Where Angels Fear To Tread

By BEKi

Character codes: R, Crew

Captain's Log, Stardate 42767.2. It appears that our hopes of encountering civilized life in the Rhegus Delotian system were unfounded. Despite theoretical extrapolation to the contrary, our sensor sweeps have revealed one class M planet after another to be devoid of intelligent life. While flora and fauna disbursement vary little from what long-range probes led us to expect, we have encountered not only an absence of intelligent life in this sector, but absolutely no evidence that such life ever existed here. No ruins, no remains, not even the remotest indication that a civilization of any sort has ever graced the surface of a single planet in this vast belt of inhabitable worlds. It is as if Evolution somehow overlooked the Rhegus Delotian System: a garden of Eden on a galactic scale into which man, or man's sentient equivalent, was simply never introduced. It remains now as it has always been. Perhaps indeed, we are the first sentient beings to look upon it.

As we near the close of our exploratory survey of this leg of the galaxy and prepare to turn for home, I feel a distinct sense of....

"SIR!" Wesley interrupted excitedly. "I've got somethi...."

The youth's voice trailed off. Thin features that had yet to cast off the implication of childhood settled to a frown as he worked the helm console, checking and re-checking data. His fingers jumped across the board like it was electrified.

Jean-Luc Picard waited, one finger pressed to the log recorder's pause button, for a full fifteen seconds before he prompted the acting ensign to continue, "Yes?"

"I'm sorry, Captain. I...." The frown resting in dark eyes turned to confusion, a rare expression indeed for Wesley Crusher. "I thought...." The youth shook his head sharply, as if to deny his own uncertainty, "I know ...."

His fingers slowed as they ran out of controls to manipulate. They eventually wound themselves to a stop. Glaring at the console in front of him, Wesley Crusher disentangled his thoughts from his task long enough to manage a full sentence. "There was something out there," he stated almost as much to himself as to the captain. The youth's tone bordered on belligerence. "I saw it. Just for a moment, but I saw it."

"Be more specific, Wes," Riker admonished from his seat to Picard's right. "What did you see?"

Wesley swiveled in his chair. Taking confidence from the fact that the first officer questioned the way he reported what he saw, rather than whether or not he actually saw it, the young ensign rephrased his report: "For a split second, sir," he told Picard firmly, "I was registering massive life readings on the fourth planet in the outer belt. But then...." He shrugged slim shoulders. "They just ... vanished." Though the slight tremble in his own voice was glaringly obvious to Wes, no one else on the bridge seemed to notice. Or at least, they didn't let on that they'd noticed.

Picard squinted at the screen. "Where?" he demanded.

Wesley drew a breath to answer, shooting a quick glance to Riker just to make certain he wasn't overstepping his bounds. He'd learned to trust Riker, to judge the first officer's facial cues as first alert indicators of treacherous footing ahead. A slight glint of warning in the commander's eyes had shut him up on more than one occasion. Without Riker's subtle tutelage and consistent intervention on his behalf, he would never have gotten assigned bridge duty in the first place. He certainly wouldn't have made the rank of acting ensign. And, on one or two occasions, he might even have been kicked entirely off the ship.

Today, however, Riker was no help at all. The commander's expression was as blank as his Tuesday night poker face.

"All over, sir," Wes said carefully. "The entire planet surface. Enough to constitute an entire race."

"Mister Data?"

"We have not yet entered sensor range," Data informed the captain. He glanced sideways at Wes, unconsciously mimicking the expression the boy so often gave him in such situations. It meant, to the best of his knowledge, Sorry.

"Mister Worf?"

"Long range scanners indicate no life on the fourth planet bordering the Delotian vector," Worf responded immediately.

While the captain checked for verification of Wesley's claim, Riker pushed to his feet and crossed the bridge. He scanned the acting ensign's board over one of the youth's slim shoulders. "Unauthorized enhancements again, Mister Crusher?" he inquired calmly, his eyes studying the readouts and their implications.

Wes winced. "I was just running a test program on the port sensors. Geordi gave me clearance to attempt some re-calibration when we had some free time...."

"You consider bridge time free time?" Riker demanded sharply. He reached over Wesley's shoulder and pressed several buttons, noting their affect on the display.

Wes's features tightened with a mix of embarrassment and frustration. Though he had an entire explanation on the tip of his tongue, he swallowed the urge to offer it and answered the reprimand crisply and cleanly, the way the commander expected him to: "No, sir."

Riker responded with barely a twitch along the hard line of his stern expression, but his eyes were more generous in their approval. They flicked from the helm to Wes just long enough to make it clear he was pleased.

"Could the readings have been an aberration prompted by your experimental alterations, Mister Crusher?" Picard asked not unkindly.

Oblivious to the recondite exchange between teacher and pupil, he caught Riker's eye to let the first officer know that the reprimand had been sufficient. Riker acknowledged Picard's subtle concern without ever allowing Wesley Crusher to realize he was the momentary object of the captain's attention.

"No, sir," Wes answered immediately. "I mean," he swallowed hard and revised the unequivocal denial. "I mean, I don't believe so, sir. The readings are ... were too complete."

"A reflection, then," Riker countered. Again, he reached across Wes to press some buttons. "Refracted and magnified from the life readings aboard the Enterprise. Dislocated to appear that they originated from the planet's surface."

Wes shook his head. "Too many of them, sir. Millions....hundreds of millions. They read in irregular concentrations. Some bunched up all together and others spread out over a large area."

"Urban and rural populations?" Data offered helpfully.

This time, Wes nodded. He risked a grateful sideways glance to the android before facing the captain again directly.

"It was a population, sir," he stated firmly. "A large population. I'm sure of it."

Picard swung his gaze back to the main viewscreen. He frowned, watching as the small planet that was the focus of their discussion slid along the lower edge of the star-dotted blanket of space.

"There isn't anything wrong with the sensors," Riker offered after a moment. He stepped back and centered his gaze on the same point that so raptly held his captain's attention.

"Any speculation?" Picard asked the bridge in general

"A cloaking device?" Worf suggested.

Riker shot the security chief a surprised glance from the corner of one eye. "On a planetary scale?" he queried, trying to decide if the Klingon's supposition was meant seriously or offered as a show of support on Wesley's behalf. Although no one had, to this point, questioned what the young helmsman saw, the implication hung pregnant in the air like an unspoken threat.

"I am reading no sign of an energy source capable of maintaining such a device," Data commented.

"Perhaps it is cloaked as well," Worf returned stubbornly.

For a long moment, Picard made no comment. When he did, it was with the decisive calm they all recognized as the earmark of a decision made. "Mister Crusher." He nodded slightly to the planet under discussion. "Change heading. Take us in for a closer look, warp two."

Riker looked nearly as surprised as Wesley.

"Uh ... yes, sir." Wes hurried to enter the new coordinates into his console. "Warp two."

Picard tugged his tunic down tight. "Engage." He waited until Riker returned to the command arc and settled into his chair before choosing to address the expression that had -- if only for a moment -- flashed through the first officer's features.

"Well, Number One," he elaborated blandly. "This is an exploratory mission, is it not? What better time to go exploring?"

He smiled. It was a tolerant smile, one quite similar to the expression Dixon Hill might wear when confronted by the first teasers of a holodeck simulation to come. "Perhaps we shall find an answer to Mister Crusher's little mystery, eh?"

Riker nodded in deference to the other man's will. "You may be right, sir," he acquiesced gracefully.

Picard grinned. "And I may be wrong, Will. But what have we to lose?" His finger pressed the communicator recessed in the arm of his chair. "Counselor Troi to the bridge."

"On my way," Troi's lyrical voice responded immediately.

Settling himself more comfortably into the command chair, Picard watched the small planet grow slowly, but inexorably, larger. "How long until we're within primary sensor range?" he asked.

"Six point two three minutes, sir," Data replied.

"Captain." As it always did, Worf's voice seemed inordinately loud against the calm bridge. "I recommend we raise shields. If they possess a cloaking device capable of deception on a planetary scale, they may possess equally ... advanced ... technology of a more ... aggressive ... nature." The slight hesitations made it clear that neither "advanced," nor "aggressive," were the tactical officer's first choice in adjectives.

"Recommendation noted, Lieutenant," Picard allowed. "But denied. If there is indeed a 'they,' I would not care to approach their homeworld in a defensive posture. This is, after all, a mission of peaceful intent."

"On our part," Worf grumbled.

A smile lit the deepest part of Picard's expression, but he didn't allow it to reach his lips.

"Yes, Lieutenant," he answered patiently. "On our ...."

The Enterprise jolted as if she'd run into a brick wall. The lights blinked twice and failed. Immediately, the glowing red of emergency back-ups sprang into the darkness. Picard's hand slammed down on the communicator.

"Engineering," he roared. "Report!"

"We've lost all primary power," LaForge's voice came back over the din of scrambling engineers shouting directions at one another. "Engines inoperative. Shields inoperative. Weapons systems inoperative. I don't know what happened. It's like ... like somebody just flipped a switch and turned us off."

Picard turned toward the Ops console. He didn't need to ask questions. Data already had his answers ready; he was merely waiting his turn to speak.

"All sensors have failed," the android reported as dispassionately as if he'd been reporting the weather. "Computer systems scrambled. Diagnostic unable to function at ...."

Data slumped in mid-sentence. His head and shoulders dropped forward like a marionette without strings. Or more accurately, like a marionette whose strings had been cut. His forehead brushed the console. One hand lay palm up on the dark Ops display and the other hung limply at the end of an arm that pendulumed loosely from the shoulder.

Riker reacted first. He was on his feet and at the android's side in an instant. He checked Data's positronic circuitry first externally and then, by flipping back a small panel of flesh along the android's skull, internally. Conduits that should have glowed with activity lay conspicuously dark.

"Turned off," he announced grimly.

Stepping closer to the insensate lieutenant commander, Riker placed the bulk of his body between Ops and the general bridge crew as a visual barrier to what he was about to do. He ran three fingers down the android's version of a spinal column until he found where it joined the third intercostal strut. Just left of that, his fingers sank into Data's back up to the second knuckle. He found the recessed switch and flipped it.

Nothing happened.

He flipped it again. And again, nothing. Thinking that repetition might trigger some sort of breaker effect -- hoping that it would -- Riker toggled the switch back and forth.

The android didn't so much as twitch.

And so Riker did the only thing he could: he retrieved his fingers and moved on to other matters. Trying somewhat unsuccessfully to think of Data as nothing more than one more malfunctioning machine, the first officer reached across his friend's slumped body to transfer Ops control to his own console.

But nothing existed to transfer. The station read as dead as the positronic marvel that normally manned it.

"Damnit!" Riker hissed. Nobody but Wes heard the quiet curse. Riker ran his fingers over the console, keying several command function bars to no avail. He pressed another dozen buttons in futile defiance of the inevitable before giving in and making his official report. "Ops inoperative," he informed the captain grimly, shifting his weight with the intention to turn and resume his position in the command arc.

He'd hardly moved at all when lifting eyes found themselves confronted by the wide-eyed stare of a child. A highly intelligent, extra-ordinarily gifted child; but a child, none-the-less.

A boy in ensign's clothing.

Wes gazed in muted horror at Data's slumped form. His lack of formal training shone in the near panic that glazed his expression. He looked as ready to buckle as any green cadet Riker had ever seen.

