Troi blinked. "How did you know?"

Picard flopped his hand on the desktop and casually said, "One needn't be telepathic."

She faltered, frowning into the black shine of his desk, and said, "Yes, I suppose it is obvious. But there's more, sir. Or shall I say, there are more. Many more. Millions more, in fact. Their level of communication is much higher than anything verbal, as though they've forgotten over the years how to use simple words and pictures. We may be the first outside contact they've had-"

"Since 1995," she supplied steadily.

"Yes," she murmured. "For a while, what they wanted was very confusing. There were so many minds shouting at me, some rational, some not ... only the strongest of those can still maintain a single self-image, but only for limited amounts of time."

"Like the appearance Riker witnessed in the corridor."

"I believe so," she told him, not ready to commit herself to that with a blind yes.

"And now it's clearer?" Picard prompted. "What they want? You have some idea?"

Troi bent her elegant head, lashes like black whisk brooms dropping to shade her eyes. Then she looked up. "Captain, I haven't told you everything."

Jean-Luc Picard leaned forward, his elbows rubbing across the desk's smooth surface and reflected that she of all people was not one whom he counted on for courteous lies. Courteous silence, perhaps. But deception, no. The first reaction was anger, but that flared and died more quickly than a match in wind. Yet such confessions on a starship could cost lives, and always provoked him.

But something had driven her to this, and Picard's curiosity was plenty bigger than his ego at this point.

"Then tell me everything now," he said.

Troi raised her chin as though to walk into the word. "About the confusion. It's true that there are millions of minds pressing upon me, but there is ... an absolute unanimity in what they want-"

The door buzzed.

"Yes, who is it?" Picard barked impatiently.

"Riker reporting, Captain."

Picard started to admit him, but Troi grasped the rim of his desk and pulled forward in her chair. "No, sir, please don't. Don't let him in."

The curiosity burned. "Not even Riker?" Picard said.

"Please, sir ... "

He gazed at her for a moment, then spoke aloud to the intercom. "Just a few more minutes, Mr. Riker."

There was a thunderous pause. Picard could imagine the glances running the main bridge.

"Yes, sir ... I'll be out here."

Picard indulged in a little grunt and muttered, "Sounds a bit wounded, doesn't he? Now, what's this all about, Counselor? These people want us to do something for them?"

"You have a decision to make that no single person should have to make. I thought you shouldn't also have to live with the opinions of the entire crew. That's why I'm speaking to you privately."

"I appreciate that, but please-"

"Most religions describe a kind of h.e.l.l, Captain," she said carefully. Her shoulders shuddered with the effort. "Now ... I know what that is."

"No doubt, but what's that got to do with these beings?"

Troi's lovely eyes took on a bitter anger. "I can't make it clear enough, sir, that these people are still alive. They're not supernatural. They're living creatures, many of whom are-or were-human as much as you are human. They have truly achieved immortality. They are still conscious and self-aware."

"All right," Picard told her, "I understand that. What do they want?"

She clamped her hands into two tight b.a.l.l.s, the skin thinning over her knuckles and turning icy white. "They want you to help them die."

"Quit saying that. You're not a machine. I can tell that by just looking at you."

Geordi LaForge gave Data a playful push as they entered the dark corridor that led to the warp reserve. It took clearance through three doors, each marked AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY before they were admitted to the especially heavy door marked RESTRICTED AREA.

ANTIMATTER RESERVE CONTAINMENT CENTER.

NO ENTRY WITHOUT LEVEL 5 CLEARANCE.

The room was very dark, lit only by two tiny pink utility lights on either side. Data's flashlight cut a clean white path before them. Though the darkness still pressed around them, Geordi could see quite well by that small brightness, and he led the way through stacked storage crates and high-clearance mechanical and computer panels.

"I expected a lot of problems to come my way on s.p.a.ce duty," Geordi said, "but I didn't expect one of them to be trying to find a definition for life itself."

"That is indeed the captain's dilemma now," Data said, "because of me."

"It's not because of you. Cut it out. Boy, after all this trying to act human, you sure found an annoying way to actually do it."

Data looked up into the darkness, quickly, hopefully. "What am I doing?"

"Pitying yourself, that's what. Knock it off."

Since he hadn't been aware of doing it, Data wasn't quite sure what to knock off. By the time he found knock it off in his memory banks, the subject had pa.s.sed and Geordi was leading the way into an anteroom that held most of the computer monitors for the actual antimatter containment. On the dim panels, a few lights and patterns were flicking and flashing away happily in their mechanical ignorance, as if trying to say that all was well, all was as it should be.

"It's got to be here somewhere," Geordi muttered. "You try the antimatter injector and I'll-"

As the doors came together behind them, there was a corresponding clatter on the starboard side of the room that made them both look, just in time to see a dark form duck behind a panel.

"Who's there?" Geordi demanded.

Data stepped in front of him and sharply ordered, "This is Commander Data. You are in a restricted area. Identify yourself."

An innocent face peeked up in the corner, suddenly looking very guilty.

"Wesley!" Geordi exclaimed. "What are you doing in here? Come out of there."

Wesley's lanky form, still trying to grow into its own long bones, slowly sprouted from behind the panel. His hands gripped the hem of his sweater, a dark and thickly knit sweater that under these circ.u.mstances looked like reconnaissance gear. He'd known he was going to be in a cool area of the ship, evidently. "What're you two doing here?" he echoed. "I mean, it's sort of the middle of a crisis, isn't it?"

"Right in the middle," Geordi said. "The captain's ordered an energy blackout-"

"I know."

