," Ru'afo
ordered, his tone low and amicable. "See that Picard
joins them."
  Shock upon shock. Dully, Gallatin
replied, "The shields in that section won't
protect them against the thermolyric reaction ......

  "Thank you for reminding me," Ru'afo said with a
small smile and settled into his chair.
  For a moment, Gallatin lingered at his commander's
elbow and watched as the scene on the viewer
shifted from that of the planet to the Son'a science
vessel. Massive hatches on her flank opened
and gave birth to a long cylinder, which parted slowly
down the middle, a poisonous flower blooming.
  Before the collector could fully deploy,
Gallatin turned and left-not because he was in any
hurry to carry out Ru'afo's orders, but because he
knew the deployment stages all too well. For
years, he had poured all his energy-all his love and
hate-into designing and creating the device, and
into creat' ing the simulation that Ru'afo spent endless
hours watching.
  Now Gallatin could not bear to see it in reality.
But even as he exited the bridge and headed down the
corridor, he saw it in his mind's eye:
brilliant solar sails unfurling like a newborn
butterfly's wings, expanding in front of the
planet's rings, gleaming.
  So beautiful, and so deadly ...
  Back in the brig, Picard stood on the strong
backs of two kneeling Baku and examined the force
field generators tucked under a ceiling panel.
  They were Son'a in design, not Federation, and
therefore both simpler and more sophisticated; at the
moment, the

  captain was puzzling over the power source, which was
far from obvious.
  Once he found it, an even greater puzzle would
present itself.- how to sabotage Ru'afo's
plans....
  64 Jean-Luc," Anij hissed suddenly.
  Approaching footsteps outside. Picard
immediately slipped the ceiling panel back into place
and hopped off his supporters, who turned and sat
cross-legged on the floor as if they'd been doing
so for hours. For people who prided themselves on total
honesty, the captain noted, the Baku were doing a
marvelous job of dissembling in front of their
Son'a captors.
  The force-field hum ceased abruptly as
Picard moved to Anij's side; Subahdar
Gallatin stood at the brig entry, plasma
weapon aimed directly at the Starfleet
captain.
  "Come with me," the Son'a said.
  At first glance, his expression and tone conveyed
nothing more than a soldier doing his duty; but as
Picard studied him, he saw deeper signs of the
same pain he had seen on Gallatin's
face when Ru'afo had threatened to destroy all those
on the Baku planet.
  Picard was no fool: Ru'afo was now making good
on his threat, and to both divert and test his
secondin-command, the ahdar had ordered Gallatin
to execute Picard. The Son'a could not risk
Starfleet's interference; and if Matthew Dougherty
was not already dead, he soon would be.

  Picard glanced down at Anij, whose pale
eyes were wide with concern that verged on panic; she was
no fool either, and clearly understood why Gallatin
had come. But Picard tried to communicate in one
smile a wealth of information: Don't worry. Of
all the Sona, he is the most unsure of
Ruafo's decision.... And without inside help, the
captain had little chance of averting the coming destruction.
  Anij must have sensed some of his confidence, for she
managed a faint smile before he turned and ex"...ted
the brig. Keeping his weapon trained on his
prisoner, Gallatin touched a bulkhead control;
the force field leapt back into place.
  The Son'a motioned with his weapon, keeping
Picard a pace ahead of him.
  Again, the captain sensed no hostility,
no hatred from Gallatin, only an overwhelming
sense of reluctance and even an attitude of
courtesy toward his victim.
  Cautiously, gently, Picard at last
spoke. "It must have been strange for you." He
gave a sidewise, backward glance and caught the
curious tilt of Gallatin's head. "When you were a
hostage. Surrounded by all the friends and families you
knew so many years ago. All of them looking
exactly as they did. Almost like looking through the eyes
of childhood again."
  They stopped at a pair of lift doors; as
Gallatin

  pressed the control, Picard turned and fixed his
gaze upon him with sudden intensity.
  "And here you are trying to close those eyes ...
  trying not to see what the bitterness has done to your
people ... how it's turned Ru'afo into a madman
...
  and to you." The captain paused. "It's turned you
into a coward."
  The subahdar jerked his chin sharply at that, but
Picard persisted. "A man who denies his
conscience."
  The lift arrived silently; the doors slid
open with a whisper. "Get in," Gallatin said
evenly, and in his cool composure Picard saw a
childhood of training among the Baku.
  Picard entered, turned to face the doors;
Gallatin moved to enter, but as he stepped onto the
threshold, Picard said with venom: "A coward ...
  without the moral courage to prevent an atrocity.
You offend me."
  The Son'a's eyes widened with incredulity.
"Is this how a Federation officer pleads for his
life?" Anger crept into his tone; but there was also
a glimmer of humor.
  "I'm not pleading for my life," Picard said, with
utter sincerity.
  "I'm pleading for yours." He paused.
  "You can still go home, Gal'na."
  Silhouetted in the entryway, Gallatin's form
seemed ever so slightly to sag; at the same time,
he let go a sigh that was almost a groan, that contained
the

  misery of over a century. At last, he
stepped inside the lift.
  "Computer. Close turbolift
doors."
  The doors slid closed behind him as he lowered his
weapon; for the first time, Picard looked upon an aged
Son'a face and saw there a Baku.
  Clearly, Gallatin had never intended to carry out
an execution; but it was also clear that he was at a
loss as to how to free himself and those he loved from
destruction.
  "What you're asking me to do," Gallatin said
softly, "is impossible."
  Picard wasted no time. "Do you know how to disable the
injector?"
  The Son'a's eyes flickered briefly, as if
he found something comical in Picard's question; but the
brightness dimmed immediately. Somberly, he nodded.
"But I would need to be on the bridge. The crew
is loyal to Ru'afo. An assault would fail-was
"Perhaps we could lure him away."
  This time, the Son'a shook his head. "It
doesn't matter where he is.
  As soon as he realizes something is happening,
he'll override my commands with one word to his
comlink."
  Picard considered this a moment. He had not come this
far, risked this much, to fail. There had to be
a solution, and as he willed his mind to retrieve
one, he flashed upon a memory: rowing across the
lake,

  climbing with Data into the holoship and discovering a
perfect holographic replica of the Baku
village....
  "What if he doesn't realize something's
happening," he said excitedly.
  Gallatin drew back, confused, but Picard
persisted. "Can you get me to a transmitter? I have
to speak with Worf and Data on the surface.
  We'll need their help."
  "Deck twelve," Gallatin told the lift
computer. To Picard, he gave a slow, single
nod; and with that solitary gesture, the captain felt
a renewed surge of hope.
  Enchanted, Ru'afo watched the viewscreen as the
collector glided, majestic as an airborne
raptor, toward its intended prey. With solar
sails spread wide, the collector was elegant
in design, even beautiful-as eautiful, Ru'afo
thought, as the justice it was about to dispense. Gallatin
had always been as much artist as scientist ...
  though, given his way, he never would have
allowed his device to kill the Baku; he had never
broken fully with them in his heart.
  Ru'afo had always known of this weakness; even so,
he loved Gallatin as a brother and stood in awe
of his talents. Indeed, he would always respect
Gallatin as the originator of the Son'a movement
. . . even if the subahdar lacked the ability
to lead. That was Ru'afo's forte; he had always taken
care to spare Gallatin the

