Since the hour Worf had woken, bereft of memory, he had seen all manner of faces. Faces of comrades and enemies, the living and the dead. But never had he seen a face that so closely mimicked his own.

Until now.

But for the scars, the cragginess that seemed to suggest age, that exposed visage might have been his-or a kinsman's. It occurred to him that this warrior might be able to tell him something-something about the time before he woke in the barracks, sweating and struggling against his restraints.

It was obvious that they were of the same race-and that that race was a minority here. Perhaps they had known each other once-even collaborated on whatever crime had earned them this fate.

He didn't dare question him now, of course. But this one had to live-so that he could find him again, when the marshals weren't looking, and pick his brain for some clue to the past.

Thinking this, Worf dropped his guard. Just for a moment, no more. But that was all the time his enemy needed.

With a speed he should no longer have been able to muster, the helmless one lashed out. Fortunately, his accuracy didn't match his quickness-all he could manage was a glancing blow.

It was enough, however, to send Worf spinning away, his arm a numb and nerveless thing. His mace fell from unfeeling fingers, raised dust where it hit the ground.

A second blow fell, and Worf barely eluded it. The third came closer, caused him to slip on a patch of gravel, lose his footing and come crashing to earth.

Immediately, his adversary was on top of him, his knee hammering into Worf's chest. It knocked the wind out of him, forced him to struggle to remain conscious.

His good hand groped, found his opponent's throat. Kept him at arm's length. But he was helpless to prevent the ax from being raised. It loomed against the sky like something gigantic.

Then it fell, and Worf felt a terrible impact in his bones. But a moment later, the ax lay beside him in the dirt and his head was still in one piece.

He wished he could say the same for his adversary. The man's corpse lay slumped beside him.

Another warrior stood over them-one of Worf's comrades. His expression was concealed behind his headgear-but there was disdain in the way he wiped off his truncheon on his armored leg.

Worf sensed that there was something he had to do. He reached out for his enemy's slack-jawed visage...

But it was too late. The last vestige of life had ebbed away, leaving only a cold and empty husk.

Worf felt cheated-and in more ways than one. This one might have helped him remember. He was filled with rage-with blind, unyielding fury.

Scrambling to his feet, he went after the warrior who had killed his enemy. Took him down from behind, eliciting a cry of surprise. The truncheon flew out of his hand and they rolled together in the dirt.

Somewhow, Worf came out on top. With all the savage strength he could command, he smashed his mailed fist into the man's face.

Again.

And again.

Suddenly, the world was flattened in a blast of barely visible force. Worf felt as if something had taken hold of his insides and was tearing him apart. He had felt such pain only once before.

Rolling up into a ball, he withstood it as best he could. But every now and then, despite his best efforts, a whimper escaped his tightly clenched teeth.

Finally, it stopped. For a little while, he just lay there, shuddering. Then he looked up and hissed curses at the marshal on his airborne sled.

The marshal, too far away to hear, only smiled.

Chapter Ten.

AS SOON AS the antibiotic was injected into Fredi's system, the man showed signs of progress. Before the day was out, Burtin had made the decision to take his patient off the blood purifier. By the following morning-ship's time, of course-he had expected to be able to take him out of quarantine.

Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way.

"I don't understand," said Fredi. He was lying prone on the biobed-not so much because of his physical turn for the worse, but so the machine could make its analyses. "I thought I was getting better."

There was just the slightest hint of hysteria in the geologist's voice. Burtin tried to ignore it as he pondered the figures on the monitor display above the bed.

The poison was evident again-no question about it. And it was slowly increasing its presence. Just as if they'd never found the bacteriological culprit, as if they'd never introduced the antibiotic at all.

"Doctor? You're not answering me."

He sighed. "I won't lie to you. I fully expected that we'd licked this thing." His words were picked up by the intercom, funneled into the quarantine area. "But it's nothing to worry about. The recuperation process often has peaks and valleys. This may just be one of the valleys."

