Текст книги "Section 31: Rogue "

“ I have no choice but to help Grelun and his people,” Zweller said. “And all I ask is that you keep an open mind .” They came to a stop before a partially demolished wall. The squat ruin offered them some small respite from the raging winds. Zweller watched as Riker’s boyish face changed, settling into hard planes and angles. An aurora crackled far overhead, like an electrical arc jumping between the uprights of an old‑fashioned Jacob’s ladder.

Zweller handed the tricorder to Riker, who immediately began scanning the wall and the surrounding terrain. The dour‑eyed guards stood by quietly while Riker pored over the readouts.

The wall bore a small humanoid silhouette. A child’s shadow, rendered in a micrometer‑thin layer of carbon atoms. Several other nearby structures bore similar marks.

Riker’s mouth was moving. Lip‑reading, Zweller thought he made out a “My God.”

Zweller shouted into the wind. “Chiarosan weaponry isn’t all ceremonial flatware, Commander. Especially among Ruardh’s people.”

Zweller paused, smiling mirthlessly before continuing. “Sometimes those folks use disruptors.”

PROLOGUE

Stardate 50907.2

Population approximately nine billion . . . all Borg.

Picard’s breath fogged the large window on his cabin wall, the moisture momentarily making the view of his homeworld indistinct and devoid of color. Even now, five days after they’d been uttered, Data’s words reverberated through his mind as he once again relived that terrible moment on the bridge. On the main viewscreen had been an Earth altered beyond belief, its continents transformed into a bleak technological sprawl, its oceans dark, its atmosphere thin and gray. Caught in the temporal wake of a Borg sphere, Picard and his crew had seen with their own horrified eyes what the Borg had wrought by fleeing into Earth’s past.

But the Enterprisehad pursued them, and in so doing, stopped the Borg from assimilating Earth, and ensured the completion of humanity’s historic first warp flight.

Picard closed his eyes and straightened his posture, moving his forehead off the back of his hand. His breath evaporated, and Earth was restored to its tranquil blue and white.

And now we’re back in the present,Picard thought somberly. Earth is as it was, at least as far as we know . . . although who really knows what effect our presence in the past–however carefully controlled and covered up–has had onthis timeline?He had told his crew that they were going back to repair whatever damage the Borg had done, but how much change had his own actions in the past had upon the present?

Picard didn’t like thinking about the issues inherent in the temporal tampering, though the analytical portions of his mind had wandered there all too often in the last few days. If the Enterprisecrew aided Zefram Cochrane’s 21st‑century voyage, hadn’t they always been there in the mists of history, however unrecorded? And if the Borg had conquered Earth and had then been beaten back, hadn’t that alwaysoccurred? Following Data’s own theoretical ruminations on the topic, Picard had been forced to tell him to keep the subject to himself; he was tired of thinking about it.

Better than thinking about the alternative,the voice in the back of his head would tell him. Picard and his crew were already dealing with the direct consequences of their journey, and even though they had saved the future of mankind, the reward of that knowledge seemed to pale when stacked against the costs. It had taken La Forge and his engineers a couple of days to create a makeshift replacement for their lost navigational array, one capable of reproducing the effect that had allowed them to journey to the past in the first place. During that time, Will Riker and Worf had been busy rounding up the ASRV lifeboats that were jettisoned when Picard had initiated the Enterprise’s autodestruct sequence.

Once that danger and Borg threat had been stopped, retrieving the nearly 200 escape pods had proven more challenging than his officers had expected; some had made it to Earth, some had lingered in orbit. Although about three‑quarters of them had made it to the rendezvous point on Gravett Island in the South Pacific, crewmembers from some of the other autonomous survival and recovery vehicles had been grounded elsewhere–mostly due to Borg‑related system glitches. Many of those had dispersed into the regions they landed in, some taking refuge in the wilderness in case of Borg pursuit, others trying their best to blend in with the ragged factions of postapocalypse humanity they encountered.

Most of the repairs to the Enterprisehad to wait until the ship got to McKinley Station, where they were now docked. Most of the crew were still in the long queues for the starbase’s massive medical complex; they had to be quarantined, scanned, and decontaminated, not only for any possible Borg infection, but for any viral or bacterial pathogens they may have picked up while in the past. It wouldn’t do to release a 21st‑century virus, whether natural or bioengineered, into the 24th century.

