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he’s changing the ribbon’s course. But why? Why try to ! alter its path? Why not simply fly into it with a ship?”

“Our records show that every ship which has approached the ribbon has either been destroyed or severe-ly damaged,” Data offered.

“He can’t go to the ribbon,” Picard said, with a sudden flash of insight. “So he’s trying to make the ribbon come to him.” He turned to the android. “Data, is it going to pass near any M-class planets?”

Data consulted the computer once more, then looked up. “Yes, sir. There are two in the Veridian system.” He touched more controls, enlarging the display of the Veridian star to reveal the four planets orbiting it.

Picard studied the red line marking the ribbon’s path, which passed very close to the third planet. He pointed. “It’s very close to Veridian Three… but not close enough.”

He frowned, troubled, and gazed back at the Veridian sun. As he stared, an unbidden memory rose: the image of the fiery, dying Amargosa star, and in his mind’s eye, he saw it in the healthy sun’s place. A horrid revelation seized him. “Data,” he said urgently, “what would happen to the ribbon’s path if he destroyed the Veridian star itself?”

He knew, with unshakable conviction, exactly what would occur, even before Data worked the console controls and the display shifted once more. Before Picard’s eyes, the Veridian sun dimmed, blinked into darkness. The red line indicating the ribbon’s course shifted—so that it precisely intersected the third planet.

“That’s where he’s going,” Picard said.

After a beat’s silence, Data added softly, “It should be noted, sir, that the collapse of the Veridian star would

 

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produce a shock wave similar to the one we observed at Amargosa.”

Picard faced him with a grim expression. “And destroy every planet in the system.”

The android checked his console readout, then eyed the display with unmasked dismay. “Veridian Three is uninhabited—but Veridian Four supports a pre-indus- trial humanoid society.”

Picard turned back to stare at the display, and the slowly revolving fourth planet. “Population?”

Data’s tone was hushed with dread. “Approximately two hundred thirty million.”

For an instant—no more—Picard gazed at the image of Veridian IV and tried to understand what could drive a man to destroy a world.

If you go into that nexus, you’re not going to care about $oran or the Enterprise or me. All you’re going to care about is how it feels to be there. And you’re never going to come back …. Picard touched his comm badge. “Picard to bridge.” “Worf here.” “Set a course for the Veridian system, maximum warp.” He was already in motion as he spoke, headed for the bridge with renewed determination—and gratitude, to see Data beside him, moving with the same sense of urgent purposefulness.

 

On the rumbling Bird-of-Prey, Soran paused in the corridor to squint in the dimness at the face of his open pocket watch. What he saw there evoked a smile and a thrill of heart-pounding exhilaration; they should be no more than a minute now from Veridian III. Soon he would be with Leandra and the children, far away from

 

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this accursed universe where they were dead and he was trapped aboard this stinking scow of a Klingon ship.

Mr. La Forge had been of no great use. After enduring speechless agony for several seconds, he had provided no further revelations, except to confirm Soran’s suspicion that the Enterprise captain was investigating certain pieces of the puzzle that could lead him to Veridian. Picard unsettled Soran; the captain might have been easily swayed while under the influence of fresh grief— but he was also extremely intelligent. Once that grief faded, there was a great danger that Picard would recover and apply that intelligence to learn where Soran had gone.

But he had only a minute. Soran smiled again at the thought, but the smile was not entirely untroubled. Torturing La Forge had proved more… unpleasant than Soran had anticipated. In fact, it had turned his stomach to think he had become like the Borg.

It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. I was kind—I let La Forge live, which is more than this universe of time and death will do for him. We’re all doomed here, all walking corpses.

He had restarted La Forge’s heart after fifteen seconds, unable to watch the man’s suffering. On his home planet, he had been a gentle man, a kind man, with no stomach for cruelty… certainly not murder.

The sacrifice of Veridian IV is necessary. Necessary. It the only way to return home …. Yet the thought of it haunted his nights.

He would do it, though. He would not falter as he had with La Forge, because what happened on Veridian IV would be distant, bloodless; he would not have to witness it, would already be in the nexus by then.