"Wes," Riker called, instinctively using the youth's name rather than his rank. Until Wesley Crusher went through boot at the Academy, snapping orders at him stood at least as much chance of compounding the panic as it did of addressing it. Right now, a knowledgeable friend was going to be more effective than a superior officer; and Riker knew it.

And he used it.

"Wes. Come on, Wes. Snap out of it. I need you."

Wesley turned the stricken gaze from Data to him.

"Can you take us anywhere, Wes?" he asked, putting as much demand as request into the query. "Anywhere at all?"

Though navigational capabilities had very little relevance on a vessel with no means of propulsion, the order served its purpose. Wes blinked. He nodded mutely to Riker and pulled his attention back to his board with an effort. For at least the moment, he started thinking about something other than Data's motionless body.

"The helm's dead in the water, Commander," he responded shakily. "She doesn't respond to anything."

Riker nodded. He forced a smile of reassurance through the maelstrom of command prerogatives vying for attention in his skull. "Keep on it, Wes," he instructed. "You're doing fine." And then he turned crisply away to rejoin the captain.

Though Riker resumed his seat to Picard's right, the muscular frame never quite settled. He remained perched on the rim of his chair, every line reeking with the coiled tension of an unsprung spring.

The kid did all right, he told himself. As all right as anyone ever did the first time they watched a shipmate ... a friend ... drop in a crisis situation.

"We've lost life support all over the ship," LaForge's voice announced grimly just as the emergency lights blinked twice and failed in the manner their predecessors had failed. "We won't last fif...."

Silence filled the void left by the chief engineer's abruptly unfinished statement. Not static, not the sound of an explosion, just silence.

Picard tapped his personal communication device, fingers finding the emblem in the abysmal blackness by the familiarity of the action.

"Bridge to LaForge," he demanded in a voice that was nothing but calm. "Acknowledge." He waited a few seconds and tried again. "Bridge to Engineering. Acknowledge, please."

Again, silence.

"Number One?"

Riker responded to the implied request. "Bridge to Engineering," he stated firmly into the unnatural silence. His fingers were starting to get cold. They felt stiff and sore, as did his toes. "Acknowledge."

The request went as unanswered as the captain's had. Each officer on the bridge took his turn with their personal communicator, and each failed as had the first. Silence settled over the last attempt like a pall.

"This is it, then," someone commented from the darkness. It was a calm statement. No hysteria, no bleating wail of fear or desperate plea for mercy, no angry lashing of frustration. Just the words: This is it. Acceptance.

It was getting harder to breathe.

At first, Riker thought the constriction was in his imagination. He realized it was more than merely an aberration of what he knew was to come when the strain of drawing air into his system became steadily more pronounced. As the moments grated by on silent blackness, the pressure intensified. He felt himself struggling to breathe more deeply, even when his lungs were expanded to full capacity.

He tried to think of something else. Unfortunately, he found there wasn't much capable of distracting a man from the sensation of suffocation. The air grew thinner by the moment. Cold lay on his flesh like the kiss of death. It became a living thing, part of the vampiristic atmosphere that sucked oxygen from his lungs, from his pores, from his every cell. A whorl of disorientation swirled in his skull. He found himself wondered idly if he would fall to the deck or die sitting upright in his chair.

He shifted his weight, straightened his knees. Cartilage snapped in protest. The tiny pops sounded like gunshots in the silence. He lifted his palms from the arms of his chair. The treated moldings were getting sticky with the cold. That meant it had to be about ten below by now. Maybe a little more. His thoughts wandered. He remembered his mother warning him about licking metal on days like this.

Like he'd ever really had the urge to lick metal as a child anyway.

He shivered despite his determination not to. Once the involuntary reflex took hold, it held on like a Telarian cling-leach. In a vain attempt to generate heat, his body sent shiver after shiver rattling down his spine. His ears popped. A quiet ringing set up shop someplace between them. It grew louder, more insistent. Pressure built behind his eyes until splotches of brilliant color began to dot the blackness. He'd go blind soon.

If he didn't freeze first.

He fought the dread gripping his belly with carefully structured memories of his friends and shipmates.

The poker game Tuesday night. He remembered Geordi laughing while O'Brien complained about his string of bad luck. Crusher just sat behind her towering stack of chips and smiled. Data lit a replicated stogie on the pretense of lending a sense of "atmosphere" to the proceedings and managed to set off several temperature-sensitive safeguard systems.

Had the central computer not taken into consideration the presence of several biological life-forms that required oxygen for continued existence, it might have dropped a force field in place and created a vacuum to extinquish the source of the billowing cloud of foul, sickly-sweet smelling smoke that quickly swelled to fill the gaming room. As it was, the sprinkler systems kicked in and doused the whole lot of them, the cards, the green felt table, the chips and dip and pretzels .... Data's cigar smoldered wetly, creating more smoke; and the computer countered by releasing several kilos of powdered polysoliphicate charcoal into a room which had of course been sealed to protect the rest of the ship from the dangers inherent to the unchecked spread of fire through metal cooridors.

By the time LaForge managed an environmental systems over-ride, the five of them (it would have been six, but Data, of course, proved impervious to the more debilitating effects created by various resperatory contaminants) were gasping white dust and waving their arms to clear the last of the smoke and retching and fighting to breathe and

fighting to breathe and

fighting to breathe ....

Like now.

Riker found himself wondering if they would suffocate or freeze or pop from the intensifying build-up of pressure. His fingers clenched into fists and would not open.

As suddenly as it happened, it un-happened.

The atmosphere began to re-energize itself with the blessedly quiet hiss of air pumping through airvents. Ears ringing with silence found themselves listening to the sudden, familiar, comforting whir of machinery. The pressure eased in Riker's skull. Normal lights flared with a brilliant flash that brought more than one hand up to serve as instinctive shields.

Riker gasped. Fresh, intoxicating oxygen flooded his system. It invaded the murkey corners of his brain and painted brilliant swashes of color into his perception of his surroundings. He drew lungful after lungful of air into his chest. The bridge swayed. He felt suddenly lightheaded from the effects of too much oxygen, rather than too little.

Data straightened. "... this time," he resumed precisely where he'd left off. "I have attempted to bypass ...."

Data's report drifted off as he blinked against the normal lighting and looked around with confusion equal to, if not more profound than that of his companions. "Did I miss something?" he inquired sincerely.

A relieved grin split Riker's straight features. He laughed, enjoying the feel of it in his chest and the sound of it emerging from his lips. "I think we all missed something, Data," he told the puzzled android. "Status."

Data swiveled back to his station. "Sensors fully functional," he informed them. One eyebrow arched expressively as he scanned other readouts. "Helm responsive. Engines on line."

"We have shields," Worf told them.

"Raise them," Picard snapped, beating Riker to the order by a fraction of a second.

"LaForge to Bridge."

Picard stood shakily, one hand retaining its grip on the command chair for support. "Picard here. Report."

"We're up and running, sir." LaForge's disbelief was obvious in his tone. "I don't know why we are, but we are. Engines at full capacity. Life support stable. Nothing down here but a lot of spooked people to prove we were shut off for a full twelve minutes and seven seconds."

"Good work, Mister LaForge," Picard commended. He was steady enough to release the chair now and take a stand dead center of the bridge, and he did so.

"I'd love to take the credit, Captain," LaForge offered quickly. "But we didn't do a damn thing. Like I said, I don't know why we're up, we just are."

"Acknowledged, Mister LaForge. Bridge out." Picard turned to his first officer, noting the light fringe of frost on the younger man's beard. "Number One?"

Riker was flexing his fingers, working circulation back into the stiff joints. He looked up and shrugged.

"My sentiments exactly," Picard agreed.

*****

Deanna Troi clung grimly to the padded railing that ran the interior perimeter of the turbo lift. Only a moment more. She need last only a moment more.

The door hissed open and the bridge lay before her. She forced herself to take a step. To take two. Picard didn't turn, but Will did. His eyes widened in surprise, and then alarm. The captain turned when she grabbed at the doorframe to keep from falling and Riker grunted like he'd been punched.

She clung to the plastic molding, her delicate hands clenched as if they thought to somehow sink into it to find a better hold. Her dark eyes were wide and staring and already beginning to glaze over. Black circles ringed them, making her look nearly dead. The bluish cast of her flesh heightened the effect.

Riker was on the move before Picard finished turning. The first officer bounded up the ramp and reached the turbolift in a matter of seconds, but he wasn't fast enough. Troi crumpled. Folding in on herself, she would have landed in a precise heap if Worf hadn't stepped in and caught her.

"Captain," she muttered, the brittle rush of air barely escaping her waxy lips.

"Doctor Crusher to the Bridge," Picard snapped as he strode to join Riker and Worf at the counselor's side. "Medical Emergency."

Her eyes fell shut. A shudder rippled through her frail body.

"They are ..." she whispered.

"Don't try to talk, Deanna," Riker soothed as he accepted Troi's negligible weight from Worf. "Lie still. Beverly will be here in a moment." He cradled her to his chest. His arms tightened around her to form a protective embrace. "Just lie still."

A sense of security enveloped her at the familiar touch of Will Riker's skin. She felt his beard against her forehead, smelled the familiar scent of him, found herself serenaded by the familiar rhythms of his voice. For a moment, she was tempted to listen to his gently coaxing words. A great rush of warmth breathed through her. A lessening of fear and of pain ...

But then, too, she felt the pressure.

She knew it then. Knew it suddenly and knew it surely. Will would die if she listened to him. If she allowed herself to be comforted, they would all die.

She struggled feebly against that fate, and Riker tightened his hold. He laid one large, warm hand on her face, stroked her temple with his fingertips, ran his thumb across her lips as if shushing a child.

"Shhhhh, Imzadi. Shhhhh."

But she couldn't quiet. Not yet. Not until she told him. Not until she was sure he understood. She had to warn them because none of them would see the danger -- none of them could see the danger -- until it was too late. She fought her eyes and demanded them to open. Slowly, they obeyed. Will and the captain bled into focus.

"Shhhhh."

"... coming," she breathed with the last of her strength.

The word emerged triumphant only to bounce off their expressions. Its meaning, its importance was lost to the worry both men held in their eyes as they crouched over her. She tried to repeat it, but she lacked the strength.

Will held her tighter. He stroked her hair, told her to hold on. Picard stood and moved aside as Beverly Crusher swept from the turbolift and took his place. Somewhere beyond of her limited scope of vision, she could hear Worf breathe.

They hadn't heard.

None of them understood.

Fear and rage and despair welled inside her. What she needed to tell them, what she'd battled through the crippling, numbing barrage of empathic chaos to bring them lay half-remembered and unheard on the starship deck.

And she was slipping.

Troi felt herself loosing ground. She was being dragged away from the warmth of Will Riker's body by something too strong to fight. She could no longer see him, could barely hear him. Like a wet blanket of sultry night, the darkness wrapped itself around her. It was winning. It was shutting her down. An enormous weight shredded the fibers of her awareness like rough fingers parting the fragile weave of fine silk. She was spinning out of control. She no longer had any sense of direction, no longer knew up from down, left from right. She was falling through an endless abyss that yawed to forever.

She screamed, but the silence was consuming.

They came then, as she knew they would. Fingers in her mind. Alien. Intruding. Their movements violated her. More of them. Hundreds. Thousands. Pressing in, making room. The was no way to protect herself. What little residue remained of her identity wasn't enough to gather into resistance. They swarmed into everything that was her. Probing. Invading. Opening her like ripe fruit. There was nothing they did not know, nothing they could not possess. So many of them inside her now that she could feel nothing else.