After being given clean bills of health, the crew would have some time off. How much time was unknown at this point. Engineering crews–all wearing biohazard containment suits–were scouring the ship, removing the self‑replicating Borg technology from corridors and circuit panels and Jefferies tubes. Many of the ship’s main systems would have to be repaired as well. Panels were off the walls, and circuitry was spread across the deckplates. Only a year out in theEnterprise‑E and we’re already in need of a major overhaul,thought Picard, his ruminations still dark.

Picard’s own cabin was untouched, and, except for the occasionally malfunctioning environmental controls, it offered him a place of rest and solitude. He knew that the repair crews hadn’t touched his ready room yet. He suspected that Riker had told them not to. It too had not been violated by the Borg or their technology, but the display case which had held models of the previous Starships Enterprisewas still half‑destroyed, smashed by the phaser rifle Picard had swung at the case during his fit of pique. You broke your little ships,the woman from the past had said. Lily Sloane had known that the battle against the Borg was too personal for him. But it wasn’t until afterward, when he saw the wrecked models, that Picard had seen it too.

He heard a knock, and the door of his quarters swished halfway open before grinding to a halt. “Captain?” a voice questioned. Two strong hands pushed the door the rest of the way into its wall recess, and Picard turned, seeing a familiar face. Like the captain, Riker had hardly slept the last several days, and the bags under his eyes showed it.

“Rather a mess out there, wouldn’t you say, Number One?” Picard asked, gesturing out the door, where work crews could be seen removing Borg conduit hoses from a ceiling duct.

“Yes, sir. From the reports I’m hearing, the Borg circuitry got farther into our systems than we realized. We’re lucky we made it back in one piece,” Riker said. He didn’t need to add the words “this time.”

Picard sat on his couch, gesturing for his first officer to sit opposite him. It was late, but until the Borg matter was completely concluded, Picard didn’t mind Riker interrupting his all‑too‑rare quiet time. The padd his first officer carried hadn’t escaped the captain’s notice, and as much as Picard might not wish to face the duty it represented, he knew that he must. He owed it to them.

But not just yet.

“How is everyone coping?” he asked.

“Medically, most of the crew appears to be fine. Dr. Crusher and Nurse Ogawa were cleared very quickly, and they’ve been helping in the sickbays on McKinley. So far everyone’s been in the clear. They’re trying to process our people through the rest of the tests as quickly as possible. They’ve even got a dozen or so EMH programs running. I’m glad we aren’t forced to use one of those on ourship very often. They don’t quite have Beverly’s bedside manner.”

Picard crossed over and sat behind his desk, sinking into his chair. Riker continued. “Worf has to depart for Deep Space 9 as soon as possible, perhaps first thing in the morning. Things are getting very tense with the Dominion, and they need him back there. Chief O’Brien’s going to have his hands full finishing the repairs on the Defiantthat the McKinley techs started. Data’s eye and skin have been repaired. And, understandably, Deanna’s been especially busy since we returned; she’s coping well with the workload . . . though she swears she’ll never touch a drop of tequila again.”

“Pardon?”

Riker grinned for perhaps the first time in days. “She got a little drunk down there with Cochrane, sir. But I can assure you it was purely in the line of duty.”

“What was it like?” Picard asked suddenly, leaning forward. Riker looked at him quizzically. “The Phoenix.What was it like? I got to . . . I touchedit, but you . . . you rodein it! You and Geordi were partof it. Mankind’s first warp flight!”

Riker’s demeanor loosened a bit, and he focused his eyes on the windows, out into space. “I don’t know if I can describe it. I’ve never felt anything so unsettling since flight training at the Academy, and this was even worse. I wasn’t sure that we weren’t going to blow apart at any second, that the ship wasn’t going to scatter me through space nearly three hundred years before I was even born. The whole time this song was playing, earsplittingly loud, and my teeth were vibrating. And we saw the Enterpriseout of the window and . . .”

Riker paused, as though collecting his thoughts. “We take it for granted, Jean‑Luc.” He rarely called the captain by his first name, but at this moment it seemed to come naturally. “We move among the stars every day at high warp, surrounded by all the comforts of a posh hotel. But being there, jammed into that little cockpit, with my teeth chattering and my ears ringing as we just barely made warp one . . . It was the fastest I’ve ever moved in my life.”

The two officers sat in silence then, Riker staring into the darkness of space, Picard closing his eyes and clasping his hands together.

