Whoever was manning the comm board either didn't know or didn't care to use the mute b.u.t.ton. "They say they're from Deep s.p.a.ce 9. What should I say?"

A second voice, deeper, but m.u.f.fled, answered, "Ask them why they're here. Politely."

"All right," the male sighed, and then cursed, perhaps realizing he hadn't muted his pickup. "No problem, Amazon. We're just not used to visitors. Sorry, but I don't know anything about a flight plan. Is there something I can help you with? You understand this is a private station, right?"

"I'm aware of that," O'Brien replied. "This isn't Starfleet business. I'm just, that is, we're just here to visit a friend."

"We are?" Nog asked sotto voce.

"We are," the chief replied.

"A friend?" Hooke asked. "Who?"

"Yeah," Nog asked softly. "Who?"

"Benjamin Maxwell," O'Brien said. "I believe he's employed here."

"Benjamin Maxwell?" Clearly, he no longer cared that he didn't know how to use a mute b.u.t.ton. "Who's that?"

The second, deeper voice said, "Ben. He means Ben."

Realization took its sweet time. "The janitor? Ben the janitor?"

"Yes," the second voice drawled. "Ben the janitor."

Chapter 2.

Three Years Earlier Starfleet Penal Colony The giant strode across the island. With every step, its wide feet compressed the topmost branches of the olive trees, which sprung back again as the giant marched on.

Doctor Clark cupped his hands around the top half of his face to protect his eyes from the bright midmorning sun and laughed appreciatively as the behemoth strolled down the sh.o.r.eline. Above the waist, the giant was nothing more than a bare armature, a sketch of a torso: just enough structure to hold the sensor array and the tiny antigrav engines. The legs were the magic, each one over forty meters high, and, though ma.s.sive in appearance, constructed of superlight materials that didn't have more than a couple hundred kilos of ma.s.s.

At the last minute, just before unleashing it, Maxwell had thought to clothe his creation in loose trousers, which flapped merrily in the steady breeze off the water. Next time, he thought, I'll use colored cloth. Something really bright. Rainbow patterned. But, for the apparatus's first real run, white cloth seemed appropriate.

Clark asked, "How do you keep it from crushing anything?"

Maxwell winced, unsure whether the doctor was merely woefully ignorant of any principles of modern engineering or was simply being a good therapist and giving his patient plenty of room to reply. In either case, he decided, the reply would be the same. "It's pretty simple," Maxwell said. "Microsensors are slaved to the antigravs, and the main processor makes sure the structure maintains enough buoyancy to not come down too hard."

"The feet actually do make contact?"

"Yes," Maxwell explained. "So, the treetops bow a little. There are footprints in the sand. Otherwise, it would look odd. You might not be able to spot exactly why, but some part of your brain would tell you it was all a trick. This way-"

"It looks like a giant pair of legs walking around the island."

"Strolling around the island. I worked hard to make sure the gait was correct." He shaded his own eyes with his hand. Stupid to have forgotten his sungla.s.ses. "He's taking it easy. Not in any hurry. He's just . . . taking it all in."

"And isn't that a lesson for us all?"

Down on the beach road, Maxwell watched pedestrians and cyclists stop short as the legs came into view. The rolling landscape, even down by the muddy sh.o.r.eline, meant it was difficult to spot the giant legs coming from more than a couple hundred meters away. He couldn't see the people's expressions (he should have sent out some probes), but their posture signaled their reactions: awe, confusion, wonder, amus.e.m.e.nt. No one appeared to be frightened, which was good. It meant Maxwell had correctly calibrated the timing of the legs' pace: no one was alarmed because who could be alarmed about a man out for a stroll?

Colony staff and inmates (No, Maxwell corrected himself, not inmates, patients) were coming out of the administration buildings and dormitories. Maxwell had timed the event well: just after breakfast, but before the first round of group therapy sessions. People were asking, "What is it?" and "What does it mean?" No one sounded alarmed; most were delighted or, at worst, confused. He flicked his gaze over to Doctor Clark, who was studying him as best he could under the glare of midmorning.

"Well, Ben," Clark asked, smiling slyly, "what does it mean?"

"It means I have a degree in engineering with a specialty in repulsor field dynamics," Maxwell replied, watching as the legs briefly paused to avoid a foolhardy pedestrian who wandered too close to its foot pad.

