So abruptly that Stiles almost collapsed between them, the guards-even Orsova-relaxed their threat.

The old man approached and leered at Orsova. "Don't get any ideas, hutch. I'm old, but I'm ornery"

Amazing! The burly Pojjana all backed away again, so fast that the suction almost dragged Stiles off his feet. "What the h.e.l.l-" Stiles glanced at them, then glared at the frail white-haired codger. "Who are you that you can make them flinch like quail?"

The old man was completely unimpressed by the lines of Poijana soldiers, and indeed they shied away from him. "Let's just say that once upon a time I removed a thorn from the lion's paw. Now the lion thinks I'm powerful. Of course, he's right."

Weird-somehow this old man's voice... it sounded familiar. The way he snapped at those men- "What's all that mean?" he asked. "What thom?"

But the codger, without taking his eyes off Stiles, waved at the yellow guys, who moved forward again. "Don't look back, son," he said. "It doesn't pay."

As the yellow aliens pressed toward him, Stiles stumbled back. "You keep your alien paws off me!" He slapped at them as they attempted to get a grip on him. "I don't want to go without Zevon! Orsova, I'll get you for this someday! All of you get away from me!" "Hypo."

"I don't want to go! I don't want to go... I don't... want .... "

Familiar voices. How secure they sounded, how wondrous! The anchorage of life, those voices. All the hours upon hours, watching historic mission tapes, memorizing the fiery defiance of Captain James Kirk during the M5 experiments, the Nomad occurrence, the incident at Memory Alpha, sinking into Mr. Spock's baritone warble explaining where the probe came from, listening to the counterpoint of Dr. McCoy's perplexed and concerned protests, the voice less of an officer than a humanitarian trying to expand his humanity beyond natural limits... those men, they always pushed themselves, teased every limit, never backed away ....

Wish I'd been there, with those men in those times, taking those orders. I could've followed those orders and given them ten cents change! Just imagine-First Officer Spock saying, "These are your orders, Ensign Stiles." Imagine ....

Their voices were more familiar than his own family's, more familiar than Travis Perraton's calming tone behind him making sure he didn't make quite as much a fool of himself as he otherwise might, or Jeremy White taunting him while the others laughed. But it had been a good laugh... he hadn't appreciated it back then. They were having fun, enjoying themselves all because he was with them. That was worth being laughed at. It never hurt so much, except that he let it hurt. If they were enjoying themselves, then the existence of Eric Stiles was doing some good.

He wanted to wake up. Usually he could will himself out of unconsciousness after a short struggle. Orsova commonly knocked him into a dither, and he had learned to claw his way out of the tunnel to the light place where Zevon would be waiting for him, usually st.i.tching a cut or stanching a nosebleed. Wounds could actually heal without a tissuebonding beam.

That medical scanner, it looked like a super satellite to him after four years in a culture backed off a hundred fifty years from what he'd grown up with. Funny how quickly he'd gotten used to the downteching. Before, he'd never thought a person could get through a day without Federation flash and spark. He'd gotten through a day. "At a time:'

Oh-his own voice this time. Didn't sound so bad. Come on, fight out of the hole. Zevon would be at the top of the tunnel, pressing a wet cloth to Stiles's head. "Mmmm..."

"That's it, son, wake up. You're bound to have a headache, Don't fight it."

Stiles fought anyway. He defied the thrum in his skull and finally found the power to force his eyes open when he sensed there was some kind of light on the other side of the lids. Zevon would be there when he got them open.

Red lights? Familiar too... shipboard lights in an alert situation. Red, so the eyes could still adjust. Most eyes, anyway. Human eyes... "Let me get the lights." That gravelly, homespun voice again. The codger. "Where's Zevon?" Stiles registered his own voice and clung to the sound, which brought him all the way up to consciousness. When he could see, he realized the lights weren't red anymore, but were a soft golden light, shining in small, obviously ship-built quarters rigged as some kind of sickbay. He saw a shelf with rows of bottles, piles of folded cloth, several pieces of medical scanning equipment, hyposprays, and a dozen other recognizable and somehow foreign contraptions. He knew what they all were, yet they were foreign to him, and unwelcome. "So I'm out," he managed. "You are," the old man said.

Forgetting himself for just a moment, Stiles fixed upon the old man's face and tried to register that voice. He felt like a computer with a new search order-identify, identify. "Who are these people running this ship?" "Smugglers."

"Why would a human ride with them? And why'd you come into Red Sector? Are you an expatriate or something?"

The old man's icy blue eyes flickered and one brow arched. "I came because of typical pointed-eared hardheadedness, that's why." "Huh?"