He was holding her hand.

Her hand. She felt her hand. It became all of her that she could identify. Only the contact between her palm and Will's was real. She knew she existed because she felt him.

For a moment, he was a fragile umbilical cord, her only connection to what had once been herself but was fast becoming them.

The empti-blackness ballooned inside her. It distended like a bloated slick of oil from a place she instinctively understood was nothing. Those that had become her told her to go, and she had no choice.

The umbilical cord stretched. It frayed and began to part.

Imzadi ...

The quiet hiss of Beverly's hypo-spray snarled against her throat. Troi shrieked. The cord snapped. He never heard her as she fell from his grip and into the nothing. Black, wet, consuming, it closed over her head.

And she was gone.

The pool of nothing lay reflective like a mirror. It was a black ocean of soundless night. The icy void of starless space. Its endless surface was glass smooth. Not so much as a ripple remained to mark the passing of what had been Deanna Troi.

*****

Ensign Meyers leaned closer to the mirror, taking great care to ensure that the dark line she was drawing followed exactly the curve of her lower eyelid. When she was finished, she pulled back, examining the effect. A slight smile crooked into her lips.

Not bad for a helmsman, she decided.

Setting the eyeliner aside, she pressed both hands to her uniform and ran them along her body. Though wrinkles fled before the simple gesture, that was not its intent. It's intent was to make certain that the material clung in just the right way to those assets that couldn't be highlighted with makeup. She adjusted this bump and that, and then finally, nodded her approval.

But she wasn't finished. Picking up a hand mirror, Meyers turned her back on the vanity table and studied the reflection of her reflection. It was important that her back side be as presentable as her front side. That was something a lot of women didn't take into consideration.

After all, wasn't it her back side that he saw all day, every day?

Sure, she would manage to catch his eyes and smile at every opportunity. And he'd make a point of it to stroll between the helm and the viewscreen at least twice during the shift. But an overwhelming majority of the time, he sat in his chair at the captain's side and stared at her back.

For that reason, her back had to be interesting enough to make him want to see her front.

And then her front had to be knock-out.

She spotted a single crease that ran diagonally across her back and down over her butt. It marred the perfection of an otherwise seamless bodyscape of hills and valleys. She picked up a thermal rod specifically designed to address such a predicament and pressed the wrinkle flat.

Meyers smiled as she examined the results. Even her critics had to admit that she had an impressive backside.

Then she noticed a slight imperfection in the lay of her shoulder-length hair. It curled too much here, and not enough there. She picked fussily at the auburn tangle until it was arranged exactly the way she wanted it arranged.

She nodded again.

Perfect.

As she studied herself in the double reflection, Meyers told herself that today would be the day. Today, he would pause at her station and look down on her with that devastating grin and that sparkle to his lively blue eyes. Today, he was going to lean casually against the helm and tell her one of his slightly off-color jokes and laugh that deep, rich laugh and invite her out for drinks.

And then, who knew?

Of course, she told herself that every day, but today was different. She had a good feeling about today. She had a feeling things were about to change.

Meyers turned back to the small vanity table, a wide smile on lips glossy with the cinnamon-hued lipstick the saleslady at the boutique on Starbase 226 assured her was guaranteed to turn a man's head. Her reflection smiled back as if to say she agreed.

Blinding pressure hit her like a bolt of lightning from out of the blue.

Meyers dropped the hand mirror to clutch at her temples. She screamed, but it came out more like a strangled moan. The mirror shattered against one corner of the vanity. It showered the mauve carpet with a thousand tiny diamonds of glass. Meyers screamed again. This time, no sound came out at all. Perfectly manicured fingers clawed at her face. She tried once to tap her personal communicator and call for help, but the pain wouldn't allow it. Her shoulder bruised itself against the wall. Her knees slammed to the deck.

The flash of light was brilliant, searing. It flared the small room to an iridescence that would have blinded any who watched. Residual light seeped out under Kathryn Meyers' door to lay a burned white blanket across the deck outside, but there was no one in the corridor to notice.

The interior of the room blinked. The light vanished as it had come. It lasted less than a second.

The woman crumpled against the bulkhead didn't move for a long time. When she did move, it was slowly, cautiously. She straightened as if afraid that doing so might be painful. She stretched her fingers, and then her neck. One hand reached out to press itself against the wall. She steadied herself that way as she rose to a tenuious stand. For some time she stood, gingerly, unsure of her balance or her ability to maintain it. Slowly, the hand left the wall. She took a single step. Her green eyes circled the cabin, absorbing every detail of her surroundings.

Glass lay scattered through the carpet. It glinted in diffused lighting chosen for the flattering way such lighting minimized slight skin imperfections. She noticed both the glass and the lighting, just as she noticed the half-empty mug of cocoa still sitting in the food slot across the room and the uneven hang of an emerald lace afghan that lay folded across the lower third of the nearby bed.

As she turned, observing everything, a flicker of motion trailed the corner of her eye. Her slender body tensed. She swung on the motion and found herself once again faced by the vanity table and the lace-ruffed mirror above it.

For a long moment, the woman didn't move. She stared at the mirror with an intensity that bordered on fascination. Her eyes studied the image there in minute detail before slowly, she raised a hand to place it on the glass surface. One finger traced the contour of her own reflection, defining it there as if creating it in her mind.

Although it was the same reflection that had watched itself line dark, expressive eyes with equally expressive eyeliner, it was not the same woman.

Vlenia pulled her fingers from the cool, smooth surface of the mirror. She watched herself move, touching first her own cheek, and then her breast, and finally the hollow of her belly. The reflection mimicked each motion. Vlenia stared at the stranger in the lace-ruffled mirror.

"Kathryn," she murmured, listening to the sound of her voice in the silence. "Kathryn Meyers."

*****

Four of Starfleet's finest officers and a very nervous, but very excited, acting ensign sat around the briefing room table, staring at each other in stunned surprise. The final member of the senior staff briefing -- one Geordi LaForge, generally considered by those who served with him (and even those who didn't) to be far and away the most capable chief engineer in the business -- stood before the assemblage and absorbed their disbelief with slumped shoulders.

"Thank you, Mister LaForge," Picard said finally. Though the timbre of the captain's voice verged on sympathetic, his expression read quite differently. The stern line of sharp-edged features was hard with, though not disapproval, something very near it.

"I do not understand," Worf growled. "A starship does not merely turn itself off. There must be a reason."

"I didn't say there wasn't a reason," LaForge protested quietly as he resumed his seat. "I said we've run every test in the book and a couple we invented off the tops of our heads, and we can't come up with a reason."

"And you have no hypothesis?"

"None, sir." LaForge folded his hands on the table and stared at them, the VISOR glinting metallic in the room's subdued lighting. "I'm sorry."

"No guesses at all?" Riker pressed. "No hunches? Not even a wild hair idea?"

"Nothing," LaForge repeated miserably.

"I cannot accept that," Picard announced after a long moment of silence. "I tend to agree with Mister Worf: starships are not in the habit of simply turning themselves off. There must be some logical explanation that is being over-looked. Have you examined the possibility of external forces?"

"We've examined everything, sir. We've pulled the logs from every sensor on-line. Nothing."

"How 'bout the sensors that were off-line?" Riker suggested. "Maybe the sudden loss of power created a surge somewhere that tripped ..."

"We did that, too, Commander," LaForge interrupted. "Nothing."

"It is not logical," Worf announced.

"I'll give you that," LaForge agreed glumly.

"Query," Data said suddenly. "Are there not questions to which there exists no logical answer?"

The android's supposition hung in the air for several beats before the captain chose to address it. Though when he spoke, Picard's voice was slow with consideration, his aquiline features were once again nearly disapproving.

"Are you suggesting that our current dilemma is such a question?"

Data blinked. "I am not suggesting anything, sir. I was merely vocalizing a concern I find re-occurrent in my own personal quest for elucidation. If the implication of such a query is inappropriate, I apologize."

"Continue, Mister Data," Picard allowed.

Data nodded and warmed to his subject with obvious relish. "The conclusions reached by Commander LaForge in his search for the truth, and the resultant consternation such intangible conclusions prompt in my fellow officers, bear remarkable resemblance to the philosophical quandaries debated throughout the span of history," he announced. "Though one might logically assume that to any question there is an answer, I have found this not to be the case. During the course of my study of Human knowledge, I have encountered many questions to which there is no apparent answer: Is there a God? What is the meaning of life? What is the empirical value of pi? Which came first, the chicken or the egg? How much wood could a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

The burst of spontaneous laughter that circled the conference table stopped Data's dissertation. He looked from one officer to the next, his head cocked slightly to the side and his eyebrows raised in obvious question. The chuckling subsided after a moment.

"What is the nature of humor?" Data finished. "The satisfactory resolution of that question in particular has eluded me despite the devotion of more than seven thousand one hundred and twenty-three hours of analytical examination, experimentation and theoretical extrapolation in minutia."

Worf leaned forward, his big hands folding on the table and his impressive brow lowered in an impressive scowl. "There is a point?" he inquired, glowering.

"Merely because we seek answers," Data obliged, cutting to the chase. "Must they indeed exist?"

Riker shook his head, grinning. "Sounds like you've gotten back into that Zen philosophy database again, Data," he observed.

"An understandable assumption, Commander," Data responded, turning his attention to the first officer. "But not entirely correct. I have been researching the philosophies of S'Eli, which -- though remarkably similar to the Zen disciplines in terms of surface detail -- are not ...."

"Gentlemen," Picard interrupted impatiently. "This is not a philosophical debate. Less than six hours ago, this vessel lost all power for no discernable reason. Every man, woman and child aboard was confronted with the very real likelihood of death before -- for equally inexplicable reasons -- power was once again restored. With the threat of a repeat episode hanging over our heads, I hardly think this is the time to discuss the intangibles of spiritual existence and the destructive capabilities of small rodents. Now does anyone have anything of a more constructive nature to add to the conversation?"

A long silence permeated the room.

"Considering the fact that nothing about this makes any sense," Riker ventured finally, "Is it possible that Q could be behind it?"

"Something to consider," Picard allowed. "Although I believe that our flamboyant irritant would have made his presence known by now if he were indeed involved."

"Romulans," Worf suggested.

LaForge shook his head. "No way. They don't have anything that could do this. And even if they did, they wouldn't be able to use it without us picking up something on the sensors."

"Nevertheless," Worf insisted darkly. "It is the type of machinations to which the Romulans strive."

"Machinations?" LaForge repeated doubtfully.

"A weapon that strikes in the night," the security chief clarified. "With no warning and no honor."

"If it was the Romulans," Wes ventured, "Wouldn't they have let us all die instead of re-instating life support at the last minute?"

"Such a weapon would require a great deal of power," Worf reasoned. "It may only be capable of sustaining systems shutdown for a limited period of time. Considering our narrow margin of survival, I believe that twelve minutes would be a reasonable assumption to apply to maximum function parameters."

"Twelve minutes and seven seconds," Data corrected helpfully.

Picard listened to the Klingon Security Chief's suppositions without interrupting, but when Worf looked to him for an opinion, the captain shook his head.

"For the time being, Mister Worf," he decided, "Let us work under the assumption that such an all-encompassing leap in technological skulduggery by any of our known adversaries would not have escaped the notice of resident intelligence operatives. We can therefore eliminate the Romulans, the Kardassians and the Ferengi from consideration."