Even from here, he could see the deepening of the worry lines in Fredi's face. The geologist wasn't buying what he had to sell-not entirely.

"Unfortunately," he continued, "I'm going to have to put you back on the purifier. We can't just let the poison build up again, right?"

Fredi chuckled, but it was a dry, dead sound. There wasn't any humor in it. "Right," he echoed.

Burtin tore himself away from the barrier. He wasn't accomplishing anything by standing here and reassuring the geologist. If he was going to figure out what had gone wrong, it would be in the lab.

As he headed there now, he passed Vanderventer in the hallway. The big nurse was responding to the call Burtin had put in a couple of minutes ago.

"Hi, Doc. Some kind of setback?"

"Looks like it," said Burtin. "Just hook up that purifier again and try to keep him calm."

"No problem, sir. Fredi and I are old friends by now."

Then Vanderventer was past him, eager to be about his duties. Whistling, in fact.

No doubt, Vanderventer would do much to improve Fredi's frame of mind. Burtin had no worries in that regard.

It was the rest of the geologist he was concerned about.

The lab was on the other side of sickbay, set apart from the patient care areas. When the doctor walked in, there was only one technician on duty-a pretty brunette named Arguellos.

She looked up from her computer terminal. "Need some help, sir?"

Burtin nodded. "Those cultures we made of Fredi's bacteria. I need to see the latest data."

"Right," said Arguellos. She saved the project she'd been working on and filed it, then called up the requested information. "You look grim," she told Burtin. "What's the matter?"

"Fredi's toxin level is up again."

"Oh, no."

"I'm afraid so."

"Any idea why?" she asked.

He shrugged. "That's why I'm here. To find out."

"Right. Ah-here are the culture analyses."

He came around to stand behind her. Placing a hand on the back of her chair, Burtin leaned toward the screen to get a better look.

Arguellos pointed. "What's that?"

Burtin knew the answer immediately. After all, it had been the most likely conclusion all along.

"The bacterium has mutated," he told her. "This is a new strain-one that's impervious to our antibiotic." He shook his head. "Look at that replication rate. No wonder Fredi's showing a high level of toxin again-the same thing is happening in him."

Arguellos leaned back. A whistle escaped between her teeth.

"The ironic thing," said Burtin, "is that the original strain must have been dying off-due to some environmental change-even before we introduced the medicine. Or else the new strain couldn't have proliferated."

The technician shook her head. "So it's back to square one."

"At least," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He patted her on the shoulder. "Nothing. It's just the pessimist in me coming out."

On the other hand, he told himself, your pessimism might be justified in this case. If the organism had mutated once, it could mutate again. Square one might become a very familiar place.

Then, suddenly, he felt silly. Unprofessional, even. Don't make this any more complicated than it has to be, he advised himself. Remember-you're on the Enterprise. Vega Antilles is a long way away.

Taking a deep breath, he thanked Arguellos and headed for the critical care area. At least he could tell his patient that he'd figured out what had happened. That would make Fredi feel a little better.

Winter was approaching. The air was getting cooler, the days shorter. Over the jagged profile of the factory district, the sun was already setting in a mighty blaze. Red flecks of cloud, scattered about the sky, seemed stymied in their attempts to escape the conflagration.

Dan'nor poured out of the shoe works with the rest of the laborers, maneuvering his way through the press. He spoke to no one and no one spoke to him. Perhaps they sensed his disgust at being lowered to their station. It didn't matter-he wasn't looking for their friendship.

The shoe plant was located at the top of a hill. It made his walk home considerably shorter than his walk to work. On the way down, he passed the refinery and then the plastics plant, and a little while later he came to the river.

There were shops along the water-all owned, of course, by someone or other in the Military. Probably not Council members, though-they didn't get involved in such piddling operations. Not directly, anyway.