"And once in a while a man's got to slip into forbidden territory. Inoculations, contraband chemicals, ant.i.toxins... makes the stars spin." "But... if you... why would they...." "Why don't you just relax, Ensign?"

"Ensign... haven't heard that in a while. You better call me something else."

The doctor tilted his snowy head. "why should I? You haven't surrendered your commission, have you?"

"It got surrendered for me. I'm not that kid anymore. Starfleet gave up on me. I gave up on them." "You're here, aren't you?"

"Look, don't you think I know pity when I see it? Guilt? It's not Eric Stiles they came after. It's their own reputation for not leaving a man behind." Stiles huffed. "I grew up back there. I did leave Starfleet behind. I could handle myself. I didn't want to be rescued. Starfleet can't just fly in and order me to leave when I don't want to go."

"Well, actually, Ensign, they can. You're still on the duty roster"

"What do I care? And I told you not to call me ensign. All this is just a joke on you anyway. I don't care how many famous people they send after me, Starfleet's not getting its pound of flesh out of Eric Stiles. I'll never make it home." "Oh? Why not?

"Because I'm dying. There's hardly a pound of flesh left. Can this boat turn around? Do these yellow guys have a reverse b.u.t.ton?"

The old man wiped his pale, gnarled hands on a blue towel. "You're not dying, boy. I just cured you."

Stiles rolled his head on the pillow and challenged the codger with a glower. "I'm too far gone for that."

"Not too far for me. You had a viral infection of operational tissue. Your heart, your muscles, intestinal walls, a few internal organs... it's just something that hits humans on that planet. We had to watch out for it back when we maintained an emba.s.sy. To the Pojjana, it's barely a common cold, but to humans, it eats muscle. In five or six months, with some physical therapy, your tissues will be rebuild. You'll be young again, kid. Just call me the fountain of youth."

"Starfleet sent us on a mission to a planet with a humankiller virus?"

"They had a vaccine, but didn't bother to vaccinate the evacuation team. You boys weren't supposed to come in contact with any native Pojjana during the evac mission, and that virus requires twelve weeks of repeated exposure. n.o.body expected any of Oak Squad to stay there for four years. You probably got it from the food supply at the prison."

Stiles stared at him. "How do you know so much about me?" "Amba.s.sador Spock sent me. Ring a bell?"

Taken unaware by the dropping of that name, Stiles heaved up on his elbows-and then the second shock came. He was up on his own elbows! "What's wrong?" the old man asked.

"I haven't been able to sit up by myself for..." All at once Stiles dropped back on his pillow, but not from weakness. He stared at the old man and watched decades peel away before his eyes as he suddenly realized- "Amba.s.sador Spock sent you...of course! You're-you're-my G.o.d, you're-"

"Yes, that's who I am. The Supreme Surgeon. The Mighty Medicine Man. The Hypo-Hero. The Real-" "McCoy ! Doctor McCoy !"

"You can have an autograph later." The elderly man snapped the top back onto a bottle and placed it back on the nearest shelf. "Now relax before you have a bacterial flareup. Where'd I put that sedative?" "Are you Doctor Leonard McCoy? The Doctor McCoy?" "Betcha?' "Then it is' an official rescue?"

"No. I convinced the consul general to remand you into my custody. When we cross into Federation territory, you'll be officially handed over to Starfleet." "You gave the Pojjana some kind of medical help?" "That's the short version, yes." "Then you broke the Prime Directive?"

"Sure did" the esteemed elder proudly confirmed. "You would've too. The P.D.'s been through so many incarnations and reinterpretations in my lifetime you'd think the thing was written on rubber. In a changing galaxy, you've got to have that." "But you're a Starfleet surgeon-"

"Retired. If I come into Red Sector, it's my own affair. I'm a free agent. Took me a year and a half to get the Pojjana to owe me enough to get you out. It's a d.a.m.ned shame what happens to you kids who get caught in the crossfire-"

"I'm not that kid anymore," Stiles bristled. "I'm an old man now. I can stick up for myself."

Leonard McCoy lasered him a scolding glower that cut him off in mid-thought. "Boy" the doctor said, "I got socks older than you."

Perfectly intimidated, Stiles settled back and shut his mouth. He'd have to keep it shut until he figured things out. How much had changed out there? Four years in prison was an eternity. Stiles knew he'd broken Federation rules by helping Zevon try to learn how to predict the Constrictor. And he'd have done more to help those people, done anything he could to curb the results of all-encompa.s.sing natural disaster. Plain decency didn't allow a man to sit by and watch. What other rules had he broken in his distance and ignorance?

He didn't care. Even after a lifetime of family conditioning, Starfleet had been surprisingly easy to leave behind. Now, this force in his life that had faded to an echo, something he could ignore and forget, now it held ultimate sway over him. Four years ago, though restricted in a jail, Stiles had taken control over his own life. That control was about to be wrested from him again. He was an ensign again, a man in uniform. Today he was free-but more imprisoned than ever.