  more upsetting aspects of particular missions,
encouraging him instead to work on new projects ...
especially this project, the metaphasic radiation
collector.
  But now the time had come for Gallatin to face the
truth: that Ru'afo had never intended to share the
metaphasic radiation with the Federation, had worked with them
only in order to facilitate its collection.
Dougherty had been a dead man the instant he set
foot on the Son'a ship, and the sanctimonious
Captain Picard was an excuse to take drastic
ac tion.
  The Federation people disgusted him, all of them; all their
highly touted technology, and all these centuries
of gathering the work of some of the galaxy's best
scientists, and still they had not conquered old age and
death. Ru'afo had wanted to shake both Picard and
Dougherty, with their morality and their rules, and
scream: How can you bear it? Death is staring us in the
face, could strike us down at any moment,- all of
us know the indignity and pain of lost youth. Why are you
wasting time talking about morality, about regulations?
  Sheep. Sheep, waiting to die; but such was not
Ru'afo's birthright, and he would fight death with every
scrap of his power, intelligence, will.
  And he had been waiting a long time to exact the
proper revenge on the elders who had expelled the

  Son's: death, the same death they had wished on
their children, slow and agonizing.
  Every one of those elders sat now in the Son'a
brig: and every one of them would be told of the total
destruction of their world, their remaining loved ones, before
they were put to death.
  It was only fair. And Gallatin would have
to accept it, as graciously as he had just accepted
escorting Picard to his doom.
  Exhilarated by the thought, by the sight on the
viewscreen, Ru'afo ordered: "Initiate
separation protocols."
  "Activating injector assembly," the Tarlac
ensignwhat was his name?
  Ru'afo could never rememberreplied.
  At the adjoining station, a young Elloran officer
added: "Separation in three minutes."
  Ru'afo glanced at the chronometer at his station
and saw the countdown begin; at the same time, he
felt his heartbeat quicken, though outwardly he
remained as calm and determined as a Baku.
  A seasoned Son'a lieutenant, Lutonin,
scowled down at his monitor. "A small craft
is coming up from the surface," he reported. "It's
powering up its weapons."
  Had Ru'afo been able to lift his brows any
higher, he would have then.
  "On screen."

  The glorious scene of the sailing collector
vanished and was replaced by an annoying sight: a
tiny Federation vessel, the one Picard had taken
down to the planet surface. Ru'afo clicked his
tongue in disgust.
  "One person aboard," Lutonin reported.
"It's the android."
  Ru'afo waved a dismissive hand;
compared to the vast Son'a ship, the Federation vessel
was scarcely larger than a microbe. "He's no
threat."
  At that moment, the ship shuddered slightly; there
came the muted rumble of a weak attack.
  Following behind Gallatin, Picard crawled through
the narrow passageway filled with electrical
conduits and circuitry. He would have loved to stop and
examine them-they were neater, more compact than those
aboard the Enterprise-but there was no time.
  "Data to Picard."
  The captain started slightly at the sound, even
though the comlink had been preset to low volume;
Picard answered in a near whisper. "Yes,
Data . .
  "Sir, they're ignoring my attack."
  The unpleasant possibility had occurred
to Picard, but Gallatin had earlier reassured him
that persistence would pay off ... and at the moment, he
had no choice but to trust the subahdar. "Keep
firing tachyon bursts into their shield grid," the
captain ordered. "Is Worf in position?"

  "Yes, sir. He's ready for simultaneous
transport."
  In the dimness, Gallatin turned back and
signaled over his shoulder for silence.
  "We're approaching the bridge now," the
captain whispered. "Picard out. . . ." He
drew in a breath and prayed that he had read
Gallatin correctly, and he was not about to be
betrayed....
  "Separation in one minute," the Elloran said.
  Ru'afo felt his heart beat in time with each
passing second. Rapt, he stared at the
collector sailing regally toward its destination.
  Gal'na, Gal'na, see what beauty you have
wrought!
  Perhaps he should have let Gallatin remain on the
bridge, share in this moment of glory.... But
instinct told Ru'afo that his old friend would not be able
to bear it; that the ensuing argument between them would shake the
confidence of the bridge crew, seeing the two most
revered Son'a at odds.
  No, the time would come when they would stand together, young and
strong as they once were; then, Gallatin would thank
him. Then, Gallatin would understand....
  "Sir," Lutonin said sharply, "the Federation
ship is creating a disruption in our shields."
  The Son'a lieutenant beside him nodded
in agreement. "If the shields go out of phase, it
will increase our exposure to the thermolytic
reaction."

  Ru'afo withdrew from his reverie, irritated. "Very
well. Destroy that ship and reset our shield
harmonics. Do not delay the countdown......
  In the cockpit aboard the captain's yacht,
Data sat calmly as a nova-brilliant blast
of plasma sent the small ship spinning out of
control. He maintained his orientation and attempted
to manipulate the console comuntil a second burst
caused the console to erupt into sparks, which dimmed and
were quickly replaced by smoke. Clearly, some of the
controls were inactive, and it would take a second
or two to determine whether they could be rerouted so the
ship could be safely landed.
  But that point was moot for the time being; at that instant,
his most important function was to inform Picard of his
success, in time for the captain and his Son'a
assistant to take the immediate and appropriate
action....
  "Data to Picard," he intoned, as the streams of
smoke enveloped the console, the cockpit, the
yacht; all three were beginning to glow dull
red with the heat, as was the android himself. "They are
rotating the shield harmonics. I am attempting
to return to the surface."
  No reply. He had not expected one, and so he
set

  about working to stabilize the ship, which was still hurtling
planetward....
  "The Federation ship has been disabled," the nameless
Tarlac reported, in a tone of mild relief.
  "Separation in twenty seconds," the Elloran
added, and Ru'afo felt a thrill that left
gooseflesh on the worn, tired skin of his arms.
The horror and indignity of death and aging receded,
replaced by the approach of life and beautiful youth
... so close, Ru'afo felt a rise in his
spirits, in his energy, as if he were already reborn.
  A sudden shimmer, a flash. Ru'afo blinked as
his vision blurred, then cleared again. "What was that?"
  Lutonin, first to check his monitor, shook his
head.
  "I don't know. Systems don't seem
affected."
  "Separation in ten seconds," the Elloran
droned.
  Ru'afo verified it with a check of his
chronometer, again feeling his heart beat with the
passage of each unit of time.
  "Five seconds . .
  They passed in an eternity; they passed in the
twinkling of an eye. At last, the collector
drew close to the planet's shimmering rainbow rings
and glided to a halt. A small elliptical
object emerged from its center and hurtled toward one
of the rings.
  "Injector assembly has separated," the
Tarlac

  said-unnecessarily, for Ru'afo had already
committed the sequence to memory, so well that it
permeated his dreams. To see it now in reality was an
overwhelming experience, one that stirred up waves of
shifting emotion: joy, satisfaction, the pain of
old hurts never healed, rage.
  It was for Ru'afo pure art, a deeply moving
metaphor for past wrongs righted.
  Before him, the injector pierced the first
prismatically radiant ring, and immediately dispersed a
series of charges, white-hot novas within the
rainbows that made Ru'afo wince with pain;
they had not been so bright in the simulation. Determination
kept his eyes open, and when the afterimage cleared,
he saw a sight that left him on the precipice of
tears.
  Flumes of particulate matter, which had
reflected light-in essence, the ring itself-began
to scatter, like volatile vapors rising in the sun.
  Within a second, no more, the first ring had dissolved,
and the next had begun.
  On the planet surface, the radiation levels
would be rising ... and the people would just now be starting to die.
  Mesmerized by the vision on the screen, Ru'afo
let go a breath of pure awe. "Exactly as the
simulations predicted . .
  He heard rather than saw the Son'a ensign,
Frenil, say with concerned confusion, "Sir, I'm not
showing any change in metaphasic flux levels."