 

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And, perhaps… unlikely, but just perhaps there might be some lucky few caught in the reverberations from the energy ribbon who would be transported to the nexus. Their bodies would perish in this universe, but their echoes would live eternally. He was doing those possible few a favor.

Nothing—guilt, outsiders, Klingons—nothing could be permitted to deter him now.

He repocketed the watch and stepped from the corridor onto the bridge, where the two sisters sat, gruesome leather-and-metal mirror images, at command. Lursa, the elder, husky-throated one, the one who seemed most often to have the last word, swiveled to face him. “Did you get anything from the human?”

“No,” Soran said, with an inward smile. “His heart just wasn’t in it.”

One of the huge male helmsmen glanced over his shoulder at his mistress. “We have entered orbit of Veridian Three.”

Soran glanced at the looming planet on the viewscreen with a rush of anticipation that turned his skin to gooseflesh, then turned quickly to Lursa. “Prepare to transport me to the surface.”

“Wait!” B’Etor rose, distrustful and swaggering, from her chair. “When do we get our payment?”

He gazed on her, struggling to mask his hatred. He despised having to deal with such small-minded, power-hungry creatures, who would no doubt make a pitiful mess of the galaxy once he had gone.

No matter. This universe and its concerns were fast fading from his consciousness as he focused on the joy to come. These grotesque parodies of womanhood, this ship, this situation possessed no more reality than a

 

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painful dream from which he would soon wake. Lursa and B’Etor were shadows, phantoms who had sprung from the void and would soon vanish into it.

He sighed, fished a tiny chip from his pocket, and handed it to her. “This contains all the information you’ll need to build a trilithium weapon,” he said, as WEtor greedily seized the deadly gift and gazed down at it with glistening, predatory eyes. “It’s been coded. Once I’m safely to the surface, I’ll transmit the decryption sequence to you… not before.”

“Mistress!” the helmsman cried abruplly. “A Federa. tion starship is entering the system!”

“What?” Indignant, Lursa leaned forward, clutching the arms of her chair. “On viewer.”

On the small, dust-covered screen, a grainy, not-quite- focused image of a starship wavered into view. The Enterprise, Soran knew instinctively.

The helmsman swiveled his great, dark head to peer over a leather-clad shoulder at his mistresses. “They are hailing us.”

Lip curling, WEtor growled two syllables in Klingon; her command was followed instantly by the sound of a familiar voice on the intercom.

“Klingon vessel,” Picard said, and Soran closed his eyes. There was strength in the captain’s tone now; he had mastered his sorrow, and become the adversary Soran had feared he might. “We know what you’re! doing, and we will destroy any probe launched toward the Veridian star. We demand that you return our chief engineer and leave this system immediately.”

Soran felt a surge of wild, dark rage, the same fury he had experienced more than a century before toward the Borg. The situation was no different now: Picard was

 

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tion.

 

STAR TREK GENERATIONS

trying to steal Leandra and the children from him a second time.

All compassion fled Soran’s soul. He woulckdo whatever necessary—would gladly strangle Picard, the entire Enterprise crew, with his own hands—if it would help him return to the place he now thought of as home. Soran pulled out his watch with fingers that trembled faintly, glanced at its implacable face, then snapped it shut.

He turned to the Duras sisters. “There’s no time for this. Eliminate them.”

B’Etor gaped at him as though he were mad. “That is a Galaxy-class starship! We are no match for them.”

Soran took a deep breath to calm himself, to dissolve the frustration that threatened to devour his reason. He would not yield. There was a solution, and he would find it, if he could manage to slow his racing thoughts ….

With a burst of inspiration, he pulled La Forge’s optical prosthesis from his pocket, and held it before the curious women like a prize.

“I think it’s time we gave Mr. La Forge his sight back …. “

oy to

md

 

On the Enterprise bridge, Picard paced as he waited for the Bird-of-Prey’s reply. “Maybe they’re not out there,” Riker said.