"What about the Borg?" Wesley asked.

That silenced the room for several seconds.

"That would have to be pretty long distance, Wes," Riker said finally. "I'll give you that we don't know much about the Borg's capabilities, but Q kicked us all the way out into the Never-Never to arrange that little tea party of his. It would take them several years to get here from J-25, so that pretty eliminates their potential for involvement in this fiasco by anything other than some kind of high intensity transmission, and even that would be one hell of a stretch."

"What about when they interfaced with the computer? Could they have maybe sunk some kind of retro-active self-destruct coding command string into the dormant programming ...."

"Whoa there, Wes. Hang on a minute." LaForge leaned into the conference room table. "I think you've been reading a little too much of that science fiction stuff. First of all, they can't do that. You know enough about our safeguard systems to know that we'd be able to trace any kind of cybernetic viral programming they might have tried to introduce. Second of all, we ran a level one diagnostics of every computer system from engineering to the food slots after our little run-in with the Borg. The only way they left something behind for us is if they created a program so far beyond our understanding that we can't even recognize what we're looking at when we're staring it straight in the eye. Now they were a pretty scary bunch, but they weren't that far ahead of us. I'd say we've got a better chance of having a poltergeist on board than of having some sort of residual sabotage left over from that two minute Borg interface."

"Perhaps it isn't a weapon at all," Riker suggested suddenly. "Maybe what we experienced was a result of a naturally occurring phenomenon. Something to do with the physical properties of this section of space. The Rhegus Delotian system is, after all, predominantly unexplored. Is it possible we've run into some kind of new spacial anomaly that doesn't exist within our sensor frequencies, but does within the physical parameters of our perception of reality?"

"Possible, I suppose," LaForge allowed doubtfully, "But not very likely. Anything big enough and powerful enough to shut down the Enterprise at all, let alone for twelve full minutes, would have to register somewhere. A magnetic field glitch ... an ionization warp ... something. If it's so alien to our frame of reference that it doesn't have any properties in common with the spacial anomalies we've explored in the past, then I don't see any way it could have enough in common with our energy production and propulsion systems to shut us down."

"Maybe it has something to do with the people," Wes mused.

Picard straightened sharply in his chair. "The people?" he repeated.

Wes flinched. All eyes turned to him, and he shifted nervously in his chair. The sick twist of his expression left little doubt that the comment wasn't meant to be necessarily heard, let alone considered. Especially not by the whole senior staff. It was more like thinking out loud than offering a viable solution.

"Say what you've got to say, Wes," Riker told the youth reassuringly. "We're all working on specualtion right now. Tossing out ideas just to see how they sound. You can't be any further off base than Geordi considering poltergeists."

Wes swallowed hard and nodded. "The people on the planet," he elaborated cautiously. "The population I was reading before we went dark."

"We were too far away from any planet to get sensor readings ...." LaForge started.

"Wes was testing a sensor enhancement program," Riker supplied. "We were on our way to investigate what looked like a planetary population on the fourth planet in the outer belt when all hell broke loose."

LaForge frowned. He rubbed slowly at the lower half of his face.

"Now that's an element that's new to the mix," he said finally. "How much enhancing did you do, Wes?"

"A lot," Wes responded guiltily.

"Exactly how much is 'a lot'?"

Wes winced. "I kinda ... pretty much ... tripled the range."

"Tripled?" Riker echoed in surprised.

"And broadened the base range of frequencies," Wes added.

"How far were we from the planet when you ran the scan?" LaForge asked.

"Not that far. Maybe a thousand parsecs beyond normal range. I was just running a preliminary test."

"If you tripled the power input but only scanned a thousand parsecs beyond normal range ..." LaForge hesitated, thinking hard. "... it's possible the differential boosted intensity up to 300 percent. If that's the case ..." again, he hesitated. Computations flickered across his features. He considered several options, shook his head once and then turned to the captain. "That intense a sensor scan could conceivably cause considerable damage to electrical and/or biochemical systems, Captain. It might even be interpreted as a hostile act. If Wes was running a scan on a planet inhabited by a highly sentient race, he may have tripped a defense warning system."

Picard looked anything but happy. "Are you saying that this incident may have been a retaliation by unidentified person or persons to a perceived act of aggression?"

LaForge nodded. "Or maybe it was just some kind of reciprocal scan, something to identify ..." LaForge shook his head. "No, that still doesn't make sense. Whether it was an attack or a scan, we would have picked up some sort of signature from an energy influx of that magnitude. I don't care what kind of power source ... " The engineer brightened. "Unless it was organic." And he faded. "But no organic psychometric scan could out-distance our long-range sensors. That's impossible."

"Don't rule out the impossible, Mister LaForge," Picard countered. "We are obviously dealing with unknowns here."

"What exactly do you mean by psychometric, Geordi?" Riker questioned.

"An organic-based 'reading', for lack of a better word. An intense projection of conscious thought for the purpose of gathering data. There are several telepathic races that can do it, and I've even heard of a few that practice it on a regular basis in place of sensor arrays. While they can be pretty acurate and all things considered, they have amazing range, I've never heard of anything along these lines. Nothing that can come close to matching the Enterprise's capabilities, let alone shut her down."

Riker leaned into the table. His features had darkened, the look in his eyes going to an something tangibly harsh, something devoid of their normal sense of humor. "Counselor Troi's collapse would support that theory, wouldn't it?" he demanded grimly. "The intrusion of an over-powering empathic surge, perhaps of a consciousness too alien for her mind to tolerate? It could have triggered a survival instinct that virtually shut her mind down. Especially if that intrusion was of aggressive or hostile intent."

"Like a breaker effect," Wes offered. "Involuntary shutdown to avoid total memory core blowout. Like she blew a fuse or something."

Riker turned on the youth. "She's not a computer, Wes," he snapped.

Wesley flinched. Fidgeting uncomfortably in his chair, he studied his hands to avoid the necessity of meeting the first officer's angry glare. "I'm sorry, sir," he muttered. "I didn't mean it that way."

Riker reined in the flare of temper quickly. When he swung his gaze back to LaForge, his expression was once more composed. Except for his eyes. His eyes were still sharp with an uncharacteristic glint of steel.

"Ignoring for a moment the matter of range," he suggested quietly, "is that feasible? That the ship was subjected to some sort of extraordinary psi force that induced power-grid failure?"

"I'm not sure. I'd think that any encroachment of that magnitude -- even an organic based one -- would leave some sort of energy signature the sensors could pick up on."

"Not necessarily." Riker turned his arguments to Picard. "What if it was pure thought energy? Something too nebulous to register on machinery, but strong enough to influence Deanna? To debilitate her."

Picard met his first officer's eyes. He nodded and then tapped his commbadge. "Picard to Crusher. Come in please."

"Crusher here," came Beverly Crusher's immediate reply.

"What is Counselor Troi's condition?"

"No change, Captain," Crusher responded. "She's been comatose since she collapsed. I'm getting no REM or deep cortical activity."

Riker rubbed one hand along his beard. The stone-eyed indifference in his expression didn't fool anyone, least of all the captain.

"Have you ascertained a cause for her collapse?" Picard pressed.

"Nothing I can pinpoint. There's been no physical trauma, no psychometric disruption, no external forces that I can identify."

"Is it possible that she is suffering from some derivation of psychogenic stress?"

"You mean an empathic blow-out?" Crusher's voice hesitated as she considered it. "It's possible, I suppose. Along with at least two hundred other less-than-one-tenth-of-a-percentage possibilities. But I can't give you anything more conclusive than a shaky maybe until I've done more testing."

"Very well, Doctor. Carry on. Picard out." The captain turned his attention back to the roomful of waiting officers. "Mister Crusher. I want you to work with Commanders Riker and Data on your sensor enhancement program. I want to know everything there is to know about it's capabilities and the possible ramifications of Commander LaForge's intensity-transference theory. In addition, I will expect a detailed analysis of the logs containing the population readings you obtained. Do not, however, initiate any sort of new scan of the planet without my direct authorization. Is that understood?"

Wes nodded.

Picard turned to LaForge. "Commander LaForge, I want a level Omega diagnostics on this vessel. Run a fine tooth comb through every system, top to bottom. I want to know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that mechanical failure is not a factor."

"Even with concurrent shifts running twenty-four hours solid, that will take better than two days, sir."

"Make it so, Mister LaForge. Until you can give a certified all-clear, we will maintain position with station-keeping thrusters. Mr. Worf, we will remain on yellow alert status until further notice. I want tactical on a continual full degree scan of all immediate surrounding space; and any anomolous readings, regardless of possible or probable conjectural explication, are to be submitted immediately for top-priority analysis."

"Due to the on-going nature of this crisis," Picard continued, "I will expect all shift rotations to be strictly enforced. Though I expect answers and I expect them in as timely a manner as possible, I do not want the efficiency of my senior staff compromised in any way. That means -- and I am speaking directly, though not exclusively, to you, Mister Worf -- that you will join your staffs in the observance of adequate sleep cycles and minimal recreational activities required to maintain optimum levels of physical and mental awareness. It is certainly not outside the realm of possibility that we may find ourselves in need of all our faculties in the near future. For the time being, that will be all, Gentlemen. I expect you to keep me apprised of your progress. Dismissed."

The officers rose and began to disperse. LaForge headed directly for engineering. Worf made a bee-line for the bridge. Wes and Data waited for Riker to confer briefly with the captain before joining them.

"I need you and Data to consider all aspects of Wesley's enhancement program, Will," Picard told his first officer quietly. "I must know whether or not we have inadvertently committed an act of war."

"I'm still not sure there was an actual population on that planet, sir," Riker responded just as quietly. "I saw the readings. They were vague, indistinct, badly distorted. Some were little more than massed energy indications. They could have been sensor phantoms or derivative mirror reflections just as easily as they could be actual life signs. I'm not convinced this whole "sentient race" thing is anything more than an elaborate mirage created by the sensor array in an effort to respond to Wes's tampering."

"Nevertheless," Picard intoned, his voice unequivocal in it's command presence. "I want the possibility fully explored. We must be absolutely certain where we stand before placing ourselves in what might conceivably turn out to be a hostile first contact situation. And Will," Picard glanced at Wes and found the young acting ensign actively trying not to watch them. "Don't be too hard on the boy. If indeed his actions prove to be at the root of Deanna's collapse, he can hardly be held accountable for consequences that no one could possibly have foreseen."

"I realize that, sir. I didn't mean to snap at him."

"And I realize that you're worried," Picard responded gently. "We all are. Wesley perhaps, most of all. You might want to keep that in mind."

Riker nodded. "I will, sir."

"Very well, Number One. Carry on. And get me my answers."

One corner of Riker's mouth twitched. "The meaning of life, sir?" he inquired wryly.

Picard's eyebrow arched. "I was thinking more along the lines of the maximum nutritional requirements of a wood-eating rodent," he answered.

The bland articulation of the rejoinder stoked amusement to laughter in Riker's eyes. He inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement of droll wit that was, by so many, so wrongly interpreted as a dearth of humor.

The captain did have a sense of humor. Though the subtleties of his technique bore little resemblance to the flamboyantly ostentatious style of the Enterprise's gregarious executive officer, and it perhaps even withered a bit by proximity, Jean-Luc Picard held the fall line between comedy and tragedy well. He served witness to the lunacy so often incumbent to emergency; and though he spoke of it infrequently, he spoke of it with timing and insight that buttressed the sagging morale of those to whom he was closest. The exposed glimmer of well-cloaked wit had served on more than one occasion, as it did now, to press Will Riker on.