  Irritated by this interruption during such a hallowed
moment, Ru'afo frowned, but never took his gaze from
the viewscreen. "Your scanners must be
malfunctioning."
  A pause; then Frenil spoke again, his tone a
key higher with puzzlement. "All ship functions
are offline."
  Ru'afo turned at that. Frenil was
intelligent, trustworthy-but the ahdar refused
to believe him at that m oment, simply because
Ru'afo could not permit the possibility of anything
going wrong. Not now, after a century of waiting ...
  He went immediately to the nearest station and checked the
readouts for himself. Frenil could not be right, could not be
right, but there it was, the impossible: ship functions
were off-line. His tone rose with panicked anger.
  "How can there be no ship functions if the
viewscreen is working, artificial gravity is
stable, life support is-was Ru'afo broke off
as something in the periphery of his vision caught his
eye-something small, something subtle. He turned and
moved toward it slowly, reluctant to (i
iscover what he already knew, what he could n ot
bear to permit himself even to think....
  Above an unmanned console sat a small,
steel gray tile that contrasted with the surrounding
bulkhead.
  There was so mething familiar about that tile, some
255 thing horrifyingly so: Ru'afo had seen many
such tiles when Gallatin had shown him the interior
of the holoship that would take the Baku from their
homeworld. Gallatin had taken great
pride in constructing an exact duplicate of the
village square, but had fretted when he discovered
a small gap in the projection.
  Don't worry, Ru'afo had told him then.
By the time any of them notice, it will be too late,
Now, Ru'afo reached out and touched the tile above the
console; he withdrew his fingers as if scalded, and
whispered: "A holodeck"" To the horror of the
others, he pulled a disruptor from his belt and fired
at the wall.
  The familiar sight of his bridge dissolved,
replaced by scarred gray tiles.
  "A holodeck?"
  He fired again and again, revealing more of the familiar
gray grid, while his stunned officers watched.
  Impossible, impossible: How could this possibly
have happened?
  Dougherty was dead, and Picard in a holding
cell....
  Ru'afo flashed suddenly on his last encounter with
Gallatin; on the uncertainty in his friend's voice
and eyes. He had been too focused on what was
to come to truly register Gallatin's unease; he
remembered putting an encouraging hand on the
subahdar's shoulder, giving him the order
to escort Picard.

  And he had expected-with good reason-Galiatin
to comply. As long as Gallatin himself was not required
to kill directly, he had always done as Ru'afo
ordered; oh, he might protest from time to time, but in
the end, he always obeyed. It was easier for him to let
someone else make the decision, someone else take
the blame.
  That bastard Picard-somehow, during that short
walk, he had turned Gallatin against the Son'a
... or perhaps captured him, forced the information from him
No, no. Gallatin might have been reluctant
to kill, but he was not afraid to die.
  Gal'na, Gal'na, how could you betray me on
the eye of our victory?
  With a roar, Ru'afo continued firing, until the
hologrid gave way to a short flight of
upward-leading stairs. He dashed up them, while the
others followed; immediately, he stopped short.
  This was Gallatin's holoship bridge, no more
than a cockpit with a huge viewscreen that revealed
a heartwrenching sight: the Baku planet nestled
inside its glowing, perfectly intact rings.
  And nearby, the metaphasic radiation
collector, stalled and impotent, its injector
assembly unlaunched. In the foreground Ru'afo's
own dark, sleek ship remained in orbit.
  Gasps, as each officer caught sight of the view
257 screen, followed by a beat of silence. When
Ru'afo at last could speak, his voice was choked,
halting.
  "We were transported to the holoship when we
reset our shields.
  Everything we saw ... was an illusion." He
hit his comlink and forced a more commanding tone. "Ru'afo,
authorization delta two-one.
  Override all interlink commands to injector
assembly."
  He would not give up; could not, after a century of
waiting, hoping.
  But the response of his ship's computer filled him
again with frustrated rage: "Unable to comply.
Injector assembly one has been
deactivated."
  Aboard the real Son'a bridge, meanwhile,
Picard and Gallatin waited for Worf to look up
from his console.
  Gallatin's conscience had saved the day, Picard
realized, and so had an enormous element of
luck: he had not realized that the subahdar was also the
designer of the injector-and of the ship. Had the captain
sought help from a less knowledgeable Son'a, the
Baku on the planet would never have survived; as it
was, the chronometer countdown was frozen at
00:06.
  Uncomfortably close, but Picard had not
permitted himself to consider the death of the
Ba'ku-especialiy that of Anij-for an instant,
lest it interfere with

  his efficiency; now that the danger was over, the
realization of how very close Ru'afo had come
to succeeding left the captain slightly shaken.
  Gallatin himself had obviously made the right
decision; he seemed deeply relieved and at
peaceeven a bit younger, as if years had been
erased along with guilt. At any rate, he
appeared quite a different man from the one who had
escorted Picard from the brig.
  At last, Worf glanced up from his monitor and
reported, "All injector subsystems are
confirmed off line."
  Picard and Gallatin smiled faintly at each
other.
  "Decloak the holoship and engage a tractor
beam, Mister Worf," the captain ordered.
  The Klingon complied by pressing several panels.
  On the viewscreen, the smaller holoship
appeared abruptly. Right about now, Picard
decided, Ru'afo and crew were realizing that their own
attempt at deceit had been used against them.
  The thought cheered him in a most ungracious way;
he put it aside.
  "Gal'na," he requested, "open a channel
to Commander Data."
  The Son'a did so with uncanny speed, then
nodded at Picard.
  "Data?" the captain asked.
  He could hear, on the other end of the comlink, the
sounds of the captain's yacht shaking apart; indeed,

  before the android replied, there came a terrible
shrieking sound of metal tearing.
  "Precarious, sir," Data said calmly. "I
am having trouble re-entering the atmosphere."
  It was then that Picard detected the subtler sound
of licking flames; the image of the ship-and
Dataglowing red-hot came to him unbidden.
  "Understood," the captain said swiftly.
"Well done."
  At the hum of the transporter, Picard severed the
connection.
  "And well done to you," he said, smiling, and
turned to Gallatin, only to find the Son'a's
expression darkening. He paused. "What is it,
Gallatin? What's wrong?"
  "Ru'afo." The subahdar lifted his somber
face toward the viewscreen, where his holoship
creation, entrapped by the tractor beam, orbited
alongside the much larger Son'a vessel.
"Don't say well done quite yet, Captain. It
isn't over."
  Picard drew back. "Is there something we've
forgotten? Some way Ru'afo could-was Gallatin
shook his head. "He's secure; there's no way
he can beam here from the holoship-of that I'm sure.
But I know him ... have known him, for many years. This
will only make him more determined than ever to fight,
to succeed. If there is a way to escape and

  ignite the rings, Ru'afo will find it. He's a
very dangerous man."
  Picard followed his grim gaze to the holoship,
but turned as Worf said, with deadpan
voice and expression: "He sounds very much like you,
sir."