"And we picked up a power drain in the reserve tank. We've got to find it before the creature picks it up." Through his visor Geordi saw Wesley's face suddenly erupt with infrared.

"It can't be much of a drain, can it?" the boy asked. "If you haven't picked it up before ... right?"

"That's right, but it doesn't make a bit-Wesley, what do you know about this?"

Data approached them and said, "Wesley, if you know about the power drain, you had better tell us. The antimatter from the tank has been emergency-dumped, and we cannot restock from the reserves until we discover the nature of the leak and lock it down."

Wesley's young eyes flashed in the dimness. "Well ... I only ... I was ... "

Geordi fanned his flashlight's beam angrily. "This area's off limits, for Christ's sake, Wes!"

"I know, but that's just a technicality and it would've taken weeks, maybe months, to get the power authorization if I'd gone through channels-"

"Channels exist for a reason. So do rules like off limits. You know what off limits means? What're you up to?"

"Nothing, really."

"Report, Ensign," Data said, cutting through the familiarity and putting juniors where juniors belong.

"It's really nothing. Someday it might be, though," Wesley said, intimidation forgotten in enthusiasm. "Just wait. I'm doing an experiment on an idea I had to increase phaser power without pulling any more energy. I've got a little mock-up over here-"

He led them to a table that held a shapeless contraption. It looked like so much sc.r.a.p, except that a light beam was glowing straight through the middle of it.

"What the h.e.l.l-" Geordi stepped up to the model and pointed at it. "What's this hooked up to?"

Wesley's sheepishness returned. "I was ... tapping the antimatter reserve."

"G.o.dd.a.m.n, Wes! You have an acting rank. Don't you know that means you could be court-martialed?"

"But it's never used! They don't use it once in twenty years! How was I supposed to know they'd need it?"

"You do know this area's off limits to anyone but authorized personnel," Data said.

Geordi barely let him finish the sentence. "You start s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g around with the antimatter reserve and get a short or something, and suddenly there's another sun around! It's dangerous to tap the reserve directly. Don't you know that?"

"Oh, come on, Geordi, it's not that bad," Wesley complained. "Under normal operation, n.o.body'd notice. It'd be like plugging in one extra lamp in a hotel. But with all the power shut down-"

"You know better than this." Geordi shook his head, then said, "Then again, maybe you don't. How long have you had this thing hooked up to the AR?"

"Well, only about four ... or five ... "

"Days?"

"Weeks."

"Oh, my G.o.d. You gotta be kidding me. What were you trying to do?"

"I didn't mean any trouble."

"Well, you've got trouble, mister."

Wesley pulled out a professional whipped-puppy look. "You'd turn me in?"

Geordi looked at the little contraption again and scanned it for invisible leakage. "This is a starship, not a playground, Wes." The device was working, somehow, doing something, though Geordi couldn't tell what.

Now what? Report the boy? Wesley was genius material, sure, but not experienced. Had he not been living on a major starship, with all its labs and state-of-the-art technology, where experts in actual applied science, applied engineering, applied mechanics were readily available, some even teaching cla.s.ses to the kids, he'd be just another smart sixteen-year-old. Living on Earth or such, he'd be bright and showered with opportunities, but not like this. Not to the point of getting his hands on a starship any old day. Geordi knew Wes Crusher had a natural ability to conceptualize the way the universe works, but the only way he could learn to apply it was through all the redundant practice a sixteen-year-old hated even to think about. On the bridge a week ago, Geordi had let Wesley try the helm controls because the boy had so quickly picked up the theories and principles of navigation, only to find that he had plenty of difficulty actually working the controls. Only time, only experience could teach that.

But this-this kind of game-playing was dangerous, and Wesley couldn't see the danger. Hadn't had his hands burned yet.

"Shut it down," Geordi ordered.

"Okay," Wes mumbled. "That's what I was doing anyway."

"Ah-so you knew we'd pick it up. This is wrong and you knew it. What's the matter?"

"Well ... " Wesley hesitated, then said, "I'm not sure how to break the flow without rupturing the magnatomics. Besides, this could never pull enough power to cause a problem. That's why I went ahead and did it."

"Wes, even senior engineers don't tamper with antimatter. Data, look this over. We've got to disconnect it."

The android moved in, and Wesley stepped aside. "What is the principle behind this device?"

Using his hands to ill.u.s.trate every little twist and turn of his idea, Wesley explained. "Basically, it breaks down the phaser in its initial cycle, into its increment frequencies and energies until the final cycle, when you recombine the phases all at once."

"What is the problem with it?"

"It ... doesn't work."

"I see."

"But if it did, this model would have almost four times the power of a hand phaser, and draw from a reaction chamber only half the size of standard."

"This little toy?" Geordi blurted.

Data looked at Wesley briefly. "Did you remember that with the splitting, you'd have to increase the power by the same magnitude as the split?"

Wesley looked from him to Geordi and back again. "Uh ... no."

"Otherwise it would not be strong enough to cycle," Data postulated. "I'm concerned that the splitting would cause a loss of harmonics in the crystal focusing system. The crystal might break down and result in-"

"Heat. I already know that."

"Listen, you two," Geordi said, nudging Wesley even farther back, "Riker's gonna split our harmonics if we don't lock down this leak and get back topside. The creature could pop out of inners.p.a.ce at us any second and I don't want to be down here when it happens. Wesley, you get out of here, p.r.o.nto. If the senior engineers find you, you're going to know the meaning of reprimand."

"But what about-"

"Data and I can shut it down. I'm going to have it disposed of. You're on probation. If I hear about any more of these unauthorized experiments of yours, I'm reporting you to the chief engineer."

Wesley dropped his eyes and grumbled. "Yes, sir."