To press him through the crushing weight of responsibility.

To press him through the crushing memory of Deanna Troi's motionless body.

"I'll get right on it," Riker agreed. He turned and strode across the room, joining Data and Wesley where they waited at the door.

"Alright, Wes," he greeted, slapping the youth lightly on the back. "Let's go take a look at that program of yours, shall we?"

Wes glanced back at the captain. Picard had turned away. He was staring out one of the portals into space, lost deep in his own thoughts.

"He's not mad at me, is he?"

Riker shook his head. "He's not mad at you, Wes. Those tests are turning out to be the only clue we've got."

"Yeah," Wesley agreed glumly. "But they might also be the reason we're in this fix." The three of them left the briefing room and headed toward the nearest lift. Wes shot a side-ways glance at Riker as they walked. "And the reason Counselor Troi ... you know."

"I do not believe that you can be held accountable for Counselor Troi's condition, Wesley," Data reasoned. "If indeed her collapse is linked to your experiment, it is linked through an extensive chain of variables whose manipulation was beyond your direct control. The consequences of such a chain of events falls out of the venue of responsibility that any scientist would be expected to consider when evaluating the advisability of his research. One must come to the conclusion, therefore, that you were in no way negligent by failing to anticipate said consequences."

"It's not your fault, Wes," Riker told the youth firmly. "You ran a few tests. Nothing more. Whatever happened to Deanna is something else altogether."

"I believe that is what I just said," Data observed.

Riker smiled. "By the way, Data: two cords."

Data cocked his head to one side. "Two cords, sir?"

Riker nodded. "That's how much wood a woodchuck could chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood. Which, by the way, he can't."

Data frowned. "Commander," he responded slowly, "if a woodchuck cannot in actuallity chuck wood, then there can logically be no way to ascertain a precise quantity of wood that said woodchuck might theoretically chuck."

Wes glanced to Riker and stifled a grin. "Sure there is, Data," he chimed in. "He'd chuck as much as a woodchuck could, if a woodchuck could chuck wood. And Commander Riker's right. That's about two cords, give or take a log."

"But if a woodchuck can not chuck wood," Data insisted as they entered the turbolift. "How can he chuck as much as a woodchuck could?"

"By chucking as much as a woodchuck would," Riker answered seriously as the turbo doors hissed shut. "If a woodchuck could chuck wood."

"Which he can't," Wes added.

*****

Geordi LaForge hit the bunk with an expressive whump that reflected his day with relative accuracy. He locked his fingers together and stuffed them under his head so his elbows lingered in his periphery vision to either side of the VISOR.

Damn strange day. Damn strange.

He drew a deep breath and blew it out his nose. The engineer in him marveled at the intricacies of that mundanely simple, and yet somehow miraculous, act of life. Breathing. It was such an integral function. A fragile miracle of faith so taken for granted that, in the vacuum of space, there would always be adequate air available to perform it.

Geordi pulled one hand from under his head and yanked the VISOR off its perch across his eyes. The neural connectors on either temple responded to the rough treatment by jolting a sharp sliver of pain though his brain. Geordi winced. He set the device carefully on the stand beside his bed and settled back into the pillows.

The darkness didn't do much good. Just because the room was as black as a blind man's room always was didn't mean his mind was ready to shut down along with his eyes.

For twelve hours now, he'd been hip deep in the kind of diagnostics scan that was designed to be performed in drydock, not bobbing in uncharted space, anchored only by station-keeping thrusters. A systems crash of the magnitude that the Enterprise suffered should have left warning flags a blind man could follow, no pun intended. And yet, halfway to a briefing with the captain, he hadn't managed to turn up a single thing. Not one glitch, not one malfunction. The old girl didn't even have so much as a case of the sniffles.

And he had an ugly feeling things weren't going to change. In another twenty-four hours, give or take a few, he was going to have to face Jean-Luc Picard for the second time in two days and admit that he didn't have a clue what was going on.

No answers, only questions.

Hundreds of questions.

Why had the ship shut down?

Why had it started back up?

Why had they almost died?

Why had they not died?

This scenario and that chased each other around the engineer's skull, playing tag with ideas that were more interested in playing hide and seek. The headache that had been nagging his temporal lobe for hours intensified.

The first indication that it was something more than stress was a stab of pressure that skewered his brain from temple to temple and stole his ability to rise or breathe or form a complete thought. He didn't realize he was clutching his head until he felt the cool, rounded nodules of neural connectors beneath his fingertips.

"JESUS!!"

He rolled out of bed and hit the floor hard. His elbows numbed with the force of the blow, but he barely noticed. Like a soldier on a field of fire, LaForge squirmed his way along the deck. His body writhed in snake-like undulations that dragged him slowly toward the destination of the door.

He was nearly half way there when a small pinpoint of blinding light pricked the artificial night of his quarters. In less than a heartbeat, the searing iridescence gutted the blackness. It swelled until the room was nothing but light from one corner to the other.

The interior of the room blinked. The light vanished as it had come. It lasted less than a second.

For several long moments, the man lying twisted like a broken corpse on the floor of his cabin didn't move. Finally, slowly, cautiously he pushed himself upright. He stretched his neck, rolling it along the line of his shoulders. His hands fisted and then opened, each finger discovering itself and its relationship to the others that shared the hand.

"Lights," he grunted roughly.

Obediently, the night mode of Geordi LaForge's quarters faded to day.

Kdoli's expression darkened. "Lights." he demanded again. When nothing changed to the opacified eyes identical to the ones that had been LaForge's since birth, Kdoli felt a ruffle of dread deep in a place he'd never before owned. Leading with outstretched hands, he followed the floor to the wall, and the wall to the door.

The quiet pneumonic hiss sounded like thunder to a man so completely unprepared for it. Kdoli flinched. Suppressing the urge to retreat, he held his ground and tried to triangulate his location. The ship's noise was greater in front of him than behind. It echoed slightly, mimicking acoustical reverberations denotative of a location constructed predominantly of space. Cautiously, Kdoli stepped across the threshold. The door hissed shut behind him.

"Heya, Geordi!"

Kdoli panicked. He stepped back too quickly, and his shoulders bumped the door before it had time to open. He was trapped.

"I was just on my to Ten Forward. You want to ...."

As he drew closer to LaForge, Wes's voice faltered. He'd only seen Geordi once without his VISOR. The opacified eyes staring sightlessly from an expression that bordered on panic had the same effect as a kick to the belly. For one long, horrible second, Wes dangled between the instinctive reaction to turn away and pretend not to notice and the irrepressible urge to stare.

"Uh ... I mean ... you want to ... uh ...."

With his back pressed to the closed door and his mind still grappling for balance amid the disorientation of unexpected dark, Kdoli struggled to control the flush of mindless terror presurring his fragile damn of calm. He put aside, as best he could, the claustrophobic sense of being trapped in an alien body, on an alien vessel. He focused himself on the task at hand. Accessing bits and particles of memories that were not his own, Kdoli tried to assertain an identification for the faceless voice.

Wes constructed his thought patterns first. "Uh ... Is everything all right, Geordi?" he asked hesitantly. "Are you okay?" He stepped forward and put a hand on Kdoli's arm.

Kdoli jumped as if he'd been stung. He jerked from the Human's touch. Although the bulkhead behind him finally slipped aside, retreat had ceased to be an option. It would follow. That much Kdoli could tell even without the sense of sight.

"Yes," Kdoli managed. "I'm okay. I ... just ..." The LaForge's memories gave him a name. "Wes?"

"Yeah, it's me. You okay? Where's your VISOR? Is something wrong? What happened?"

"I was ... I didn't ... I ..." Kdoli searched as blindly for words as he did for any glimmer of light in the unbroken blackness. Finally, he shrugged, reverting to simplicity, as was the Human's way. "I don't know."

"Where's your VISOR?" Wes pressed. "Were you sleeping?"

Kdoli latched onto the explanation with the gratitude of a drowning man thrown a life preserver. "Sleeping. Yes. I was sleeping. Must have been a dream. I'm okay now."

"You sure?" Wes sounded skeptical. He looked downright disbelieving, but that, Kdoli could not see.

"I'm sure," Kdoli lied. He stepped back into The LaForge's quarters and let the door close between them.

Wesley stared at the blank bulkhead, running hundreds of justification scenarios through his head in an attempt to explain Geordi's abrupt retreat. Nothing sounded right. Nothing sounded even close to right. Geordi without his easy grin was as odd as Geordi without his VISOR. Neither one made any sense.

Wesley Crusher was still trying to figure it out as he turned and continued slowly on his way.

Inside the engineer's cabin, Kdoli heard the retreat of footfalls and let himself once again begin to breathe. He replaced his weapon in its place of concealment and leaned into the cool bulkhead just left of the door sensor. His quickened breathing slowed until it was normal.

Normal, at least, for a Human.

Kdoli touched the place where his jaw and ear met. "Vlenia?" he whispered.

"I am here," a woman's voice returned.

Kdoli nearly fainted with relief. He touched the place again. "Something is wrong. There has been a great error."

"Are you hurt?" Worry was sharp in the demand. The expression of concern calmed Kdoli and reminded him that he was not alone.

"I must see you," he answered. "I must show you."

"The cabin LaForge," Vlenia verified. "I will come."

Kdoli nodded, letting his hand fall away from his throat. She would come. He waited in the darkness for Vlenia and wondered how they could have made such a mistake as this.

*****

"She'll sleep for some time yet, Will," Beverly Crusher told the first officer gently. "I called because I thought you'd want to know that we're getting acceptable cortical responses now. She's stabilized, she's no longer in any danger, but it will be at least another thirteen or fourteen hours before the sedation wears off."

Will Riker glanced up. "Yeah," he admitted grudgingly. "I know. I just ... " He shrugged, letting the statement hang unfinished in the medical bay still. The worry in his eyes tried to hide behind a well-practiced poker face, but Crusher knew him too well to be mislead.

She nodded. Peeling away layers of professional decorum, she exposed the Beverly that lay buried well beneath the CMO Crusher facade. One hand dropped to Riker's forearm. Her fingers tightened just enough to assure the worried first officer that she knew exactly what he was thinking.

Riker's expression flickered with surprise. His gaze jumped to the doctor's hand, and then back to the kind empathy in her blue eyes. The grim line of his lips eased. He nodded, a short, tight motion that acknowledged her support without really acknowledging it.

"Stay as long as you like," she told him.

Crusher turned away and nearly collided with the young acting ensign who burst into the room as if his tail was afire. She couldn't help but smile as she watched her son's flustered retreat, amazed for the millionth time at exactly how much he resembled his father.

"Mom," Wesley began breathlessly. "I was looking for you. I was ... "

Wes's ever-active boy's eyes made their rounds of the room and found Deanna Troi's motionless body. His excitement stumbled. He saw the way Riker was leaning over her, the way the first officer held her hand and studied her with worried eyes. He saw the frustration that edged the older man's bearded features in an moment of unguarded despair.

"How's she doing?" Wes murmured, forgetting the rush of only moments ago.

"Deanna is going to be fine," Crusher assured her son. She said it a bit louder than necessary, watching the words ease into the tense line of Riker's shoulders despite the fact that he was turned away from them and very nearly beyond hearing anything but the rise and fall of his imzadi'sshallow breathing.