  THIRTEEN
  Ru'afo forced himself to look away from the
toopainful sight of the stalled collector; instead,
he stared over the shoulder of the Tarlac, who stood
awaiting orders at the single basic console.
  The solution to his, Ru'afo's, frustration lay
somewhere in these controls; and bitter as he was at that
moment toward Gallatin, he was also deeply
grateful for Gallatin's past willingness to explain
his designs, to educate Ru'afo thoroughly in every
detail of their use.
  And Ru'afo had been an eager student, in part
because he sincerely admired his friend's talent-but also
because, as ahdar, he needed such knowledge, had used it a
thousand times over to save himself and his crew from their
disgruntled victims.

  Gallatin may have been the technological
genius, but Ru'afo was a brilliant strategist
with a talent for finding answers where there were none. Now,
though he stared down at the console over his officer's
shoulder, he saw not the stripped-down
controls, but instead Gallatin.
  Gallatin, in the ship's hangar against the
cavernous spiny backdrop of the collector's
interior, climbing the rungs upward with the energy and
enthusiasm of Gal'na the child, motioning for his friend
Ro'tin to follow. How long ago had it been?
Two years ago?
  Three? Compared to the size of the subahdar's
newest creation, they were arthropods within a giant
web.
  And Ru'afo' had followed, wheezing, old bones
complaining as he crawled up the skeletal support
structure behind Gallatin the jubilant, who
gestured grandly about him.
  "The sails will be stored where we're climbing now.
  And up there"-he pointed-"is where I'll be
putting the ignition matrix for the injector
assembly.
  Once ignited, the injector will launch and
detonate within the rings, causing the chain reaction we
spoke about."
  He had smiled then, the sudden, dazzling smile
of childhood, and Ru'afo could not help but grin
back, despite the toll taken on his overstretched
skin. Youth seemed a tangible thing, within his
grasp; and for an

  instant, the two of them were not the aged, tired
creatures time had made them, but the strong,
terribly beautiful young men who had challenged their
elders a century before.
  Ru'afo had forced the smile from his lips. He
dared not celebrate yet-not when there was the specter of
an untimely death for either of them before their immortality
was assured. Time now to work, to consider all
possibilities. He climbed to Gallatin's
level and faced him, panting, clinging to the rungs.
  Sweat dripped into his eyes, but the height was
dizzying, and he dared not loosen the grip of even one
hand to wipe it away. "What safeguards are you
planning on putting in place?"
  "Safeguards?" Gallatin regarded him
blankly.
  "To ensure detonation, in case there are problems
with the launch. It is, after all, unmanned, isn't
it?"
  With a nod, the subahdar had allowed that it wasand
proceeded to explain all the remote methods by which
any such problems could be solved. But the look in
Gallatin's eye-that distant, faraway
gaze that said he was looking inward, not outward-told
Ru'afo that the scientist in him had been challenged.
  And he had not been surprised when, days later,
Gallatin had come to him and explained that he was going
to equip the collector's interior with life
support and its own internal control console, in
case of an emergency.

  "As a last resort, in case some type of
manual problem comes up. If need be, I could
beam over and make any adjustment...... He
proceeded to explain how even the injector
assembly would have its own control panel, which would have
its own cockpit, and, of course, the special
antimetaphasic shields. They required their own
separate energy source, which meant more time
redesigning the assembly, but since they were adding the
cockpit anyway "Stop, was Ru'afo had said.
Two decades had passed since he and Gallatin
had vowed to find a way to take the metaphasic
radiation from the Baku, and ten years since
Gallatin had drafted his first design. The
Son'a had aged horribly during that time. "Too
much, too much-you'll spend another year playing with
that.
  Just leave the control panel as it is and put a
force field around it.
  We haven't time."
  Gallatin had frowned-not out of anger, but
puzzlement, as his scientist's mind considered the
notion.
  "But the metaphasic shields are going
to require a redesign anyway. A cockpit
won't take as much time-was "Then put a regular
force field around it."
  Gallatin had scowled in earnest then. "Ru'afo
...
  no one could survive the metaphasic radiation
long enough to come back.
  It'd be a suicide mission."
  "Then we'll send an Elloran or a
Tarlac. Could they survive long enough to provide a
simple task?"

  "Yes, but-was "Perfect." Smiling, Ru'afo
had put a hand on his friend's shoulder-just as he had
today, in the minutes before Gallatin's betrayal-and
said heartily, "Thanks to you, Gallatin, we will not
fail......
  Now, in the present, looking over the
Tarlac's shoulder, Ru'afo gave a grim,
inward smile and uttered silently: Thanks to you,
Gallatin, I will not fail....
  To the Tarlac, he said, "This ship is equipped
with fourteen long-range transporters. Are they
all useless?"
  The officer rapidly worked the console, then glanced
unhappily up at his commander. "They must have been
locked and secured after we were beamed here."
  Ru'afo paused no more than an instant.
"Isolate one and reroute its command sequence through the
auxiliary processor."
  Behind him, Lutonin protested cautiously,
"Sir ...
  there's nothing we can do. They already have control of our
ship."
  Normally, such direct disagreement from any but
Gallatin would have provoked Ru'afo's fury-but
he held himself in check, limiting himself instead to the
thought that Lutonin was a coward and a fool to think that the
six of them could not outsmart two Starfleet officers
and one Son'a-even if that Son'a was Galla
266 tin. Instead he turned and held Lutonin
with a pointed look.
  "I don't plan on going back to our
ship."
  Aboard the partially repaired bridge of the
Enterprise, Will Riker sat at command, stroking his
smooth chin and staring at the viewscreen, with its
colorful display of swirling debris and gases.
They had entered the Briar Patch hours earlier-for
Riker, a nearly unbearable stretch of time, since
communications with the away team had been impossible.
  If the Son'a had been so willing to destroy the
Enterprise and all aboard her, what was to keep them
from slaughtering those on the Baku planet's
surface?
  The thought had plagued him from the moment the
Enterprise escaped.
  her pursuers-especially as regarded Deanna.
Certainly, he was deeply concerned about the captain
and crew ... but the thoughts that kept him from sleep, that
permeated his waking hours, were of Deanna-Deanna on
the day they first had met, Deanna teasing him in the
library, Deanna laughing, skin wet and shining amid
the bubbles.
  The fact was that he was as deeply in love with her
as he had ever been. He'd been certain those
feelings
  267
  were simply part of the Briar Patch's rejuvenation
effect, the stirring up of the hormones of youth; but
once the ship was clear of the Patch, the intensity of his
feelings did not alter. In truth, by the time he
informed Starfleet Command of the real situation between the
Baku and the Son'a, his love and concernfor her had
increased-not faded, as he had expected.
  Nor was this the wild, immature infatuation of
youth. When he first had met her, he had fallen in
love with an image of her, a projection of what
he had secretly desired, what he had thought the
perfect woman should be: someone who wanted
exactly what he wanted, someone whose thoughts were
identical to his, someone who always understood everything
he said exactly the way he'd intended it. And it was
the discrepancy between that image and Deanna herself that had
caused much of their conflict.
  Now, he wanted only the woman herself, with all
her quirks, imperfections, beauty, and strength;
he wanted to be a part of her life, experience her,
learn from her. And he wanted it, this time, to last.
  But if he had lost her now ...
  His reverie was interrupted by Lieutenant
Daniels, who called from tactical: "Commander,
we're within sensor range of the Son'a
ship. I'm picking up on Captain Picard's
biosignature on board."
  Riker swiveled in his chair to stare at
Daniels with a

