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Troi faced him and asked softly, “Captain… what’s happened?”

He tried to look away, tried to gather himself, but the empathy in her dark eyes compelled him to hold her gaze and answer. “Robert,” he whispered. “And Ren6. They’re dead. They were burned to death in a fire.”

She drew back, lips parted in shock and sorrow. Picard rose and moved toward the observation window to look out at the stars.

“I’m so sorry,” she said at last.

“It’s all right,” he said tightly, clasping his hands behind him. “These things happen. We all have our… time. And theirs had come.” It sounded like nonsense to his own ears; pointless, hollow. Meaningless. Troi would have none of it.

“No it’s not all right.” She moved slowly toward him. “And the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can begin to come to terms with what’s happened …. “

“I know that,” Picard said shortly, then caught himself and softened his tone. “But… right now, it’s not me I’m concerned with. It’s my nephew.” He half turned toward her, his voice full of sudden intensity. “I just can’t stop thinking about him—about all the experiences he’ll never have. Going to the Academy. Falling in love. Children of his own. It’s all… gone.” “I had no idea he meant so much to you.”

Picard gave a grim nod. “In a way, he was as close as I ever came to having a child of my own.”

She moved away from him then, toward the open album on the desk, and began to flip through the pages of pictures. After a time, she glanced up. “Your family history is very important to you, isn’t it?”

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Picard stepped beside her to stare down at the pictures. “Ever since I was a little boy, I remember hearing about the family line. The Picards that fought at Trafalgar… the Picards that settled the first Martian colony. When my brother married and had a son—” He broke off, overwhelmed by guilt and sorrow.

Troi finished gently for him. “… You felt it was no longer your responsibility to carry on the family line.”

He released a great, silent sigh, and, in lieu of a nod, let his chin sink to his chest and remain there. “My brother had shouldered that burden, allowing me to pursue my own selfish needs.”

Her tone became firm. “There’s nothing selfish about pursuing your own life, your own career.”

He did not answer, but turned again toward the observation window to gaze at the stars beyond. He agreed with her; yet he could not help feeling that he had been wrong, to think that career was everything there was to life. His career was bound to end—but loving and caring for those close to him would endure. He had always known he would retire to the family estate, and he had hoped that Robert and Ren~—and Ren6’s children—would be there.

At last he said, “You know, Counselor… for some time now, I’ve been aware that there are fewer clays ahead than there are behind. But I always took comfort in the fact that, when I was gone, my family would continue. But now…” He moved over to the album, and opened it to the final pages: blank, all blank.

Mindless, bitter rage swept over him. He picked up the cup of undrunk tea and hurled it across the room; cold Earl Grey spattered across the desk, across the album,

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releasing the faint fragrance of bergamot. The cup thudded, unbroken, against soft carpet. He stared back at Deanna Troi. “But now… the idea of death has a terrible sense of finality to it. There’ll be no more Picards.”

His outburst had startled him; but not, apparently, the counselor. Her gaze was steady, sympathetic. “Captain, perhaps we—”

She never finished, but threw up an arm to shield her eyes from the brilliant flare of light that flooded the room. Picard raised his own arm as he rushed toward the window, trying to see what had happened, but the glare was too intense, too blinding. He closed his eyes, still dazzled, as Riker’s voice came on the intercom:

“Senior officers report to the bridge! All hands to duty stations!”

The disaster left Picard no choice: by the time he and Troi stepped from the lift onto the bridge, he had emerged from his grief. He stepped beside Riker and followed his second-in-command’s gaze to the main screen, where the star called Amargosa was dying. To Picard’s eyes, it looked as though the sun were being consumed by fire. The core was rapidly dimming, growing black as charred remains; the corona flared as it ejected flaming debris into space. “Report,” Picard said.

Riker turned his face toward the captain while keeping an eye on the screen; Picard caught the look of concern in his eye and ignored it. “A quantum implosion has occurred within the Amargosa star,” Riker responded. “All nuclear fusion is breaking down.”

Picard stared at the screen in wonder. He knew what stars were capable of; had watched one go supernova with his own eyes—from a safe distance, of course. But he had never seen this. “How is that possible?”

From his station, Worf answered. “Sensor records show the observatory launched a solar probe into the sun a few moments ago.”

Picard frowned. The observatory… But there was no one there except for the away team… and Dr. Soran, he recalled with a chill, who had recently been given permission to return and complete his work.

Time is the fire in which we burn

Riker nodded. “The star’s going to collapse in a matter of minutes.” He turned as a sensor on Worf’s console beepeal ominously.

The Klingon looked up at the two senior officers, his eyes wide with concern. “Sir. The implosion has produced a level-twelve shock wave.”

Picard said nothing, merely digested the news in stunned silence and shared an ominous look with Riker.

“Level twelve?” Troi asked, aghast. “That’ll destroy everything in this system.”

A voice filtered over the intercom. “Transporter room to bridge. I can’t locate Commander La Forge or Mr. Data, sir.”

Riker set a hand on Worf’s console and leaned next to the seated Klingon. “Did they return to the ship?”

Worf ran a quick scan of the decks, then shook his head. “No, sir. They are not aboard.”

Picard stepped beside them. “How long until the shock wave hits the observatory?” “Four minutes, forty seconds,” Worf reported.