Crusher smiled to herself. "Let's talk in here," she suggested, putting a hand on Wes's shoulder and guiding him gently but firmly away from the comatose ship's counselor and her first officer guardian.

Wesley's gaze kept tripping back to Troi as his mother lead him toward her office. It was only when he was seated across from her desk that the persistent gnaw of what had brought him to Sickbay in the first place broke into the distraction of the counselor's condition. He focused on his mother and found -- to his irritation, but certainly not his surprise -- tolerant amusement in the way she regarded him.

"You were saying?" Beverly prompted as she took a seat behind her desk.

Wes shrugged. He tried too little and too late to sound casually indifferent. "I was just wondering if you knew what was going on with Geordi."

Beverly considered the question and her son. "Going on?" she repeated finally.

"Yeah. He having some kind of problem with the VISOR or something?" Before his mother could answer, Wes jumped into the anticipated line of her argument. "I'm not asking you to go against doctor/patient confidentiality or anything," he thrust her direction. "I'm just worried about him."

"Wes ..." Beverly started.

But Wesley was already hurrying on to thwart any attempt she might make to cut him off. "After all, he's my best friend. I mean, you could tell me, right? I wouldn't tell anybody else."

"Wes," Beverly tried again. "I don't ... "

"Aw, come on," Wesley whined. "Just give me a hint. I can figure it out. Is something wrong with it? It hasn't stopped working, has it? Maybe I could look at it and see ... "

Beverly Crusher placed both hands flat on her desk and leaned into them. "WESLEY," she demanded sharply. His arguments tapered to silence. "Thank you. Now what are you talking about?"

Wes seemed taken aback. His eyes crinkled, for the first time, with doubt. "You mean," he asked hesitantly, "you aren't working with Geordi on the VISOR?"

"No, I'm not," Beverly verified. "Now tell me what happened, and try to start somewhere other than the middle this time."

Wes twisted uncomfortably in his chair. "Well, Commander Riker and Data and I have been working on my enhancement program since early this morning. You know, figuring out the limitations, the possible glitches, all that kind of stuff. Anyway, Commander Riker said his eyes were beginning to cross and that we needed a rest, so I was heading for Ten Forward, and I decided to drop by Geordi's quarters and see if he wanted to join me but I ran into him in the corridor and ...." The youth swallowed. ".... and he wasn't wearing his VISOR. I figured it must be malfunctioning or something, but he was acting really weird and he didn't seem to want ...."

"Geordi was in the corridor without his VISOR?" Beverly interrupted. She was as incredulous as Wesley had been at the time. "Are you sure?"

Wes snorted in disgust. "Of course I'm sure. I almost ran into him."

"Did he say anything?" Riker inquired from the open doorway.

Wesley started at the sound of the first officer's voice. He swiveled in his chair, wondering how long the older man had been standing there. "That was weird, too," Wes ventured. "He almost acted like he didn't know me for a minute."

Riker's eyes hid his thoughts more effectively now than they had at Troi's bedside. He considered Wesley's answer without commenting on it.

Beverly Crusher, however, had to agree with her son. "That is weird," she muttered. "Geordi's sense of hearing is very refined. Even without his VISOR, he should have had no trouble identifying you once you spoke."

"He didn't offer any kind of explanation?" Riker pressed.

Wes shrugged. "Nothing. He just backed up into his quarters and shut the door on me."

Again, the first officer contemplated the information for a long moment of silence before responding. "That doesn't sound like Geordi," he stated slowly. "You sure you weren't ... interrupting anything?"

Wes's cheeks flushed slightly at Riker's implication. "Yes, I'm sure," he responded a little indignantly. "I think I would have noticed that." Much to mother's amusement, he refused to meet her eyes. "It's no big deal, anyway," he said, shuffling his feet. "I was just curious." He pushed out of the chair and stepped quickly away from his mother. "I gotta go."

"Wes?"

Riker's voice caught the boy half way to escape. Wes paused grudgingly, waiting for the first officer to continue.

"What did he seem like to you?" Riker asked quietly. "I mean, was it just Geordi without his VISOR, or was it something more?"

Wes frowned at the question. He didn't know what Riker was asking, let alone how to go about answering him. "I don't know," he fumbled. "He seemed ... he seemed ... I don't know ... he seemed ... blind."

The word popped out of Wesley's mouth despite his intention not to use it. It was only after it formed aloud and bounced rudely back at him from the walls of his mother's office, that Wes realized what had bothered him all along.

Geordi had seemed so blind.

Calling Geordi blind was like calling Worf a coward, or Riker ugly. It just didn't fit. Geordi was the most sighted person he'd ever known. Even in total darkness, the chief engineer knew exactly where he was and where everything else was in relationship to him. Geordi called it "The Consolation Prize Sense": the sixth sense God gave all the little boys and girls he forgot to give the gift of sight. He'd once told Wes it was kind of like an apology on a cosmic scale.

But not today. Today, Geordi LaForge had seemed blind. Today, he'd seemed like he needed a white cane and a seeing eye dog just to make it back to his quarters.

"He seemed blind," Wes repeated.

*****

"It was blind," Kdoli told her, trembling just slightly at the prospect. "It was blind, and the replicator duplicated the defect in me."

Vlenia shook her head impatiently. "That is impossible. It could not have run this vessel if it had been blind." She glared hard at the opacified surface of Kdoli's vision apparatus. She tried to imagine how The LaForge could have functioned with such an impediment.

"How can you stand there and argue with me?" Kdoli snapped. His voice was taking on a tinge of panic. "I cannot see. I am BLIND."

On impulse, Vlenia reached out one delicate finger and touched the surface on his eye. Kdoli yelped. He jerked away, his hands spreading defensively before him.

Vlenia flinched as well. "Sorry," she muttered. It embarrassed her that she had not thought to warn him. Carefully, she touched the surface of her own eye. They felt the same to her. It was not logical that one should function and the other should not.

"We must return," Kdoli stated after several long minutes of listening to her silent contemplations. "There is no hope for success with this." He gestured vaguely at his eyes. "We have already failed."

Vlenia's expression sharpened. "As you wish," she agreed tightly.

Even blind, Kdoli saw the disapproval in her. "You would choose otherwise?" he challenged almost defensively.

"What I would or would not choose is irrelevant," Vlenia reminded him. "It is your right to abort, as it is mine, as it would be Jhalic's under similar circumstances." Although she let silence seep into her response, Kdoli knew she was not yet finished. He waited for her argument until it came. "I am merely surprised," she obliged in an off-handed manner that was, in truth, anything but off-handed. "I had not thought you to be one to give up your convictions so easily."

Kdoli rose to the jibe. "I stand with my words," he responded hotly. "But I am no fool. Death lasts as long when delivered through ignorance as when given by intent. I have no wish to join The Knowing before my time at the defensive backlash of a cornered animal. Blind, I stand naked before them. Because I speak against those who would summarily execute more than a thousand sentient beings does not mean I wish to place my throat against their blade."

"There is no need to convince me, Kdoli," Vlenia observed serenely. "I agree that you would be safer on The Home. Return there. Jhalic and I shall remain until a decision is made."

Kdoli's milky eyes narrowed. "And if your opinions vary?" he asked cautiously.

"Then we will defer to the wiseness of our ancestors. We will do as we have always done, and The Home will be safe."

Kdoli drew a deep breath and blew it back out through his nose. The snort left no doubt as to his disdain for the suggestion. "Jhalic is as blind as The LaForge," he sneered. "His mind is stone. He will not be convinced. What you find here will mean nothing."

Vlenia did not argue. She had known that from the beginning. They had been chosen for this mission in the old way. The triad. It was an eternal balance. Kdoli and Jhalic were spikes of metal; their convictions declared and fixed. She was the free weight strung between them. The neutral to sway. It was she who would decide the path, she who held the fate of these invaders in the nuances of her interpretation. Only she could change the path of what had always been, and only then if neither spike pulled free.

"Change is a demanding mistress," Vlenia observed calmly.

The crook of a smile twisted Kdoli's lips. "Change is a bitch," he corrected. "But she is my bitch, and I will remain for her."

Vlenia smiled. "You are a wise man," she told him.

Kdoli laughed. "No, my dear Vlenia," he responded wearily. "What I am, is a blind fool." He shook his head. "A very old, very blind fool."

*****

Worf threw his head back and loosed a roar that shook the very walls of the blood-red canyon in which he stood. Though debris dislodged by the tremendous wave of sound pelted the Klingon, he barely seemed to notice. Instead, he stood, feet planted shoulder width apart in the sandy soil, and breathed deeply of the scent of death that clung to the air. His enemies lay strewn about the rocky terrain. Their blood pooled in small lakes, reflecting the harsh light of the trio of suns that set to the north. Weapons gleamed silver in the contrast to the orange cast of the dying day.

It had not been a fair fight. Five of them to one of him; and yet, none of their razor-edged weapons had stained itself with his blood. He could have claimed the victory to be one of skill, but such vanity was not part of the Klingon's make-up. Instead, he viewed his enemies' corpses with the sour knowledge that they were unfit to die by his hand.

Something hit him squarely between the eyes. Worf's first thought was that the computer had developed a sense of combat beyond its programming parameters and supplied him with an adversary worth fighting. As the Klingon security chief's dark eyes scanned the terrain for his assailant, he realized that blow had been but the beginning. Pressure climbed behind his eyes. To his shame, he dropped the weapon in his hand to clench at the living thing that writhed in his braincase. It came to him as he fell to his knees that even his alterations to the holodeck's inbred safety measures would not have allowed this. A snarl formed in his chest and tore defiantly up his throat and out pain-clenched lips.

The orange atmosphere of Midicus III fell away before a blinding sword of brilliant, searing white light. Iridescence enveloped the howling Klingon and burned everything around him to white.

The interior of the holodeck blinked. The light vanished as it had come. It lasted less than a second.

The Klingon kneeling amid the sprawled bodies of his fallen enemies straightened slowly. He gazed at the carnage of dismembered limbs and pools of blood. His eyes narrowed, and he pushed himself to his feet.

"Simulation terminated," a pleasantly mechanical female voice announced. The stark landscape melted around him to become an empty, cavernous holodeck chamber decored only by a slightly glowing grid. "Program Worf 3: Midicus Combat complete. Available options: Save, Terminate or Re-load."

Jhalic grunted. He studied his hands, turning them over twice as he checked between the fingers for any trace of what had only moments ago been gloves of blood still warm from the kill. Nothing. His Klingon hands were as clean as Klingon hands ever got.

"Available options," the computer repeated patiently. "Save, Terminate or Re-load."

Jhalic's gaze rose to contemplate the Human technology that glowed all around him. His hands balled to fists and a snarl of contempt lifted one corner of his heavy lips. "Terminate," he growled, addressing only in part the computer's polite request.

*****

"Geordi?" Riker called. He tapped gently on the door, thinking perhaps the call button was inoperative, or had been muted.

"Geordi? It's Will. You in there?"

The question was moot. He knew Geordi LaForge was in his cabin. The computer had informed him of that less than two minutes earlier. He'd been tempted to ask the computer if LaForge was alone, but he viewed that as somewhat of an invasion of privacy.

As if there was such a thing as privacy aboard a galaxy-class starship.

Riker waited several seconds for an answer, but when none was forthcoming, he started to turn away. The quiet hiss of an opening door drew him back.

"Yes, Commander?" Kdoli ventured with a calmness he in no way felt.

