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just as quickly. “Dinner’s ready! Let’s go! Your aunt and uncle and cousins are here, and they’re hungry!”

Happy shouts came from around the tree; toys were dropped, crumpled paper kicked carelessly aside as the children scrambled toward the dining room.

Picard glanced toward the adjacent room and caught a glimpse of shadowy figures moving toward a long table. One of them laughed—an abrupt, deep, throaty sound.

Robert. He closed his eyes, struggled to compose himself.

He was in the nexus; which meant that two hundred thirty million innocents had died. And for what? None of this was real. Robert and Ren~ were not really here, really alive. In reality, he would be assumed dead, destroyed in the shock wave. And Lursa and B’Etor might very well possess the ability to cause such massive destruction again.

The youngest boy, Matthew, lingered, and took his father’s hand in his small warm one. “Papa… are you coming?”

Picard gazed down into his child’s earnest, delicate face. A rush of tenderness overwhelmed him, filled him with a contentment, a peace beyond that induced by any drug. He turned his back to Guinan and let Matthew lead him one step, another, toward the laughter and happy voices emanating from the dining room.

On the way, they passed the tree. Once more, the flickering light inside the glass globe caught his eye.

He stopped in midstride. Matthew looked up at him, quizzical.

“Is something wrong, Papa?”

“No.” Picard bent down toward the boy and rested a hand briefly, lightly on his cheek. “I’m fine, Matthew. I

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just have to… hide Maman’s present so I can give it to her after dinner. Go on. Go on without me …. “

Matthew’s hazel eyes, so like his father’s, held such innocence, such loving concern that for an instant, Picard faltered, tempted.

And then he straightened, and took his hand away. Matthew bounded off into the other room.

Picard turned. “Guinan,” he said with sudden urgency, “can I leave the nexus?”

She blinked, astounded. “Why would you want to leave?” “Can I?” “Yes,” she allowed slowly. “Where would you go?” He hesitated, confused. “I don’t understand.”

“I told you, time has no meaning here. If you leave, you can go anywhere… any time.”

A faint smile spread over his face. “I know exactly where I want to go—and when. Back to that mountaintop on Veridian Three—before Soran put out the star. I have to stop him.” He hesitated. “Only tell me before I go… Only a part of you is here. So you’re also on the ship. If you’re still here… then the ship is all right, isn’t it? It must have outrun the shock wave.”

All traces of the smile ebbed from her face; she gazed at him solemnly a time before answering, “No, Jean-Luc.”

He closed his eyes again as the sound of Robert’s laughter wafted from the dining room once more. When he could speak again, he whispered, “Then it’s done. I’m going back.”

She laid a hand gently on his forearm. “What makes you think things will be any different this time? What if you fail again?”

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“You’re right.” He straightened, squared his shoulders. “I’ll need help. Guinan—will you come back with me? Together, we couldre” “I can’t leave. I’m already there, remember?”

He bowed his head in frustration, casting about for some other option, some other way; when he looked up, Guinan was smiling enigmatically. “But I know just the guy …. “

“My God,” McCoy breathed with delight, peering through the cracked doorway. “They’re all out there, Jim. It looks like a Starfleet retiree convention.”

James Kirk gazed another second through his trans-parent bedroom wall at the glittering view of San Francisco Bay at night. Boats twinkled as they skimmed across the water, which lay black against an indigo sky. He turned, smiling. “Spock made it?”

The doctor, his nose pressed to the crack in the door, wore the expression of kid sneaking a peek at the presents under the tree before Christmas morning. He seemed to have grown younger in recent years; grandparenthood and retirement sat well with him. His hair was still completely silvered, but the shadows beneath his eyes seemed to have eased, the lines on his brow to be less deeply etched. “He made it, all right. Sitting right up front. Scotty’s there with him—and Uhura and Chekov.” He crinkled his forehead, squinting. “But who’s the woman sitting on his other side?”

“Woman?” Jim strode over to the doctor’s side. “You’re kidding …. “

“Tall woman. Reddish hair. You mean she’s no relation?” McCoy angled aside to let Jim take a look. He put one eye to the crack and stared. Beyond, the

spacious living room had been cleared of its usual furniture and garlanded with white roses and gardenias; a small podium had been set at one end, and in front of it stood rows of chairsmall of them occupied. It was a room he had also loved, but had never appreciated as much as this moment, when it was filled with those who were most important to him. He grinned at the sight of his friends in the front row; all of them looked as rested and content as McCoy. Even Spock, who appeared as always ageless, without a single wrinkle or strand of gray. The Vulcan sat one seat from the aisle, with Scott on one side—and the mysterious woman on the other. She was human, striking, lean and light-eyed, with a long veil of copper-gold hair that fell straight to her shoulders. As Jim watched, she leaned over and whispered something into Spock’s ear; the Vulcan listened attentively, impas-sively, then nodded.

“I’ll be damned,” Jim said softly, and grinned with pure pleasure. “He asked if he could bring a friend …. “

“A friend?” The doctor pushed him aside in order to take a second look. “You mean he brought a date?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jim protested, quite unable to erase the smile on his lipsmnot just because of Spock and the woman, but because of everything: the fact that it was his wedding day, and he was here with McCoy, in this wonderful place …. “You’re jumping to conclu-sions, as usual. Maybe she’s a… fellow scientist.”

“In a pig’s eye.” McCoy glanced up from the doorway and looked up at Jim with bright blue eyes—eyes happier and more mischievous than Jim ever remembered them being. He looked the way Jim feltm intoxicated with pure joy, delighted by everything surrounding him—even though each of them had only had