Riker shrugged. "A man must do what a man must do."

The captain smiled. "Thank you for your support, Number One. Unofficially, of course."

His first officer smiled back-though his heart wasn't quite in it. "Just don't make me regret it, sir."

"I assure you," said Picard, "that is not my intention."

Chapter Five.

WORF WENT FIRST-fortunately, without incident. As soon as that fact was established, the rest of the away team came over one by one, starting with the captain.

He materialized in the research vessel's common room-a space big enough to hold them all, and a central location from which they could fan out. As he joined the hulking figure of the Klingon, their containment suits glittering like ruby skins in the low light from the overhead panels, Picard took a look around.

There wasn't much in the way of amenities here. Some tables and chairs, a few scattered pieces of artwork on the walls. Long, narrow windows, curved to conform to the shape of the hull, showed the golden dazzle of the surrounding energy mantle in brilliant sections.

No bodies-not here, anyway. The captain noted that with some relief. But there was something here-something curious. On one table, a game of flaga'gri-the Rhadamanthan equivalent of chess-stood undisturbed.

Picard knelt beside it. He had never taken the time to really familiarize himself with flaga'gri, but he understood the basic principles. It seemed to him that this game was still only in its first stages.

Would someone have started a flaga'gri match while the Mendel skittered through unknown space? Possibly. A number of crewmembers-life sciences people, primarily-would have found themselves of little or no help. Why not seek out a distraction-find a way to pass the time, to stave off outright panic?

On the other hand, would someone have begun this game knowing that death was imminent? Not likely. Not unless that person had a remarkably overdeveloped sense of fatalism. So-whatever happened to the crew of the Mendel, it probably caught the players and everyone else by surprise.

Picard frowned, looked up at Worf. Their eyes met through their transparent faceplates. Apparently, the Klingon had come to much the same conclusion.

As the captain got to his feet, they were joined by Doctor Pulaski. She became solid with a look of extreme discomfort on her face, but it didn't last long. Not when she saw that she was being observed.

Pulaski's loathing for the teleportation process was common knowledge. Normally, Picard would have brought someone else along-but these circumstances were far from normal.

Instantly, the doctor took a tricorder reading. She peered at the results for a moment.

"Interesting," she announced. Her voice was something of a shock, a pebble dropped into the tomblike silence. "This air is eminently breathable. Gases all in the proper proportion, and none that shouldn't be here." A second reading. "Nothing significant in the way of radiation either."

Another figure reformatted itself on the other side of the cabin. The captain recognized Palazzo, one of Worf's security officers.

"Of course," Pulaski went on, "that's just in this part of the ship. Conditions might be radically different elsewhere, so let's not get lax."

"I second that," said Picard, remembering his pledge to Riker. He could still feel the heat of his first officer's glare back there in the lounge.

They all watched as a fifth member of the party took on substance. Geordi's VISOR was unmistakable, even before the molecular stabilization process was complete.

The Klingon tapped the communicator beneath his containment suit. "Lieutenant Worf to transporter room. You may beam down the remainder of the team as a group."

The answer was somewhat garbled, thanks to the blanketing effect of the energy field. But a moment later, the transporter chief indicated his understanding another way: by depositing the last three members of the team in the space between Pulaski and Geordi.

"All right," said the captain, as each of them got his or her bearings. "Lieutenant La Forge, you and your people will inspect the engineering section. Start with the engines; after that, life-support and whatever else you have time for. Lieutenant Worf, take Mister Palazzo and search Deck Two-laboratories, cargo areas, sickbay. Doctor Pulaski and Mister Badnajian will investigate personal quarters."

Worf looked at him. "And you, sir?"

"The bridge," said Picard. "I'm going to see if I can wring anything out of ship's computer."

The Klingon scowled but didn't protest. No doubt, he knew it would do him no good.

"Questions?" asked the captain. There weren't any. "Then let's get cracking."

Riker was starting to get antsy. As much as he understood and sympathized with Picard's motives in this case, he couldn't help but feel that his place was with the away team.

Don't be a mother hen, he told himself. They're all big boys and girls. They can take care of themselves.

Then again, the crew of the Mendel had been a capable bunch as well. And look what had happened to them.

What was worse, he couldn't even keep tabs on the away team through the monitoring function of their communicators. Thanks to the energy field, the signals were weak and sometimes disappeared altogether.

"Mister Fong," said Riker. "Contact the captain for me."

"Aye, sir."

A moment later, Picard's distinctive voice broke like a wave over the calm of the bridge. The considerable static caused by the energy mantle rendered it necessary to turn up the volume-making the captain sound even more commanding than usual.

"Can you hear me?" asked the first officer.

"Barely, Number One. Is something wrong?"

"I just wanted to know how things were going." Even as he said it, Riker realized how foolish it sounded. "Anything I should know about?"

A pause. "Nothing yet. However, I'm on my way to the bridge now. Perhaps I'll find something there."

"You're alone, sir?"

Picard confirmed that he was, indeed, alone. "We've split up," he explained, "to go over the ship more quickly."

Of course. That's what Riker would have done in the captain's place. But the idea still made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle a bit.

"Objections, Number One?"

"No," said the first officer, feeling the heat climb into his face. "Carry on, sir."

He had barely uttered the last word when the connection died. Just like that-no sign-off on Picard's part, as custom and courtesy dictated.

Was it the captain's way of telling him he was getting in the way? Maybe-though Picard was usually the model of Starfleet etiquette.