Picard kept his gaze fixed on the main viewscreen, on the darkness and stars that somewhere hid an aging vessel. “They’re just trying to decide whether a twenty-year-old Klingon Bird-of-Prey is any match for the Federation flagship.”

Beside him, Troi said softly, “Or perhaps they’re on the surface …. “

 

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J. M. IJILLAKU

 

Picard glanced at her. It was a possibility that had occurred to him; one that added an element of difficulty to their current predicament.

It was underscored when Worf turned from the helm to face him. “Sir… according to my calculations, a solar probe launched from either the Klingon ship or the planet’s surface would take eleven seconds to reach the sun.” He paused. “However, since we do not know the exact point of origin, it will take us between eight and fifteen seconds to lock our weapons on to it.” Picard gazed at him grimly, but said nothing.

“That’s a pretty big margin of error,” Riker said softly.

“Too big.” Picard took another restless few steps, then swiveled toward the helm. “How long until the ribbon arrives?”

“Approximately forty-seven minutes, sir,” Data replied.

The captain released a silent sigh of frustration. “I have to find a way to get to Soran …. “He remembered the look of desperation in the scientist’s eyes—one close to madness; yet there had still been reason, there, too. Instinct said that Soran was not a willing murderer; and if Guinan had managed to adapt to life outside the nexus, then perhaps Soran could be persuaded as well.

It would not be easy. Picard had studied the scientist’s biographical information; his young wife and children, all killed by the Borg. Indications were that the Borg had interrogated Soran briefly before the scientist escaped; cause enough, the captain knew, for madness… and for a reason o think he could get through to the scientist. He understood what it was to lose one’s family in a

 

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IAK 1 KI~I~ IINI~,KAI IUINb

brutal instant—and what it was like to have one’s mind, one’s person invaded by cold-blooded force. He started as the helm beeped a warning.

“Captain,” Worf said, “Klingon vessel decloaking directly ahead. They are hailing.”

On the viewscreen, a patch of velvet blackness wavered, then transformed itself into a Bird-of-Prey. “Onscreen,” Picard ordered.

As he watched, the vessel vanished, replaced by the toothily smiling images of Lursa and WEtor.

“Captain.” Lursa’s tone was one of feigned warmth. She leaned forward in her chair, her long dark hair streaming down onto metal-and-leather warrior regalia. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

Picard felt his expression harden. “Lursa, I want to talk to Soran.”

Her smile grew coy. “I’m afraid the doctor is no longer aboard our ship.”

“Then I’ll beam down to his location,” Picard countered. “Just give us his coordinates.”

WEtor spoke, with the same unctuous, faintly mock-ing tone as her sister. “The doctor values his privacy. He would be quite… upset if an armed away team interrupted him.”

The captain hesitated no more than a second. He had hoped to beam down armed and with communications intact, so that he could inform the Enterprise of the prohe’s location—but if that was not possible, then he had no choice but to trust the instinct that said he would be able to stop Soran on the planet surface. “Very well,” he told the sisters. “I’ll beam to your ship and you can transport me to Soran.”

 

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“Sir.” Riker turned toward him, urgent. “You can’t trust them. For all we know, they killed Geordi and they’ll kill you, too.”

“We did not harm your engineer,” Lursa retorted, with such indignation that Picard believed her. “He has been our guest.”

Riker faced her, his expression cold, mistrustful. “Then return him.”

“In exchange for what?” B’Etor demanded.

Data looked up at the captain, his expression eager. “Me, sir.”

Picard ignored him. “Me,” he told the Klingon wom-en. “If you let me speak to Soran.”

He knew at once from their sudden, startled silence that his offer would be accepted. They glanced at each other, trying to mask their enthusiasm; B’Etor leaned over and quickly whispered something in Klingon to her sister. Lursa nodded thoughtfully, then glanced back at the screen.

“We’ll consider it a prisoner exchange.”

“Agreed,” Picard said with relief, ignoring the look of disapproval on Will Riker’s face. The screen darkened, then once more displayed the image of the Bird-of-Prey. Picard turned and headed for the turbolift.

