A new shiver of uneasiness rippled through Guinan's body as the transporter on Picard's ship gripped her. She couldn't be sure, but she thought it felt different from the Alliance transporters she was accustomed to. More likely, she told herself, the difference was a result of her own nervousness, a compounding of the faint p.r.i.c.kling sensation that had been quietly a.s.saulting her since Commander Tal had agreed to allow her to be transported to the Enterprise.

Then the D'Zidran bridge vanished in a faint cascade of colored lights, replaced an imperceptible moment later by a room three times that size. Picard himself stood at what she a.s.sumed were the transporter controls. He looked up, smiling, albeit with a slight stiffness.

After no more than a couple of seconds, he stepped up onto the ma.s.sive transporter platform-there were at least six separate pads-and reached out to take her hand.

"Welcome aboard the Enterprise, Madam Guinan," he said, his tone warm but wary.

"Just Guinan." No one since Mr. Clemens had used that form of address.

"As you wish," Picard said, releasing her hand as a door slid open, hissing softly. "This way to the bridge."

Following him through the door, she found herself in a broad corridor that curved gently out of sight in either direction. How big was this ship? The D'Zidran's sensors had undoubtedly provided that information, but she hadn't thought to ask Tal. Such statistics were normally of no interest to her, and the graceful image on the viewscreen had not hinted at great size.

Another door hissed into being in the opposite wall of the corridor, and Picard motioned her through it, into a small room. "Bridge," Picard said, apparently to the walls. But whatever or whomever he'd spoken to must have been listening. Moments later the door reopened, and the corridor outside had been replaced by the bridge. It was even more s.p.a.cious than it had appeared on the D'Zidran's viewscreen, large enough to swallow up a dozen bridges the size of the D'Zidran's. The first thing she saw was the huge viewscreen and the detailed image of the D'Zidran centered in it. The second was the pale humanoid seated at a control panel in front of the screen.

The same being that had accompanied Picard to nineteenth-century Earth in her dream!

A name sprang unbidden to her lips: "Mr. Data- "

The humanoid turned smoothly from the control panel before him and looked at her questioningly. "Do you know me?"

For once in her long life, she was at a loss for words. A moment later, the tall, bearded man who had been watching the viewscreen intently turned toward her.

Riker!

The name flashed through her mind but went no further. Her eyes, however, must have betrayed her, she realized as she felt Picard's hand on her arm and heard his murmured, "Perhaps you would like a moment to rest?"

Silently, she nodded. Despite her intentions to speak openly about the "dream"- at least with Picard-she realized she hadn't been prepared for this. Not only Picard himself but virtually everyone else from that "dream" was here. The artificial humanoid named Data. Riker. Troi. And there a few meters behind Riker, she saw now, was the dark-skinned man with the metallic blindfold-like device covering his eyes, apparently enabling him to see. The only person missing was the red-haired woman, the oddly named Dr. Crusher.

"This way," Picard was saying, gently guiding her away from the others toward a door that was already hissing open in the smoothly curving back wall of the bridge. Expecting another conveyance like the small room she had just emerged from-an elevator, she a.s.sumed, a luxury she had never, in the Alliance, a.s.sociated with a starship-she stepped through and was startled to find herself in a large, luxuriously furnished room with desk and couch and wall decorations and, of all things, an aquarium bathed in soothingly soft light.

"Make yourself comfortable," Picard said, still standing in the open door, making no move to follow her inside. "If you'd like a few minutes alone to- "

"No, please, stay," she said abruptly, her determination returning now that the situation was more nearly the way she had pictured it, just the two of them. "We must speak."

For just an instant he was motionless, then visibly relaxed as he stepped across the threshold and let the door hiss shut behind him.

"As you wish," he said. "And you're quite right. We really do need to speak, perhaps more urgently than either of us knows."

Sixteen.

DURING THE series of wary exchanges between Kirk and Sarek, Scotty had realized that the situation was even more hopeless than he had imagined. First and foremost, this Sarek obviously wasn't going to release them, no matter what.

But even if he did...

Even if he did, there was nothing he and Kirk could do to repair the damage to the timeline. Finding approximately when the timelines seemed to diverge had been remarkably easy but it wasn't nearly enough. They still had no idea when the real divergence had taken place.

Obviously Picard had done something that brought the Borg from the distant Delta Quadrant to Earth in the twenty-first century, but the actual deed, the triggering event, could have taken place in the twentieth.

Or the nineteenth.