  mixture of surprise and relief. Picard was
alive, which was excellent news. "Establish
communications, Mister Daniels."
  "Enterprise to Picard."
  At the sound of his second-in-command's voice,
Picard smiled with delight as he pressed the
Son'a companel; behind him, Worf glanced up
briefly from his console with a faintly upbeat look
that, for the Klingon, served as an expression of pure
exultation.
  Even Gallatin seemed pleased. "Number
One."
  "We should be at your position within an hour,"
Riker's disembodied voice said. "Do you need
assistance?"
  "Negative," Picard replied, feeling a
hint of pride at the fact. "Did you succeed?"
  Riker paused ever so fleetingly, as if
anticipating the effect his words would have. "The
council has ordered a halt to the Baku
relocation while they conduct a top-level
review."
  "Top-level review, my ass," Picard
flared, infuriated. "There'll be no cover-up of
this. Not after I get-was "Captain," Worf
interrupted; the concern in his voice made Picard
break off and look over at him immediately.
  The Klingon gestured at the chronometer display,
which had been frozen at 00:06. Impossibly, it
was

  counting down again; as Picard watched, aghast, the
numbers flickered, then changed from 02:56
to 02:55.
  At once, Gallatin bent over the console he
was sitting at and furiously worked the controls, then
looked up again at his Starfleet companions.
  "The separation protocols have been reset on
board the collector. I can't override."
  "Scan for lifesigns," Picard told Worf
quickly.
  The Klingon complied, then answered: "One. It's
Ru'afo."
  "Can you beam him ofp."
  Worf shook his head. "Negative,
sir. He's raised shields."
  "Is there any other way to disable the injector?"
  Picard turned to the Son'a.
  "Perhaps," Gallatin said. His tone, far from
despairing, was instead sharp, focused: this was a man,
Picard realized, who was as disciplined as any
officer in the fleet, who was setting his mind toward
finding a solution rather than giving up.
  And he was Ru'afo's second-in-command, which
meant that the ahdar was a formidable foe, indeed.
  Within a heartbeat, Gallatin motioned them toward
the display on his monitor-that of the metaphasic
radiation collector. He zoomed in on the section
called the injector assembly, the part he had

  worked so hard to disarm ... and which Ru'afo was now
attempting to relaunch.
  "If we could get onto the collector, we could
remove the ignition matrix"-the subahdar pointed
a gnarled finger at a half-meter-square panel of
circuitry connected to a larger conduit-"directly
from the injector assembly." Here he indicated a
shuttle-sized obj ect.
  While he spoke, Worf checked his readouts.
"Sir, there's a small opening in the
shields at the base of the coupling adapter. I
might be able to beam through it. . . ."
  Picard walked over to the Klingon's station and
peered over Worf's shoulder. Overlaid over the
collector's schematics was a highlighted area
some two hundred meters to the side of and below the
injector.
  The captain glanced up quickly at the
chronometer.
  02:31.
  True, as a Klingon, Worf was more powerful, able
to c limb the distance faster than Picard; but the ca
ptain would not risk another's life unless it was
absolutely necessary. And in this case, it was not; a
human could cover the distance in plenty of time.
  He frowned and nodded: Let's do it. But Worf
misunderstood the gesture as an order, and rose, then
moved in the direction of the nearest transporter
pad.

  Picard blocked him. "Remain at your post,
Commander."
  "Sir, was Worf countered; it was more a question than a
statement.
  "Mister Worf," the captain
admonished. No time for explanations, and given his
rank, he did not need to give one; keenly aware
of the racing chronometer, Picard strode over to the
transporter, removing his jacket as he did, and
asking of Gallatin: "The ignition sequence-what can
you tell me?"
  Gallatin rose. A wave of emotion passed
over his face, and in it Picard saw determination,
guilt, resolution; instinct told him the Son'a
wanted very badly to take his place, to make amends
by stopping the injector himself ... yet knew that,
given his aged body, he had less chance than
Picard of succeeding.
  And realized that the captain hddad good reason not
to trust him entirely in a face-to-face
confrontation with his old friend and ahdar.
  Perhaps Gallatin guessed, too, that Picard, like
Ru'afo, could not be successfully argued with.
  "The thrusters activate one minute before
separation," Gallatin said swiftly. "You'll see
the cryogenic tanks venting. Don't use any
laser tools or weapons after that; they could ignite
the propellant exhaust.
  The substructure will retract fifteen
seconds prior to separation."
  Picard listened, nodding, as he strapped a
phaser

  rifle to his chest, then stepped onto the
transporter pad itself while Worf worked the
controls.
  02:11.
  The captain watched as the Klingon and Gallatin,
now both standing and gazing steadily at him with concern and
hope, blurred out of focus and dissolved ...
  and in place of the transporter pad beneath his feet,
Picard found himself standing on a platform near the
base of the sail-support structure, some hundred
meters above the base of the collector itself.
  On Gallatin's computer display, it had
appeared far neater, but now the captain saw that it was
no more than a collection of metal railing,
conduits, and planks-rather like a holo he'd once
seen of Old Earth's Coney Island roller
coaster. The interior bulkhead upon which the structure
rested curved in an oddly sharp ellipse.
  He took a moment to orient himself- far above and
to his left was the several-decks-high injector
assembly-clearly not meant for manned operation; in
reality, the climb looked far more suitable
for a mountaineer than it had in Gallatin's
simulation. To his left on the collector floor
stood Ru'afo, with his back to both Picard and the
injector; the ahdar worked busily at a control
panel.