After a brief time, Riker sniffed, and wiped at his nose. Picard opened his eyes again, as Riker cleared his throat. “Geordi is working with the McKinley crews on cleanup, but I’m going to have to order him to take some down time. Barclay is . . . well, I think Barclay may be asking for a transfer off the ship. He seems ill‑at‑ease with everything that’s happened. You know how he is with people, anyhow. I think he may just want to take on a less exciting atmosphere for a while.”

Picard’s mouth pursed into a grim smile. “There are times when I think that might be the best choice myself.”

Riker hesitated, then handed the padd to his captain. He didn’t seem to want to acknowledge its contents; neither did Picard. “This is the final casualty report. We lost seventeen back on Earth from the ASRV landings. One hundred and forty‑eight crewpersons were assimilated by the Borg. All of them are now dead. Those that weren’t killed in combat–or as a consequence of the plasma coolant that flooded engineering–apparently couldn’t survive the death of the queen.”

Picard nodded without speaking, remembering the malfunctioning drones who fell around him and the hideous sight of the mottle‑skinned woman dissolving before his eyes.

“Do you think we’ve seen the last of the Borg? Now that their queen is dead?”

Picard sighed heavily. “We can always hope. But I don’t think so, Number One.”

Riker continued his oral report. “The bodies of those who were assimilated have been quarantined to the Borg Sciences unit for study. Finally, twenty‑five people were killed in combat against Borg drones. Total loss: one hundred‑ninety crewmembers.”

Picard looked down at the padd in his hand, frowning. The names scrolled by slowly, in no particular order. Carter, Lynch, Batson, Nelson, Eiger, M’Rvyn, Tret, Kewlan, Rixa, Porter. . . all of them dead. Not just dead, but assimilated, thendead. They couldn’t even be properly buried until they had been taken apart by Starfleet scientists. And given some of the secrets which he knew some subsections of Starfleet were capable of holding, Picard wasn’t even sure that the crewmembers’ families would everreceive their kin’s remains.

As if to underscore this thought, the padd scrolled down to another name. Hawk, Sean Liam (Lieutenant).He, too, knew about some of Starfleet’s darkest secrets. Or rather hadknown.

“Were we able to recover Lieutenant Hawk’s body?” Picard asked, almost too softly for Riker to hear.

“No, sir. We’re assuming that it stayed in low Earth orbit for some time after we left 2063. Data thinks that atmospheric drag would have brought it down eventually. It . . . would have burned up then.”

Picard shut his eyes tightly, remembering the scene. He, Worf, and Hawk had all been in their environmental suits, their magnetized boots allowing them to traverse the ventral side of the Enterprise’s hull. They had just about freed the maglock servo clamps for the particle emitter dish–in their attempt to stop the Borg from using it as an interplexing beacon to summon other Borg cubes–when Hawk was caught by a Borg drone. Shortly thereafter, with Borg nanoprobes creeping through his bloodstream, controlling him and necrotizing his flesh, Hawk had tried to stop Picard from completing the command sequence to free the final clamp. Worf had then blasted Hawk with his phaser rifle, sending the young lieutenant tumbling away into the void of space.

Picard remembered the look on Hawk’s face, as the last vestiges of his humanity fought against the Borg nanoprobes coursing through him.

Even if Hawk had burned up in the atmosphere, Picard doubted that that was what had ended his life. Assuming that Worf’s phaser blast hadn’t killed him, the lieutenant had most likely suffocated in his environment suit, frightened and alone as his humanity was torn from him. Picard shuddered. He knew what it was like to have his consciousness subsumed within the hive mind of the collective. After the Borg queen had been destroyed, what then? What had Hawk thought in the last few hours of his life, separated from both humanity and the collective?

“Damn,” said Picard softly, putting the padd down on the table. Riker stood and leaned forward, momentarily putting a supportive hand on his captain’s shoulder, and then exited the room without a word.

The padd blinked. Hawk, Sean Liam (Lieutenant). Hawk, Sean Liam (Lieutenant).

Such a loss. So enthusiastic and passionate. So much promise . . .

Hawk had been on the ship slightly less than a year, transferring with a group of others onto the newly commissioned Enterprise‑E.It didn’t take long for him to be assigned to the conn during alpha watch. He was bright and fast, and well‑liked by all. He had said how pleased he was to serve aboard Starfleet’s flagship, which he considered a special honor since he was only a few years out of the Academy. But that time had been long enough for Hawk to forge a personal relationship with a man whom he loved, long enough for him to rise in the ranks, long enough for him to reach his own personal crossroad.