Or any time whatsoever. According to everything he'd learned about them, the Borg tended to act slowly and deliberately. It could have taken them centuries to decide to travel the thousands of pa.r.s.ecs to Earth.

Without knowing what Picard had done, there was no way of knowing when he had done it.

If he had done anything at all.

Perhaps the mere presence of a twenty-fourth-century Federation starship in the twenty-first century or earlier had somehow attracted the attention of the Borg. Perhaps, centuries in the past, before the collective had grown so large and so inflexible, their attention was easier to gain. Perhaps they had captured the Enterprise, learned of Earth's location and come to investigate.

And decided to stay.

Picard's second jump could have taken him back a hundred years or a thousand. The Bounty 2-even if it did magically reappear-might be capable of another slingshot maneuver before it literally flew to pieces. With a great deal of luck and even more jury-rigged repairs, it might hold together for two or three-but no more. Hardly enough to search even the twenty-first century for the Enterprise, let alone the previous millennium.

But then, as Scotty listened, his mood growing darker by the minute, Sarek abruptly ended the conversation.

"We will finish this discussion later," the Vulcan said without warning.

An instant later, the wall again went opaque and the faint hum they had heard before returned.

Recovering, Scotty grabbed the tricorder from his utility belt.

"A transporter," he said as he pointed the tricorder at the wall and scanned the instrument's tiny screen. "He's gone."

"How far?" Kirk wanted to know.

"A dozen meters, no more, but now- " He paused, shaking his head. "The shielding around this 'cell' was down for a wee bit, again," he said, "but it went back up as soon as the transport was completed."

"Makes sense," Kirk said. "Not helpful, but it does make sense. What can you tell about the shielding? Is there any way through it?"

Scotty studied the tricorder, frowning at first, then raising his eyebrows in surprise. "Aye, there just might be."

"What is it, Commander?" Sarek asked as he emerged onto the bridge.

"We have received a distress call," Varkan said, gesturing at the viewscreen, where a less-than-clear image of ex-councilman Zarcot breathed heavily, the ma.s.sive cords in what pa.s.sed for a neck among Carda.s.sians standing out even more than normal.

"Sarek! At last! Tell this fool who I am!"

"He knows who you are, Zarcot. What is it you wish?"

"Transport me aboard the Wisdom! My own ship was destroyed, and this lifepod must have been damaged as well. The life support system is failing."

"Explain."

"There isn't time! Just lower your shields and- "

"There will have to be time, Zarcot." Sarek looked toward Varkan. "Commander, what do your sensors show?"

"The signal is indeed coming from a lifepod," the Romulan said, studying the sensor screens over the operator's shoulder, "and the life support system is clearly malfunctioning, as is the impulse engine. There does not, however, appear to be any immediate threat to the occupant's life."

"Thank you, Commander," Sarek acknowledged, turning back to the viewscreen. "Now explain your presence here, Zarcot. In your alarmist dispatches regarding the dangers posed by the Vortex, you indicated you were about to return to Alliance Prime. You even hinted you had devised a plan to deal with the Vortex."

"Sarek, please. This is no time for petty retribution. My opposition to some of your policies- "

"It is caution, Zarcot, not retribution. Do you deny that your Carda.s.sian colleagues still on the Council have recently held secret meetings?"

"Obviously they were not secret if you know of them. In any event, strategy meetings are standard procedure. You will know the results at the next Council meeting. Now please, get me- "

"That is good to know, Zarcot. In the meantime, I repeat: Explain your presence here. Why have you not returned to Alliance Prime? What happened to your ship?"

"The Vortex did something to it, I don't know what. We were taking a last set of readings before leaving, and we must have gotten too close. A tendril of energy of some kind snaked out farther than any had before, and the next thing we knew, it had hit us, penetrating our shields as if they didn't exist. We lost all control, and the antimatter containment field became unstable. Or so our engineer told me. We had to abandon ship."

"Where are the others?"

Zarcot's wavering image lowered its head. "I don't know. I haven't been able to raise the other lifepods. I fear they may have been destroyed."

"You alone survived, then?"

"I hope not, but I have no way of knowing."

"How did you get this far from the Vortex in just a lifepod?"

"I don't know, Sarek. I'm not an engineer. Perhaps the Vortex energy threw my lifepod here. All I know is, if I don't get out of it before life support fails, my death will be on your conscience."

Unperturbed, Sarek turned to the Commander. "Is there any sign of other lifepods? Or of the parent ship?"

"None, Arbiter," the Romulan said, again studying the sensor displays over the intimidated crewman's shoulder. "There is only the craft belonging to the two beings you transported into Interrogation."