  "Separation in two minutes," the computer counted
down overhead.
  Picard caught hold of metal railing and began
to climb. He could not move neatly upward, but was
forced to go from railing to conduit to platform to railing;
despite the danger, he dared not slow his pace.
  It was already going to take far more time than he had
calculated to arrive at his destination.
  He heard the soft bleep of an alarm beneath him.
  The computer warning of an intruder, he realized;
Ru'afo knew now that he was here. But Picard did
not slow, did not look down-he was exposed upon the
railing, hands and feet both engaged, making it
impossible to reach his phaser rifle. Even had he
been able, the angle between the ahdar and himself made a
successful return of fire unlikely.
  So he climbed, counting the seconds-one, twoas
if they were synchronized with the beating of his heart.
  Three, four ...
  A brief flash; Picard clung to the railing and
glanced down and to his left some forty meters, where a
burst of plasma ricocheted off a conduit to the
deck below; at the control panel, Ru'afo lowered
a small handheld weapon. Its range was far
less and its blast weaker than those the Son'a had
used on the planet surface, a fact Picard
found surprising.
  But when he met Ru'afo's gaze dead on, he
under 274 stood: the collector was Ru'afo's one
chance at justice for his people, and harming it was unthinkable.
Even at the distance of a hundred meters, the rage
born of violation was all too clearly visible on
the ahdar's face-a rage with which Picard was
uncomfortably familiar. He, too, had once
been driven by a single, mindless obsession; and in
place of Ru'afo the captain saw the dark and
beautiful face of Lily Sloane, Zefram
Cochrane's companion from the twenty-first century,
and heard the dawning revelation in her whisper:
Revenge. This is about revenge.
  The Borg hurt you and now you're going to hurt them
back.
  He had screamed at her then, with such pain and
fury that his voice had broken: The line
must be drawn here-thisfar, and nofurther! I will make
them pay for what they've done!
  He had been willing to risk everything for that
revenge-his own life, even the lives of his
crew. Lily had brought him to his senses, had
made him see his hatred for what it was.
  Picard felt a sudden, odd sympathy for
Ru'afo: the ahdar had, after all, been born a
Baku. Had he so given himself over to violence he
was too far goneor was he, like Gallatin, worth
saving?
  A large display above the control panel flashed:
01:42. Weapon in hand, Ru'afo rushed over to the
edge of the support structure and swung himself up

  on the nearest rung, in pursuit. Within less
than a minute, Picard would be within the plasma
weapon's range; the captain drew a breath and
pulled himself up, faster, faster, swinging from rail
to conduit until his arms and shoulders burned with the
effort. No point in looking back again, and the
structure offered no place to hide: his only
hope lay in outracing the plasma blasts until the
one-minute warning, when the vented gases made firing
a weapon dangerous.
  And Ru'afo dared do nothing to harm his precious
collector.
  So Picard climbed and counted seconds,
ignoring the sweat that streamed from his brow and stung his
eyes, gasping hoarsely with effort. The injector
assembly became gradually closer, until, after
two dozen seconds, it stood less than a handful
of meters away.
  A nova-bright flash: blinded, disoriented, he
thought at first he had been struck, though he felt
no pain; in the next instant, the plank on which he
stood gave way with an eardrum-splitting snap.
Through the scaring yellow afterimage, he reached out,
groping, and by blessed chance caught hold of a conduit.
  With a gymnast's grace, he swung himself, arms
overhead, legs dangling, from the conduit to railing
to conduit, until finally he was again able to gain a
foothold.

  Behind him, Ru'afo was moving faster than an aging
Son'a ought; he was gaining on the captainso much so
that Picard, who was still maintaining an internal
countdown, realized he would never make it to the
injector assembly in time without being shot.
  Reluctantly, Picard seized his
rifle and fired a blazing round.
  The strategy worked; Ru'afo recoiled, allowing
Picard to scramble the last few meters and pull
himself up onto the catwalk that led to the injector.
The captain sensed, rather than saw, Ru'afo behind and
below him, raising the weapon again to take aim....
  A hiss, as the cryogenic tanks began to vent,
and a low rumble as thrusters activated. Prelaunch
ice, crazed and crystalline, fell away from the
massive injector itself, the part of the structure which
would soon be launched toward the planet rings unless
Picard intervened.
  Overhead, the computer's impassive voice:
"One minute to separation."
  The captain never slowed, never looked back; the
anticipated plasma blast never came.
Ru'afo's obsession with revenge had not escalated
into madness, then-he was not willing to destroy himself and his
dream for the sake of killing Picard. Perhaps he could
still be reasoned with.
  The captain ducked and held his breath as he ran
past a stream of gas from the venting tanks; vapors

  swam in the air, causing the injector's image
to waver. At last, he arrived gasping at
the front of the vast injector assembly itself, where
another chronometer was counting down: 00:55. In
less than a heartbeat, he sized up a large
panel of circuitry, firmly repressing the
panic that welled in him: this looked nothing like
Gallatin's display; how could he possibly find
The ignition matrix. There in plain sight before him;
he clutched it in both hands, prepared to pull it from
the bulkhead with all his strength.
  "Stop. 99
  Ru'afo's voice behind him. He turned; the
Son'a, red-faced and breathless, stood on the
catwalk not three meters distant, plasma gun
trained directly on Picard. Between them, gas
vapors roiled in the air, distorting the ahdar's
gape-jawed, sweating visage; from his throat came
a high-pitched, reedy wheeze.
  "We're getting too old for this, Ru'afo."
Picard said it cautiously, but without rancor; if
there was any chance of saving the ahdar-physically and
emotionally-it would come now.
  But the Son'a glared at him with unalloyed
hate.
  "After today, that won't be a problem-for either of
US.
  His last few words were almost drowned out by the voice
of the computer: "Separation in thirty seconds."

  Ru'afo stretched forth his free hand, palm up,
and moved his first two fingers in a commanding "come here"
gesture. "Just step off the injector."
  Picard eyed him in disbelief. Did the ahdar
believe him to be so abysmally witless? He,
Picard, was in the most strategic, protected
position in the entire structure: with his hasteds upon
the ignition matrix, behind a curtain o gaeadds.
If Ru'afo fired now, he would just as likely
destroy the matrix as kill Picard. "Are you
really going to risk igniting the fumes?" the captain
asked, honest amusement in his voice.
  Their gazes locked; Ru'afo seethed, but his
hesitation acknowledged his dilemma. The captain's
lips spread in a slow grin.
  "No? All right. Then I will."
  And Picard lifted his rifle and fired-one single
shot directed point-blank at the swirling gas,
some two meters above their heads.
  "No!" Ru'afo shrieked, as Picard dove
behind the control console.
  Picard closed his eyes, but for a blazing
millisecond, it was like staring wide-eyed at a
daytime sun ... then the brightness dimmed, and he peered
up above the console to see the ahdar on his back on
the catwalk, hood thrown back to reveal the
stretched, bruised flesh stapled to the back of his
skull. And then smoke began to bloom, quickly forming
a thick curtain between the two men.

  Immediately, Picard seized the ignition matrix
and, with pure exhilaration, tore it from the wall.
Regardless of what happened afterward-whether Ru'afo
chose to kill him out of pure frustration, or
not-Anij and Artim, Data and Troi and Crusher,
and the rest of the Baku, would be safe.
  At once, he scrabbled downward with his prize,
crawling to a plank that led him, on a lower level,
back in the Son'a's direction, and he smiled
to himself as he heard Ru'afo's steps above him,
hurrying through the now-dissipating smoke to the inj'ector
assembly where the captain had stood only
seconds before.
  By the time Picard climbed back up onto the
catwalk where Ru'afo had just stood, the Son'a was
lifting his hand to the empty spot on the circuit
board in a slow gesture of disbelief and
loss.
  "Looking for this?" Picard called, and raised the
ignition matrix.
  Ru'afo whirled about to face him. The captain
braced himself for another show of rage, of vitriolic
hate, of violence; and for an instant, Ru'afo's
eyes were bright and terrible with such emotions.
  But then the brightness dimmed. Rage was replaced
by fear; hatred, by grief. These were the eyes of a man
confronting his death, and the defeat of his only dream.
  A loud metallic clank. The platform beneath
Pi 280 card's feet shuddered slightly, then
began slowly to retract from the injector assembly
in preparation for launch.
  For a heartbeat, Ru'afo stood frozen beside the
injector's circuit board as Picard, on the
catwalk, began to slide away-back into the
safety of the collector's belly.
  Beside the Son'a, the chronometer display on the
injector control panel read 00: I 0.
Picard watched as the ahdar caught sight of it,
watched as tension seized hold of the Son'a's
posture; saw, too, the sweeping glance he
directed at his surroundings, and the frantic
expression that came over his too-taut
features as he confirmed there was no other way off the
injector.
  In ten seconds, Ru'afo would be launched
unprotected, along with the disarmed injector, into the
vacuum of space. It would be a swift death, but
hardly a pleasant one, in the freezing, airless
void: the silent rush of air from the lungs, the
shock of immediate hypothermia.
  The question remained whether the ahdar's obsession would
now lead him to choose death over surrender. But if
the chance existed that Ru'afo could be saved ...
  Picard set the matrix down, hurried to the very
edge of the retracting catwalk, and reached out.
"Take my arm!"

