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friends, he would have sensed precisely what was occurring—but he would not have laughed, would not have wasted upon the incident even a faint smile. He smiled at little these days; amusement did not interest him.

Only one thing mattered: his return to Leandra. Not quite a century ago, he had used the Lakul to return to her for a radiant, wondrous moment, only to be snatched away again by the Enterprise-B. That other world where she waited seemed real; the rest was all illusion, an agonizing, decades-long detour too cruel to be accepted as reality.

Once more, he was on another damnable starship called the Enterprise; but this one would not steal him from Leandra. This Enterprise would return him to her… if he had to kill every person aboard it. It was, after all, not real.

Yet, real or not, in this universe, Soran knew he would have to use every bit of cunning here to return to the place he thought of as home. And the first step required manipulation of a certain starship captain.

He sat for a few moments more until he saw him: a uniformed man, lean and bald, with a lined, strongly sculpted face. Soran recognized him at once; the man’s confident bearing marked him as captain of this vessel. What was the name again? Something exotically Terran. Picard. Jean-Luc Picard.

Picard made his way through the laughing crowd with single-minded intensity, and a closed expression that gave Soran pause, for it reminded him much of his own. What was it the captain was feeling? Soran’s eyelids fluttered as he relaxed, allowed himself to sense his prey. Yes. Yes… Offense. We two have much in common,

Soran said silently to the approaching human. You, like I, are offended by what you see here: people smiling, talking, laughing, enjoying themselves, oblivious to our suffering. Oblivious to pain, to the horror that this universe truly is. But they will come to know; oh yes, they will all come to know death—their own, and those of the ones they love. No one escapes here. But I will. By the gods, I will, and never return… Picard arrived at the table at last, and, intent, un-flinching, unsmiling, gazed down at the El Aurian. “Dr. Soran… ?”

Soran looked up, his eyes, his gaze, his demeanor a stern mirror-image of the Starfleet officer’s. “Yes, yes, Captain …. Thank you for coming.” He extended his hand. Picard took it; firm grip, strong determination. Not an easy man to manipulate—or to read, for that matter. But there was fresh pain here, and if Soran was patient, there would soon be details that would help persuade the captain ….

Picard sat in the chair across from Soran, and waved away the waiter who had hurried up to take his order. “Nothing for me.” All brusqueness, he turned to Soran. “I understand there’s something urgent you need to discuss with me.”

“Yes.” Soran fixed his gaze on the captain’s dark eyes. “I need to return to the observatory immediately. I must continue a critical experiment I was running on the Amargosa star.”

A flicker of irritation crossed Picard’s features. Soran knew exactly how it must have sounded: the eccentric scientist consumed by his work, interrupting the captain at an inopportune moment. “Doctor,” Picard said, with a hint of impatience, “we’re still conducting an investi-98 99

gation into the attack. Once we’ve completed our work, we’ll be happy to allow you and your fellow scientists back aboard the observatory. Until then—”

Soran let some honest desperation slip into his tone. “The timing is very important on my experiment. If it is not completed within the next twelve hours, years of research will be lost.” And if he did not manage to convince the captain soon, it seemed their conversation would come to a premature conclusion, before Soran could find the key, the precise words needed. Oh yes, there was definitely something here. Horrible pain. Agony. Grief…

But Picard was already moving to rise; with a curt, dismissive tone, he said, “We’re doing the best we can. Now, if you’ll excuse me…”

And there it was: the flames, two people screaming, dying in such abject misery that Soran drew in his breath, shuddered at the memory of his own long-ago pain. So… we have more in common than I thought, you and I…. And with desperation tempered by genuine empathy, he reached out and gently, firmly, grasped the captain’s arm.

Picard wheeled, outraged—then was stunned to silence by the knowing intensity in Soran’s eyes. Soran leaned forward until Picard’s face filled his entire field of vision.

“They say time is the fire in which we burn,” he said softly. “And right now, Captain, my time is running out.”

Yes. He had sensed rightly. There it was again: the flames, the screams, the horror. Picard dropped his gaze, unable to meet the other man’s eyes.