Then he thought of something else and pushed himself up again. "Can you get Zevon out?" "Who?"

"Another prisoner. We were together the whole time. We kept each other alive." "Not another Starfleet man. I'd have known about that." "No, he's... he .... "

As the doctor waited for the word Stiles was about to unthinkingly spit, Stiles held himself back. For four years he'd said whatever popped into his mind, careless of consequences because there weren't any consequences, heedless of hurt feelings because he and Zevon endured so much hurt that feelings stopped making any difference a long time ago.

He'd made a promise to Zevon to inform the Romulan Empire that their prince was a captive, not dead as they probably suspected. Was it a good idea to tell anybody else Zevon was Romulan?

I'll get the message to them myself, somehow. I'll figure out a way.

"One miracle at a time," McCoy told him. "We can make a report on your friend, see if Command has a process "

'I'll take care of it." Stiles lay back again, enjoying the sensation of getting a lungful of air without pain, entertaining thoughts of breaking away and running back to the Pojjana and continuing his work with Zevon now that he was cured. Cured ?.. the idea of dying was easier to grasp.

But how would that be? The sector was still red. Zevon was right-he'd be better served to tell the Romulans and let them get Zevon out, then let Zevon pressure his own people into helping the Po'jjana. It's the least they owed... and the Pojjana still saw both Stiles and Zevon as evil aliens. They might have to be forced to accept help.

The Constrictor was coming, he was sure of it. Zevon would be caught in the middle of it, maybe even killed if the Pojjana wouldn't listen to him.

"I've got to fight my way to somebody with influence" Stiles grumbled aloud, gazing at the scratched brown wall of the small quarters. When he realized he'd spoken aloud, he turned to the elderly surgeon, but the famous old man was busy with something medical and apparently hadn't heard him or didn't care. "They're going to court-martial me, aren't they?"

"Hmm?" McCoy glanced at him. "I wouldn't know. Why would they?" "I botched a critical mission." "Did you?" "I thought I knew everything."

"Show me a twenty-one-year-old who doesn't." McCoy pulled a hypo off his shelf and fitted it with a newly load~-whatever that thing was called that held the medicine. "I'll give you something to make you sleep. Tomorrow we'll start your physical therapy. You might as well relax for a while. It's a long ride back from Red Sector to whatever Starfleet's got waiting for you."

Chapter Nine.

"Orsova." "Mffbuh... muh?" "You're not unconscious. Stand up." "Huh? Stand up?"

"You're not dead. Stand up and shake off the daze. Find your feet." "Who... who... r'you?"

"This mechanism distorts my voice. Forget trying to recognize me. You will never know me." "Where is this? Where have you brought me to?" "You're on a s.p.a.ce vessel." "s.p.a.ce7 s.p.a.ce!... Prove it." "Look out that portal. See your planet, your moons." Disoriented, nauseated, Orsova tripped over his bootlace and stumbled from the cool floors.p.a.ce to a carpeted area where there was a hole in the wall. There he fingered the porthole ledge and peered out three layers of thick window.

Breath stuck in his throat. He choked and wobbled. There, before him, near enough to touch, hung planetary bodies he had seen hanging in the distant night since he was a child. He had seen them as egg-sized etemalities, and today they were in his lap. Crisp sunlight and shadows like hats rode the bold sandy satellites.

"Oh!" he gasped. "Oh-moons! Too close! How did you make me come here! How did I come here! Oh... those moons are close ...."

"Beautiful, aren't they? You were transported here with an energy beam." "A beam... through s.p.a.ce..."

He tried to remember, but there was only the hazy idea of being trapped in his tracks, of looking down to see his knees dissolving and his boots disappearing. He had heard of those transport beams, but thought they might be myths.

But he was here, and he had not walked or flown here. Something had flickered and brought him here. He accepted that. The buzzing mechanical voice spoke again. "Now you know you are really in s.p.a.ce."

Where was the buzzing voice coming from? It was speaking fluent enough Pojjana, but with an accent. Machines didn't have accents. Somewhere, there was a person talking. Nothing familiar in the voice. No accent he'd heard before. "Who are you?"

"These are the conditions. You will not try to look at me. We will speak through this device." "Where are you? Are you in this ship with me?"

"Nearby. Stop trying to find me. Take your hand from that latch or you die here! ... Yes, back away. Remain in that chamber."

Orsova chose silence for a moment, to think. Failing that, he asked, "Why do you come here? And why now?"

"The Federation has come here," it went on. "Why did they come ?" "To get their man," Orsova told it. "How did you know they called?"