“Number One,” he said, “you have the bridge. Have Dr. Crusher meet me in transporter room three.”

He left swiftly, before Riker could protest further, with determination and an odd sense of destiny.

 

0

 

TEN

In the humid, overheated cabin, Geordi leaned heavily against the back of his chair and awaited Soran’s return. The nanoprobe’s grip on his heart left him nauseated, slightly breathless, perspiring; sweat trickled down his forehead and stung his sightless eyes.

He could not quite figure the scientist out. Soran seemed mercurial, unpredictable. When the interroga-tion had first begun, Geordi felt certain it would end in his execution. Soran’s voice held an edge of anger, pain, an undercurrent of mad desperation that said he would do anything, anything to get what he wanted.

Yet there had been genuine compassion in his tone when he said, I’m not a killer, Mr. La Forge. And in the middle of the torture, the pain had suddenly stopped.

Geordi had survived the crushing agony by forcing himself to mentally count the seconds. He had lost track somewhere after nine—when he had suddenly been overwhelmed by pain and the terrifying conviction that Soran had been wrong, that he was in fact dying. He struggled for oxygen, heard himself gasping like a strug-146 147

 

gling fish, drowning in an ocean of air. His consciousness flickered, and in his agonized, dreamlike state, he be-came strangely aware that Soran sensed what he felt; that Soran knew, and could not bear it.

The torment abruptly ceased. Thirty seconds, Soran had said. But the pain had stopped somewhere around fifteen.

Geordi had lifted his head, forgetting in his pain-filled haze that he was blind, that Soran still had the VISOR. Like I said, he had croaked, I don’t know anything beyond what I’ve already told you.

Soran had not replied. In the silence Geordi had heard the scientist rise, then stand for a long moment before turning and leaving the cabin.

Maybe he had had a change of heart. Or maybe he simply didn’t have the stomach for torture and had gone to get someone else. Or maybe…

Geordi sighed and let his head 1oll to one side. No point in speculating. Either he was going to die or he wasn’t. The thought frightened him—but at the mo-ment, he was too exhausted to waste much energy on worrying about it. So long as Soran left the nanoprobe alone…

He straightened as the door slid open with a groan, and listened intently as two—no, three pairs of footsteps thudded against the metal deck. One pair stopped in front of him; two behind, on either side.

“Mr. La Forge.” Soran’s voice neared until Geordi could sense the scientist standing directly in front of him. Soran’s tone was brisk, hurried. “As much as I’ve enjoyed our little visit, it’s time to part. Stand, please.”

Geordi rose unsteadily to his feet; huge, warm hands grasped his arms just above the elbows and steadied him

while another pair of hands pulled soft cloth over his head. His tunic; his arms were guided into the sleeves, and then another pair of hands placed something cool and metal over his eyes.

He blinked and touched a hand to his VISOR as the world came suddenly into focus. Soran was smiling, his blue-gray eyes bright not with desperation, but with maniacal anticipation. Even the lines and shadows beneath his eyes seemed to have lessened, making him appear a younger man. “Now, if you would be so kind as to come with us…”

He gestured toward the door. Geordi swiveled his head, and saw that he was flanked by two towering guards, their bronze skull ridges terminating in shaggy, waist-length manes of dark hair. “Klingons,” he whispered, and turned to gaze at his surroundings as the guards pushed him toward the exit. “This is a Klingon ship …. “

The quartet entered a cramped, dimly lit corridor. Soran strode in front of them, his attention focused on the hand that held the antique timepiece. “Very astute, Mr. La Forge,” he murmured with a distracted, irritable air. “They do give a very thorough education at Starfleet Academy, don’t they?”

Soran’s intensity had so escalated that Geordi feared for a moment that he was being led to his execution; but they soon entered a transporter room.

Soran stepped first upon a pad and uttered a single command: “Energize.”

One of the guards stepped behind the console and complied. Geordi tried to peer over his shoulder in hopes of spying the coordinates, but the second guard stepped behind him, blocking his view.