"From the west are you?"

"And other places."

"Been to the depths? To the stars?" She laughed at her joke, seemingly not to believe he was anything more than a funny-looking native. The other women laughed at the jest and he took it in stride.

Finally, adolescents brought platters of meat and broth to each table. They remained to serve those seated and then took their own places. Picard noticed that none began eating. All looking toward Hamish to speak.

"Our food gives us life, your sun gives us warmth. For this we are thankful. And we thank you, too, for sending one of your children among us. We will be a better people for his presence."

Everyone bowed low, their heads carefully touching the rims of their plates, so Picard imitated the gesture. Within seconds, the sounds of eating, drinking, and laughter filled the air. They seemed a happy, stable people, one the captain would have found fascinating to study, but while they laughed, more people, closer to home, suffered.

The meat was soft and tender, and was well marinated in some sweet native spices. Picard ate his fill and drank the local wine, which struck him as flat and without much bouquet. He was impressed by their overall politeness as no one, not even the children, pestered him with questions. Instead, he heard hunting stories, local gossip, and gained an impression that between here and the City there were farms and smaller enclaves of people. He was pleased that the path sounded clear so he could try and cut the march from three days to two. At least, he mused as he finished his drink, the Iconians sent him to the right continent.

After the meal, those who served went from table to table and collected the remains. Picard nodded in approval to see how neat and orderly they were, not letting much go to waste. Women and men gathered their children and started herding them back to the huts for bedtime. The older ones went toward the fire and sat there in companionable silence, enjoying the warmth. One took out an item from her belt and began fiddling with it while another reworked a piece of wood with a stone carving knife. Hamish waved Picard over and he was more than happy to join the group.

"What have you seen, on your travels?" an old man asked. He barely had any hair left and his scalp was sunburnt a deep red.

"Much the same as you, I would imagine," Picard said in a friendly tone. "I have traveled on the seas and watched great storms. I have walked in the woods and across a desert, seeing the remains. I have slept at night under the same stars as you, and have dreamed what might be out there." All true, he reminded himself.

"Are there many like you?" the woman who fiddled with a metal item asked.

"Here? No, I don't think so."

He stared at the item in her vein-popped hands, as she turned it over and over again. Something about it seemed familiar and, instinctively, he knew it was out of context. Letting his mind drift a bit, he pictured it in his head.

"That is a tool, is it not?"

"I don't know," she said seriously. "I've had it four or five seasons now - found it while doing the summer planting."

"May I?" The woman handed over the item without hesitation, clearly curious to see what the newcomer might do with it.

It was denser and heavier metal than Picard imagined. The item was smooth to the touch, oblong with an indented opening at one end. He saw a small seam and recognized it could be twisted and he gave it a tug. At first, it resisted his touch and then it began to move. He unscrewed the item into two distinct pieces and saw that within one end was an apparatus that could fold out. Slowly, he brought it into the light and studied its composition.

"I believe this is a garden tool," Picard proclaimed. "Once opened, you pull out this part and it helps dig deep holes for the seeds. Capped together, it can be a digging implement as well." It was not too dissimilar from tools he knew were of Iconian-derived manufacture on Iccobar, and, of everyone involved in this mission, he might have been the only one to recognize it.

This delighted the woman and confirmed for Picard that the Iconians had indeed used this world for a time before departing. Had they been hunted down from Iconia to here? More mysteries to ponder, and he was beginning to believe he'd never know the answers. Thankfully this was a fairly benign discovery, not one to totally alter the culture. After all, they seemed to lack the ability to manipulate metal ore.

"The Young God knows much," Hamish said in admiration.

His being a god to them, though, that could pose problems.

La Forge looked at the tricorder and showed it to Kliv, the engineer who appreciated the intricacies of the Petraw hodge-podge technology as much as he did. The Klingon nodded once and then stared deep into the open panel of the gateway device.

"There's nothing left to do," he said in a matter-of-fact tone.

"No doubt about it," La Forge agreed. He snapped the device closed and tapped his communicator. "La Forge to Riker. Sir, there's nothing left to do. We've rerouted everything possible, but there's no way to stop this ship from being destroyed."

Once the gateways throughout the galaxy were turned on, each used their sophisticated programming to stay powered up - even at the expense of all nearby sources of power. In this case, it meant the lead Petraw ship was a ticking time bomb and the best efforts of the two engineers could not defuse it.

"The Ambassador is about done with the evacuation onto the other Petraw ships," Riker reported. "You and the security team will be the final ones to come back."

Geordi was already moving, leaving the massive engineering deck, heading for the bridge in the ship's center. Kliv remained at his side, a tight bond having been quickly formed between the men. One would not leave without the other and neither would leave the ship until the remaining vessels were safe. Their fast walk became a trot until the two were racing from deck to deck, making sure there would be sufficient time remaining to do their duty.

Boots echoed on the metal deck plating as heavy feet moved with increasing speed. Neither said a word as they wended their way to the ship's nerve center. Once they entered the now-vacant space, each took one of the low-slung stations and began entering coordinates. They called forth details to each other in a rapid staccato, making sure all the redundancies were in synch. A star chart on Kliv's station showed the vessel moving away from the pack, heading away at an accelerating speed.

"We'll never make warp the way this thing is sucking the energy reserves," Geordi said.

"Then today might be a good day to die, after all," Kliv replied, stabbing blunt fingers at a side control panel.

"Not yet," his partner replied. "The engine integrity fields will collapse in about four minutes. Maybe we'll be far enough away."

Kliv shook his head.

Before he could say anything else, La Forge snapped his fingers and summoned his commander once more. "Beam us back, and at the same time, have Kerim push us farther away with concentrated tractor bursts. Every inch will be useful."

"Acknowledged. Stand by to beam up."

Once back aboard the Enterprise, the two once more raced for a bridge, this time to watch the fruits of their labors. Out of breath and perspiring, La Forge couldn't help but notice that his partner seemed utterly fit and not even breathing hard. He vowed to start Dr. Crusher's exercise regimen, ignored for two months now, tomorrow.

"Nice work, gentlemen," Riker said from the center seat. Data flashed them a thumbs-up gesture that made Kliv blink in confusion. Chuckling, La Forge showed his friend the engineering station and they monitored the death throes of the Petraw engine core.

Within seconds, the ship began to buckle then flare and a moment later, nothing remained on the view-screen.

"Shock waves in five... four... three... two... one," Data announced.

The mighty starship bucked once, then twice, then settled down without incident. La Forge rolled out the chair at the aft station and sat, letting out a breath he never knew he was holding. Kliv stood impassively by his side.

Kerim turned to Riker, who was still tightly gripping the arms of the command chair, and asked, "How will the captain return now?"

He had no answer for her, and it was a question he avoided asking himself. With the gateway destroyed he couldn't even send a search party after Picard, in direct defiance of his orders no less. Wherever his friend was, he hoped he was safe and would return soon.

It was considerably more comfortable when Picard woke the following morning. The sun was rising in the sky and he could tell the villagers had been moving about for a little while now. People were already eating, children were chasing a wooden hoop, and something that seemed more pet dog than wild beast was snuffling around the waste pit.

Hamish was tending the fire, which never seemed to die out, when Picard approached. He had already been offered some food and drink so felt refreshed. He liked these people and could only wish them well.

Still, he felt the press of time, and needed to be on his way.

"I need a direction so my journey can continue," Picard said.

"You really cannot linger any longer?"

"Would that time permitted me, but without this object, people will continue to die."

Hamish looked at him with a grave expression on his face. It seemed to just be dawning on him the importance of the task. "This item you seek - it has that much power?"

"It is a key to something that will give me the power to save lives."

"The remainder of this world is very different from our village, is it not?"

"I have not seen it all, but can tell you that it is very lively and I would like to keep it that way."

"You will make a great God," Hamish said with finality.

Picard winced but shook his head slightly. "I am trying to be a good man, first."

An hour later, he was on a worn path leading away from the village, heading in a southeastern direction. Hamish had insisted on giving him two skins of water and some dried meats tied in a large leaf for safekeeping. He tried to extract a promise of a return visit from Picard, but the captain dodged it while trying to remain respectful.

He truly enjoyed their company and had wanted to spend more time, but like the Petraw, he was forced to keep moving. Now, he was walking in and out of shade, as he skirted the edge of a forest. The trees grew quite tall, with thin but sturdy sand-colored trunks. As the village was near water, Picard could hear a stream or river to his right, assuming most of the people lived near whatever natural sources they could find. The smaller trees that seemed to be closer to the water were short and more like overeager bushes, but they burst with orange and beige fruits.

It was quiet and Picard was alone with his thoughts. How different this world was from the harsh remains of Iconia, he considered. Knowing they spent time here would force him to reconsider their path across the galaxy, and he was mentally ordering information for the eventual paper that he would write. This pleasant world was well on its way to full recovery from whatever the Iconians had left behind, and he would have to stop and take some tricorder readings to help determine the age of these artifacts. If the City was what he imagined to be their largest remains, he would have plenty of samples to work from.

He was also pleased to note that the lighter gravity gave an extra bounce to his step and he was making rather good time. The sun was not too hot compared with yesterday, and Picard hoped he would see the City before nightfall and reach it by sundown tomorrow. Hamish and the villagers didn't measure distance in miles or kilometers. They apparently had little dealing with those beyond the village so they never quite developed a precise measurement for such distances.

Within time, Picard noticed tracks in the path, parallel rats that indicated some form of wheeled vehicle had been by, recently enough for the tracks not to have been washed away by the previous day's rain. He saw no such thing at the village so presumed it to be from a neighboring enclave. This led him to conjecture about differing developmental paths for humanoids in the same general vicinity. It was certainly true for tribes found in Africa or the South American rain forest, the captain knew. As a result, he felt a need to stay more alert... just in case.

Sure enough, after less than an hour, he heard sounds. The noise was not that of wheels in mud, but of concerned voices. There was definitely a problem, so he quickened his pace and hurried forward. Within a few minutes, the road rounded a bend and he saw the lains of a wagon teetering over a huge rock and pinning a man underneath. The wide, low platform, filled with bales of something akin to hay, seemed stable, but the axle for the rear wheels had splintered over the rocky path. The man was conscious and moaning, clearly in pain. Watching in fear were women and children, dressed differently from people in the village Picard had visited. These had on lighter-colored clothing that seemed actually spun from natural materials as opposed to the skins the villagers wore. Physically they were the same, even down to the long hair.

Picard saw they were paralyzed to the point of inaction, so he stepped forward and approached the wagon. "Don't be scared, help has arrived," he said.

The woman behind him had stopped wailing and stared at him. He heard a whisper or two but it had grown fairly silent except for the trapped man's moans.

It was clear that the lighter gravity would allow Picard a physical advantage, so all he needed to do was lift up an edge of the wagon so the man could be freed. He took several deep breaths, focusing his energies. Then, placing his back to the wagon, he firmly gripped the corner, planted his feet far apart, and began exerting his strength.

As expected, the wagon full of hay made the effort tough, but his muscles responded and he strained. Not a young man anymore, Picard prided himself in staying physically fit and knew he was up to the challenge. He gritted his teeth and continued to apply pressure, finally feeling the wagon rise.

"Quickly, come clear him away!" Picard ordered, not wanting to shift his focus.

The women hesitated, but three of the children, most seeming around ten years old, rushed forward and tugged at the man's exposed leg. He grunted louder than Picard, making for an odd duet. Finally, Picard could tell he'd have to let go in a matter of moments, as the children continued to slowly drag the man away.

Finally, the man was clear and Picard let the heavy wood slip from his fingers. It shattered some more as it resettled itself against the rocks but he doubted anyone would care. Wiping the sweat from his brow, Picard saw that the man was having his leg tended to by one woman while another was giving him water.

He took a drink himself and then slowly walked over to check on the injured person.

"You saved him, thank you, Young God!"

"Yes, thank you, Young God."

Picard was feeling particularly uncomfortable for being repeatedly singled out and called a god. It made sense that there would be mores and beliefs carried from village to village but he was nothing like a god.

"Will he be all right?"

"I think so," the woman responded.

"Good, then I will be on my way." Picard turned toward the path, hoping to make a fast escape from these emotionally distraught people.

"Why leave us so quickly, Young God?" The speaker was a young girl, one of the children who helped him.

"I must go to the City," he replied.

"Stay so we can thank you properly," she said.

"I wish I could, but I must hurry."

"The sun is going down, you won't make it there today," she argued. "At least let us feed you supper."

Picard glanced at the sky and noticed it growing deeper in color, and that it was beginning to cool. He had hoped to glimpse the City today but it seemed not to be. There was safety in numbers, he knew, and the man might need attention.

It seemed decided for him so he smiled at her and accepted the invitation.

Within an hour, the area was transformed into a small campsite with vegetables being grilled on a small fire. Lean-tos were established by the forest's edge, and the boy had brought back water from the nearby stream. The man, who was named Yanooth, had slept on and off as he recovered from the shock. The leg was badly broken and the women successfully placed it in a neatly made splint.

Picard's offers of help were refused, so he sat back and spoke quietly with the children. They told him of their village, which was beyond the City, and how they loved traveling. Then" innocence and resourcefulness charmed him.

One young boy seemed quite taken with Picard's actions but didn't act like he was a god, which he found refreshing. Instead, the boy asked questions about lifting the wagon, how his muscles felt, how he could manage to do such feats for himself. His named was Chanik, and he wedged himself between one of the women and Picard when they sat to eat the vegetable stew.

"I've been to the City once," he proudly announced.

"Really?" asked Picard. 'Tell me about it."

"Well, it's like no place you've ever seen," he said between mouthfuls of food. "Tall huts, mostly broken, with weird-looking vines connecting some of them together. It's as big as this forest, maybe bigger, and the animals all avoid it so it's a good place to hide."

Picard processed the information, trying to imagine the place, and wondered how much of it still functioned given how long-lived the Iconian technology was. "I'll find out for myself soon, won't I?"

"And I'm going to show you!"

Picard was alarmed by the pronouncement. He had already learned that Chanik had attached himself to this traveling party, and was from one of the villages nearby. The last thing he needed was to be responsible for someone's life while he was rushing to save countless others.

"I can't do that," he declared. "I must move quickly and I won't be able to properly look after you."

Chanik put down his wooden bowl, wiped his mouth with the back of his left hand, and grinned. "I'll be looking after you, Young God Picard. After all, I know how to get in there and you don't."

The captain, recognizing a universal tone in his young voice, sat quietly, suspecting he was going to have company, like it or not. He resolved to make the best of the situation, since the youth's experience just might allow him to move through the City quicker. The notion though, kept him awake as he lay on a bed of fern leaves, trying to sleep.