Riker's eyes narrowed. As Wes claimed, LaForge was not wearing his VISOR. Opacified eyes stared startlingly white in contrast to the warm chocolate hue of his skin. Riker studied the chief engineer for a moment before asking the obvious.

"Is there ... is anything wrong, Geordi?"

He picked the words carefully. While he and LaForge had been friends for some time, the subject of the engineer's physical disability rarely came up. He wasn't entirely sure exactly how touchy LaForge would be about it.

"Wrong sir?"

Again, Riker hesitated. "Your ... VISOR," he said finally, opting for the direct approach and hoping Geordi wouldn't take offense. "I mean," he gestured vaguely in the direction of his own eyes. "You don't usually ... you know ... "

A flicker of movement from the shadows behind Geordi derailed Riker's attention. The vague scent of orchids in bloom wafted into the corridor. Cursing Wesley beneath his breath, Riker turned his attention back to the waiting engineer. He forced a smile through his teeth and tried to gracefully back out of a situation he should have known better than to butt into in the first place.

"Uhhh ... never mind, Geordi. Sorry. Didn't mean to interrupt."

"No problem, sir," Kdoli told the uncomfortable Human. He waited until the commander turned away and headed down the corridor before he returned to the privacy of his quarters. Vlenia was replacing her weapon in a recess along the band of her boot. "That was very strange," Kdoli commented.

"What is a VISOR?" Vlenia wanted to know.

"Visual Instrument and Sensory Organ Replacement," Kdoli answered automatically. And then he shrugged. "Whatever that means." He could hear Vlenia moving about and followed the sounds instinctively with eyes that no longer worked. She paused for a moment and picked something up -- something metallic, by the sound of it.

"I am going to touch you," she told him.

Still, Kdoli was not prepared. She put something to his face, his eyes. Something arc-like and metallic that fit around him as if made to do so. Pain and light flooded his brain at the same moment. He cried out, clutching Vlenia's arm and wondering how exactly he knew where to grab. She removed the device immediately.

"No," Kdoli muttered, catching his breath. "That is it ... the answer. It is some sort of prosthetic ... a device that enables The LaForge to see."

"You were in pain," Vlenia argued.

"It ... surprised me." Kdoli extended one palm. "Let me try again."

Vlenia hesitated.

"Let me try again," Kdoli insisted.

Grudgingly, she placed the VISOR in his waiting palm. It felt right there. He accessed The LaForge's memory file and learned about this thing The Riker called a VISOR.

Carefully, tentatively, Kdoli brought the device to his face. He fastened it in place and found the flood of input less devastating merely by his anticipation of it. There remained, however, a great deal of pain. Sparks of fire burned at his temples. A dull ache pounded his pulse rhythm someplace directly behind his eyes. As he became used to it, however, it seemed not so overbearing.

"I believe it is based on heat patterns," Kdoli surmised finally. "Perhaps the electro-magnetic spectrum. Yes. The electro-magnetic spectrum. It is more of a sensory device than an optical simulation."

"You are still in pain," Vlenia countered.

Kdoli swung the VISOR so that he could study its interpretation of her. Vlenia had gone first. He had watched The Meyers on the tap screen as the replicator scanned her and replaced her with Vlenia.

In many ways, what he saw now was the same.

In many ways, however, it was not. There was no consideration in the VISOR's analytical interpretation for the velvet creme that had been The Meyers flesh. There was nothing in it to see the spark of fire in Vlenia's eyes as she studied her new body in the viewing plate.

He could, however, tell the extent of her agitation by the spread of heat along her extremities. He could also tell that she stood exactly one point six three meters from him.

"But I can see," Kdoli countered.

Vlenia shook her head once. She took a step forward and reached for the device. Kdoli intercepted the motion before she could complete it.

"The LaForge wears this in order to see," he said gently. "It is so much a part of him that there was no conscious thought in him of it; but I have accessed the memory file. He is never without it. Do you not think they would notice if that were to change? Do you not think they would suspect?"

Vlenia's fingers tightened.

"The LaForge sees this as a part of him. The others do as well. I must wear it if I am to function here. I must wear it if we are to continue with the Judgement." Kdoli released her wrist and stepped back.

For a long moment, Vlenia didn't respond. "I don't like it," she said finally.

A grin twitched at the corner of Kdoli's mouth. "I'm not overly fond of it myself," he agreed, "but unless you are prepared to state yourself now, with me ... ?"

She jerked her head in a sharp twist of motion, and his expression softened with fondness. "I thought as much," he told her. "So let us be on with it."

Vlenia nodded slowly. "Let us be on with it," she echoed.

*****

Miles O'Brien chuckled quietly, enjoying his companion's obvious embarrassment. He lifted a glass of synthahol masquerading as Irish whiskey (and a damn poor masquerade it was) to his lips and sipped at it. "Leave it to Wesley," he observed. "It's probably the first woman poor Geordi's had in those quarters since Doctor Brahms turned out not to be such a holodeck fantasy after all."

Riker shook his head ruefully. "Probably be the last, too, if all his friends keep dropping by for a chat."

"Did you see who it was?" O'Brien pressed.

Riker held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Once I figured out what Wesley'd gotten me into, all I was interested in was finding a graceful way to duck out."

O'Brien chuckled again. "An attitude I'm sure Geordi appreciated." He started to say something else, but the chronometer on the wall caught his eye; and along with it, his sense of humor. "Damn," he swore quietly. "I'm late for dinner again. Kieko will have my head."

It was Riker's turn to grin. "Married life becomes you, Chief," he observed.

"It's a trial marriage, sir," O'Brien corrected firmly as he rose to leave. "We signed a full two year co-habitation agreement. Plenty of time yet before we start picking a china pattern. And don't laugh. She'll have your head as well when I tell her it was you who kept me in Ten Forward for two drinks past my limit."

"Whatever happened to the honor code?" Riker demanded. "Not ratting out your buddies and all that?"

"That, my friend," O'Brien informed him, "is a luxury of bachelorhood. If you ever get married ... "

"God forbid," Riker put in.

" ... you'll find that you'd rat out your own mother, if that's what it takes."

"I thought you were just playing house, Chief."

O'Brien shrugged. "What good's a test run if you're not going to stick to the rules?" he countered.

Riker shook his head. "Not a pretty picture," he intoned somberly.

"Oh, she's pretty enough." O'Brien grinned. "She just gets mean when I keep her dinner waiting."

"I'm glad to see you've got the pecking order ironed out."

O'Brien picked up his glass, downed the remnants of its contents and set it back to the table with a solid clink. "You've got it all wrong, Commander," he assured the other man. "There is no pecking order. It's all a matter of compromises. I promise not to be late for dinner, and she promises not to make me eat raw fish." He gave Riker a mock half salute and headed for the door.

O'Brien was barely gone when a woman moved in to fill the empty slot. "Do you mind if I join you?" she asked quietly.

Riker glanced up, surprised to find Kathryn Meyers on the other end of the question. The helmsman was pretty enough -- more than pretty enough, in fact -- but she was probably the last person Will Riker would have expected to zero him in Ten Forward. On the bridge, she seemed coy, perhaps a bit insecure. He'd flirted with her now and again, but never come away with anything more than nervous laughter. She certainly didn't seem the type to slide into O'Brien's departure with such aplomb.

"Please."

He gestured to an empty chair, and she took it with a grace of movement he'd never noticed from her before. Apparently, he hadn't been watching closely enough. The woman across from him now exuded confidence, energy, a sense of self he found irresistible.

"Kathryn, isn't it?"

Vlenia inclined her head slightly. She noted the way his eyes evaluated her without letting him know that she'd noticed.

"Can I buy you a drink?" Riker offered.

"An antiquated euphemism," she responded. "Since Ten Forward does not, and never has, sold their wares."

Riker laughed. Before his very eyes, Kathryn Meyers blossomed from an attractive, if uninspiring, third-year ensign to a challenge. Like a moth to a flame, he found himself drawn to the aura of self assurance that surrounded her.

"Perhaps I should re-word that," he acquiesced. "Would you care for a drink?"

Vlenia smiled. "Yes, Commander," she agreed. "I believe that I would."

Riker signaled Guinan with a slight flick of two fingers. "Will," he corrected, watching her eyes.

Vlenia nodded slightly in acknowledgment of the offer. "Will," she agreed.

*****

Jhalic stepped surely from the turbolift, taking control of the bridge in the manner that he took control of every place he went. He studied the Humans there, identifying each by the images stored in The Worf's mind when the replicator scanned him. Vlenia had yet to take her place at the helm. Neither was Kdoli on the bridge.

"Lieutenant Worf?"

The man standing at tactical seemed surprised to see him. Jhalic accessed The Worf's memory file and came up with a name. "You are relieved, Mister Tocyata," he growled.

"But sir," Ishido Tocyata objected, "you just went off shift two hours ago. I don't understand ... "

"It is not your place to understand," Jhalic snapped. "It is your place to obey."

Tocyata managed to look embarrassed and enraged at the same time. His features struggled on his face with several expressions before finding one that suited the moment. "Lieutenant," he forced through clenched teeth, relinquishing the tactical console with a mask of blank that would have made a Vulcan proud.

Tocyata abandoned the bridge before Jhalic got settled. Along with him went the companionable chatter that normally littered an evening shift. The bridge lay conspicuously silent. Jhalic ignored the still he had inspired and began accessing the main computer.

Data rose from his place in the command chair. He walked slowly up the ramp toward tactical.

Jhalic sensed the android's approach and cleared the tactical screen of information The Worf would have had no reason to be reviewing.

"Might I suggest," Data began blandly, "that your dismissal of Mister Tocyata might have been more abrupt than necessary?"

Jhalic stared hard at the android. "You question my authority in this matter?" he demanded after a moment.

"Not your authority," Data assured the Klingon quickly. "But if I might point out, I have noticed that Humans react far more emotionally to reprimand than you or I. If perhaps you would ...."

"Unless you wish to lodge a formal complaint concerning my command capabilities, sir," Jhalic interrupted coldly. "I have a great deal to do." Without waiting for a reply, Jhalic turned a shoulder to the android and began running a weapons check.

Data stood very still, contemplating the abrupt turn of events. As he watched Worf work, he tried to decide exactly which statement had lit the Klingon's short fuse. He came to the conclusion that, for some unknown reason, Worf's fuse had been lit before he ever stepped foot on the bridge. Knowing that, however, did not change the odd sensation of dismay the hostile exchange spawned.

Turning slowly from the tactical station, Data wondered if the discomfort he felt was what the Humans would call "bruised feelings."

*****

The warm scent of sunshine hung gravid in the humid air. Endless azure skies -- or at least, the illusion of endless azure skies -- stretched overhead. A light breeze slid along the stillness, lifting leaves only for a moment, and then letting them ease once again into place with a gentle rustle. Exotic flowers lay in brilliant swashes of color to either side of the twisting, quaintly-cobblestoned foot trail. They vied among themselves for individual honors, flaunting a wondrous diversity of hue and pattern, each challenging it's neighbor to a greater grace of slender stems or a more delicate lay of petals.

"I find it appalling that you've been aboard over a year and have never been given an official tour of the arboretum," Riker told his companion in mock-serious reproach. "It would have to be one of the top three points of interest on board a galaxy class vessel."

"And the other two?" Vlenia questioned. She watched the resplendent array of alien fauna they passed with keen interest, noting the care afforded it by periodic Human caretakers.