Soran released his grip on the captain’s arm. No need

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now; his words held Picard more tightly than his hands ever could. His features softened with unfeigned sympathy as he looked deep into the Starfleet officer’s eyes, thinking of the Borg’s death rays dissecting a malachite planet. How many nights had he lain awake imagining that final horror for Leandra, Mara, Emo, as the fiery rays streaked down from the El Aurian heavens?

You see, I too know what it is to smell the flesh of my loved ones burning ….

“We leave so many things unfinished in our lives,” Soran continued. “I’m sure you can understand.”

Picard looked away and was silent for a long moment; when finally he spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. “I’ll see what I can do …. “

Without a word, he turned on his heel and left before the El Aurian could reply. Soran watched with relief and triumph; he had won. He rose, then carefully pulled out the antique pocket watch Leandra had given him, a name-day present in recognition of his fascination with temporal physics. For a moment, he stared into its gilded, crystal-clad face and saw reflected there his own.

He had come to both treasure and despise Leandra’s final gift to him—treasure it because it was all he had left of her, outside the nexus; despise it because it served as constant reminder of time’s cruelty. In the end, time annihilated all; what was the brutally apt Terran meta-phor? Cronos, eating his children…

Time was his enemy, now; the only solution was to sidestep it altogether, in the nexus. And, cruelest joke of all, he had only twelve hours in which to do so.

Soran moved toward the exit—then froze at the sight of a familiar face across the room, behind the bar. Guinan. She had been among the refugees on the

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Lakul the day they had encountered the Enterprise-B ú.. and flirted with the nexusú And if she recognized Soran, she would at once sense his true intentions… and tell the captain.

Luckily she was distracted, smiling and talking with two crewmen; she had not seen him, and Soran was determined to leave before she sensed his presence. He wheeled about and, using the crowd as a shield, slipped out the far exit.

“So,” Guinan said. She bent slightly to retrieve a dust-covered flagon from beneath the counter, then straightened and allowed herself a small smile at Data’s comical expression, which managed to convey both disgust and delight. “Now that you’ve got hate covered, let’s see if we can work on love. Aged Saurian brandy; not quite as old as I am, but a close second. Just a little taste, boys; this isn’t synthehol, you know.”

Geordi had finally relaxed enough to smile and peer at the label. “That looks like the real thing, all right.” He drew back slightly as Guinan blew off the dust and then began uncorking the bottle. “Data, you should test emotion chips more often. Looks like we’re in for a treat.”

Grinning, the android proffered his empty glass; Guinan began to pour. At the same instant, Geordi’s comm badge signaled; he set down his own glass and touched his insignia. “La Forge here.” “Commander Worf here. Is Data with you?” “Yes.”

“Commander Riker requests both of you report to the transporter room immediately. I will meet you there. Worf out.” Geordi released a glum sigh. “C’mon, Data. Let’s go.”

Data set down his glass and frowned. “I believe I am having another emotional reaction.”

“It’s called disappointment, Data.” Guinan favored him with a grin as she recorked the brandy. “You’ll get over it. Don’t worry, this‘11 still be here when you two get back.”

“Thanks, Guinan.” Geordi waited for his now-despondent friend to rise; the two headed out into the corridor.

Guinan was watching them go when a dizzying flash of memory overtook her. Suddenly she was in the Enterprise-B sickbay almost a century before, in a twilight world between reality and the nexus, looking up into the dark eyes of a man she later learned was Pavel Chekov and saying, He g gone to the other side. Your friend, Jim ….

The ugliness of reality—her world, her family, her life destroyed in one brutal moment by the Borg—and the unspeakable beauty of the nexus had overwhelmed her then…

She tried to shake the memory off. She had not thought of the nexus—had not permitted herself to think of the nexus—for many years. But why… ?

Even before she could silently ask herself the question, she knew the answer: Someone was here. Someone who had been there that night; someone who had been to the nexus.

She whirled to face the precise spot in which she knew the person was standing.

No one. Empty carpet. Someone called her name; she gave her head a gentle shake, then turned, smiling, the memory once again submerged.