Chapter 3

The morning sun had Picard awake before the others. He could feel the excitement building in his chest as he checked to make sure his equipment was still where he had secured it the night before. The captain had decided to use the phaser and tricorder as little as possible, refusing to raise the notion that a god, young or otherwise, might need such devices.

He checked the campfire and saw there were still embers he could coax back to cooking heat and proceeded to busy himself with preparing the breakfast. It was the least he could do, he decided, since the others had been good enough to feed him the previous night. With a glance, he saw Chanik rolling over, still asleep. The youth was full of possibilities, the captain recognized, but also full of risk, and he still disliked the notion that he would be joining him. The captain shoved the thought from his mind and continued to build the fire and then find the remains of dinner to reheat into breakfast. There were some fruit trees nearby, so he went over and carefully judged which were the ripest. The branches grew tall, the fruit yellow and fat, and the captain had to reach quite a bit to snag the ones ready to eat. He grabbed enough, hoping to have extra to bring along with him since he doubted here'd be much in the way of food once they entered the city.

He heard the stirrings of his companions and was pleased since it meant they could eat and he could be on his way that much sooner. His goal was to reach the City quickly and then use the tricorder to track the Master Resonator. With it, he hoped to return to the portal he had emerged from - or find another functioning gateway in the city. Geordi La Forge had shown him how they focused the portal's reach, so he had high hopes of finding his way directly back to the Enterprise.

"Young God Picard, today's our day for adventure!"

Chanik ran across the encampment and held out his hands to help hold the fruit. He must have just woken up but was already at full speed. Picard smiled at this, and appreciated having the extra arms to hold the fruit, which had a fuzzy outer skin, but felt firm and ripe in his hands.

"We'll eat some and travel with the rest," Picard said by way of explanation.

Chanik nodded eagerly, impressed with the bounty. The breakfast went by without incident, and within the hour Picard and Chanik were ready to depart.

Yanooth was in good spirits, despite his leg injury, which pleased the captain. He figured the traveling party would be in good shape for the remainder of their journey back to their home village. The grateful man insisted Picard take a leather satchel, and needing something with which to carry supplies, the captain graciously accepted. Limiting his contact with all, after this, was his best course of action, although he suspected shaking Chanik loose would be a problem later on.

"How far to the City?"

Chanik took his first steps on the trail, a small backpack filled with water, fruit, and whatever personal belongings he had tucked in. His smile was bright, despite the dingy teeth, and he pointed up the trail and declared, "We could see it just after midday."

"Excellent, then let's begin," Picard said.

But the boy was already walking briskly ahead of him; the journey was under way. With a smile, Picard picked up his pace and followed along.

The trail continued to skirt the forest, but within two hours, it had thinned and ended, opening up to wide fields that seemed full of grains, growing tall in the sun. The area seemed lush and golden, thanks to the water nearby. He tried to spot animals grazing but saw little beyond native birds that were too high up to study.

Chanik was just as comfortable chatting as he was with silence, which only pleased the captain. Were the boy overly inquisitive, he knew, it would only make him defensive, spoiling the hike. They did chat briefly, talking about other places Chanik had been, comparing them with the forests they left behind. The boy seemed to prefer open space to the closed-in feel given by the trees, but he also admitted to minimal experience in forests, since there were not many where he grew up.

As they walked, Picard began to note uniformity to the fields, row upon row of similar grains followed by sections with tidy rows of other plants. Farming principles seem to be fairly universal, he thought. From what he could judge, the society he had encountered had come a far way from the high-tech civilization it had once been, but they had learned to work with nature rather than let it overwhelm them. Had the Iconians abandoned this world two hundred millennia ago, and the Cities all fell to ruin, he estimated the number of centuries before nature thoroughly reclaimed the space. While the technology might have survived the passage of time, nature would find its way to reassert itself. The people might have had a difficult adjustment, but he doubted he would ever learn. He had seen no books yet, just simple people living a peaceful existence. The remains of the Iconian culture obviously had been the foundation for modem mythology, but that was only natural.

"Someone is doing an excellent job maintaining these lands," Picard noted.

Chanik looked out to see what the captain was talking about. He clearly hadn't made a point of observing the farmland and was looking at it appraisingly. "How can you tell?"

"The farmers are rotating their crops in the field, keeping everything in neat rows," Picard said. He gestured and added, "The uniform height of the grains shows they must have been planted at roughly the same time, so they run a well-organized operation."

The boy nodded, clearly never having considered I anything like farming. He was probably more a hunter I and gatherer, considering there were no parents to teach him. Picard smiled at the boy with regret crossing his features. Every boy deserved a parent to teach him I about the world, he knew. And for a moment, he considered his nephew, now dead, and all the opportunities that were not to be. Forcing the notion from his mind, Picard continued on.

By the noon hour, Picard could see a man at work near the edge of the trail. He was wearing a one-piece outfit, dyed a deep blue, a floppy hat providing shade. The farmer was checking some of his crops, dark fingers weighing a stalk in his hand.

"Fair weather," the man said as the duo approached.

"Fair weather," Picard repeated, figuring it was a safe reply. "I have been admiring your fields. You do excellent work."

The farmer looked directly at Picard, recognizing his somewhat different appearance. He said nothing for a bit and finally nodded in acknowledgment.

"Been dry," he said.

"I can still hear the river so water must be plentiful."

"Maybe. Can only carry so much of it."

"I see your point. Is it a problem?"

"Heat's making the stalks short, will have to harvest them sooner than I'd like."

"Has it been dry here long?"

"Long enough," came the reply. "Not from around here, are you?"

Chanik finally chirped up. "This Young God is Picard and I'm taking him to the City."

At the words "Young God," the farmer once more stared at Picard. The words meant something to him and there was a moment of suspicion. He must have decided the captain wasn't a threat and just went back to looking at his grain.

"Do you grow much else?"

"Got my house by the water, grow me some berries, make a little wine."

"I see. How do you make the wine?"

The man looked at Picard once more, a look of surprise on his face. The expression read as if everyone knew how to make wine, why would a Young God be asking?

"Soak the berries for a day or two, mash them in a ... you know, the usual way."

Picard nodded but asked, "Hot or cold?"

"The wine? Neither, serve it natural."

"No, the soaking. Do you use hot water or cold?"

"Just pull water from the river, fill up the basins and dump in the berries."

"I see. I think you might find the wine more flavorful if you use hot water for the soaking. Do you add anything to the berries?"

"Nope, just let 'em ferment."

"How long before you serve it?"

"From soakin' to servin', must be a few months."

The farmer was looking less suspicious, caught up in the discussion of tradecraft.

"What do they ferment in?"

"Earthenware jars - keep 'em in a shed back of the house."

"There's plenty of wood nearby - if you make barrels, I think you will find they age better. And I'd let them sit longer before serving, maybe up to a year." He wasn't sure how long they measured their time, but given the day-night cycle he'd witnessed, it wasn't too far from Earth norms.

"That a fact?"

Chanik stayed silent, watching in fascination as Picard continued to question the methods and suggested alternatives. The farmer didn't dispute the comments nor was he agreeing with them, just nodding occassionally.

Picard reached into his bag and pulled out one of the yellow fruits, which Chanik had called a quint. "For variety, you might want to try adding some fruit juice. Something like this might be good, or mix some other fruits. I would, though, only add about two fistfuls of juice to a barrel as high as your knee."

"Fruit in my wine? What for?"

"Good as your berries are, wouldn't you want some wines that are sweeter or tarter throughout the day or year?"

"Maybe. Never thought about it."

"I grew up learning the craft," Picard said, his mind's eye picturing the Picard family vineyards and the years he spent helping his father.

"That a fact."

"That it is," Picard replied. "I'd really like to stay and show you, but Chanik is right: We're going to the City and I am pressed for time."

The farmer chuckled at the word "pressed" since it was a winemaking term. He nodded in acknowledgment. "Well, I wish you luck. Might try some of your ideas."

"I think you'll find yourself the envy of the area," Picard said with good humor.

"Going with just the quints?"

Picard nodded, not really giving his food supplies much thought.

"My house is just a little bit up the road; let me give you a few other things. Way to thank you for the advice."

"That would be most gracious of you," Picard said.

"Never hurts to thank a Young God," the farmer said, tossing the grain on the ground and starting to walk. "Might be some rain in it."

Picard did not reply, inwardly sighing at the notion of his godhood.

Some twenty minutes later, the captain and the boy had some dried meats, additional fruits, and a small skin full of the farmer's wine. The farmer hadn't said much else, and Picard did not see any telltale signs of a wife or children in the small three-room house. He recognized it as a rather solitary experience, making him feel more than a little sad for the man.

Chanik was thrilled with the additional supplies and was chattering on about how this would make their stay in the City nicer. He admitted there might be some wild berries or fruits in the City, but mostly weeds covered the streets.

"You seem to know so much," Chanik said. "I have been well taught, and in my years, I have experienced quite a bit," Picard replied with a smile. "Who taught you?"

"My parents, teachers, things I learn by observing. You seem to know much for one so young." Chanik looked up in eager anticipation. "Do I?" Picard realized that much of what he learned was through life experience. He doubted that anyone spent that much time showing Chanik how to accomplish much. That spoke of a certain intelligence, which would benefit the boy over the years ahead. Still, Chanik had to survive to grow and for that he needed something more than a nomad's life. Even one life can alter a society's direction, Picard knew, but he had to skirt the Prime Directive since he required Chanik's experience with the City.

The captain himself didn't mind the delay too much but was now trying to make up for time. After another or so, Chanik excitedly pointed out the first glimpse of the City's silhouette. Sure enough, spires and skyscraping buildings were topping the horizon. The captain estimated the City to be perhaps half a kilometer in width and another hour or two away. He withdrew the tricorder and scanned ahead, receiving no sign of active power sources. His estimates seemed to be right on the mark so there'd be several hours for him to search the City before dark.

He frowned, though, when his device also showed two figures some meters ahead, hiding behind some of the taller bushes. Even here, he mused, highwaymen existed to prey on the innocent.

"My sister would be considered quite the catch, Ambassador."

"No doubt," Worf replied. He had allowed Captain Grekor to come to the newly dubbed lead Petraw ship to conduct further studies of their navigational systems. Any race that traveled farther and farther away from home had to have sophisticated tools at its disposal.

On the other hand, it also invited more discussions from the overweight, overbearing warrior, seeking some way to restore glory to the fallen House of Krad. Worf was interested in many things but finding a replacement mate for his late wife Jadzia Dax was at the bottom of such a list. He suffered the comments in silence, totally ignoring the beseeching looks Grekor shot his way.

"You will find their star charts of the Beta Quadrant to be very thorough," Worf offered, hoping it would be a sufficient distraction.

"Already copy them to the Enterprise, did you? Share them with the others?"

"We felt it fair to share our findings with the entire allied fleet," the ambassador said stiffly.

"Feb. More Ferengi to worry about." "You will find, Captain, that the Ferengi have done a remarkable job opening up previously untouchable regions. They are a resource to use as much as they are an irritant."

"Spoken like a true ambassador." In truth it was spoken by someone who had hoped that praising the Ferengi would make him seem a less viable mate for the captain's sister, but Worf simply grunted in reply.

Grekor attached his recording device to the navigational computers and instructed the frightened Petraw to begin downloading. It seemed the very presence of Klingons was more troubling to the aliens than that of the humans or Romulans. Worf found it an odd fact, but accepted it.

He walked away from the self-satisfied captain and looked at the largest viewscreen. He saw several Petraw ships nearby, and recognized the Deltan and Carreon ships farther away. They hung in space without moving, stars not even twinkling much in the background. Almost like a still photograph, he mused. Bright light suddenly filled the screen, enough to make Worf cover his eyes, and he heard chattering from the Petraw surrounding the bridge.

"Which one?" demanded the Klingon captain. A moment later, the screen cleared, and Worf, who had been studying the image, recognized that it was a Deltan ship that had exploded.

Grimly, he began speculating as to the culprit.

Picard did not say anything to Chanik as they approached the ambush. He listened for some sound as a giveaway, hoping he would not need to use the phaser. It was two against one, odds he thought he could manage.

Finally, the men calmly stepped from behind the bushes and blocked the path. They were thin of body and hair, wide-eyed. The taller of the two held a thick branch as a club.

"We'll lighten your load, thank you very much."

"I can share if you're hungry," Picard offered, trying to appear unthreatening.

"What are you?"

"He's a Young God!" Chanik declared.

"Not very likely," the tall one said. "No such thing as Gods."

"He's right here! How can you say that?"

"Quiet, Chanik. I can share the food, even the water, but you will not leave me with nothing."

The two stepped forward, club raised. "I think we will."

"Oh yes, we will."

They took another step forward, clearly ready to cause harm in exchange for the food. Picard had tensed himself, and had considered his surroundings. He also recognized his advantage given the planet's lighter gravity. He quickly dropped his satchel, just as the tall man began to swing the branch. Picard crouched briefly, then jumped into the air, cleanly rising above the moving branch.

Landing, he ran forward, outstretched arms before him, battering the two men. The one with the branch was caught off-balance because of the swing's momentum. The other spun to his side, hands balling into fists.

Picard stepped to his left, and with his boot cracked the branch into uselessness. His raised his right arm, blocking a swing from the other one. Just as quickly, he let go with two quick punches to the man's midsection, knocking him backward. The tall one righted himself rushed Picard, who merely sidestepped, letting the move past him. As the attacker got close, Picard grabbed an arm and swung him about, directly into the other man. Both tumbled to the ground and Picard loomed over them.

"I think we're done, don't you agree?"

They looked at him with newfound respect... and fear.

"I thought we could settle this nicely, with you sharing in my food. But clearly, you need a lesson."

"Don't kill us!" the shorter one yelled.

"Kill you? Not at all. Teach you, yes. An hour or so back this way, you will find a farm. The man who tends its works by himself and could benefit from help. In exchange for work, he might feed you, and you will benefit from learning how to work for yourself."

The men exchanged surprised glances. "I offer you no guarantees," Picard said, dusting himself off. He spotted Chanik standing nearby, a mix of emotions crossing his face. The boy seemed more surprised than anything.

"Thank you, Young God!" they both said, stepping over each other's words. They got up, and walking clearly around Picard, began on the path as recommended.

Once they were out of sight, Picard took a drink of water and tossed the skin to the boy. He once more began his journey.

"Why didn't you kill them?" "They were hungry, Chanik. Not evil. Even a world as lush as this seems to be filled with those less fortunate. They also seemed to need a trade, so I suggested one. I think this could work out well for one and all."

"What trade should I perform?"

Picard thought about it a moment and looked down at the eager boy. "I don't assign professions, Chanik. You will find your own path and I trust you will do it with integrity."

"Spoken like a true God!" Chanik exclaimed.

