Riker laughed and dropped into the nearest chair. "Quit doing that, will you?" At first he lounged back in the chair and casually waved his hand, but time was pressing, and he leaned forward again almost immediately. "I hate to rush you."

"It's all right. I'm anxious for the answer as much as for the peace. Solitude is not that welcome a companion."

Riker paused then, wondering if she could sense his empathy for her, and the inadequacy of his understanding. Ultimately, as he found himself unable to draw away from her steady unshielded gaze, he simply asked, "Why do you stay? What can it do for you to stay among humans? We must drive you crazy."

Troi laughed. "Oh, Bill ... you're such a decisive fellow. Don't you know why I stay?"

"I'm on audio, Counselor. Tell me."

Her smile changed, became more wistful, and she looked down. When she looked up again, her coal eyes sparkled. "I like humans."

Riker grinned. "Do you really?"

"Yes, quite a lot. Better than I like Betazoids. But don't tell anyone." She pursed her lips conspiratorially. "Yes, I like them. Even though I make them uncomfortable, I like them very much. They're so honest, so well-meaning, they have such deep integrity as a species ... and my human half has given me something few Betazoids possess."

"What's that?"

She squared her shoulders against the back of the chair and said, "Discipline. Self-discipline, I mean. And ... I believe I possess an intuition Betazoids never had to develop. My mother and her people take everything at face value, and they often think it's a joke to invade the minds of others. I've learned that in the universe nothing can be taken at face value, and I learned that from humans. Do you know that as an alien hybrid, I can actually read a wider range of emotions than full Betazoids? Even though the impressions aren't clear, I can do that. I have many advantages thanks to my human side, and I'm proud of it."

Riker was appreciably silent, surprised by her generosity. He knew how often she must feel alone. He saw the glances that were cast at her as she came into a room or left one. For a long time he'd wondered if his affection for her was indeed affection or just a man's protectiveness toward what he perceives as a woman's weakness. Troi bore an excess of handicaps in her position as ship's counselor, a position that was new to Starfleet, new to the Federation, and still undefined. No one really knew, or at least understood, what her purpose was on the ship. But they all knew she was here to watch them, to evaluate the overall psychological condition of the ship's complement and report to the captain as necessary. A mental guardian-or watchdog, depending on perception. Someday the Federation would be able to define the post of ship's counselor, or people would just get used to the idea, but for now Deanna Troi and the few like her would have to brook the vagueness.

"You impress me," he said spontaneously.

She laughed again. "Don't be too impressed. I cry myself to sleep more often than I'd like to admit."

Her faint Greek accent tapped the words out with the clip of a sparrow's talons hopping across marble. Riker bit his tongue and kept his inadequate rea.s.surances to himself. She didn't need them-at least none he could voice.

"Thank you," she whispered, and he knew he'd failed to keep his feelings to himself. "I'm needed, Bill. I can make a contribution that even full Betazoids could never make. For that privilege, I'll happily pay the price. I'm not sure, though, that this is the place to make that contribution."

Riker clasped his hands and leaned his elbows on his knees, gazed down for a moment, then looked up. "Do you know how guilty you're making me feel?"

Troi flickered her eyes at him, paused, then tossed her head. "As a matter of fact, I do."

Caught off guard, Riker blushed and couldn't keep control of his smile, but she was still smiling too. d.a.m.n, she was good at that.

"To the bridge, Number One?" she suggested gently.

He stood up and reached for her hand. "To the bridge, Counselor."

"Go ahead, Mr. Data."

Picard spoke evenly as he stood on Troi's right, Riker on her left, as though their presence at her sides would help protect her from what was to come. She still looked controlled enough, considering she'd gotten no chance whatsoever even to put her head back for a moment and absorb these events. Data punched up the records he'd discovered.

"Sir, I must apologize," Data said. "The search was not as exhaustive as I first estimated. Counselor Troi's perceptions were accurate and all the information came together-"

"Let's hear it, then, Data. Don't dawdle."

"Yes, sir. As you can see on the monitor, this is a full-deck nuclear aircraft carrier from the nineteen-nineties. It was a Soviet Union vessel out on a demonstration run in the Black Sea when it mysteriously disappeared on April twenty-fourth, 1995."

"Disappeared?" Picard rumbled. "Do you have any idea the size of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, Commander?"

Though Picard meant the question to be rhetorical, Data had an immediate answer. "Oh, yes, sir. Up to ninety thousand tons with a personnel complement five times that of our starship."

The captain suddenly felt silly for having asked. "All right, go on. What was this ship called?"

Even Data was aware of Deanna Troi as he quietly responded, "The Gorshkov."

Troi's eyes drifted closed. She steadied herself within the sounds of that word, then opened her eyes again and kept tight rein on the battery of emotions-even the grief.

"Go on, Data," Picard urged.

"Her captain was Arkady Reykov. He had a long, rocky political history before leaving that arena for the naval command. His disapproval of the Soviet system had caused him some discomfort, but his skill as a naval officer evidently overshadowed that. Such experience was at a premium in the U.S.S.R. in those days, so he was allowed to continue."