  Already the gap between them was almost too wide: there
existed only a millisecond of possibility for
Ru'afo to grab hold and be pulled to safety.
  But in that millisecond, Ru'afo hesitated as
fear warred with hatred.
  In the end, panic won, and he stretched forth a
mottled, bejeweled hand toward Picard's, grazing
the captain's fingertips with inchlong, perfectly
honed nails.
  Picard strained, reaching, putting himself in
a potentially precarious spot should Ru'afo catch
hold; the ahdar did the same, groaning with the effort,
his eyes wild and shining with tears of panic.
  Yet after the first fleeting touch of nails to flesh,
their hands never met, but remained inches apart,
unreachably close. Thus they remained-Picard
straining, palm open, fingers stretched hard apart,
while Ru'afo clawed frantically, hand opening and
closing like a starfish, as if the air and the growing distance
between them were something palpable he might grasp.
  Movement in the periphery of Picard's vision: the
countdown, above and behind the ahdar's shoulder.
  Still the captain reached, even as he watched the
inevitable.
  Three.
  Two.
  One.
  A deep rumble; the plank beneath Picard's feet

  vibrated, forcing him to clutch the railing with both
hands to keep from falling into the chasm. The injector
separated entirely from the main structure with
surprising speed, sealing Picard safely inside
behind an observation window.
  He expected to see Ru'afo's body
hurtling past, freed from life and the constraints of
gravity, and steeled himself for it; that grisly sight
never came. At last he redirected his gaze at
the injector, sailing harmlessly toward the Baku
planet's colorful rings, and was astonished to see
Ru'afo, still alive beneath a force field, at the
injector control panel.
  Clutching the conso e, Ru afo sailed aboard
the injec tor into the magnificence of the planetary
rings, separated from him only by the tragically
insufficient force field.
  Light and spectral color brilliant beyond
torment bathed him, consumed him, permeated him until
he was no longer an entity separate from it, but
radiant himself from every cell, from each muscle,
organ, and bone, and he cried out involuntarily at
the glory and the pain.
  Instinct closed his eyes. Still color and light
pierced him for one heartbeat, two, three-then went
utterly, irrevocably black.
  The metaphasic radiation, he realized; it had
blinded him. Suddenly dizzied, he sank to his
knees,

  hands still clutching the console's edge, a
penitent kneeling at the altar.
  Yet in the midst of dying, he felt a sudden
surge of life and put trembling fingers to his
face. The top layer of skin sloughed off from their
tips at once, and the sensation in them was rapidly
fading, but he felt his cheeks become firmer, more
supple.
  He was growing younger-so swiftly that in the space of
two seconds, no more, his features and skin shifted
as if molten, forming and re-forming to middle age, young
adulthood, youth. Death was a crucible, burning
away the years.
  His body shrank, became lighter, lither, and his
mind freer, unsullied by hatred or fear; until
he was simply the Baku child Ro'tin, dying.
  The experience became pure and immediate, untainted
by the past.
  Timeless ...
  Pain, as cells disintegrated, leaving blood
vessels and organs to bleed. Nausea so intense
it was difficult to differentiate between it and the pain. A
vain effort to bring air into hemorrhaging, collapsed
lungs; still growing younger, smaller, he lost his grip
on the console's edge and instead leaned, gasping, against
its side.
  At the same time, Ro'tin felt an emotional
detachment from the agonizing struggle, and a strange and
exceptional clarity of thought.
  It was as though he were a compassionate stranger
looking upon this

  suffering child, and he felt ity. Not because the child would
die, or even so much because the child was in horrible pain;
but because the child's life had been a wasted one-wasted in
running from death, in fearing it, fighting it, when death
meant no more than yie Iding to the gentle void.
  And yield at last he did, letting himself
fall, body, mind, and soul.... Into the darkness,
into the silence, into a place far younger than he had ever
known.

  FOURTEEN
  In the village square, Riker squinted against the
bright sun as he watched the Baku, children and animals
in tow, make their way down from the mountains. It was a
charmingly pastoral sceneabruptly made all the
lovelier by the sudden appear ance of Deanna
Troi alongside the rest of the away team.
  Riker scarcely saw the others. Despite the
stern presence of Worf beside him, he waved
excitedly, as if he and Deanna had been
separated years rather than days.
  Like a lovesick cadet, he told himself
sheepishly; it was the radiation, just the damned radiation
making him act this way.

  The thought was squelched immediately when Deanna caught
sight of him and smiled with a radiance that took his
breath away. His lips curved upward in a grin
broad to the point of foolishness, yet he no longer
cared, even though Worf cleared his throat
nervously.
  No point in trying to hide his feelings from the
Klingon, Riker decided-or from anyone else, for
that matter. Still holding Deanna's gaze with his own,
he asked Worf.
  "You think when we get away from this metaphasic
radiation, it'll change the way we feel?"
  A long pause, and then the Klingon replied with
uncharacteristic gentleness, "Your feelings about her
haven't changed since the day I met you, Commander.
This place just let them out for a little fresh air."
  Surprised by his friend's insightfulness, Riker
turned toward him with a now-curious grin-but Worf was
already moving away toward the approaching
group, which included the captain.
  Awkward in his fine robes, Gallatin stood
upon the soft grass on the outskirts of the village
square as the Baku-whom, only hours ago, he
had so nearly helped to kill-returned home. The
younger children, fatigue already forgotten, ran ahead of
their

  elders and dived into the golden haystacks piled
neatly along the path leading to the fields.
  Gallatin watched them, assailed by several
emotions: joy that these children had been spared, sorrow that
he had been among those who tried to harm them,
loneliness that he could not simply cast off the past and
join them; but his primary feeling was one of grief.
  Not for the loss of the ahdar Ru'afo as he had been
in his final days-at that, Gallatin felt almost
shamefully relieved. But as he watched young
bodies burrowing into haystacks, he grieved for the
loss of his childhood friend, Ro'tin, loyal and
straightforward and keenly interested in everything
Gal'na had to say.
  Gallatin remembered all the times he and
Ro'tin had hidden from each other in the haystacks;
rememhered, too, that terrible day when
Sojef had told them, in the presence of all the
elders: Mark these words: technology will bring about
your violent downfall.
  True, Gallatin thought. Rotin fell
to violence, as I nearly did-but Sojef was wrong.
Technology had not corrupted Ru'afo-hatred
had.
  Picard and his people were proof that technology combined with
wisdom could produce great good.
  Sojef and Ro'tin had each been stubborn in his
own way, and there was no reason for Gallatin to think