Picard winced, sighed, and continued walking toward the City.

Chapter 4

The red alert klaxon woke Riker out of a not-very-sound sleep. He had managed very little uninterrupted rest since he and the Enterprise were first dispatched to end the quarrel between them and the Carreon.

Still, years of training led Riker to be fully awake as the klaxon sounded.

"Bridge, report!"

"Data here," the android replied. "One of the Deltan ships exploded."

"What? How!"

"Sensor readings are still coming in. It seems to be totally destroyed with all hands."

"Was it Captain Oliv's?"

"No, sir."

"Get him on the com. I'll be on the bridge in a minute."

It was more like eight minutes later, but Riker was back in uniform, settling into the captain's chair. Data had wisely instructed a yeoman to have a cup of coffee ready for the acting captain. There was bustling activity around the large space but he noted the absence of his closest comrades. La Forge was still working to salvage the Mercury, Troi remained in command of the Marco Polo, and Picard was ... somewhere. That continued to trouble him with each passing hour.

As he took a sip from the steaming cup, Riker watched Captain Oliv appear on the screen. He was clearly agitated, which was natural.

"Captain Riker, what will you do about this? "

"I just arrived on the bridge. What happened, Captain?"

"One of our ships exploded!"

Riker turned to Data, who walked his way and elaborated. "Sensors show there was a failure of the magnetic seals around their warp core. The overload was instantaneous."

"Was this a natural accident?"

"Insufficient detail is known, sir. We are still studying the results."

"Send the sensor logs to Geordi for a look. Captain," Riker said, addressing the viewscreen, "we'll get to the bottom of this. You have my sympathies for your loss."

"Sympathies do nothing to bring them back. What you can provide me with is justice."

"Just as soon as we figure out if anyone was behind it. Enterprise out." As the screen returned to the image of space, he addressed the second officer. "Data, I'll want to address the fleet in a moment. Given what we know, any speculation on someone behind this?"

The android resumed his seat and shook his head. "I have too little to go on to offer a valid opinion."

"Damn. I knew it had been too quiet."

***

What amazed Picard the most was the utter silence as they got closer to the City, to the point where it was almost as silent as it had been on the planet where he'd met with the Sentries. Chanik was right that animals avoided the place. His earlier estimates were off; it had to be easily closer to a kilometer in width, with the tallest buildings at least that in height. The metal constructs seemed dull in the sun, mostly copper and greens. In terms of architectural style, he was still too far away to tell if it matched what he had seen of the Iconians.

At least one building had crumbled, either from age or attack. The City itself was ringed with smaller buildings that grew in size the closer to the center they were. He did notice that all the structures were rounded, the style seeming to prefer curves to edges. Birds swooped between the buildings, their long tails whipping back and forth. But on land, he spotted nothing.

"We're making good tune, Chanik," Picard said happily. He was looking forward to once more exploring and learning. Pleasant as the countryside was, it did little for his spirit.

They continued to walk, speaking very little as if respectful for the silence surrounding the dead City. After a time, they heard sounds. Picard immediately recognized them as voices, angry ones at that. He looked down at Chanik, who shrugged.

"The nearest village has to be at least a day's walk to the east," he said. "Just the remains of very old buildings here."

Picard thought about it, unsure of what they would find. Very old could mean old to the villagers or old to a youth or could be Iconian remains.

When he heard the baby's cry, he decided it was time for action. Breaking into a sprint, the captain soon left Chanik behind, his every step carrying him farther than he was used to. In less than a minute, he spotted a cluster of people, forming a loose circle. Outside the circle was the infant, crying pitifully, naked and unattended.

It turned out that very old was accurate, since the crumbling structures were made from fabricated materials, leading the captain to suspect they were Iconian in nature. He counted four such structures and heaps of rubble that might have meant there had been more at one time. Perhaps related to the City or some independent dwellings. He would speculate on that later.

The general vicinity was devoid of overgrowth, leading Picard to believe the nearby villagers used the area. Paths were clearly marked, heading toward the forest behind him and, ahead, toward the City. The purpose eluded him.

Picard slowed and tried to make out what was being shouted. He couldn't tell but suspected the baby might have something to do with it.

As he approached, people noticed him coming, and once again he was treated differently because of his unusual appearance. Gradually, the circle broke open and the captain could see a woman, her rough-spun clothes in tatters, lying on the ground. Standing over her, yelling epithets without stop, was an older man. He had a gray beard, wore some sort of skull cap, and had his fists raised in anger.

A murmur replaced the shouting as one after another, people began speculating as to the arrival of the strange man. Picard looked among them and saw that each was holding something hard and metallic, fairly uniform among them. This was not spontaneous, he realized, but deliberate. He could feel anger growing in his heart.

"What is going on?" Picard managed to keep his voice neutral, recognizing the need to respect local laws and customs.

"You're not from around here," a man said, a little fear in his voice.

"No, I come from a far land. But why is this baby being ignored?" Its cries were the only sound now.

"The baby is a sin," shouted the graybeard. "What should have been mine is not!" He was holding the largest item of the group, oval in shape at one end, and spiky at the other.

"And you know this how?" Picard figured that by asking questions and talking he could get them to calm down, maybe see reason. If he had to let their brand of justice be carried out, he would.

"I can count! I was not home the eight turns ago when this would have started."

Picard looked down at the woman, who was quietly sniffling into her one intact sleeve. She seemed absolutely distraught, emotionally caught up in the moment, and seemed oblivious of the conversation going around her.

"And you will do what?"

The man looked at Picard as if he, too, were a newborn. "I brought her here for the testing. She will live or I die. If she survives, then her innocence is clear and she can bring the baby home."

"And if she dies?"

"She deserved it."

Picard disliked this notion of justice and felt he needed to act. But his respect for the Prime Directive made him proceed cautiously.

"Has she spoken for herself?"

"Haven't asked!" He adjusted his grip on the item, making certain the pointed end was aimed at the woman. The others similarly played with their items, all of which looked like smaller versions of the weapon. Picard couldn't begin to imagine what they were holding, but knew it was totally alien to them and dated hundreds of thousands of years before. The woman looked up and whimpered once. No one else said a word.

Picard reacted with instinct, not thought, and rushed the man, knocking into him. The weapon's weight in his hands forced him to tumble backward to the ground. Now it was Picard who loomed over the man.

"Where's the justice in using something so sharp? You want the truth? Ask her! If she betrayed you, then let justice be done. But if she has been honest, your 'test' would surely take her away from you and the child. You're letting anger cloud your judgment."

He then turned to the rest, who just watched in silence. Picard also spotted Chanik finally coming into view. It just dawned on him how much ground he must have covered but was thankful for the advantage.

"And you," he said in a cold tone. "You would let this man exercise faulty judgment? First and foremost, this woman should have a say in defending her honor. Second, if your custom is for the stoning to happen, then she needs a fair chance to survive. What he was using would have killed and there's no justice in that!"

With that, Picard walked over to the infant, whose cries had grown intermittent. He scooped it up and instantly the baby grew silent. Gently, he checked for bruises, saw none, and walked back to the woman. She was sitting up now, and gingerly, he handed over the child. "Tell the truth" was all he said to her.

"What are you?" one of the women asked. "Just a traveler and I am on my way," Picard said. He shot a glance at Chanik, giving him a warning look that said speak nothing of godhood. The boy nodded once, clearly struggling with himself not to speak. Picard predated the boy's enthusiasm but had had enough alter about deities for the day.

People spoke up, asking questions of the stranger in their midst, but Picard ignored it all. He did not want to get further involved in their lives, disgusted as he was with their notions of justice.

"She might have deserved something," Chanik opined as they moved away.

"Yes, a fair hearing. Chanik, the accused must have a chance to speak in their defense. The accusation itself is not enough to prove guilt or innocence."

"Really?"

"People can make accusations to cause trouble, put others in danger. Where I come from, we have a very complicated set of laws so the innocent are protected and the guilty are found out with facts, not guesses."

"Wow, that's very involved. How do you keep all those things straight?"

"Protecting our laws is a trade given much importance in my land."

"All those laws and rules and things could make my head hurt," Chanik said.

"Or give you a reason to live," Picard said. "Still, you're too young to worry about a trade. Besides, first must complete this adventure."

The City was close now and all he wanted to do was arrive and begin his hunt.

La Forge strode from the turbolift directly to the ready room, where Riker waited. The acting captain was studying reports with a small stack of PADDs littering Picard's desk. The engineer knew Riker was normally a most effective first officer, but the current situation kept him from being at his best.

"Welcome back," Riker said with a tired grin.

"Wish I had better news, but I think the Mercury's scrap."

Riker looked up at that, placing the PADD on the tallest stack. "Captain Brisbayne must be pretty mad."

"Stoic is the word you're looking for," La Forge said, as he took a seat He saw that everything else in the room was its normal neat perfection. "Brisbayne cursed the fates a lot but is now prepping the crew and their gear. We'll have to make room for them."

"Captain Troi can only take so many, and we can handle the rest. I'll have the quartermaster work on details." Riker looked directly at La Forge, hardness replacing exhaustion in his expression. "Did you study the sensor readings?"

"Data's right about the magnetic seals failing," La Forge began. "But it seems they all went at once, not in any sort of cascade as would be normal. The details are scant, but it's the best I can determine."

"So it was sabotage."

"Yup."

"Can we guess as to who?"

La Forge settled back a moment, deciding whether or not to voice his concerns. He decided better get it said now than later. "It can't be the Petraw, we have them locked down. I think we need to look at the Carreon."

Riker nodded, silently agreeing with the assessment. "Landik Mel Rosa fought well, even lost a ship. I'm surprised he'd do anything right now."

"But we don't know him, and don't really know the people." 'True. Okay, let's say it's the Carreon. How could they accomplish this?"

"I would think someone beamed aboard their ship and set up an explosive," La Forge said.

"Check the logs and look for any trace of transporter activity near those ships," Riker ordered. "Let's get our facts in order before talking to Mel Rosa or Oliv."

La Forge nodded, stood and left the room, thanking the powers that be that he was not the one left in charge of the fleet.

"How do we enter the City? Are there defenses of some sort?"

Now it was Picard's turn to ask a lot of questions of his companion. Chanik tried to answer at almost as rapid a clip. The captain had learned already that the City had no electronic defenses - at least none he could detect. If anything, the place was laid open for all to enter. Nature, though, saw to it the City was well guarded. Weeds, plants, even the occasional tree had taken root from the outskirts of the City, choking the streets. Thick ivy-like vines practically enveloped the smaller buildings circling the city so the closer Picard and Chanik got, the less city-like the place looked.

"Do people live nearby?"

"Just the village where those people came from," 'Chanik replied, sucking on the water skin. "Might be others on the other side of the City, but I've never been." Picard looked at the vegetation and then at the sun in the sky. He estimated they had four hours of good daylight left, although that might be severely diminished once they entered the City itself. With his superior strength, the captain thought, he might be able to scale some of the ivy-covered buildings, but the youth certainly would be left behind.

"Have you a way in that you've used before?" "Of course," Chanik replied. "Follow me." The youth led the captain to the left of the trail and entered a wild, untamed section filled with tall bushes. They had walked in silence for fifteen minutes or so when Chanik raised a hand to signal they slow down. He started looking around one structure that seemed gift-wrapped with the green and gold ivy. Rejecting it, the boy moved farther to his left, passing one structure after another. Finally, he ran toward the next one, which seemed indistinguishable to Picard from the preceding ones.

"This is it! I cut my way through here the last time I came to the City." Sure enough, Picard could see some of the thick ivy cut away, revealing hand- and footholds that allowed one to reach a second-story window. The window itself was cleared of growth and whatever used to seal it was missing.

The two slowly climbed up, with the captain noting the strength of the ivy, how it was as tough as some rope he was familiar with. He was also pleased with how easily Chanik kept up - he might have been young, but he seemed surefooted and experienced.

Within minutes, the two made it through the window opening and stood in a small room. The door had been ripped from its housing, exposing some of the wall. It seemed made of a plastic material while the door was something heavier. The contents of the room were shattered, splintered plastic, metal, and other materials, so the captain could not begin to guess what purpose it served. Wires hung from openings in the ceiling and Picard could only imagine whether this was the result of an attack or curious natives centuries after the Iconians left. Withdrawing his tricorder, Picard took readings and pictures, deciding he could study them at another time.

"What is that? You keep pulling it out."

"I call this a tricorder and it lets me take recordings or pictures, among other things. It's a very powerful and useful tool to help me explore."

Chanik was clearly befuddled by the response but merely shrugged and walked to the doorway leading to the rest of the building.

Picard followed, trying to imagine how he would ever find the device in a city this size.

Chapter 5

"You know, Will, something like this was bound to happen."

"What, lose a ship to sabotage?" Riker stared at the image of Deanna Troi while seated at the ready room desk, an unfinished plate of pasta to the side, the stack of PADDs just a little larger. It had been an hour since the explosion and he was no closer to understanding who caused the destruction of a starship. He had security check on Doral, the Petraw leader, but he remained in his quarters, on board, silent.

"There are dozens of ships, with many layers of enmity between some of these races. With the Gorn gone, it didn't lessen the danger any."

"Thanks a lot. What am I supposed to tell Captain Oliv? What if one of Desan's people did it?"

"Don't make rash accusations. With all the sensors working in this area, someone else may have picked up something."

Riker's eyes snapped wide. "I'm too tired to do this job," he muttered.

"What have you thought of, imzadi?"

"Hold on, I'll patch you in," Riker said, tapping a control on the desktop. "Riker to Taleen."

"Go ahead, Commander."

"Can you check your translocator logs, going back an hour or so?" the commander asked.

"For the entire region?" Taleen's brown eyes narrowed and she frowned. "You suspect the Deltan ship was sabotaged, don't you?"

"I'm afraid I do."

"I'll check and be back to you in a few minutes."

Picard and Chanik walked carefully, stepping around vines, roots that broke through streets, and the remains of a civilization that once ruled the world. They had poked their way into various buildings, walked up staircases, crossed bridges that linked buildings, and were generally frustrated by their slow pace.

Now they were well into the City, so the buildings were taller, obliterating the sunlight. Night was falling even more quickly here. With what light remained, Picard recognized he would have to stop the hunt and prepare a campground for them. He sent Chanik to find enough wood for a fire while he prepared some lean-tos for shelter. Their dinner would be some of the cured meat from the farmer and Picard would indulge in some of the wine but would sip carefully. Even though there was no hint of animal life, that didn't mean predators did not exist in the ruins.

"How do we know where to look?"