Everyone eventually reaches a crossroad, if he lives long enough.Six months ago, Lieutenant Hawk had reached his.

Chapter One

Stardate 50368.0

The coffee cup suffused Captain Karen Blaylock’s hands with a cheery warmth as she strode purposefully onto the bridge of her ship, the Excelsior‑class starship Slayton.Though the alpha watch wasn’t due to begin for another ten minutes, she wasn’t at all surprised to see several key bridge officers already hard at work at their consoles, which hummed and beeped agreeably.

Commander Ernst Roget, her executive officer, turned toward her in the command chair and favored her with a reserved smile. “Captain on the bridge,” he said, vacating the seat for her.

Heads turned toward Blaylock, distracted momentarily from their vigilance. These were good officers, science and engineering specialists all, and she hated allowing command protocol to interfere with their work, even momentarily. She often envied them their singleminded dedication to discovery. How ironic, she thought, to have allowed her command responsibilities to come between her and the very thing that had brought her out to the galactic hinterlands in the first place: the pursuit of pure knowledge.

Blaylock nodded a silent as you were,and each crewmember quickly returned to the work at hand. She took her seat and sipped her coffee.

Commander Cortin Zweller approached Blaylock from the science station on the bridge’s starboard side. His thick shock of white hair was belied by the boyish twinkle in his eye. During the nearly four months he had served as chief science officer, he had proven to be a valuable member of the Slaytonteam. Though by no means a brilliant researcher, Zweller was well‑liked by the other science specialists, an administrator apparently gifted with the good sense not to step on the toes of his better‑trained subordinates–unless absolutely necessary.

“The anomaly still seems to be hiding from us,” Zweller said. “So far, at least.”

Blaylock sighed, disappointed. The Slaytonhad last made long‑range sensor contact with the subspace anomaly eight days previously, but had turned up nothing since. Several weeks before that, the Federation’s Argus Array subspace observatory had detected intermittent but extremely powerful waves of subspace distortion that seemed to be coming from the region of space for which the Slaytonwas now headed. Unfortunately, the phenomenon had neither lasted long enough–nor repeated itself regularly enough–to reveal much else.

How wonderful it would have been, Blaylock reflected, to have discovered an entirely new physical phenomenon while en route to a dreary diplomatic appointment on gods‑forsaken Chiaros IV. But Blaylock knew it would be just her luck for the anomaly to return briefly–and then vanish forever–while she and her crew were preoccupied with the tedium of galactic politics.

The captain turned toward Lieutenant Glebuk, the Antedean helmsman. In the year since Glebuk had come aboard, Blaylock had assiduously avoided asking the galley replicators to create sushi, one of her favorite foods. Glebuk, who was essentially a two‑meter‑tall humanoid fish, was notably edgy about such things.

Like most of her kind, Glebuk would have found the rigors of interstellar travel intolerable but for the effects of the cortical stimulator she wore on her neck. Its constant output of vertigo‑nullifying neural impulses kept her from lapsing into a self‑protective catatonic state during long space voyages. Despite this handicap–or perhaps because of it–Glebuk was one of the best helm officers Blaylock had ever worked with.

“What’s our present ETA at the Chiaros system?” Blaylock asked Glebuk.

The helmsman fixed an unblinking, monocular gaze on the captain and whispered into the tiny universal translator mounted in the collar of her hydration suit. “The Slaytonwill reach the precise center of the Gulf in approximately fifty‑three minutes. We will arrive at the fringes of the Chiaros system some six minutes later.”

Blaylock nodded. Almost the precise center of the Geminus Gulf,she thought with a tinge of awe. Three wide, nearly empty sectors. Sixty light‑years across, all together. Nearly two weeks travel time at maximum warp.Even after a decade of starship command, she found it hard to wrap her mind around such enormous distances.

During the long voyage into the Gulf, Blaylock had had plenty of time to familiarize herself with the region. More than enough time, actually, since so little was actually known about it, other than its size, location, and strategic significance–or rather its lack thereof. It waswell‑known, however, that most of its sparse stellar population were not of the spectral types associated with habitable worlds. In the Geminus Gulf, young supergiant “O” type stars predominated–the sort of suns whose huge mass blows them apart only a few hundred million years into their lifespans–rather than the cooler, more stable variety, such as the “G” type star that sired Earth and its immediate planetary neighbors.