Riker listened to the simplified description of a twisted international skein, all the tugs and pulls of that volatile period, and couldn't help wondering what Reykov would have felt if he'd known the future. If he'd known he was a cog in the mechanism that led to Earth's 21st-century cataclysms.

"And this Va.s.ska?" Picard prodded.

The response, spoken as tenuously as spider's threads snapping between two leaves, came not from Data, but from Troi.

"Timofei ... "

They turned to her.

Troi poised herself and completed, "Timofei Va.s.ska. I believe he was first officer."

Uneasily Picard turned to Data for confirmation.

"Yes, that is correct," Data said, just as uneasily.

"Do we have photographs of them?" Riker asked.

Data glanced at him. "Possibly ... let me run a search. Computer, show any available visuals of Reykov or Va.s.ska."

The computer settled into a long hum, but they didn't have to wait long until its soft feminine voice said, "Only available visual on specified subjects is a news photograph shortly before launch of the Gorshkov. On screen."

The screen did its best to focus a grainy photograph of some hundred or more uniformed men, apparently officers of the carrier, all standing together on the big flat deck. The figures were small and crowded together, but on the left two officers stood slightly apart and in front of the others, their faces blurred by the poor quality of the photo.

"There," Riker said, pointing. "Computer, augment the two men in the foreground."

Abruptly two faces appeared, somewhat blurred, yet their strong features and proud expressions quite clear on the screen.

"That's him," Riker murmured, pointing again, this time at the big man on the right. "That's the man I saw in the corridor."

Picard looked deeply into the Soviet officer's strong eyes and murmured, "Reykov ... "

As he said the name, he realized his reaction was instinct. No one had told him that this was the captain of the Gorshkov, yet somehow he knew. Somehow there was a symbiosis, something in the face that he, as a captain, understood.

He turned to Deanna Troi. "Counselor?"

She steadied herself, gazing into the faces on the screen. "Yes," she said quietly. "Reykov and Va.s.ska."

"Data," the captain said, "do you have anything more on these two?"

The android nodded and said, "A little, sir. Timofei Va.s.ska was thirty-five, a longtime exec of Reykov's. Records are incomplete, but a few articles on the incident speculated that the two men were friends and may have plotted together to defect with some new technology."

"What technology?" Riker blurted, not caring if he was out of order. He felt the tightness of Troi's exquisite body beside him and might have done anything at that moment to ease her fear. He felt it so strongly that he might as well have been the telepath.

Data was about to answer when the lift door parted and Wesley Crusher strode onto the bridge, his long legs going like wheel spokes, and he grated to a stop as all eyes struck him. The placid expression dropped away under a slap of surprise-why were they all bundled together around the science station?

He hovered in place for a moment, then waved clumsily and smiled. "Hi, everybody ... "

The captain straightened. "What are you doing up here at this hour, Mr. Crusher?"

Wesley's mouth dried up. Funny, but it all sounded so easy when his mother talked about this. "I ... I, uh ... "

"Well, never mind just now. Get to it and don't interrupt us again."

Self-consciousness roaring through him, Wesley went to the other science monitor and tried to fake work, though he couldn't keep from glancing at what the others were doing.

"On with you, Commander," Picard said sharply.

Data glanced at him and picked up where he'd left off. "Gorshkov was carrying a special device, an electromagnetic pulsor which could deflect incoming rocketry and aircraft. The science was new at the time, but the Soviets had pushed through the preliminary testing and gone straight to a fully mounted pulsor on a vessel."

"Fine," Picard barked, "but what happened to them?"

"Oh ... yes. Apparently the ship was ... pulverized. Unexplainably and utterly."

"My G.o.d," the captain breathed.

"There was very little left of the ship," Data said, pausing then, "and absolutely nothing of the crew."

Riker nudged forward. "Nothing? Not a single body anywhere?"

"That's correct. Relations between major powers had been steadily improving since the early nineteen-eighties, but when a.n.a.lysis of the flotsam indicated a cataclysm from outside the ship rather than some problem with the ship's reactors, for instance, the world nearly buckled with mutual accusations."

"I shouldn't wonder," Picard murmured.

"But there was no proof that any nation had blitzed the ship. Add to that the appearance of seven Soviet naval aircraft from the Gorshkov which requested landing clearance on a United States carrier a short time later-pardon me, sir, I did not mean to be unspecific. The U.S. ship was the Roosevelt, and was hanging out in a nearby sea when the Soviet planes arrived in their airs.p.a.ce some sixty-nine minutes after witnessing the demolition of their own ship. Those pilots swore no missile had come in to cream the Gorshkov. Historians had theorized that if it hadn't been for those pilots' testimony so soon after the incident, international relations might have dissolved and World War Three started on the spot. Adding, of course, the blessing that the pilots were Russians themselves and could appeal to the outraged Soviet government without the baggage of racial distrust. Had the witnesses been American or British, we might not be here today. As it was, the issue was a canker between major powers for decades and a real pain for diplomacy."