"That, Chanik, is an excellent question," Picard replied, as he watched the boy build an expert campfire. It seemed the youth possessed some skill at survival and was more than happy to contribute to the expedition. The question was on his mind long before the boy asked. Aimless wandering would mean the Resonator might be days away from discovery. He doubted the Alpha Quadrant would wait for days. As it was, he feared the days here already meant suns had gone nova. The worst part was, he had no way of knowing.

The pair ate in silence as Picard let his mind sort through possible ways to find the Resonator. It couldn't be too large but had to fit the equipment, he suspected. But that could mean something as small as a data chip or as large as his fist. And where would a tool like that be maintained? With no power emanations, he couldn't begin to suspect which building might have housed the gateway ... or were there multiple gateways in something this large?

Chanik kept silent, working on the tough strips of meat. His only comment had been about it being so bland compared with what he was used to.

Picard withdrew the tricorder from his pocket and studied reports from previous gateway encounters. He was looking for some kind of clue. Maybe something in the placement of the device, or the architecture or ornamentation ... He struggled with the small screen, enhancing every image until his eyes hurt with the strain. Giving up for the night, he pocketed the device and finished a piece of fruit.

"I like the stars," Chanik said idly.

"Me too," Picard agreed.

"I like that they're there when I go to sleep. I think about what they are, what's between them, and if anyone lives up there."

"People have wondered that since the beginning of time, I think," Picard said warmly.

They sat in companionable silence for a little while and Chanik scanned the skies with concentration. Picard, look to the left. See those four stars going up and down in a straight line? It's like a staff."

"Yes, it might be. We call clusters of stars that make a picture constellations."

Chanik tried out the word and smiled. "Who's holding the staff?"

Picard scanned the night sky and tried to connect random stars to complete the picture but finally shook his head. "I'm not sure."

"So it's not your home? I thought Young Gods came from the sky."

"Just a story," Picard said, wary of any answer. "People make up stories when they're not sure of the truth. Sometimes it gives them comfort."

"Like my sky pictures?"

"Exactly. You should try to sleep now. I need to push on early tomorrow."

Once again, he had an uneasy night's sleep, worried about time lost, worried about natural predators, worried about the world Chanik would grow up in.

Dawn's light woke Picard and he marveled at the beauty of unfettered nature replacing what had been a superior technology. He felt rested although his mind immediately turned to the problem at hand. He had to find the Master Resonator today and return home.

Chanik was still asleep and their fire had died out, but there was little chill in the air.

Picard took a sip from a water skin and noted the intricate swirling pattern that had been etched onto one side. Staring at it, he let his mind wander for a moment, and he thought about the odd-pointed end of the device nearly used on the accused woman the day before. Its oval nature was similar to the pattern on the skin and it occurred to Picard that the domed structure on the new Iconian world was more oval than circular. Could the oval shape be significant?

If so, then what?

Picard concentrated on the shape of architecture on Iccobar and Dewan, two of the other worlds that traced their lineage to the Iconians. Sure enough, ovals played a part of the overall design, but how could he use the knowledge to find the device?

He once more turned on the tricorder and studied the interior design of the Iconian building where he first encountered a gateway. The room was more rectangular than oval so that did not help, but he read over the description of the control pattern of the machinery itself that Data had provided. He wished he had an actual image of the room, but Picard himself had ordered the tricorder that had recorded the room destroyed both to avoid the sabotage of the Iconians' invasive computer probe and to keep the information out of Romulan hands.

The layout of the controls offered no clue but he read over the description again. There was something he was missing and it nagged at him.

He switched the controls to the exterior of the domed home to the Iconians. There, the captain studied the colors and shapes, but merely glanced at the filigree work. That is, until his mind wandered for a second and his eyes lost their sharp focus and suddenly, all he saw were the spikes at different points to the design. Picard hastily reran the analysis and quickly grabbed a stick and sketched on the ground. He copied the points only of the oval sphere's profile. With a smile, he noted that it was an exact match on the reverse profile.

He drew grid lines in the dirt, seeing how the points matched and there was the missing pattern. Quickly, Picard sketched further, completing the oval from a bird's-eye view, repeating the grid lines and spikes. A picture emerged, the points leading the eye to a specific section of the grid, which could be the location of the City's gateway. From memory, Picard estimated where he and Chanik entered the City and their approximate location. With a silent curse, he realized they were far from the building but at least had an idea of direction. Using the tricorder, he scanned the image and would use it as a crude map.

While he wanted to let the boy sleep more, he felt an urgent need to get moving. Gently, he woke Chanik and gave him fruit for breakfast. Within twenty minutes, they were moving again, this time in a direction that Picard hoped would bring a resolution to the problem.

"There were multiple moves between Petraw ships," Taleen reported to Riker. "Just as Doral moved among many ships to elude you, a single transport crossed a dozen ships before stopping at the Deltan vessel. And from there, crossed seven more ships to return."

"Which one?" Riker demanded, angry at being duped.

"It's one of the older vessels," she said, tapping at an image screen behind her, identifying a single vessel in bottom right portion of the screen. "Data, who do we have watching that ship?"

The android turned and replied, "Subcommander Rivel of the Glory."

"Riker to Chargh."

"Grekor here."

"Captain, can you maneuver toward the vessel identified on our screens?"

"Can't I just blow them up and solve the problem? "

Riker shook his head in frustration, because he felt the temptation as well.

"Sorry, I don't think that's wise at this time. I do intend to do something about this. After all, I promised Captain Oliv."

"Very well. Chargh out."

"Thank you, Taleen. I owe you one. Riker out."

Riker stood and walked over to Data's station, standing to the android's side. He was tired and annoyed and worried. If one saboteur could get out and cause such damage, could more? How was he to protect the entire fleet? He doubted the ships could generate enough of a dampening field to stop the entire Petraw fleet. As it was, he had people stationed on every ship, so bringing them back to their home ships would be problematic. And how much longer should he wait for Picard to return before acting on his own?

"You are preoccupied."

"Very much so, Data," Riker admitted. "The captain was not specific about his return and how long I need to wait. I can't endanger all the ships. I want you and Geordi to theorize a way to stop these transports from happening again."

"Understood, sir. I will be in engineering if you need me."

"Good. Lieutenant Vale, take a detachment to the saboteur's current ship and let's get a hold of him ... or them. Meantime, I need to have a word with Commander Desan about her staff's efficiency."

"How did you figure out a direction?"

Chanik had asked variations of this question since they headed out and each time, Picard tried to explain without giving away too much information. The boy was inquisitive and bright, so he couldn't say too much.

"It's like the stars we saw last night. If you let your mind wander, you find patterns in the shapes. I did that with things I have seen in my journeys and suddenly I saw a pattern that I took to form a map. I could be right or I could be wasting precious time."

Chanik grinned at the captain as he struggled to keep up with the older man's long strides. "You'll be right. You were right every time we had to choose yesterday. You taught the farmer, stopped the highwaymen, saved the baby. Young Gods know how to do things better than people."

"I am people, Chanik. Call me Picard or Young God, I still breathe and eat and walk like you do," Picard said. He knew he was skirting theological issues and wanted to keep the boy focused on the walk. He quickened his pace and forced the boy to trot to catch up, stopping the questioning for now.

They had been moving from street to street for three hours now with just one break. The boy was resilient and his endurance was a marvel. Together, they cut through overgrown passageways and hefted fallen branches from trees that had taken up residence in plazas. Using the sun as a guide, Picard continued to | refine his estimates of where they were headed, correcting their path time and again.

With luck, they would reach the building in question just after lunch. That would provide him with plenty of daylight to thoroughly search the area to find if his guess was correct. If it wasn't, then he could easily have passed it earlier and would never know.

"We must hurry," Picard said over his shoulder. "I think we're on the right path and I'm eager to see if I'm right."

"I'm right behind you," he said, puffing just a little.

He was wrong. They arrived at the targeted building much after lunch and he saw the sun was already starting toward the horizon. With the taller buildings surrounding them, it would be dark within a few hours.

Compared with the rest of the City, the building was nondescript. If it truly housed a gateway, one could not tell by design or ornamentation. The outside was reds and oranges with two windows missing. It stretched maybe ten stories tall, dwarfed by some of the surrounding structures. If there was anything to differentiate it from the other structures, it was the how wide the street grew around it. Picard speculated that might have to do with the volume of people arriving to access the gateway. He admitted that might be stretching the facts to make his point, but it was all he had to go on.

"Should we go in?" Chanik asked.

"Oh, of course," Picard said, realizing just then how he had stared at the building for a while. He certainly didn't feel nervous about it, but he had proceeded cautiously around it. Perhaps he was trying to avoid disappointment or apprehension about what he might find within.

The entranceway was rusted in spots and Picard had to grip the door with both hands, gaining a hold between door and frame. He gave it a test pull and felt how tight it was. Planting his feet firmly on the ground, he tensed his muscles and pulled against the door. He maintained the pressure for longer than he was used to, letting the lighter gravity once more help him.

Finally, after a minute of exertion, the door began to give. Picard stopped, catching his breath and looking at his sore fingers. Once more, he gripped the door and gave it one hard pull, feeling the muscular strain down his legs. And once more, the door gave in to his exertions and swung open. The captain nearly lost his footing as the door was freed but Chanik steadied him. He grinned at the boy and stepped inside the building.

The first floor was filled with pillars supporting the entire building, but also had a series of rooms that seemed uniform in size and shape. Some had desks, others tall cabinets made from something akin to marble. Whatever papers might have been were long gone, and weeds crept through the open windows and spilled out across the floors. Mold and mildew were also in evidence, producing an unpleasant, but by now familiar odor. Chanik wrinkled his nose in disgust.

Unlike most buildings, though, this had a very wide staircase, spiraling down below ground level. It had polished wooden railings that time had done little to. The stair coverings were eaten through and some weeds had snaked down ahead of them. It was also dark since the natural light could not penetrate far. Picard would need something and returned to the main level and looked about.

"Chanik, we need to build torches so we can explore below. Most other buildings do not seem to have basements, but this one does. I believe our goal is down there. Can you find two very sturdy, heavy wood poles, branches, or sticks?"

"Sure can," the boy said. Despite being tired from all the walking, he fairly sprinted from the building out to the streets in search of supplies. Picard had already decided he was correct and was willing to use his phaser to ignite the torches rather than the more laborious natural method of starting a fire.

It took him a few minutes, but Chanik came back, dragging two branches. One was longer than he was tall, and Picard sighed since he would have to reduce it in size. The other was more manageable but the captain was convinced he would be better with two light sources - just in case.

Within five minutes, the torches were cut to size and ignited. The boy marveled at the phaser's effective use, which sadly served to reinforce the notion of Picard being a god. To the captain, it was mild contamination since Chanik could tell what he saw and not be believed. And when he grew up and tried to replicate the tools he had witnessed, he would discover no way to refine the metal or create the duotronic circuits required. Not ideal, but it would pass Starfleet scrutiny. It certainly was better than the legendary story of an officer who left a communicator behind on a world and helped change an entire society.

Once more they descended the stairs, and with the improved light, Picard saw that the basement extended some thirty meters down. A gateway would be very well protected so deep, he mused.

As they reached bottom, he saw illustrations of landscapes that were unfamiliar. They certainly did not match anything he had seen on this world. The artwork had been inlaid along the walls, part of the construction. There were snowscapes, oceans, mountain views, and cities. None looked familiar and the city's buildings were a far cry from the architecture above. Colored circles in the walls seemed to form directional patterns, most leading to his left.

They moved slowly, listening and hearing nothing. The pictures stopped after a bit and instead, tablets with alien script appeared. Picard took out the tricorder and recorded them for later analysis although he suspected there would be matches for other cultures. Turquoise, violet, olive, and cinnamon-colored circles all converged down one hallway so Picard chose to follow them. He was rewarded with the hall opening up to a large chamber.

In the center was a familiar control panel, one he first saw on a world countless light-years away.

This was the gateway control room.

It seemed large enough to open quite a number of gateways and it suddenly occurred to Picard that the pictures outside were recommended locales. The Iconians had stayed here long enough to send their people on vacations^ forcing him to revise his notion that they were chased here by whatever race firebombed their home-world. Still, everything was open to interpretation and he realized now was not the time for it.

"What does that do, Picard?"

"When it worked, Chanik, it could help people find their way to other locations. It's very old equipment and I doubt it functions anymore." In reality, he knew it would have to work to send him home and there was little doubt that the equipment still functioned. Compared with the gateway on Iconia, this was a much newer model, so if the original worked, so too would this one.

Picard studied the chamber carefully, looking for some place the Master Resonator might be housed. The walls seemed smooth and there were no other halls leading to the space. With the torch held high, Picard checked every inch of the walls, taking his time to watch shadows play against joints where floor and ceiling met wall.

He then meticulously studied the console itself, but found no hidden panels or hatches. It grew frustrating, as Picard knew he had found his goal but the ultimate object eluded his grasp.

Chanik, growing bored standing in the same space, had been wandering in and out of the chamber, using the hallway as a place to run. At one point, Picard watched him with a sad smile. So full of energy and eager to help, but everything was beyond his grasp. However, Picard watched a little more and saw something catch the youth's eye. Chanik walked along the hallway with his torch and looked closely at a section, just before the hall opened into the chamber. He placed his tiny hand on a section of wall and pushed, revealing a doorway mostly hidden in the shadows.

Picard quickly stepped over to him, and together, their torches dancing together above them, they peered into the newly discovered room. The air was stale and musty to Picard but that wasn't important. What was vital, though, was the rack set against the far wall. On it was the Master Resonator - he was sure of it.

What confused him at first, though, was that there were fourteen of them, identical to one another in size and shape. The Resonator was larger than Picard's fists together, but flat and copper-colored. On top were four keys: two amber, one brown, and one a deeper shade of brown. He stepped toward them and touched one, feeling the cool metal. Picking it up, he found that it felt light, and as he turned it over, saw indentations that at first puzzled him.

"Is this it?"

"I think so, Chanik. I just didn't expect to find so many."

"Maybe they were being careful in case one broke."

"Maybe," Picard agreed halfheartedly, but he doubted it To date, he had never encountered spare parts of any sort. The Iconians, it seemed, built things to last. Which meant all fourteen Resonators were meant to be used.

"Merde," he muttered to himself.

Christine Vale had seen plenty of action since joining the Enterprise nearly a year earlier. There had been other planets, other ships to help, and plenty of time to train her team to perform at peak efficiency. Being anything but the image of the typical security chief, she felt driven to make certain she earned the respect of those around her.

And she loved her work.

As she materialized aboard the Petraw ship, she used two quick hand signals that sent her three other crewmen into quick defensive positions. All had phasers in hand; one also had a phaser rifle strapped to his broad back. The corridor was close enough to the weapons room that it took little time to fan out and cover the door and entry points along the corridor. While its being empty helped, they still moved quietly and quickly, because she knew that fortunes could change with a single heartbeat.