"Well," he allowed. "One would have to be the holodeck." He touched her arm and pointed out a particularly unique specimen of Madrisian Bluestar. "The other ..." he smiled coyly, "the other is probably open to debate."

Vlenia started to press him on the matter when they turned a corner and nearly ran into a young woman crouched in the walkway. Riker caught her arm, steadying the balance she so nearly lost.

"Kieko." He smiled. The expression warmed his eyes. "Probably not the wisest place to park and enjoy the view."

She laughed and stood. Strong white teeth flashed in contrast to her flawless olive skin. She flicked long ebony hair behind her shoulders with a single precise movement of one small, bird-like hand. "I don't know, Commander," she countered congenially. "You meet the most interesting people just around the corners of life, don't you think?"

"I'm flattered," Riker responded, half-bowing at the waist.

Kieko laughed again. "At the risk of being rude," she informed him, "I wasn't talking about you." She held up a hand to display the furry blackish-brown caterpillar coiled about her index finger. "I was talking about my friend Horatio here. It seems he decided to take a Sunday stroll on a Thursday and found himself up the path without a paddle, so to speak."

"Horatio, huh?" Riker reached out with one finger to stroke the small creature. "How can you tell he's a he?"

"The beard," Kieko told him with a grin. Her eyes flicked curiously to Vlenia. "He's quite friendly," she told the other woman. "And very wise. He never bites anything that is capable of biting him back."

Riker noticed the curiosity in the oriental botanist's glance and responded to it. "Kieko, do you know Kathryn?"

"I don't believe we've ever met," Kieko answered.

"Then I'll do the honors. Kieko, Kathryn." Riker touched Vlenia, his fingers lingered near her elbow in a vaguely possessive gesture. "Kathryn, Kieko. Kieko runs the arboretum, among other things." His smile turned on Kieko. "Kathryn is a second-shift helmsman. She has a wonderful back. Sometimes I find myself staring at it for hours."

The caterpillar had worked its way to the end of Kieko's finger and was testing the air beyond it when he overbalanced and fell. Riker caught the creature in one deft swipe.

"And ladies," he continued without a break, holding the caterpillar up for both of them to see. "I'd like to introduce both of you to my pal Horatio, here. He just basically eats leaves and enjoys the quality life."

"For a few more weeks at least," Kieko agreed. She retrieved Horatio and set him carefully on a nearby tree limb. "Then he builds himself a house and redesigns his whole presentation into the most spectacular Speckled Banthin Moth you have ever seen. Isn't that right, Horatio?"

Vlenia watched Kieko, noting the way the other woman addressed the caterpillar as if speaking to another sentient being. She extended herself and tried to feel the creature's persona; but there was nothing beyond Riker and Kieko and a general warmth of life that was the organic growth so greenly spectacular around them.

"You name each of them?" she asked cautiously.

Kieko's eyes sparkled. "Actually, I call all the Speckled Banthin Moth caterpillars Horatio. Or at least," she winked at Riker, "all the ones with beards."

"Thank goodness my mother wasn't into naming by the gross," Riker commented.

"I don't know," Kieko countered. "I could see you as a Horatio."

Riker did his best to look offended. "Do you think I look like a Horatio, Kathryn?" he demanded.

Vlenia looked back and forth between Riker and Kieko. "I've never met a Horatio," she allowed, wondering if it was a mistake to admit such a thing.

Both Riker and Kieko laughed.

"Well I'd never met a Miles until Will introduced me to ... oh my goodness." Kieko's hand flew to her mouth. "It was my turn to cook tonight. I got involved in some genetic cross-pollination and forgot all about it. I wonder if he's running late ...."

"I saw him in Ten Forward earlier," Riker offered helpfully. "He did mention something about only having time for one drink."

"Oh, great," the slender woman fretted. "He'll be at home wondering where I am. I'm sorry to just run off like this, but I've really got to go." She brushed in vain at the small smudges of dirt on her coveralls. "You see, Miles and I have a deal. I get dinner on time when it's my turn to cook, and he doesn't make that hideous corned beef and cabbage when it's his turn." She hurried toward the door. "It was nice meeting you, Kathryn."

And then Kieko was gone.

Vlenia glanced to Riker. He was grinning.

"You're amused," she observed.

"I just find the subtle negotiations of married life charming," he allowed. "Care to continue the tour?"

Before Vlenia could form an answer, Riker's commbadge twinkled. "Picard to Riker," the captain's voice demanded.

"Riker here," Riker responded immediately.

"Join me in my ready room, Number One. Commander LaForge has an update."

"On my way," Riker acknowledged. "Riker out." He glanced at Vlenia apologetically. "Duty calls. Perhaps we could finish this another time?"

"I would enjoy that," she answered quietly.

"Followed by dinner? I make a mean Fricassee ala Caterpillar."

Vlenia studied him for a moment.

"Or spaghetti, if you prefer," he added hastily at the serious consideration her eyes were giving the claim.

"I believe I would prefer spaghetti," she agreed.

Riker nodded. He headed toward the door. "Tomorrow? Say, seventeen hundred hours?"

Vlenia nodded.

Riker left the arboretum and headed for the nearest turbolift at a quick, distance eating stride. "Your timing stinks, Geordi," he grumbled under his breath. "But I suppose you did owe me one." He entered the small elevator and the doors hissed shut. "Bridge."

As the lift eased into motion, Will Riker found himself thinking of the woman he left behind. His grim-lipped irritation turned slowly to a smile.

*****

"We were only into the second layer of diagnostics when we found them, sir," Kdoli told Picard calmly. "Though the glitches appear to be basically benign, I think they warrant closer inspection. I recommend that we return to Starbase 553 for a full once over before venturing any further into un-mapped territory."

Riker frowned, fidgeting in his place on the couch.

"Number One?" Picard prompted.

"Basically benign?" Riker questioned. "I don't think we can afford to classify anything capable of causing a systems-wide shut-down as even remotely benign."

Kdoli swung the VISOR on The Riker in surprise. It was not something they had considered in their analysis of this interaction, that he might be challenged. They assumed that the one who directed the Human's mechanical functions would be charged with all decisions concerning those functions. He had viewed this briefing as a proviso of protocol, not one of authorization.

It was now painfully obvious that such a presumption was inaccurate. The Riker had challenged. He disputed Kdoli's conclusion that their life support failure could be attributed to minor, though essential, systems failure.

And now he, Kdoli of The People, knowing near nothing of The Humans and only what The LaForge knew of their technology, found himself charged with the defense a theoretical postulation of primitive cybernetic techno-babble designed not for cohesive logic structure, but rather for obvious justificational rationale to support the initiation of desired subsequent strategic maneuvers.

In other words, if it came down to an argument, he didn't have a leg to stand on.

Kdoli scrambled through The LaForge's memory core, accessing anything and everything the chief engineer knew about The Riker. What he found about the bearded Human's uncanny knack for reading a bluff increased the electrical activity in his neural synapses and chilled his palms to clammy.

"Benign when taken individually," Kdoli improvised as calmly as he could. "But with the potential to build upon one another when viewed as a whole."

Riker shook his head. His frown darkened. "Where did they come from, Geordi?" he demanded. "You gave an all-clear on a Level One after our little square dance with Q, and then again less than a week ago when we were coming out of Sigma VIII. What happened between here and there that scattered bugs through the whole system, and why weren't we appraised of it when it happened?"

Kdoli looked to The Picard, and found the captain waiting for an explanation as well.

"There seems to have been some sort of contaminant introduced to the main computer banks," Kdoli explained slowly, weaving the lie even as he spoke it. "I don't have that many answers right now, but it looks like maybe it jumped from one system to the next until all of them were infected."

"Infected with what?" Riker pressed. "And where could we have possibly been exposed to the original contaminant? Are you saying we ran afoul of something this all encompassing without even knowing it?"

Kdoli shrugged. "I don't know," he answered in desperation.

That, Riker seemed to accept. He nodded. His expression treated the base-line surrender with respect. It was obvious that the first officer felt this answer more valid than any of the fabricated intricacies that proceeded it.

And indeed it was.

It occurred to Kdoli that The Riker sensed -- whether inadvertently, or through design -- the only claim he had thus far made in truth. That did not conform to what they knew of The Humans. A capacity for insight, an ability to sense the motivations of sentient beings, perhaps even a vague telepathic sensitivity: such intangibles were complexities to which a primitive race such as their's should be oblivious. He filed the thought away for future deliberation and returned his attention to the battle at hand.

"But you think it's serious enough to abort our exploration of the Rhegus Delotian system," Picard observed.

"Yes, sir," Kdoli agreed.

"I disagree," Riker countered immediately. "Data and I have been studying the logs of Wes's prospectus population readings. We're beginning to come to the conclusion that he may not have been wrong."

Picard frowned. "That he may not have been wrong?" the captain repeated dubiously. "That hardly sounds definitive, Number One."

Riker shrugged. "Its still too early to jump to any conclusions, sir; but I'm starting to think there may be a bigger stake to this than we originally thought. It's possible we're dealing with an entirely new sentient race. As long as the possibility for first contact remains, I say we sweat out the rinky-dink malfunctions. Our mission is contact. That's where our priorities have to lie."

"Secondary, of course," Picard pointed out, "to the safety of the crew."

"I don't consider a system-wide shutdown to be a rinky-dink malfunction," Kdoli added. "And it's my opinion that there's a strong possibility of re-occurrence if we don't address the mechanical concerns we've raised."

"Then maybe we need to hold position and do some jury-rigging," Riker allowed. "But retreating to Starbase 553 is out of the question. By the time we get there, fix the problem and get back again, whatever was out here may be gone. We'll have missed our opportunity."

"We won't have an opportunity at all if we're all dead," Kdoli pointed out. He found it odd, referring to The Humans in the same tense as himself. We. It was a strange amalgamation to extend to aliens not of The Home. Strange, but not all together repellant.

"And you're convinced it's that serious?" Picard demanded.

"Yes, sir," Kdoli told him. "I am."

"What about the possibility of addressing it without Starbase facilities?" Picard pressed.

Kdoli shook his head. "We can't do it. We aren't equipped. We don't have the know-how."

Riker straightened in his seat. "What?" he demanded sharply.

Kdoli knew he'd made a mistake from the tone of the first officer's voice. He looked to The Picard and saw the same surprise in their slightly veiled depths. He had said something The LaForge would not. It was in their expression, in the way they looked at him. He dissected his response and tried to diagnose the error.

He could not find it.

As he studied the dilemma, they waited for him to explain.

He had no inkling as to what it was they expected. However, his assimilation of The LaForge's character told him that the chief engineer would not retreat. "I'm sorry, sir, but we just can't do it," he repeated, hoping fiercely that he wasn't compounding the original transgretion.

Riker snorted. He leaned back into the couch and crossed his legs. "Well that's a first," he announced. "I never thought I'd hear Geordi LaForge say that a Starbase ... ANY Starbase ... knows more about the Enterprise than he does."

Kdoli looked from Picard, to Riker, to Picard again.

"I'm not saying they know more," he responded finally, "But I don't have any answers. It would be irresponsible for me to risk lives on nothing more than ego."

"I'd ante my life on you over a Starbase maintenance crew any day of the week, Geordi," Riker informed Kdoli.

"I, too, trust your expertise above that of the resident engineering staff of Starbase 553," Picard agreed. "But I also value your judgement. If you consider the mechanical factors to be of an imp