54 55

meters of unscorched corridor, staring silently beyond a flickering forcefield and the jagged remnants of a bulk. head into open space.

“My God,” Chekov whispered, as he stepped beside them. He knew before he asked what the answer to his question would be; he had seen it in Scott’s defeated posture, even before he had seen his face. “Was anyone in there?”

Harriman gave him a look of such pure sympathy that Chekov’s heart skipped a beat. Scott never looked at him, but gazed steadily out at blackness and stars before replying softly, “Aye…”

The rest of his time aboard the Enterprise-B was spent in a daze. He did not remember whether Scott or Harriman told him who it was that had been lost; nor did he remember returning to the bridge. But he recalled quite clearly the moment when he stood be-side Scott and Harriman at the helm, and the muted anguish in Demora’s voice when she said, I’ve checked the entire ship and the surrounding space. There~ no sign of him.

He had looked to Scott then, unable to believe that there would not be yet another miracle, some way to pull his friend and captain from death’s jaws once more. They had done it before, after alltwhen Kirk had been trapped in interstitial space near the Tholian border. They had thought him dead then, but he had survived. Why not now?

But Scott merely sighed as he looked at the empty command chair, then shook his head. “Just a quick run around the block,” he whispered bitterly. “No,” Chekov said, and felt the sting of tears behind

his eyes as reality finally sank home. “It can’t be. I never thought it would end like this …. “

Scott stepped over beside his friend and gently laid a hand on his shoulder. “All things must end, lad.”

The two men yielded to grief for a time, unconscious of reporters and the camera’s glare, until at last Harriman said quietly, “Let’s go home.”

And he moved over to the conn and took his place as captain of the Enterprise.