To her right, Choloh, a hulking Tellarite, checked his tricorder and nodded. The armory was indeed occupied and the single digit held in the air told her it was just the one.

Well, she considered, checking the phaser setting, if you had to hide anywhere, an armory made an awful lot of sense.

Choloh adjusted his settings and pocketed the device, flexing his thick fingers around the phaser, nodding. The others also trained their attention on the single door that separated them from their target.

Vale stepped forward and rapped her knuckles on the door.

"Go away! I'm armed." The voice was expectedly agitated and she was prepared for him to act irrationally given the desperate situation he was in.

"No kidding," she replied. "Be awfully silly of you to sit in an armory and not test the merchandise. We can go about this a few ways, but me, I always go for the nice and easy ones. How about you?"

"What are you talking about?" The voice fairly screamed at her through the metallic door.

Vale stepped to her right, projecting her voice straight at the door. "We could storm the room, have lots of weapons discharge at once, and potentially blow a hole through the hull. You could come out firing and we, clearly outnumbering you, shoot you down. You could toss out the weapon and make a run for it, but that just means we get to pick for who chases and tackles you. Or..."

"Or, you could talk me to death!"

Vale frowned at that. "Hadn't thought about that one. Maybe next time. Right now, we need to bring you to Commander Riker and I'm running out of patience. Decide."

The silence lasted only four seconds, but seemed far longer to Vale, who licked her lips once, tightening her grip on the phaser. She strained her ears to hear what he might be doing but the door muffled it.

"I'll come out," the voice said, so softly that Vale wasn't sure of the words at first.

"Unlock the door, open it with your weapon on the ground, hands up on your head." With hand signals, she had her people move into position, flanking the door. Crouching, she was poised to roll out of the way of weapons fire or scurry into the armory. By staying low, she hoped to be clear of whatever he might desperately try to use against her.

As the door slid open, however, there was little to fear. The Petraw that came out was young and in his natural appearance. There was a scared look to the eyes and the security chief noted the trembling hands against the scalp. With her right hand, she gestured for him to step forward out of the lethal room and he did, with hesitating steps. He was scared and she would have to act accordingly, since that meant he might panic or do something irrational. Vale nodded and Choloh stepped forward with restraints, which firmly affixed the Petraw's hands behind his back, and to a belt. There was no resistance, and finally Vale let out a breath and lowered the weapon.

"I will be damn well heard, Riker," bellowed Brisbayne.

"Captain, this is not open to discussion," Riker said, trying to contain himself. The argument stopped being interesting when the Mercury's captain began repeating himself, as if that would change the nature of the problem.

"Picard has been gone days, you've let the Petraw blow one of us up, I must insist on taking command of the mission."

Riker shook his head sadly, recognizing the mixture of bluster and frustration. Brisbayne was no doubt a fine officer, but his record did not indicate that he was at all equipped for commanding something of this nature.

"Sir, with all due respect," Riker continued, "were I willing to turn command over to someone, I would sooner give it to Desan or Grekor. You have shown a disrespect for the chain of command, while they both have the kind of strategic thinking this requires." He leaned into the camera, his face set in a stern expression. "But I have no intention of stepping down. Captain Picard will be given a little more time and then I will make a decision. I think we're done now." With a finger gesture learned from Picard, he signaled to Data to cut the communication.

"Commander, how much longer will you give Captain Picard?" Data inquired.

Riker settled back in the command chair, not at all comfortable. "Just a little bit more. Without him and the solution, we might have to destroy all the gateways."

"That would be a loss to the quadrant," Data said.

"I see you have not lost your sense of understatement."

Riker considered the chronometer and mentally decided on six more hours. Long enough to show Brisbayne who was in command, but short enough so he could act before too many more lives might be lost. From reports he read a little while earlier, two planets were already critically crippled by the Iconian technology adapting native energy to keep the gateways powered. A small war had broken out in an unaligned star system and raids by Cardassian pirates were reported along the Klingon border. It was painful to read, but Starfleet Command remained convinced that this delegation could solve the problem and he did not want to disappoint.

"Riker to La Forge."

"Go ahead, Commander."

"Just in case I need a Plan B, please begin estimating the minimal amount of explosive power required to take out each gateway." He could hear the whistle as La Forge processed the command.

"We've seen different sizes, so it'll take me a little time."

"You have four hours. Out."

As he had spoken with Geordi, Vale appeared on the bridge, bringing with her the Petraw saboteur. She smiled in triumph but had a fellow officer take charge of the prisoner, and she returned to her post, a finger trailing along the top displaying pride in ownership.

"Trouble?"

"Not at all, sir," she said.

Riker stood and moved closer to the prisoner, noting the panicked look in his eyes.

"We've ceased the hostilities with your people and are working to bring about an end to this madness. What makes you think you can ruin that with blowing up a ship?"

"To be free of you, to get back to our journey," the Petraw said.

"Do you have any idea the number of lives you've taken?" Riker was trying to modulate his voice, contain his anger, but it was a struggle.

"We do what we must to fulfill our goal," came the reply, and it sounded rote, as if it was something the Petraw were taught in school or church.

"And now you must pay. I'll wait for the captain to return to determine what that is. Have him taken to the brig and keep him away from Doral." Riker turned his back to the alien and resumed his place in the center seat. As he adjusted his position, he eyed his usual spot and wondered when things would return to normal.

"What do they do?"

Picard walked back to the console, hefting one of the Resonators, holding it above the control panels. He realized this would be tricky, explaining things to Chanik, but the boy deserved an answer.

"I believe this will give me control over the mechanism, something I lacked back home."

"Does this mean your quest for granita is over? You can return home now?"

"I hope so, Chanik," the captain said.

Gently, Picard lowered the device, trying to fit it over several of the control keys. After two failed attempts, the device fit snugly atop a cluster of amber and blue keys to the console's right. Moments after he placed it, the entire Resonator began to glow, adding significant light to the space. Other keys lit up and a thrum of power started up which startled the boy, who backed away several feet. The power sounded constant to Picard, impressed once more with how well the Iconians built things to last. He idly thought of how they compared with the poor Petraw, who had patchwork ships to show for their legacy.

After half a minute or so, a small ball of light began to form above the Resonator and one of the amber keys began to blink. The light grew in size and began to alter shape, forming a sphere that swelled to engulf the top of the control panel. Within the sphere, smaller swirls began forming, and Picard realized that it resembled nothing more than a model of the Big Bang theory. As the seconds passed, the stars began twinkling and the image altered slowly as galaxies formed and moved off camera, as it were. Picard felt Chanik at his side, the image too fascinating to ignore.

"Those are the stars, aren't they?"

"I believe so," Picard said softly.

"Why are we seeing so many?"

"I don't know. It may be trying to show us where the people who built this might have gone."

"Gone?"

"Hush," Picard said as the image changed and the Milky Way was clearly in his sight. The familiar spiral shape filled the light bubble and then, one at a time, purple lights began to show themselves in a concentration that Picard recognized as the Alpha Quadrant.

In all, there were thirteen purple lights.

Picard stared at the representation and concentrated. The amber light continued to blink, so Picard tentatively reached out, thinking he needed to activate the switch. His fingers brushed the blinking light but a sharp sound was his only reward.

"It didn't like you touching it," Chanik said, clearly stating the obvious.

Picard frowned and considered the likely options. After a minute or more, he realized he had no choice. He needed to return with the thirteen keys, then get them to the highlighted gateways. He suspected all thirteen consoles would have blinking lights and that none would do anything useful unless they were all touched at once. Fourteen pieces to a single key and somehow the Iconians didn't know that.

Somehow, this lack of precision comforted Picard. Even they were not perfect.

Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew the tricorder and recorded the light patterns and the purple markers. The Enterprise computers would be able to match this map against their own star charts and, adjusting for the time difference since these maps were first recorded, figure out where the keys needed to go.

Spinning on his heel, Picard strode to the antechamber, Chanik on his heels. "What's going on?" he kept asking. The captain ignored him at first, emptying his small bag of dried meat and other odds and ends. He then began filling it with the thirteen Resonators. There was little question in his mind that somehow all fourteen signals would synchronize and somehow they would gain control of the devices once that occurred. What troubled him, though, was the fourteenth key. Someone would need to activate it from this planet.

His first thought was sending the keys through a gateway and including an instruction to Riker and the others. It felt wrong - he needed to be there, be home when this happened. If the Resonators simply shut off the gateway, he would be trapped on this world. While it was a pretty place, he had no interest in remaining a Young God for the remainder of his life.

The next idea also had its concerns. Chanik would have to get involved but that raised concerns over tampering with a culture. On the one hand, the Iconians left these people to fend with their remains, and on the other, what harm could there be in asking a boy to press a button?

"Chanik, I must ask a favor of you."

"Of course, Picard," the boy said, eyes bright with excitement.

"I need to return to my people with these," he said, shaking the bulging bag slightly. "All of them must be fit onto similar machines and then all of us must press the blinking button. I think we need to do it at once."

"How will I know?"

Picard frowned at the basic question. He didn't have a definite answer and suspected he would not be able to speak with the boy.

"I'm not sure, to be honest. I think the machine will do something to indicate it is ready for you to do your part."

Chanik smiled and nodded a few times. "It will be safe, right? Then I will have helped a Young God!"

The captain broke into a happy grin. "Yes, it will be quite a story for your friends. But once this is done, I suspect the machine will go dark and you should keep its existence to yourself. It will be our secret." He returned to the console and studied it. His right hand began flipping switches, as he recalled doing on Doral's battered ship. There was a subtle shift in power and then a gateway sprang to life near the far wall. Chanik began to walk toward it but Picard called him back.

"But what is it?"

"It's called a gateway," Picard said as he concentrated on trying to recall the coordinate controls. He tapped a few, corrected a mistake, and continued. As happened on the ship, the gateway began spinning, showing different locales.

Each adjustment refined at least one of the destinations. Quickly, Picard spied a familiar waterfall on Risa, then a sand-swept city that he suspected was Nimbus VI. He continued to fiddle with the controls, hoping he could at least find a starship's bridge. A part of his mind suspected that thoughts did have some influence over the location definition. What was it he was telling Riker the other day? About a book where the lost man only wanted to go home. Picard thought about the Enterprise-1^ bridge as he continued to work on the controls.

The next image was not one for young eyes and Picard was pleased to see it replaced by a huge vessel, the likes of which he had never imagined. It was gone in a flash, the gateway next showing a satellite hurtling through space, a message of welcome from one race to its galactic neighbors.

There! He spotted La Forge walking across the rear of the bridge. The next two images were of planets he vaguely recognized but he paid them scant attention as he adjusted the controls. The Enterprise finally remained constant and Picard counted off time between rotations so he could step through correctly.

It was time.

Turning, he saw Chanik watch the gateway intently, occasionally looking at the galactic image still floating quietly over the console. He liked the boy and appreciated his company and his savvy under less than ideal situations.

"They dress like you; is that where the Young Gods live?"

"They are my companions and we try and do the right thing, much like you," Picard said. Then he crouched lower to bring his face close to the now-sad boy.

"I have no doubt that you will grow into a fine young man," the captain told him. "This world has much to offer someone like you. However, it is time I go home myself. I need to step through the gateway and leave you to wait for the right moment to act. I can't tell you how long it will be. Definitely more than a day."

"That's okay, Picard. I'll be fine. You've shown me so much and I can think about it. I'll be ready. You can count on me."

Picard reached out and gently stroked his cheek. "Thank you."

With that, he straightened his uniform and strode toward the gateway, counting off as it rotated. As the time approached, he bent his knees slightly and at the right moment, leapt into the gateway.

Chapter 6

Geordi La Forge was crossing the bridge, a PADD in his hand, and Riker knew it was coming time to make a decision. He didn't want to make it, didn't necessarily feel as if he was the right officer to decide the fate of the Iconian legacy. It was, after all, his captain's fascination for all these years. No, it didn't feel right at all to be the one to decide to destroy the gateways. The specter of guilt was already hanging over his head.

"We can do it, but we still don't know where they all are," La Forge said, handing the PADD to the commander.

"Data, how is Captain Solok doing with the mapping mission?"

"Our latest information shows that a preliminary map is due to be delivered to Admiral Ross in fifteen and one quarter hours."

Somehow, an android and a Vulcan would be comfortable with such precision. To Riker, fifteen hours from now would suffice. By then, the decision would have been made and it would be out of Riker's hands. What remained to be decided, though, was what to do with the Petraw. They had remained silent since the sabotage effort so the jamming signal was doing its job, but they couldn't maintain that in perpetuity.

Riker stood with the PADD and studied the engineer's recommendations as he strolled toward the ready room. He would contact the other captains from there and announce the decision. The commander was so absorbed with the information he did not notice the crewman coming his way and they collided. Both men tumbled to the deck.

Once on the carpeted floor, Riker looked up and saw Picard's face.

"Sir!"

"At ease, Will," Picard said with a smile. Both men scrambled to their feet and were the center of attention as everyone else on the bridge stood and came close to their commanding officer.

"Is everything all right? Did you find the answer?"

"I believe so," Picard said, patting the bag that remained at his side.

Quickly, Riker updated the captain on what had transpired, and in turn Picard explained his planet-jumping and search for the Resonators. He handed the tricorder to Data and asked him to begin the required analysis.

"We can swap details later," Picard said. "Let me notify the others that I am back and that we will need to act shortly. And then, I think, I need a shower and hot meal."

Riker broke into a grin. "I think I can watch things a little while longer."

"Very well." The captain began toward his ready room, paused, then turned around. "It's good to see you again, Number One. I've missed the ship."

Riker nodded, still smiling, and once more settled into the command chair. It didn't feel so uncomfortable for a change.

A few hours later, a refreshed Picard sat at the conference table with Riker, La Forge, Crusher, and Data. He had asked Captain Troi to patch in from her post on the Marco Polo to get her input. The others would be notified after the briefing. Data was standing by the monitor screen that showed a stellar map with the thirteen purple sites still highlighted.

"The pattern of dispersal does not, as yet, make sense," the android began. "All are located on planets and fortunately, all thirteen planets still exist. All are within Klingon, Romulan, Ferengi, or Federation space, aside from two that are within the former Thallonian Empire in Sector 221G."

"Data," Picard said, "does overlaying this pattern with the pattern of migration from Iconia tell us anything?"

"No immediate pattern is discernible. However, I will give the matter further study."

Picard frowned briefly but nodded. "How do we get the thirteen Resonators into position?"

"I have endeavored to work out a travel plan. It will require relaying the Resonators to fast ships from here. My initial plan indicates it will take some twenty-eight point five hours if every ship makes its scheduled rendezvous. This will require the Enterprise, Marco Polo, Chargh, and Jarok to leave the area, spreading the Resonators to others."