Normally, Dan'nor didn't stop at any of these places. Eager to get home and view the Conflicts, he seldom even took note of what they were selling. This evening, however, he felt a little curious. Maybe because the Conflicts had been less engaging for him lately. They were beginning to take on a sameness; he was seldom surprised anymore.

One shop in particular caught his eye. No, not a shop-a small tavern. And taverns, he'd heard, were rare in this town. On an impulse, he opened the wooden door and walked inside.

It was quite crowded, and he hated crowds. They reminded him too much of the shoe factory. The sight of all those bodies pressed together in the dim light, the loud sounds and the smell almost drove him back out the door. Then he saw what had attracted the crowd in the first place, and he forced himself to stay.

It was a videoscreen, not much larger than the one he had at home. There was nothing unusual on it, just another clash outside the walls of some fortress. Probably K'trellan-they had been featuring that one a lot lately.

The fighting was fierce, but it didn't hold Dan'nor's interest for long. The siege sequences were always the least artistic-just a lot of bodies sweating and grunting and trying to hack other bodies to pieces.

On the other hand, the crowd seemed to love it. They were roaring and raising their drinks and pounding their fists on the occasional table. It was almost as if they themselves were on the battlefield.

It occurred to him that he had never seen people watching the Conflicts en masse. Perhaps in two and threes at someone's home, but never in such a large group. And never in a place like this.

It made it something strange, something unfamiliar. There was an electricity in the air. A sense of involvement, of importance. Of magnitude.

Dan'nor wanted to learn more about it. Skirting the thickest part of the crowd, he worked his way to a spot in the corner. He could barely see the screen, but he had a good view of the onlookers. Finding a surprisingly empty chair, he sat down.

A moment later, he found out why the chair had been available. It was rickety. But by leaning back against the wall, he got it to bear his weight.

The screen generated a bright, flickering light, illuminating faces for him. It showed him the wild passion in their eyes, the way their mouths curled around their cheers and their curses. He had the feeling that they might whirl as one at any time and turn that murderous passion on him.

Until now, he realized, he had never fully appreciated the impact of the Conflicts-the extent to which they could capture the hearts and minds of the masses. He had thought he understood, but his understanding had been a superficial thing. A cold and distant observation.

Now he was seeing it for himself-the eruption of violence for which there was no other outlet in Lower Caste society; the sharing in that violence that bound one man to another and all of them to the warriors on the screen. Now he truly understood.

"Can I get you something, Brother?"

Dan'nor looked up, a little startled. He found himself staring into the hovering face of a serving woman.

"What?" he asked dumbly.

"A drink," she explained. "This is a tavern, you know."

He frowned. "I'm aware of that. Yes, I'll have a drink. M'tsila, I think."

She smiled wearily. "Sure. I'll have some sent right over from the estate of Councillor Orian'tuc. Now what do you really want?"

He was surprised. It hadn't occurred to him that the liqueur wouldn't be available to everyone. In the Military, it was a common libation. As he cast about for another choice, he noticed another serving maid heading into a narrow hallway off the main room. She had a tray full of drinks and one of them looked like beer.

"How about a beer?" he suggested.

"Absolutely," she said. "A fine choice." There was still a hint of mockery in her tone, and it annoyed him-though he knew it wasn't meant to. That was just the way Lower Casters spoke to one another. Not like in the Military, where words were always carefully chosen. "Something to chew on with that?"

The thought of eating in this place repulsed him. "No," he said. "Nothing."

With a shrug, she turned sideways and disappeared into the crowd. Dan'nor was glad to have gotten rid of her.

But when he resumed his study of the viewers, he saw that their mood had changed. Their raucous calls were complaints now rather than encouragements. It seemed that the scene had switched from the battlefield to a construction site. Some participants were building a bridge.

Of course, this was only a prelude to something else. More than likely, a raiding party would swoop down out of the hills, destroy the bridge and take the builders captive. Or a counterforce would intervene and destroy the raiding party. Dan'nor had seen variations on the theme a dozen times or more in the weeks since he became a civilian.