But the Geminus Gulf was important in at least one respect; it lay just outside the boundaries of both the Federation and the Romulan Star Empire, and it had yet to come formally into the sphere of influence of either power. Nearly smack in the center of the Gulf’s unexplored vastness lay one inhabited world, the fourth planet of the politically nonaligned Chiaros system. Under recently negotiated agreements, neither the Federation nor the Romulans could establish a permanent presence in the Gulf until invited to do so by a spacefaring civilization native to the Gulf. Blaylock was only too aware that her job was to do everything the Prime Directive would allow to obtain that invitation from the Chiarosans, who comprised the only warp‑capable culture yet known in the Gulf, and thus were the key to the entire region, and to whatever awaited discovery within its confines.

Never mind that there isn’t anythere there,Blaylock thought, absurdly reminded of the 20th‑century human writer Gertrude Stein’s often‑mischaracterized description of an empty region on Earth.

Settling back into her chair, Blaylock smiled to herself. She had already reviewed the Chiarosan government’s preliminary application for Federation membership. Less than two weeks from now, the planet’s general population would formally vote on whether to invite in the Romulans or the Federation. Fortunately, since the pro‑Federation position was being staunchly backed by the planet’s extremely popular ruling regime, it seemed to Blaylock that her mission was already all but accomplished.

Blaylock therefore felt amply justified in allowing her thoughts to return to the matter of the mysterious subspace distortions–and their possible causes. Now that they had piqued her curiosity, she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving the bridge for a diplomatic conference whose results were already foreordained.

“Just how important is the captain’s presence at this conference?” Blaylock said, turning toward Roget.

Seated in the chair beside Blaylock’s, Roget leaned forward, his mahogany‑colored brow wrinkled in evident confusion. “It’s crucial, Captain. The natives of Chiaros IV are a warrior people. If you’re not there, they’re likely to take offense.”

Her exec’s discomfiture brought a small smile to her lips. “Don’t panic, Ernie. I’m not planning on going AWOL. What I mean is, how important is it that the captain be present with the first away team?”

Roget appeared to relax at that. Stroking his jaw, he said, “It’s not critical, I suppose. You have to remember, though, that the Chiarosans are very hierarchical and protocol‑conscious.”

“So I noticed,” Blaylock said. “They’ve planned just about every minute of our itinerary while we’re on their planet. And we won’t even meet First Protector Ruardh until our third day on the planet. It’s all just lower‑level functionaries until then.”

“ ‘When in Rome,’ Captain,” Roget said.

“I agree. Therefore I’ve decided I’m staying aboard the Slaytonuntil you finish up the preliminary business with the first away team. That’ll give me at least another full day here on the bridge before I have to join you down on the planet.”

Roget smiled knowingly. “You want to keep looking for those subspace distortions yourself.”

Blaylock didn’t smile back. Roget needed to know that she was deadly serious. “There’s more at stake here than my scientific curiosity. We already know that the Romulans will have a delegation on Chiaros.”

“That’s unavoidable, unfortunately, under the treaties.” Roget, too, was no longer smiling.

“Wherever you find Romulan diplomats, you’ll probably also find a cloaked Romulan ship nearby– certainlyup to no good.”

Roget regarded her with a silent scowl. He was giving her the lookagain. She knew that he had to be thinking, a cloaked Romulan ship that causes intermittent subspace distortions that can be picked up five sectors away?Fortunately, Roget was not one to question her orders in front of the crew.

Until I find out the answer,she told herself, I’ll be damned if I’m off this ship one second longer than I absolutely have to be.

At that moment, Zweller rose from his station and faced Blaylock, an eager expression on his face. Though he was in his sixties, his unbridled enthusiasm made him appear much younger.

“Captain?”

“Yes, Mr. Zweller?”

“If it’s all right with you and Commander Roget, I’d like to be part of the first away team. From what I’ve read about Chiaros IV, the place could keep a dozen science officers busy for years.”

Blaylock looked toward her exec, who nodded his approval. She turned the matter over in her mind for a moment, then rose from her chair and regarded Zweller approvingly. She liked officers who weren’t afraid to show a little initiative.

“All right, Mr. Zweller. Assemble a few of the department heads in the shuttlebay at 0800 tomorrow. You and Commander Roget will oversee the opening diplomatic ceremonies.”