Nodding, Picard said, "Obviously, we should use the Excalibur and the Trident for the two Thallonian gateways."

"Captain," Riker said hesitatingly, "Admiral Ross suspects both Captains Calhoun and Shelby entered a gateway."

"I see," the captain said slowly. Then he smiled. "I am not at all surprised, Number One. No doubt he'll have his own story to tell and it's one I'm looking forward to."

Riker let out an exasperated sigh and said, "I'll talk to Mueller and Burgoyne and make a plan." He shook his head, clearly thinking about the crew of the ill-fated starships.

Data went on, detailing how the ships should move out with recommended warp speeds and courses. Working at his superhuman speed, he managed to work out .thirteen different itineraries that would cover a vast swatch of the galaxy in the minimum amount of time. Picard was impressed all over again with how smoothly his crew functioned.

"Captain," Troi said from the adjacent viewscreen. , "What about the Petraw?"

"I have not come up with a satisfying answer as yet," Picard admitted. "As we leave, I will need the Qob and Glory to take charge."

"With their attempt at sabotage, they cannot be trusted to remain complacent with fewer ships present," Data said.

"I recommend we disable as many of the ships as possible," La Forge suggested.

I'm not sure I see a better solution," Picard said slowly, not happy with the notion. "Prepare your plans, irdi. Will, contact the vessels we'll be meeting with.

Deanna, relay word to the other captains in the area. Let's try and leave within the hour. Dismissed."

Quickly and efficiently, the crew stood and went about their business and Picard was left alone in the observation lounge. While it felt good to be home, he disliked waiting more than a day to conclude the business at hand. And he kept thinking back to the world and little Chanik, faithfully waiting for the signal that would help protect a galaxy from chaos.

As expected, the Romulan commander was the first to be in touch with the captain. She seemed cool and collected despite her ship being anything but battle-ready.

Picard was now in his ready room, having caught himself up on status reports from his ship and around the fleet. He looked at the screen on his desk and acknowledged the darkly attractive woman.

"If you leave, it will only embolden the Petraw to try and conduct more sabotage."

"Have you a suggestion?"

"Destroy a handful of random ships, disable more, and even the odds."

"How Klingon of you," Picard noted, satisfied at the scowl marring her pleasant features. "I have my chief engineer preparing plans to disable the entire Petraw fleet as opposed to destroying anyone. This way, when we're done, we can decide what to do with them."

" You don't have a plan ? I am most surprised."

"Honestly, Desan, I have been more than a bit busy."

"Just what did you find on the other side?" She leaned toward the screen, intense curiosity replacing the scowl.

"The Resonators were found on the last Iconian stronghold in the Alpha Quadrant, a world reduced to much more primitive standards. But, they're developing nicely, and one hi particular helped me find them. It was quite an enlightening experience. When I return, if time permits, we can talk some more of it. But for now, I want you to know that I am placing my faith in the accords between our people and my personal trust in you to maintain the peace."

Desan seemed surprised by the vote of confidence and her expression betrayed her, pleasing the captain. She would make a questionable poker player, he considered. She merely nodded at the words and clicked off the communication.

Before he could pick up the next PADD on the tall stack to his right, the screen beeped once and he saw that it was the Kreechta captain calling. This might be a problem or, more likely, a diverting conversation.

"How can I help you DaiMon Bractor?"

"I want you to know I appreciate your faith."

This surprised Picard, who rested his chin on his fist and considered the situation. The Ferengi had a reputation for underhandedness overall. His own dealings had proven they could be spiteful and capable of killing.

'To be honest with you, DaiMon," Picard said, a smile on his face, "trust has to be earned and you have earned it."

Bractor bowed in appreciation. "There can be profit in many forms, I'm told. I consider this an investment against the future." 'The results should bring us closer together," Picard said hopefully.

"Thank you," the toothy captain said in all sincerity.

"Will you bring Doral along with you to keep him from influencing the others?"

"I hadn't considered him," the captain admitted. In fact, he hadn't even asked after the dejected Petraw leader. "But what you say makes sense, so yes, he will accompany us."

"And should you find something of value when you put all the Resonators in place ..."

"As promised, if there's something to share, it will be shared with all. You need not fear being cheated."

"All hands have returned," Jessie Davison told Captain Troi.

She smiled and turned to face the screen before her. Already, the hulking Jarok was moving off, heading out at sublight speed and clearing distance until it could go into warp. The Enterprise was to move off next and then it would be their turn. The flight plan had already been entered, thanks to Data's inhuman speed. Mia Chan, her conn officer, grumbled good-naturedly about having nothing to do during the flight. Troi reassured her that they had stops to make along the way and her skills would be required.

The turbolift doors snapped open, admitting a trio onto the bridge. Johnny Rosario, the tactical officer, strode out first, looking a bit tired after his "baby-sitting" duties on one of the Petraw ships. No sooner did he enter the bridge than Chan jumped from her seat and ran to him.

She gave him a fierce bear hug that startled him and he wasn't sure where to place his hands. A look of panic was in his eyes when it became clear everyone was watching. After a few moments, when it became apparent Chan wasn't letting go, he tentatively placed his arms around her and returned the unbridled affection.

"I think I have feelings for you," she said giddily.

"I see, I see," he said slowly. The others around the bridge chuckled at that understatement.

"Affectionate crew," rumbled a voice from behind the couple. Troi knew it in an instant and stood at attention.

"Welcome aboard, Ambassador," she said, a wide grin showing her pleasure. She and Worf had been lovers once but now they were friends and she was genuinely glad to see him. Despite the length of the mission, not once did they have a chance to speak.

When the others realized the Klingon was in their midst, most returned their attention to PADDs or consoles. The couple blocking his entrance to the bridge started disentangling themselves, making excuses and apologies but accomplishing it with little grace.

"I try to run a comfortable ship," Troi said, finally walking around her embarrassed officers and giving Worf a much briefer hug of her own. Worf, like Rosario, was at first discomfited with the display, but gave her the briefest of hugs in return.

"The Resonators are still in the transporter room," he said, returning to business.

"Enterprise is beginning to move out," Science Officer Kal Sur Hoi said. The look of distaste on his face made Troi want to laugh. The Tiburonian seemed disdainful of anything not by the book, and interpersonal relationships seemed a bit beyond him. She had hoped to work on him, but hadn't come close.

"Do you think Geordi's plan will work?"

"As I understand it," Worf said, "he is using the escape patterns already programmed by the Petraw ships and is sending along polaron bursts to prevent them from beaming or using their engines. The Nyrians were most helpful in setting this up."

"Seems we made new friends," Troi said.

"They still want to return home," the ambassador noted.

"With luck, the captain will get them on their way. Okay, time to go to work." She shifted in her seat, leaning slightly forward.

"Helm, prepare to execute. Engineering, when we go to warp, we need to maintain maximum speed so keep an eye on the readings. Everyone, stand by to move out," Troi commanded. The staff snapped to work, a chorus of "aye's" filling the air. Worf stood by her side and seemed impassive.

Within a minute, they were clear to leave and the Marco Polo executed a clean arc, angling itself in a direction that would bring them to the first of two rendezvous locations. At sublight, they would need several minutes before they could enter warp space and the time was filled with status reports, relay checks, and the quiet hustle of any starship in Starfleet.

"Ready for warp," Chan announced, her hand tugging at her ear, her only display of nervousness.

"Warp seven, engage," Troi said.

The ship surged forward and the screen showed the shift into warp space and then another round of status checks filtered the air. Finally, the Klingon leaned down and whispered, so only Troi could hear, "You command them well. I am impressed."

Rather than say anything, she leaned up, kissed him on the cheek and laughed as his eyes went wide.

Davison, to her right, chuckled, and Worf left the bridge, his speed making the ambassadorial robes flutter.

"Time to rendezvous with the Trident and Excalibur," Riker asked.

"Fourteen minutes," Data responded.

The Enterprise had been cruising along at warp nine with no incidents. They had left the Petraw ships behind them ten hours earlier, allowing the crew to return to their normal routines. Which meant a rested Riker was in command and Picard was off-duty. People had time to eat or sleep, La Forge was able to run required diagnostics to prepare a maintenance schedule for their next stop at a starbase, and things were feeling normal for the moment.

Against all that, though, was the specter of chaos represented by the still-functioning gateways. Wars had broken out, natural disasters were occurring more frequently as the ancient technology began to harm the worlds it had once serviced. If Picard was right, the fourteen Resonators would either automatically close down the gateways, or at the least, give him control over them for the first time. If the latter, it represented awesome power and crushing responsibility. Starfleet, though, trusted him to make the right decision, since he had not once let them down.

Riker also took time to quickly review what he knew of the ships he was meeting. The Excalibur he had very briefly taken command of a few months back was gone, destroyed thanks to a madman. The ship on its way was a rechristened Galaxy-class vessel that Mackenzie Calhoun took command of in the wake of his return from the "dead." Picard was there for the christening, and had regaled his crew with the story of how he was ready to make Elizabeth Shelby the captain just as Calhoun turned up. He wound up with the ship; Picard wound up performing the wedding ceremony between the two. Shelby got command of the Trident, an Ambassador-class vessel.

Shelby irritated the first officer, mostly because of her Trident attitude, but deep down he suspected they were more alike than not and that was where the problem lay. A key difference between them was her ambition, and he presumed she should be somewhat mellowed now that she had both Calhoun and a ship of her own.

Still, the reports from Starfleet were disturbing, since they indicated that both ships were involved in trying to settle a gateway-inspired war between the Aerons and the Markanians. Somehow, this led both Captains Shelby and Calhoun to enter a gateway and were now presumed missing. If they were not recovered, it would be a tremendous loss.

"Trident to Enterprise."

Riker looked up and saw an attractive woman with dark blond hair tied in a knot at the top of her head, cobalt-blue eyes, and an intriguing scar on her left cheek. This was Kat Mueller, who had been the night-shift commander on the previous Excalibur. "Riker here."

"Commander Mueller, in temporary command of the Trident."

"So I understand. Sorry to hear about Captain Shelby. She was a fine officer."

"I would disagree," Mueller said, a hint of humor in her eye.

"I'm sorry?"

"She is a fine officer and will be rejoining us just as soon as we complete this assignment."

Riker smiled at that and added, "Well, that's good news. Calhoun as well?"

"The man cheats death more often than anyone in the Fleet." Riker was growing to like this woman by the moment. He hadn't gotten to know her very well during his brief tenure on the Excalibur.

"I'll take that as a yes. We won't have a lot of time so we're hoping to beam the Resonator en route."

"Beam a single object as we pass one another at high warp? That's imaginative."

"Born out of desperation, I admit," he said.

"Very well, we trust you will get it right the first time."

"Well, there's no time for a second attempt if we're to repeat this with Excalibur."

As expected, the highly trained staff of the Enterprise managed the feat with minimal fuss and the two ships sped off toward different stars. Less than thirty minutes later, the Excalibur came within range. This time, Riker was exchanging pleasantries with Burgoyne 172, the ship's newly minted first officer.

"We'll be transporting the Resonator in about a minute," Riker told the Hermat. He remembered Burgoyne to be a complex but companionable person, and suspected s/he would make a fine first officer.

"Don't you find this a tad convenient? "

"In what way?"

"Needing both of our ships and you being the only ship to bring us the Resonators?"

"I'm sorry, Burgoyne, I don't follow you. There was no other ship with the power to make the contact while we had our own objective. Did you want some other ship?"

"No, just odd us crossing over like this," Burgoyne said archly.

Riker shook his head in confusion and let the subject drop. Instead, he monitored the two ships' trajectory and saw the five-second window that would enable the transport to occur. A signal came from the transporter chief that the Enterprise was now down to carrying just one Resonator. Nodding in agreement, he turned to Data and had the ship adjust course to their final destination.

Troi and Worf had just finished a meal in her temporary quarters, two old friends catching up their lives and friends. It was quite pleasant for her to share her happiness with the Klingon and she saw that the melancholy he normally wore as a cloak was just a bit lighter. Time was finally beginning to heal the wound caused by Jadzia Dax's death. She saw he was not at all ready to find another partner, but at least was comfortable back among his people.

"I think being an ambassador agrees with you," she said, placing the dishes in the replicator bay for recycling.

"It has its challenges ... and rewards," Worf agreed.

"When this is over, what's next?"

"Back to Qo'noS, and moving on to the next assignment."

"Do you think our politics have been permanently altered by these events?"

"No," Worf said after a moment. He took the glasses from the table and brought them to her. "This is like any disruptive event we've encountered such as viruses or the Borg. We adapt and grow and learn from it."

"Captain to the bridge," rang out the intercom.

'Troi here. What is it, Commander?"

Davison replied, "We have the Defiant on our sensors. Contact in jive minutes."

Troi concentrated a moment, recalling the specific instructions for this phase of the mission. "Slow to sublight, I'll be right there." Together, they left the cabin and quickly found their way to the bridge, where everyone snapped to attention. Clearly the presence of the hulking Klingon ambassador made everyone act by the book. This inwardly made her chuckle but kept her expression all business. Taking her seat, she checked a status chart, then activated the communications system.

"Marco Polo to Defiant."

"Vaughn, here." Elias Vaughn, just over one hundred years of age, appeared on the screen. He still had his full beard, his hair all gray, but she saw that he seemed as relaxed as he was when they had last seen each other on the Enterprise a month earlier. Clearly, his decision to take a post at Deep Space 9 was the right choice, despite Starfleet's reservations.

"Always a pleasure to see you, Commander."

"Imagine my surprise to find you with your own command," Vaughn said, humor filling his voice. "I see it agrees with you. Ian would be proud. And greetings to you, Ambassador Worf."

"Commander," Worf said in return. Troi suspected that Worf had not seen Vaughn since they had met at Betazed during the war. Then, Vaughn was a floating tactical operative without a specific ship assignment. Now he was first officer on DS9 and also had Worf's old job of commanding the Defiant.

They shared a laugh and then it was all business as Troi gave a series of commands that led to the Resonator and Ambassador Worf being beamed to the Defiant. That ship's designation took it close to the Klingon border and should any problems flare up, it made the most sense for the ambassador to be present. The Chargh, already deep within the Empire, would collect Worf later on and bring him back to the Klingon homeworld. She gave him another long hug as he left the bridge and then returned to her center seat.

"I don't know much about Commander Vaughn," Davison said. "What's he like?"

Troi smiled. She'd known Vaughn since she was a child - the "Ian" he had referred to was Troi's father. Enigmatically, she said, "He's an interesting fellow."