More likely, the energy field had become particularly unruly at that moment. Yes, he decided. That had to be it.

In any case, he'd found out what he wanted to know. There was no point in reestablishing contact-and making himself an even bigger pain in the butt.

Since the moment she'd set foot in the transporter room, something had been gnawing at Pulaski. She'd done her best to concentrate on the task at hand, but she couldn't shake the feeling that she'd left some job undone. Forgotten something-something important.

The feeling plagued her as she inspected the first three cabins she came to-none of which yielded any answers. Or, for that matter, any evidence of tragedy. As in the common room, all was in perfect order, undisturbed. Life-support systems functioning, beds made, tapes neatly filed away.

Still, she thought, the bodies of the crew had to be somewhere. It was just a matter of time before one of the searchers found them.

And then, as she pored over the fourth cabin... it came to her. Descended on her, really, like a small avalanche.

Her thesis about Fredi's disease-it hadn't sprung from her fertile mind fully formed, as the goddess Athena was reputed to have sprung from that of Zeus. She had heard of such a disorder-a long time ago, when she was an intern back on Chaquafar.

Of course, the Chaquafar'ath version had never been officially recorded in Federation medical annals. Chaquafar was an advanced but iconoclastic world, one that was still spurning Federation membership to this day.

Some thirty years ago, Chaquafar's scientific community had been convinced to share its technologies with Pulaski and her colleagues-but the natives had played it rather close to the vest when it came to medical history. Apparently, it was inextricably entwined with cultural practices the Chaquafar'u would rather have forgotten.

Only Perrapataat-the elderly physician who'd taken a liking to a young and eager Katherine Pulaski-had been willing to speak of his people's ancient afflictions. Among them had been an illness-she remembered the name now-called stirianaa.

A disease that turned on an unusual translocation of certain genes-and therefore certain capabilities-from a foreign bacterium to a familiar one. A disease that...

Suddenly, Pulaski felt cold all over.

Oh my god.

The Chaquafar'ath disease had killed hundreds of thousands before it was stopped. And why? Because early on, about the time the medical community thought it might have discovered a cure... the hybrid bacterium had mutated.

Of course, mutation was something any doctor had to expect-on Chaquafar or anywhere else. It could have been triggered by almost anything at all that was hostile to the hybrid bug-a drug, a change in diet, a rise in temperature. Even natural selection, over time.

But this mutation had transformed the disease from something non-communicable to something contagious-highly contagious. And naturally, because of the change, the antibiotic devised by the Chaquafar'u was no longer effective. The organism had become much hardier, much tougher to kill.

By the time they came up with a second cure, the disease had ravaged two continents. All those lives...

Pulaski's heart was hammering against her ribs. With an effort, she calmed herself-enough to think clearly, anyway.

"The captain," she murmured. "I've got to tell the captain."

Pressing the communicator beneath her containment suit, she said: "Pulaski to Captain Picard."

There was no answer.

She tried it again.

Still nothing.

"Damn it," she whispered. For some reason, the communicators weren't working. Did it have something to do with the energy mantle?

Then she definitely wouldn't be able to get word back to the ship. Nonetheless, she made an attempt to contact the bridge.

"Riker here," came the somewhat mangled reply.

Pulaski breathed a deep sigh of relief. For the moment, she put aside the fact that she'd been unable to raise the captain. The vagaries of communicator technology weren't exactly her field of expertise.

"Commander, something serious has come up. I need to get back to the ship immediately."

She could hear the tension in the first officer's response, though his words tried to rise above it. "Has something happened over there? Someone hurt?"

"No," she said. "Nothing like that. It's the-"

"Doctor?"

She turned at the sound of the voice just behind her-in time to see Badnajian's bulk fill the open doorway.

"Not now," she told him. "I'm-"

"There's something wrong," he interrupted a second time. "No one's answering my security checks."

"I know," she told him. "I had some trouble, too. But I've managed to contact the ship. Now..."

She was completely unprepared for what happened next. First, a web of slender green filaments came out of nowhere. Then it closed down around Badnajian. Finally, man and web just vanished.

All in the space of a heartbeat, maybe less.

Pulaski felt light-headed. She clutched at a bulkhead for support.

"Doctor Pulaski?" It was Riker's voice again, strident with alarm now. "Doctor, what's going on there?"

"Badnajian just disappeared." She swallowed, understanding for the first time what might have happened to the crew of the Mendel. "And he may not be alone in that regard."

"I'm beaming you back," said Riker. "All of you. Stand by."

"No," she told him, recalling the reason she'd contacted him in the first place. "Listen. There may not be time. You've got to get word to Doctor Burtin. Tell him that..."

But she never finished her sentence.

"Transporter room-report!"

The hesitation in Chief O'Brien's voice told Riker all he needed to know. His teeth grated together as he tried to control the anger building up inside him.

And it was only himself he had to be angry with. For letting the captain go in the first place. For not following up when Picard signed off so abruptly. Most of all, for not seeing what was coming... until now, when it was obviously too late.

"I... I don't know what happened," said O'Brien finally. "First, I could only record two of our people within the parameters of the Mendel. And then, just as I tried to bring those two back... they vanished, sir. They're gone-and I don't know where."

The first officer cursed beneath his breath.

"Sir?" asked the transporter chief.

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. "If you had to guess," asked Riker, "what would you say happened to them?"

A pause. "It almost seemed as if someone else just got to them first, sir. Teleported them, I mean, just as we were about to."