Zweller thanked Blaylock, then returned to his station to contact his key subordinates. She had no doubt that Chiaros IV would more than justify his scientific curiosity. For a moment, she regretted her decision not to lead the first away team.

But she had a mystery to solve, and a ship to worry about. Needs must,Blaylock thought, when the devil drives.

Or the Romulans.

Sitting beside Roget in the cockpit of the shuttlecraft Archimedes,Zweller finished his portion of the preflight systems checks in less than five minutes. The eightperson craft was ready for takeoff even as the heads of the biomedical science, planetary studies, xenoanthropology, and engineering departments took their seats.

At Roget’s command, the triple‑layered duranium hangar doors opened, accentuating the faint blue glow of the shuttlebay’s atmospheric forcefield. The shuttle rose on its antigravs, moved gently forward, and accelerated into the frigid vastness of space.

The perpetually sunward side of Chiaros IV suddenly loomed above the Archimedes,presenting a dazzling vista of ochers and browns. Gray, vaguely menacing clouds surged over the equatorial mountain ranges. High above the terminator separating eternal night from unending day, Zweller could see the glint of sunlight on metal–Chiaros IV’s off‑planet communications relay, tethered to the planet’s narrow habitable zone by a network of impossibly slender‑looking cables. Zweller noticed that the portion of the tether that plunged into the roiling atmosphere was surrounded by transitory flashes of light.

Lightning?he wondered, then looked more closely. No, it’s thruster fire. If the Chiarosans didn’t compensate somehow for the motions of their turbulent atmosphere, that orbital tether wouldn’t last ten minutes.

Zweller took in this vista–the untamable planet as well as the tenacious efforts of the Chiarosans to subdue it–with unfeigned delight.

“Hail the Chiarosans, Mr. Zweller,” Roget said, interrupting his reverie. Zweller complied, immediately all business once again. His hail was answered by a voice as deep as a canyon, which cleared the shuttlecraft to begin its descent into the churning atmosphere. The computer received the landing coordinates and projected a neat, elliptical course onto the central navigational display.

“A pity we can’t just beam straight down to the capital,” Roget said as the Slaytonreceded into the distance.

Andreas Hearn, the Slayton’s chief engineer, spoke up from directly behind Zweller. “Between the radiation output of the Chiarosan sun, the planet’s intense magnetosphere, and the clash of hot and cold air masses down there, we can’t even get a subspace signal down to the surface–at least not without the orbital tether relay. I wouldn’t recommend trying to transport anyone directly through all that atmospheric hash.”

“Oh, enough technical talk,” said Gomp, the Tellarite chief medical officer, who was seated in the cabin’s aftmost section. “I want to know what these people are really like. The only things I’ve seen so far are their official reports to the Federation. Medically speaking, all I can really say about them is that they’re supposed to be triple‑jointed and faster than Regulan eel‑birds.”

“Then I wouldn’t recommend challenging them on the hoverball court,” Hearn said with a chuckle.

The Archimedesentered the upper atmosphere. On the cockpit viewer, Zweller watched as an aurora reached across the planet’s south pole with multicolored, phosphorescent fingers. Lightning split the clouds in the higher latitudes. Atmospheric friction increased, and an ionized plasma envelope began forming around the shuttle’s hull.

“Gomp makes a good point,” said xenoanthropologist Liz Kurlan, as though this didn’t happen very often. “All we know about these people so far is what they wantus to know.”

“So we’ll start filling in those gaps in our knowledge today,” Roget said with a good‑natured shrug. “That’s why we’re all here, isn’t it?”

Sitting in silence, he moved his fingers with deliberate precision over the controls. Then the shuttle hastened its descent toward the rapidly approaching terminator, the demarcation line between the planet’s endless frigid night and its ever‑agitated, superheated sunward side.

On the Slayton’s bridge, Blaylock heard an uncharacteristic urgency enter Glebuk’s voice. “Captain! The anomaly has reappeared!”

The bridge crew suddenly began moving in doubletime. Blaylock was on her feet in an instant. “Location!”

“Scanning,” Glebuk said.

Ensign Burdick, the young man at the forward science station, beat the Antedean to the answer. “A massive subspace distortion wave‑front has appeared . . . four‑point‑eight astronomical units south of the planet’s orbital plane.”

“Speed?”

“One‑tenth light‑speed in all directions. Speed is constant.”

“Transfer the coordinates to the helm,” Blaylock said.