The planet was barren and desolate, so small and unimportant the stellar cartographers never bothered to give it a name. It was catalogued as PI-3-3 over a hundred years earlier and Starfleet's records indicated that no one had ever been there. Far from the trading lanes, it was strategically unimportant, and barely Class M, so not worth the effort to colonize.

Picard stared at the viewscreen and was unimpressed. Yet, down below was a gateway, the farthest from the Petraw fleet and their ultimate goal. Data was already conducting a survey to make certain nothing threatening awaited them. La Forge was busy studying output from the gateway and Vale was already arming a detachment for the away team.

"It is devoid of life-forms," Data reported. "Plenty of flora but I cannot find even a bird or a fish."

"The gateway is functioning like all the others, but seems to have huge energy reserves," La Forge added. "Sounds fairly safe," Picard said, looking over at his first officer. They shared a familiar look, the one that told Riker that his captain was going to the planet and there would be no discussion over the matter. After all, Picard went in search of the Resonators, had met the Iconians, and deserved to be involved in this, the final act.

"Captain, I think you should not go down alone," Vale said.

"I agree," the captain said. "Just because we don't detect life doesn't mean there's nothing threatening. Geordi, come with me as well, in case there's something unusual with the technology."

"Just come back this time," Riker said.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Picard said with a smile. With that, he stood and strode off the bridge, heading straight down to the planet.

The Excalibur was bucking as the edge of an ion storm threatened their schedule. Burgoyne was gripping on to hir command chair as crew scurried back and forth. They detected the problem minutes earlier as the night crew struggled to avoid contact with the disruptive energy. S/he was awoken from a sound sleep by the alarm klaxon. Quickly, leaving Selar to check on Xyon, their infant son, s/he headed straight to the bridge.

"Helm is sluggish," reported Keefer, a beefy crewman who seemed to dwarf the console. He stabbed at controls but Burgoyne felt the ship continue to buck.

Burgoyne had no problem with crew of lesser experience handling things under normal conditions, but this was far from normal - even for the Excalibur. "Burgoyne to senior staff," s/he barked. "All hands to the bridge."

In less than two minutes, Robin and Morgan Lefler and Soleta arrived on the bridge. The Vulcan went straight to the science station and began checking readings on the storm. Robin went to ops and performed similar checks, looking to her side to watch Keefer struggle with the helm. To her surprise, Morgan, her stately mother, strode over to the younger man and leaned over his right shoulder.

"You need to ignore the sensor readings and use more manual control to steer clear of a storm like this," Morgan advised.

"Morgan, relieve Mr. Keefer, please," Burgoyne said. "No offense, Ensign, but we have little time for lessons."

As the woman slid into the chair, Robin exclaimed, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Steering the ship," Morgan replied, her hands dancing across the controls. She paused briefly to intertwine her fingers, loosening them up as if she were going to play the piano. Then she expertly began easing the starship from the edge of the storm without losing speed.

Robin spun in her chair, looking at the first officer. "How can you do that?"

"Simple," Burgoyne replied. "If Captain Calhoun trusted her skill at science, then I can trust her at the helm. Sounds like she knows what she's doing. Look, we've stopped being shaken like a bad drink."

"But, but," Robin stammered, looking at her mother, who acted unperturbed by both the storm outside the vessel and inside the bridge.

"We've lost about five minutes from our schedule," Morgan reported without turning around. She seemed totally absorbed by the board below her fingers.

"I can fix that," Burgoyne replied. "Bridge to engineering. Time to heat up the engines. Give us warp nine point eight until I say otherwise."

And the ship surged forward, heading to a world that once proudly flew the flag of the Thallonian Empire.

"Helm, status," Vaughn said.

Ensign Prynn Tenmei said, "On course, ETA seventeen minutes."

For Vaughn, all seemed to be performing according to plan. Europa Nova had been successfully evacuated, Ro's covert mission to Farius Prime had been successful, and Dax had just called in reporting that Kira was not dead as previously reported, and had returned safely to the station. He looked forward to discussing her odyssey when he returned. But for now, they had to arrive at Dinasia and find the gateway. He intended to go down with Ensign Thirishar ch'Thane, leaving Lieutenant Nog in charge. Normally, he would be wary of leaving so inexperienced an officer in charge of the Defiant without backup. But the ship's previous commander, Worf, was on board, even if he wasn't strictly speaking Starfleet anymore, in case things got out of hand. Besides, Vaughn admired Nog's style.

"Ensign ch'Thane," Vaughn said, "you and I'll beam down with the Resonator. If I encounter any problems, you can help me with the equipment."

Shar looked mildly apprehensive. "My technical skills are not the best, sir. Perhaps Lieutenant Nog - "

Vaughn knew that the young Andorian had a reputation as being something of a klutz with equipment - he was a science officer, more comfortable with theory than practice - but Vaughn also knew that he wouldn't get any better without experience. "I have faith in you, Ensign. Mr. Nog, you have the conn in my absence."

Nog, Vaughn noticed, gave Shar a look of encouragement.

Minutes later, the ship achieved orbit and Shar quickly found the operating gateway on a remote island. It was devoid of Dinasian life-forms and Vaughn suspected they shunned it given the planet's Iconian roots. Whatever the reason, it meant they could move freely, which gave him confidence.

Within minutes, he and Shar materialized on the island, the tangy smell of the sea greeting them immediately. Wind blew water onto the rocks, causing high surf, trees swaying with the force. It was small, with no other island in sight, totally isolated. An odd place for a gateway, Vaughn mused, but who knew what the topography had been like two hundred millennia ago?

Shar spotted the cave entrance first and led the duo toward the island's one and only hill. The entrance was wide but low, forcing them to crouch to get inside. It was damp within, with lichen growing thick on the walls. About ten feet inside the cave stood the active gateway, the control mechanism to the left, closer to the men. Cautious, Vaughn withdrew his tricorder and took readings, noting it was functioning as expected. No surprises as yet.

Within the aperture, the rotating images were of three different interior destinations, none of which looked vaguely familiar to Vaughn. He glanced over at Shar, who shook his head.

The commander was holding the Resonator and recognized there was no reason not to place the device atop the control panel. The tricorder chronometer said he was running about ten minutes early from Data's elaborate plan. Still, he had no way to communicate with the thirteen other people doing the exact same task. As a result, he had to have faith and act.

The Resonator fit snugly atop the controls, as Picard had described. And just as expected, the machine acted accordingly, and the light show began....

... a map of the universe began to appear before Captain Grekor, who stood alone on a desert planet that had been conquered by Kahless's son in one of the earliest additions to the Empire. The lights shifted and the images coalesced...

... and the Milky Way appeared to Subcommander Torath. Standing deep within a cave on a planet considered remote by the Romulan Star Empire, she was just following directions with no clarification from the Praetor's staff. Torath shielded her eyes from the brightness for a moment and then studied her universe as a single entity, no imaginary lines dividing it into quadrants, no lines marking territory, just a swirl of stars thickly clustered here and there ...

... purple lights began to appear, one after another, dotting all over the galaxy, and Soleta nodded in appreciation for the precision. She knew little of the Iconians, but understood them to be a technologically proficient people and this device, hidden deep within a mountain range, proved the assumption correct. She matched the purple images against her tricorder reading, arched an eyebrow, and saw that her planet was the ninth to be lit. She idly wondered if there was significance to the pattern....

... Bractor fingered the Resonator as it quietly hummed and continued to show highlights of key gateway locations. He wondered what would become of the items when the mission was complete and who might be interested in bidding to own one. Good as he was captaining a ship, the financial reforms on his home-world required him to change his retirement strategy and he needed one major windfall. This could be what he needed....

... Solok contemplated a people that could design such a device. With the T'Kumbra crisscrossing the Alpha Quadrant, they had mapped only a small portion of the gateway connections and there was an elegance to the patterns. His crew had contemplated the possibilities during their off-duty shifts and it led to much discussion, which pleased the captain. It was a fruitless task, but a vital one to help shed light on the work. But here, as he stood before the gateway on Titan, Jupiter's largest moon, he felt as if he was participating in something in concert with the rest of the quadrant and that brought a satisfaction he rarely felt as a captain....

... the captain thought, Damn you, Conklin. He was running late and was certain the entire galaxy was waiting for him. But it couldn't be helped: the Magellan had blown out one dilithium-crystal relay, which resulted in cascading problems that not even his entire engineering team could solve in under an hour. Then he had pushed the engines past the redline to make the schedule, which would mean a week at the nearest starbase, but it Would be worth it. He rushed into the chamber, past four cloaked monks, and snapped his Resonator into place and was stopped in place by the light show that immediately began....

... Command had its privileges, Captain Klag thought, as he watched the gateway on Ufandi LVI, a home to pirates and black-marketers. When the I.K.S. Gorkon arrived, he laughed mirthlessly as two scores of one-man craft broke orbit and scattered in all directions. Having a reputation to be feared could come in handy now and then - this was exactly one of those moments. When Worf had asked for his help, he was only too glad to once more provide a service to the ambassador and his people. He had bloodied his bat’leth in maintaining order along the border and was ready to do something of consequence....

... Kila Vet, Trill captain of the Repulse, watched frost form on his environmental suit while a meter before him, the console seemed thoroughly unaffected by Tethys III’s hydrogen-helium atmosphere. It functioned normally, as did the gateway just beyond the control panel. He watched in fascination as he saw a Romulan bridge, a smoldering volcano, and a trading outpost he did not recognize. The thirteen purple lights finished forming and the amber button continued to blink. He figured that meant all the pieces were not yet in position ...

... Every first officer he'd had, from Will Riker to the late Dina Voyskunsky to his current one, Mikhail Buonfiglio, would never have wanted him to beam down. But Robert DeSoto managed to convince Commander Bounfiglio to let him go down alone. There was nothing dangerous about the gateway on Gault. It was a Federation world, offering no threat to anyone, and the planetary defenses kept the curious at a distance. He'd seen a lot in his decades of service, but nothing of this nature, which went to show that being a Star-fleet captain was never going to be boring. He and Picard, who was countless light-years away, had discussed the matter at the Captain's Table once. Picard explained how he learned never to give up the center seat, and they were words DeSoto took to heart. With a steady hand, he placed the Resonator atop the control panels and felt it glide into place. With a slight change in tenor, the lights changed on the board....

... Kat Mueller was startled to see the amber light stop blinking, sure that meant the final Resonator was in place. She could only stand and wait - either for an order from Picard, or for an instruction from the Iconian device itself. Telling herself she could be patient, she watched the board and the holographic representation of the universe. She studied the console, checked a cracked fingernail, adjusted a stray hair from her usually perfect style, rechecked the console, checked in with the Trident, bit her lip, and did everything possible to avoid tapping her foot. Nothing seemed to change until...

... the purple lights on the graphic shaded to a deep royal color and Deanna Troi's eyes grew wide. The graphic began displaying alien typography that was characters, symbols, and some odd blend of the two. All the lights blinked in unison once, twice, and then stayed lit. She couldn't tell what it meant but figured the machinery was performing as programmed. She would remain patient. If this mission taught her anything, it was learning to wait with grace....

... All Picard could think about was his friend Donald Varley. Had his colleague not discovered the Iconian homeworld, they would not have had the past decade to learn more about the legendary people. It cost Varley his life and that of his crew aboard the Yamato, but it gave them an advantage when it came to dealing with the Petraw. Had they shown up posing as Iconians without that knowledge, many would have been susceptible to the pitch. Now he stood on this dead world, watching the console go through the motions, and continued to wait for a sign that he needed to act.

The light show changed once more as one after another, the alien words faded from view one site at a time. When the graphic cleared, the purple lights began to wink off, again one at a time. It seemed that the graphic was deconstructing itself. Perhaps it meant the link was being broken - that the gateway network was shutting down.

Picard's eyebrows rose in surprise as the lights shifted, pulsating a bit, and then a face greeted him. He did not recognize the human features, but it structurally matched the Iconians he had met, what, days ago? It was a placid, female countenance and seemed to be waiting, much like Picard and the other members of the unusual coalition.

It spoke, but in a language Picard had never heard before. After a sentence, it seemed to wait for a reply.

Then it tried again, this time with another language. Again the silent wait and again another language. Picard let out a breath, hoping it would reach a language he knew. Wisely, he held out his tricorder and recorded the exchange, hoping it would help linguists at Starfleet Command. Minutes slipped by and he tried to retain his good humor but it was growing first frustrating, then irritating that he could recognize not a single syllable. The computer interface seemed not to share his feeling and for a moment, he considered asking Data to join him. Before he could act on the notion, he recognized a word.

It was Vulcan.

The Vulcan people dated back further than humans, but not the two hundred thousand years that would make them contemporaries of the Iconians. Then, a distant lesson came to mind. It was speculated that the Vulcan people might have ancestors dating back to the war-torn planet that existed some five hundred thousand years gone by. By the Iconians' time, the language would have been refined but still, too much time would have gone by for him to recognize the words.

"May I help you, Captain Picard? "

Startled, the captain looked at the interface and saw its expression had not changed. The words were in French, his native tongue.

"Yes, you may," he said in the same language. "How do I disengage the gateways?"

"Our controls work both verbally and manually. If you wish to address the controls, give straightforward commands."

Clearing his throat, Picard swallowed and then said, "Please shut down the gateway network."

"Configuring the relays."

There was a long pause but Picard could hear the mechanism at work and noticed he was holding his breath in anticipation.

"Networks closed down, relays disconnected. Do you require anything further?"

Could it be that simple? Picard stared at the system and saw that it seemed no different from before. "Computer, could the system have been deactivated by any of the fourteen stations?" "No," it replied. "The Master Resonator works off the biosignature of the one to make first contact. That would be you, Captain Picard."

"Has no one else used these controls?" Wait, it knew his name. Again, the level of sophisticated technology gave him pause.

"The Master Resonator is our emergency shutdown system and has not been required before now."

"Can the network be used anymore?"

"Yes. You would have to give me a restart instruction."

"How does the system shut down otherwise?"

"/ cannot answer that."

"Why not?"

"/ do not have that information."

Picard stared at the system with more than a little disbelief. He literally had the power over the gateways in his hands and no one else in the galaxy could take control. All it would take was for him to remove his unit and lock it away, and the gateways would no longer pose a threat. And only he knew this fact.

This was power he had promised to share, but he could not. He would be hunted for his DNA to restart the system, or be kidnapped in an attempt to gain control. Such information couldn't even go into the restricted files of Starfleet for fear that the insidious Section 31 would gain the knowledge. No, he would have to keep this to himself and take it to his grave. And what then? Would his death prevent the gateways from ever being used again? The thought was staggering.

No, he could not believe that. Just as the computer did not know its full capabilities and the current Iconians knew little of their heritage, Picard had to believe that there was a way to properly use the system. He would hold on to that belief, since the alternative made him shiver.