"I follow the medical trail," the voice said. 'The old doctor came here. I kept watch." "Why would you keep watch on doctors?"

Stepping foot by foot, toe by toe around the dim cabin, Orsova looked at every panel of the glossy interior plating.

Was the metallic surface thin? Was he seeing shadows of a living form? Just a haze? Or were these echoes of his own reflection deep in the polished surface?

As he moved around, pressing his fingers to each panel, leaving prints on the sheen, he asked, "What do you want?" "I want to help you."

"We accept no help from aliens. How did you get past our mountain defense?"

"We are nowhere near your defenses. We have beamed you far out. You can see how far."

The strange mechanically disguised voice reminded Orsova of the growling of awakened rezzimults in the swamps near the capitol city.

"What do you want?" he asked, abruptly nervous, as if someone had turned off the heat. "Why did you bring me to s.p.a.ce? What do you need me for?"

"Tell no one that I spoke to you, and you will have greatness beyond your dreams. I will help you gain influence, become powerful. You will find my friendship wondrous. When I need you, you will be here." "I don't even know who you are."

"You will never know me. I must not be known. You are one of many p.a.w.ns throughout the galaxy. I tend many fronts, light many candles. Do as I say, and we will see what the years may bring."

Chapter Ten.

SEVENTEEN WEEKS LATER, after a blur of physical therapy, drug treatments, rebreaking and refusion of his old fractures-so they'd be somewhat recognizable as human bones to the archaeologists of the distant future-and a flurry of puzzling comments from Dr. McCoy, Eric Stiles stood in the loading area of a smelly livestock transport ship that stocked colonies with cows or sheep or something. After weeks of treatment, a trim of the beard he couldn't quite yet bear to shave off, and fresh clothing-blessedly not a uniform-he felt as if someone had cut off his head and spliced it onto a new body. He could stand here by himself for a long time before even feeling the first shivers of weakness. He was far from rosy health yet, but a lot farther from the death he'd been pa.s.sively antic.i.p.ating.

He and McCoy had transferred nine times in the past seventeen weeks, in a flurry of pa.s.sage notices, manifests, bribes, seamy personages, and shady deals. Stiles scarcely had an idea of what ship he was on, except that this one had obvious Federation markings-and stank. Generally the ships were hardly distinguishable one from the other, and he and the doctor had remained relatively confined, to keep from "seeing" anything, whatever that meant.

Seventeen weeks of physical therapy and quaint tales. No matter how many times Stiles asked what was going to happen to him, Dr. McCoy always played old and swerved into some tall story about the glorious past, or the irritating past, or the past that could've been done better if only so-and-so had listened to him. Stiles got the idea. The doctor didn't want to be the one to tell him what was coming.

Now they were about to rendezvous with the first Starfleet ship Stiles had seen since he'd been dragged out of his tighter. On one of the courtesy screens, he and Dr. McCoy watched the brand new Galaxy-cla.s.s Starship Lexington pull up to docking range. Then a transport pod came out of the starship and made its way toward the livestock transport.

"Why don't they just get it over with and beam us over?" Stiles complained. "The sooner this is done, the better for me. I can take my dishonorable discharge and vanish."

"Discharge?" McCoy didn't look at him. The lights of the airlock flashed on his papery face.

"It's the only way to get out of a long, drawn-out court-martial. I don't care if they put me on trial, but I don't have the time to waste. I've got a message to deliver. They'll offer me a deal. Dishonorable discharge. And I'll take it" "Don't blame you"

The vessel around them endured a slight physical b.u.mp, and a moment later the nearest airlock clacked and rolled open. Two Starfleet security men stepped out, with holstered phasers and full helmets. One of them stepped forward. "Dr. Leonard McCoy and Ensign Eric Stiles?" McCoy stepped forward. "That's us, son."

"Ensign Pridemore, sir, and Ensign Moytulix, here to escort you to the starship. If you don't mind my saying so, sir, I'm honored to have this duty."

"Thank you, Ensign," McCoy allowed with a practiced nod. "Carry on." "Yes, sir. If you'll both follow me-"

The security officers parted, and Pridemore led the way back into the pod. Stiles let McCoy go first, though he was feeling the bristling power of strong legs again and nearly plowed into the pod just on the hope of getting this misery over with sooner. There was no getting around the next few days. He'd have to face the music, take the stain on his record, plead guilty to whatever they threw at him, and get out so he could find a way to notify the empire about Zevon. That was everything, Zevon was everything, and Stiles was in a perfect panic of worry for him.

His head was swimming. Yes sir, no sir, carry on... all the common phrases he'd abandoned so easily... they spun him like coins on a table. He felt as if he were reliving somebody else's life, detached from any real involvement of his own.