"Open a channel to Outpost Number Three. I will speak with Kasok."

Zarcot opened his mouth to protest but his image vanished before any sound emerged. Seconds later, Kasok appeared on the screen.

"Kasok," Sarek began abruptly, "Zarcot's ship was recently in the vicinity of the Vortex. What records do you have of its activities?"

Kasok's eyes widened but he said nothing as he consulted several rapidly scrolling screens of data. "A ship, possibly Zarcot's," he said, looking up, "circ.u.mnavigated the Vortex several times in several different orbits."

"And when it left?"

Kasok shook his head, frowning. "Unknown, Arbiter. Its departure occurred in one of the blind spots."

"Thank you," Sarek said, turning away from Kasok's vanishing image. "Commander, status of Zarcot's life support?"

"Still deteriorating but- " Varkan broke off, frowning, as the stranded Carda.s.sian's image returned to the screen. "The deterioration is accelerating. If it continues at this rate, only minutes remain, not hours."

"And there are still no other ships or lifepods within sensor range?"

"None, Arbiter."

Sarek stood silently, his eyes fastened on Zarcot, who had by now adopted a look of stoic resignation.

Finally the Vulcan spoke. "Proceed with the transport, Commander.

"Very well. Commander, proceed with the transport."

"As you wish, Arbiter," the Romulan acknowledged, then began issuing the orders.

Moments later the shields went down, and the Tellarite at the transporter controls began the lock-on procedure. After several seconds, he looked up from the controls. "There is interference of some kind, Commander," he said. "I'm having trouble locking on."

At the same time, a hissing sound erupted from the communications station.

"Commander," the Narisian communications officer began, but before she could say more, Zarcot's face vanished from the viewscreen in a burst of static.

And was replaced a chaotic moment later with another face.

Sarek was barely able to conceal his surprise as he recognized the anxious features of one of his prisoners, the one who claimed to be a Terran called Kirk.

Scotty's heart was pounding as the information streamed across the tricorder's tiny screen.

In the minute following Sarek's abrupt departure, the engineer had scanned the entire spectrum of the shield around the cell and the shield around the ship itself. They were each almost as powerful as the old Enterprise's deflectors, but they were also comparatively primitive, the data on the tricorder screen now indicated.

Primitive, that is, compared to the twenty-fourth-century deflector technology he had developed a nodding acquaintance with during his first few weeks on the G.o.ddard. For one thing, the spectrum of the main shields, while not quite Swiss cheese, did have holes, as, luckily, had the Jenolen's, which discovery on his part was the only reason the Enterprise had been able to transport him and La Forge off the doomed ship while its shields were holding open the Dyson Sphere's door. The shield that surrounded their cell, however, was not nearly so porous.

But both were limited by the twenty-third-century-or-earlier technology that had produced them. And the frequency spectrum that could be covered by twenty-third-century technology was considerably more limited than what could be covered by twenty-fourth-century technology.

Holding the tricorder in one hand, Scotty s.n.a.t.c.hed up the remote with the other. When he had originally cobbled the remote together, he'd given it at least ten comm channels, "just to be safe." Under most circ.u.mstances, one would have been enough, but he knew there were far too many ways individual frequencies could be blocked for him to take it for granted. Storms in a planet's atmosphere or in s.p.a.ce could generate interference. Radiation could distort certain frequencies, and unknown chemical compounds could absorb or block them. Emission nebulas could swamp others. The list went on and on, and there were any number of other things that he couldn't possibly foresee.

Like the shields that now held them trapped.

Switching on the remote, he held it in front of the tricorder and quickly scanned across the available frequencies.

Suddenly, his heart was pounding even faster. The highest frequency channel just barely skirted the upper edge of the shield spectrum.

But that should be enough.

"Are you ready to get out of here, Captain?"

Kirk broke into a broad grin. "Let's go! I guess it's a good thing I didn't have your Miracle Worker's permit revoked after all."

"Aye," Scotty replied, stowing the tricorder and selecting the uppermost comm channel on the remote, "and a wee bit of dumb luck doesn't hurt, either."

After only a couple of seconds, the remote display indicated it was linked to the G.o.ddard computer. Hastily, Scotty entered the commands that would reprogram the transporter to operate at the high end of its own frequency range.

Another few seconds and he felt-or imagined he felt-the whisper-light touch of the transporter as it scanned the s.p.a.ce whose coordinates the G.o.ddard's computer had extracted from the remote's memory.