Could he control one unit at a time, directing the device from a remote location? Picard queried the computer, which answered in the affirmative. He considered that for a moment and then a thought occurred to him. Quickly, he tapped his communicator and had Riker patch him through to the Nyrian ship.

"Sure thing," Riker responded. "Did you succeed?"

"I believe so, Number One. Please have Data check all frequencies and see what he can learn." He waited patiently as the link to the distant starship was made.

"What's wrong, Captain?"

"Nothing, Taleen. However, I have gained control of the gateways and have shut them down. I can activate one, though, and send you close to home. We don't have the coordinates and will have to guess, which means you may wind up as lost as poor Voyager. Or you may stay here and join us. You must make the choice; I cannot do it for you."

"Captain Janeway has shown me great courage," Taleen told him. "Send us home. But first, thank you for your help and kindness."

Picard checked their best-guess coordinates, already researched by Ensign Paisner in stellar cartography thanks to Riker's diligence. He gave the verbal directions to the computer and the interface acknowledged.

"Gateway activated." And once more Picard waited for things to happen parsecs and parsecs away.

After some minutes, Riker contacted the captain and informed him that the long-range sensors at Starbase 134 showed the Nyrian ship had vanished. Mission accomplished.

"Computer, shut down the gateway and then close down," Picard instructed.

"As you wish," it said, and a moment later the image vanished. The computer whirled to a close and the lights went dim.

It was over. The galaxy could go about its business without threat of further interference.

Oddly, it felt disquieting, but Picard would adjust and learn to keep such secrets deep in his mind. He signaled his ship and was transported home.

The glowing face spoke in gibberish, but Chanik could tell it was speaking to someone, Young God Picard he assumed. There were pauses, then it spoke, then it stopped. Sounds indicated the system was changing and Chanik thought it might be dying. It took Young God Picard away and he was told this was a good thing but he missed the man.

The lessons he learned from Picard had filled his mind in all the hours he waited for the machine to perform its magic. Things were not always what they appeared and justice could take many forms. The lessons were good ones and maybe, when he was a little older, he could teach them to others. Teaching sounded like a good thing to do, he considered, chewing on the last strip of meat. But first, there was more for him to learn. Perhaps he would return to the farm they had passed together. Maybe the farmer took in the thieves and maybe there was room for him, too. He could work for food, learn to plant or make wine. And then he could watch and see if Picard's instructions would be followed.

A plan set, he turned to walk out of the cavern, ready to leave the City behind him and start something new.

Chapter 7

Doral had not left the guest cabin once. He had learned to manipulate the ship's computer and seemed to be accessing a wide variety of files, none of which posed a threat to the ship or crew. Christine Vale assured Picard that no sabotage was possible from the Petraw leader.

The Enterprise was en route back to the Petraw fleet. As soon as the captain returned to the bridge, contact with Starfleet was established and it was clear that the computer had followed its programming. Admiral Ross reported that all indications were that the gateways had stopped functioning, which meant more than a handful of planets were spared further damage. The cleanup work would take months, complicating the Dominion War rebuilding, but that was a task for the Starfleet Corps of Engineers. Ross complained that they never seemed to be moving forward, always rebuilding or recovering from some problem. His tone sounded upbeat, though, and Picard accepted the heartfelt thanks with a tight smile.

Now he stood before the Petraw's cabin, making up his mind. Bractor was right: he had not really considered the beaten explorer's fate. His hands tugged his uniform straight and he then pressed the door chime.

Within moments, he stood before Doral, who seemed slighter, less haughty than when they first met some days before. He had been viewing a recording about the horsehead nebula, a half-drunk cup by his elbow. If he were fully human, Picard would suspect he had slept little, his eyes looking more haunted than alert.

"It's over; we shut down the gateways," Picard said.

"I see."

"Your ploy caused immense loss of life and great destruction," the captain continued. "We estimate that relocating the lost will take some months. We have diplomats rebuilding peace accords and our work will allow us to remember the Petraw for quite some time."

"And what will become of my people?"

Picard looked at the defeated man and fought the feeling of pity that was welling within nun. He would not allow it. "Your people subscribe to a different moral code. I was distressed to see that one felt strongly enough to take action which cost more lives. I am not certain what should be done, to be honest. What you did, you did from some biological imperative, but I cannot forget that there were alternatives to the approach you took.

"I could leave you to the mercy of a coalition court, but that would detain you when that is clearly not of use to anyone."

"No, I suppose not." The words were flat, the tone devoid of emotion.

"I will bring you and your acolyte back to your ship but will suggest to the others that we pool our resources and come up with a purpose for your people."

Doral looked up with a questioning expression, the first sign of life since the captain had entered.

"You are explorers by nature and there is much of the galaxy left to visit. Many of us used tricorders to study the mechanism that activates the gateways. I believe Mr. Data can collect and analyze the information and provide you with a course that will allow you to fulfill your imperative while keeping you from interacting with any of the races you tried to dupe."

"We're banished?"

"No," Picard said carefully. "The universe is teeming with life and we're letting you go out and find them before any of us get the chance. Turn it to your advantage and open your minds to the possibilities."

Doral nodded, taking in the words, obviously surprised that the course of action did not involve trial or death.

Picard figured there would be time enough to talk further so left him alone to his thoughts. Instead, he needed a long rest.

"It's certainly been interesting," Davison told Troi with a grin.

"When dealing with the Enterprise, there is no other way," Deanna replied. They were standing in the captain's quarters and Troi was done packing her bag. Her home ship had returned to the alliance an hour earlier and it was time to report. The mighty starship would tow the Mercury home with the Marco Polo flying escort and Brisbayne coming over in temporary command. Already, the Glory was limping into a point position, preparing to lead the Petraw fleet in its new direction. The Qob was arcing around, ready to head back to the Klingon Empire, the other ships positioning themselves accordingly.

"What should I do with this?"

Troi looked at the item and smiled wickedly. "Ask the chief to have it beamed directly to my quarters. I'll need it soon."

The two shared a humorous look and then proceeded to the bridge. Troi had grown fond of the crew and wished she had more time to work with them. They'd always be her first crew and that made them memorable. She still wasn't sure if she wanted command for herself. After all, she hoped to spend the rest of her life with a man born to sit in the center seat. Working alongside him seemed good enough, either as counselor, first officer, lover - or wife.

"Captain on the bridge," Hoi called as the doors snapped open.

That, she would miss.

"I just wanted to thank you all, for the hard work," she said by the door. The crew had turned and given her rapt attention. All taut at their posts, the Enterprise fittingly on the viewscreen. "Starfleet Command will read our reports and I suspect you will all find yourselves with satisfactory assignments in the months to come."

"But our assignments have been changed, our ships have moved on," the Tiburonian science officer said, his voice bordering on a whine.

Troi grinned at him and answered, "Actually, with everyone mobilized to handle the gateways, Command clearly has to rethink deployments. You're to follow us back to Earth and we'll see what happens."

Mia Chan rose, her eyes dividing time between Troi and Rosario. The counselor recognized that the pair was ready to begin a relationship and she wished them well. She knew how tough it would be for any couple to establish a strong bond while serving on the same ship, especially one this small, but it was possible.

"You were so great to work with," Chan gushed.

"We all worked well together," Troi said calmly. 'There's still more to be done. We won't leave until the Petraw ships are on their way, just in case."

"Shall I keep a weapons lock on the lead ship?" Rosario asked.

"No," Troi countered. "We still have the dampening field in effect. In fact, we need to lower it in order to get me back to the Enterprise."

She stood another moment, uncertain if there was more to say. Once more, she beamed a smile at her crew and turned, counseling herself to keep her emotions in check. Without a look back, she put a reassuring hand on Davison's forearm and entered the turbolift.

Picard walked the bridge, checking station by station, ready to bring this entire matter to a close. Geordi La Forge was leaning over the engineering station, one of the aft duty posts on the vast bridge. He had been monitoring the polaron bursts that put the Petraw in check and so far everything ran with textbook efficiency.

"Ready to drop the field," he reported. Picard saw the screens and returned to his place in the command seat.

The captain turned to Riker, his face a mask of determination. Riker acknowledged the look and kept his counsel. Finally, Picard said, "I'd sooner sail through an ion storm than have to go through those kinds of negotiations again. While I had Admiral Ross's support, the Federation Council was dubious. Even after I got them to see my point, our representative races had their own notions of justice. Having turned off the gateways gave me more than a little additional clout, which carried the day."

"Not a perfect plan is it?" Riker asked.

The captain shook his head slowly before replying. "We've certainly been tidier in our affairs," he admitted. "But under the circumstances, it's the best solution."

Picard and Riker shared a quick glance as the captain settled in and Riker spoke out, "Do it, Geordi."

The readings were clear, space was returning to normal, and the engineer looked over his right shoulder and announced that space was safe for transporters once more. He remained studying the readouts, just in case a Petraw chose to commit a violent act.

"Riker to transporter room, ready to bring Captain Troi aboard."

Picard leaned back, feeling relaxed for the first time in a week. "I look forward to having the family back home."

"Sooner or later, we're going to have to leave the nest," Riker said. 'The days of letting a captain keep his crew together for decades are pretty much over."

"Trying to tell me something, Number One?"

"Not at all," Riker said, the usual twinkle in his eye. "Just making an observation."

"Perhaps I need to find you a ship after all," the captain said, coming as close to light banter as he dared on a topic that he disliked thinking about. Of course his crew would get promoted and move on. Some, like Tasha Yar, died in the line of duty, but others, like O'Brien and Worf, had moved on, pursuing their own destinies. Even Data had been placed on detached assignment here and there.

He would just have to cherish whatever time he had left with these special people.

"Counselor Troi is back aboard," the transporter chief reported.

"Excellent," Picard told him. "Lieutenant Vale, please have our Petraw guests brought to the transporter room. I will meet them there."

"Very good, sir," she replied, and entered the commands.

Picard left Riker on the bridge and took a lift below. I By the time he arrived, Doral stood a forlorn figure on the platform. The younger saboteur stood sullenly in the rear. Two security officers remained off to the side, at full alert, and the transporter chief kept his hands on the controls.

"It's time," Picard said.

"I know," Doral replied.

"Mr. Data has already sent the coordinates to your entire fleet. He even took the liberty of organizing flight patterns that would provide maximum safety to the older vessels. You should be in excellent shape for the new adventure."

Doral looked at him blankly.

"This region of space has been through a tremendous ordeal over the last few years," Picard noted, his tone hard, without its soft, cultured tones. "One race after another has had to beat back the encroachment of the Borg, followed immediately by a quadrant-wide war initiated by people from the far side of the Milky Way. Between the two, we've lost too many innocents, too many dedicated officers and ships. But we're still here.

"Do you know why, Doral? Because, when we had to, we put aside the little differences between our peoples, trusted one another to go into battle side-by-side. And we persevered. We stopped the invasion and preserved myriad ways of life. Because ... it was the right thing to do.

"And when the Petraw came skulking into our space and preyed upon our trust, set one against another in a petty bidding competition, we once again managed to stand up to the threat... together. I find these moments invigorating because it means we are beginning to respect one another a little more every day.

"Know this, should you find your way here again, you will be greeted with less than open arms. If necessary, we shall draft even more races together to help keep the peace."

Picard took a deep breath, let it out slowly and watched Doral's still somewhat bewildered expression. There was a modicum of comprehension under the furrowed brow but not enough to satisfy him. It was time to bring this to an end.

"Consider this the beginning of the next step in Petraw history," the captain said to him. His expression turned hard. "You cannot return here - you will likely not be welcome by some of the neighboring governments. Seek your destiny and forget about your homeworld. Be realistic and look forward, not behind. There is so much to discover and experience, you can make your own history. But do so honestly and with integrity."

The Petraw leader just looked at him, the expression indicating surprise and bewilderment.

"We're sending you back to your ship. Please be out of this area within the hour." Picard looked over his shoulder to the chief. "Energize."

It took seconds for Doral to vanish from the Enterprise, and Picard realized he still felt mixed emotions, but mostly disappointment at what their desperation had brought to so many worlds. He might never know the death toll. The Federation could not administer proper justice and having them voluntarily leave this portion of the quadrant made the most sense. After all, the Klingons, the Romulans, and even the Carreon might demand Petraw deaths as payment for loss of sovereign lives. Already, he had heard rumblings that this might damage politics for a time.

Still, it needed to be done this way. He could not condone the Petraw's actions, nor could he be a party to their deaths. It would be an empty payment that benefited no one.

As he cleared his mind of such thoughts, he took a moment to enjoy the notion that everyone had returned to his ship hale and hearty. It was time for his loved ones to be together in safety. "Mr. Riker," the captain said as he entered the turbolift, "I'm on my way up. Why don't you take a moment and welcome the counselor back?"

"Aye, aye, sir," Riker answered, the humor filling his voice.

Riker couldn't wait to see his imzadi. Even though they had been separated by space, she had remained available to help him through the tough moments during the mission. He couldn't imagine life without her and he intended to do whatever it would take to make sure she remained a part of it.

Standing before her cabin door, he pressed the announcement key and heard the soft chime beyond the door. Within seconds, the door opened and a hard object was jabbed into his chest, his hands reflexively reaching out to grab it.

"What... oh ... are you ... ?"

"Mad at your lack of confidence in me?" Troi answered from within the cabin. Riker remained frozen in place, uncertain about her feelings right then and there. "Annoyed at being embarrassed by having this presented before my first command? Amused at your little joke? What do you think?"

Riker was left speechless.

"You're a commander," she said, stepping closer. "Make a command decision. Say something."

Still holding the crash helmet he had given Troi as a gag going-away present, Riker felt a mixture of amusement, abashment, and confusion. Remembering lessons from their years together, he answered from his heart. "I missed you."

Her hands reached over the threshold, grabbing fist-Ms of duty jacket, and yanked him right into the cabin. That's when he noticed she was wearing the diaphanous pale lavender item that left one shoulder bare and little to the imagination.

"Better put that helmet on," she said, letting go of the uniform as the door closed. "You're going to need it."

Picard sat in his ready room, looking at the tricorder images taken on the world on which he had found Chanik and the Master Resonators. He'd miss the youth and knew he had the power to go back and visit but also recognized that he would never do so. The captain could never imagine an instance when circumstances would force him to use the gateways. It was power he would hide, a secret he would no doubt take to his deathbed.

Instead, he would prepare a report to Starfleet Command, complete with recommendations for reparations and commendations for selected staff, starting with Troi. The Petraw ships had started forming as Data directed and they would be gone shortly. Once they were off long-range sensors, he could return to Earth and accept his next assignment. As with most his missions, whatever they gave him, it would never quite turn out as the mission specs spelled out.

And he wouldn't have it any other way.

***