Picard frowned and murmured, "Mmm ... thank you, Data." He took Riker by the arm and pulled him to one side, then leaned toward him. "Why's he talking like that?"

Riker blinked, but that blink cleared his eyes not on Picard, not on Data, but on Deanna Troi, who was in turn holding her breath and staring at the helm-at Lieutenant LaForge. Her face was frozen in astonishment as sensation flowed from LaForge to her.

Instinct rippling, Riker shot his glare to the helm.

LaForge was rising from his chair, slowly, like a sleepwalker, his hands pressed flat on his control board. He rose so slowly, in fact, that he was drawing attention to himself.

By the time Riker stepped away from the captain and came to the ramp, everyone else had noticed and was tensely watching, unable to look away. LaForge's mouth hung open and he bent like a man punched in the ribs. His hands remained flat on his console, his legs stiff and slightly bent. Of course the visor hid his eyes, but from the set of his body, his face and lips, Riker could imagine what a seeing man's eyes would show. Shock.

Wesley stepped toward the ramp, his reedy young body all knots. "Geordi?"

Riker snapped his fingers and pointed. "Wesley, stay where you are."

But Wesley's movement had nudged Riker into taking over that movement toward the helm.

LaForge breathed in short gasps. He didn't respond, but stared-or seemed to stare-forward and slightly starboard of his position. He turned his head further in that direction, then twisted partially around to look across the entire starboard side of the bridge.

Riker came around in front of the helm. "Geordi?"

"Sir ... " LaForge continued turning, resembling more than anything a music-box doll on a spindle.

Before him, all around the starboard curve of the bridge, human forms were milling. Far different from the warm mannequins of the regular crew, these forms were flat, glowing, staticky yellow, striated with jagged impulse lines-but unmistakably human. Not humanoid-human. There was something in the way they moved, the way they turned and walked and gestured, that made him certain of it.

"Sir ... somebody's here ... "

Riker moved a step closer, his shoulders drawing slightly inward as a shiver a.s.saulted his spine. "But there's no one there."

"They are here, sir!"

Riker held out one hand in a calming gesture that didn't work. "All right ... tell me what wavelengths you're tuned in to right now. Help me, Geordi. I want to see them too."

Geordi moved choppily backward, b.u.mping Riker, b.u.mping his own chair, trying to avoid the unseen ent.i.ties as he moved toward the science station on the upper bridge, but he never even got close. He b.u.mped the bridge rail with one shoulder and couldn't move anymore, but stayed there trying to convince himself he wasn't going out of his mind.

"Geordi, just describe it," Riker said, glancing at Picard for rea.s.surance. "What are you seeing?"

LaForge trembled. "I don't know ... "

"Lieutenant," Picard snapped from above him, "give me a report. a.n.a.lyze what you're seeing and report on it."

"Uh ... they're ... narrow-band ... low-resolution pixels at several wavelengths ... toward the blue in the invisible spectrum ... but some acoustical waves are giving me a visual of animated pulses-"

Picard's voice was laced with impatience, but also with awe. "Are you telling me you can see what they sound like?"

"Yes, sir-more or less. G.o.d, they're everywhere!"

"Data," Picard urged.

"I have it, sir. One moment," Data said as he worked furiously on the computer sensory adjustment, then struck a final pressure point and looked up at the viewscreen.

The visual of the bridge was chilling. Each saw himself, in place, as each was now. All appeared normal, all things right. Their bridge monitors were flicking the usual status displays, the beige carpeting, the bands of color on Wesley's gray shirt, and the officers' red and black, gold and black, or azure and black uniforms showing that the colors were right and the picture crisp-not very rea.s.suring at the moment.

On the starboard bridge, specters walked. Over a dozen humanoid shapes glowed yellowish white, flat as X-ray diffraction images. Form, movement, shape, without definition, without depth, gla.s.sy human shapes moving behind a curtain of spectral impulses, outlined by a sizzling blue thread. Some were moving catatonically, milling back and forth on the ramp and in front of the big viewscreen and in the command arena. Some stood still, as though looking back at Riker as he dared approach the monitor, absorbing what he saw. He was looking into a mirror and there were images staring back at him that were beside him in the room.

He spun, scanning a starboard bridge that looked empty. His throat tightened and held back his one effort to speak. All he could do was watch as Captain Picard turned away from the monitor and also scanned what could not be seen by the naked human eye. Unlike everyone else, who had sidled away from that side of the bridge, Picard now moved toward it, his face a granite challenge.

"Open all frequencies. Tie in translator." He waited only an instant for the click-beep that told him Tasha had shaken from her chill and complied. He raised his voice. "This is Captain Jean-Luc Picard of the United Federation of Planets. You are invading my ship without invitation. What is your purpose here?"

There was nothing. Riker kept his eyes on the shapes in the monitor, no matter that the hairs rose on the back of his neck because he knew they were right behind him.