  that Sojef had changed in a century's time.
Yet he, Gallatin, felt drawn to remain here;
this was his home, and he knew that he could not surrender
it again. But how could he live among the Baku?
  Certainly, they had behaved hospitably toward
him when they discovered the duck blind-but it had been the
hospitality offered a stranger.
  Besides, he had been born a scientist; to deny that
was to deny his own heart and mind.
  How could he be himself, and still fulfill his yearning
to live among his own people? Even more importantly,
how could the Baku accept him after all that had
happened?
  "I wish there were a way to bring them back home,"
Sojef told Picard; the two of them strolled, with
Anij between them, through the village outskirts, toward
the grassy meadow alongside the lake. The Baku
leader referred to the unawares Gallatin, whom the
three of them watched.
  "Ask them," Picard said. He could not clearly
see Gallatin's expression from this distance, but the
wi/lness in the Son'a's stance, in the cant of his
head, spoke more poignantly than words could.
  Anij-walking on her own now, with no more
assistance than a hand resting lightly on the
captain's arm-remained silent, clearly deferring
to Sojef; her

  cautious, faintly frowning expression conveyed that
this was a sore point for the Baku leader.
  Sojef sighed, began to speak, then stopped himself
and began again.
  "I'm afraid there's too much bitterness ...
on both sides."
  As he spoke, Picard noticed Beverly
Crusher escorting a beautiful young Baku woman
with a long, sandcolored braid past them, toward the
fields; he tried to catch the doctor's
gaze, but failed. Still, he gleaned the information he
wanted from the young Baku's face, as she stared
intently at the preoccupied Gallatin.
  She was trying to recognize him, Picard knew,
and failing. Until she and Crusher stood beside the
Son'a, and the doctor politely signaled for his
attention.
  Gallatin turned, his stunned expression now in
profile. Even if the woman did not know him, he
immediately knew her-and at first glance, uttered a soft,
solitary word.
  She cried out, raised her hand to her lips, then
stood on tiptoe to throw her arms about him.
  For a tense instant, Gallatin stood, stiff and
motionless ... then slowly, gently, returned the
embrace and leaned his head upon her shoulder.
  Picard shared a knowing look with Crusher, who
smiled brilliantly at him, then turned away,
eager to allow the couple their privacy and to avoid a
wave of sympathetic emotion.

  Anij was studying the captain with an expression of
dawning realization. "Mother and son," she said softly.
"You arranged this?"
  "I thought it might begin the healing
process," Picard admitted-almost
apologetically, for he had no idea whether
Sojef might consider it meddling and take offense.
  The Baku leader considered Picard's statement in
silence, then reached forth and shook the captain's hand with
an expression of such deep appreciation that Picard
felt overly compensated. Without a furthe word,
Sojef strode away ... directly toward
Gallatin and his mother.
  At the same instant, Worf approached with a
sense of urgency.
  "Captain, the Ticonderoga has moved
into orbit." That said, he turned and walked away.
  When Worf had moved far away enough to grant
Picard some privacy, Anij looked at him with
pale eyes, and he saw his own pain at leaving
reflected there. Such a wise, amazing being: she
knew he loved her more than he had any other
woman, and was secure in it; she also knew that he
could not give up his life to remain with her.
  "What am I goingto do without you?" She smiled
sadly as she spoke.
  "I wish I could stay, but these are perilous times
for the Federation," he answered in a low voice. She
did

  not need a reason, had not asked for one; he stated
it aloud to convince himself more than her. "I can't
abandon it to people who would threaten everything I've spent
a lifetime defending. I have to go back . .
  if only to slow things down at the Federation
Council."
  She nodded, stroking his arm to comfort him.
  "But," he added, at last managing a smile,
"I have three hundred and eighteen days of vacation
time coming. And I intend to use them."
  And Anij said, with a tone and a look he knew he
would always remember, "I'll be here."
  He took her into his arms and kissed her,
allowing himself to slip again into timelessness....
  "Where's Data?" an unfamiliar man's
voice said in the far distance.
  At the sound, Artim, immersed in a pile of
faintly fragrant hay, let go his breath and
popped his head up through the straw, which formed an itchy
collar around his neck. He scratched it absently,
peering about for his playmates and the poser of the question; not
an instant later, Data's head poked through the
straw beside him.
  "Data!" the woman doctor called
out, and Artim saw the group of Starfleet officers
waiting for him in the meadow. "It's time to go!"
  Artim felt a surge of sorrow. His new
companion had finally mastered the concept of
hide-and-seek and

  was turning into an amazing playmate; but Artim
would miss him for a greater reason than that. Data had
saved his life-but it was even more than that.
  He, Artim, cared for Data as a friend ... cared
about a collection of circuitry and positronic
matrices.
  And he believed, regardless of everything that his father and
his society had taught him, that Data cared for him.
That Data was a good person, which meant that all
technology was not by its very nature evil.
  It was something he intended to discuss at great length
with his father.
  Firmly squelching any impulse toward tears,
Artim crawled from the hay and brushed straw from his
hair, arms, and legs. Data did the same, then
paused before returning to his waiting peers.
  "I have to go now," he told Artim.
  Artim looked down at his feet and nodded.
"Bye."
  "Bye."
  The android turned and began to walk away;
Artim moved over to his father, who had just returned
from speaking with the one called Gal'na.
  To the boy's surprise and delight, Sojef
looked at the android and smiled. "Mister Data,"
he called, and Artim thrilled at the sound of his father
addressing the artificial lifeform by name for the first time.
"I hope we'll see you again."

  Data acknowledged with a pleasant nod as he
joined his fellow crew members; grinning, Artim
called out: "Data! Don't forget-you've got to have
a little fun every day."
  "Good advice," the one called Commander Riker
said; he offered his hand to the dark-haired, elegant
Troi, who took the proffered hand firmly and
smiled up at Riker with a look that made Artim
squirm. It was the same look the boy had seen
exchanged between adults "in love," and although Father
said that in only a few years Artim's attitude
would change, at the moment, he found the phenomenon
disgusting.
  He looked away, toward Captain Picard,
who left Anij's side to stand with his
officers. The captain pressed a badge on his
chest and said: "Picard to Enterprise ... seven
to beam up. Energize."
  At that instant, Picard gazed over at Anij
comandthe two of them shared a look that once again forced
Artim to look away.
  For Anij, the moment before Jean-Luc disappeared
in the transporter glow was timeless, as was the memory
of him she had impressed on her heart.
  It would hurt Sojef to lose her; but he had
never had her love to begin with. He had seen her with
Picard,
  "QA
  and perhaps already knew that she could never wed him now,
because her heart belonged-and would, for the rest of her
existence-to an offlander.
  An offlander who was now gone, for an indefinite
period of time: but it mattered not how long he was
gone. Anij knew that he would return.
  For what they had shared had been timeless. Always.
  Forever ...