"That's all?" Clark asked, crossing the lawn to stand closer. "Nothing else? No other message?" The wide lawn rolled down before them. Beside Maxwell, a small silver and ivory box chirped and ticked in time with the giant's steps.

"I'm not sure what you're trying to say, Doc," Maxwell said with all the sincerity he could muster. In the months since Gunther had left the colony and Clark had become Maxwell's primary counselor and (he had to admit it) confidant, they had developed a friendly, if contentious, give and take. Maxwell pretended to be ignorant of the doctor's therapeutic ripostes, and Clark pretended not to be annoyed.

"I think you're trying to tell us something," Clark said. "Or maybe only yourself." Maxwell remained silent. Clark sighed. "You're usually not this obtuse, Ben."

"I usually haven't released a pair of giant legs into the wild. I might be distracted."

"And you might be ready to leave, Ben," Clark said, laying a hand on his shoulder. He tightened his grip for a moment and then released it. "It might be time to go for a walk."

"A stroll," Maxwell corrected. "I keep telling you: a stroll."

"Then go for a stroll. I think it's time."

Maxwell stood a bit straighter, crossed his arms, and tilted his head to the left as he regarded his creation. The giant's legs had briefly come to a halt just at the edge of the mucky sh.o.r.eline. Its posture suggested contemplation and rest. Its white pants fluttered like banners. A tern swerved around the left leg, banked, and landed atop the hip armature, happy for the vantage point, a new place to study the water for his midday meal. Maxwell said, "Maybe you're right. Not much left to do here, is there?"

"That's what I've been telling you."

"It's a penal colony, though. I might need some more penalization."

"It's a therapy center," Clark said. "And we're long past the point where there's any more therapy we can offer." He laughed. "h.e.l.l, most of the other patients think you're on the staff."

"I do have an air of command," Maxwell noted. "I keep trying to get rid of it, but can't seem to shake it."

"Stop trying," Clark said. "It's baked in."

The giant legs marched south and west, along the sh.o.r.eline, and disappeared behind a low hill covered in grape vines. "So, time to go?" Maxwell asked as the spectators at the bottom of the hill returned to their ch.o.r.es and errands.

"Yes," his therapist said. "Time to go."

"Just one question."

"Only one?"

"Only one important one: Where?"

January 9, 2386 Ops Center Robert Hooke Finch leaned forward, briefly entering Sabih's personal s.p.a.ce, and tapped a control stud on the comm panel. Being in Finch's...o...b..t always meant coming into a complex melange of aromas: sandalwood, green tea, and something metallic. It was pleasant, but unexpected.

"This is the mute b.u.t.ton," Finch rumbled. "Pray learn to use it." He sat back in his padded chair with a huff. "What are you planning to say to our Starfleet friends?" Anatoly Finch was a large man. His generous frame was hard on furniture, especially furniture as old as some of the pieces in the Hooke common areas. "Quickly now, lad," he prodded. "They'll be getting suspicious right around now."

"Go away?" Sabih suggested, fidgeting with the closer on his jacket. He had only worked for Finch for a few months and didn't always know what his employer wanted when he posed questions of the sort he was flinging at him. Life would be ever so much simpler if Finch just told Sabih what he wanted to happen.

Finch shook his head and rubbed the neatly trimmed whiskers on his chin with the ball of his thumb. "While they have no formal jurisdiction here, our Starfleet friends will no doubt find some pretense for boarding. Try again."

"Tell them Ben isn't here?" Sabih asked, wishing there was someone-anyone-else in the ops center who might offer an opinion. But it was late in the station's workday, and the communications center typically wasn't manned in the "evening" hours.

"Unrealistic," Finch sighed. "Especially since they could contact him directly. I suspect that may occur at any moment. Their contacting him through us may be only a courtesy."

Sabih's mind raced. His palms were sweating. Getting rid of the 'Fleeters didn't seem to be an option, so the other logical option was . . . "Invite them aboard?"

Finch smiled and raised his hands in mock salute. "Well done, lad."

"And hope they don't see anything they shouldn't see?"

To Sabih's utter dismay, Finch grinned so broadly his molars showed. His eyes narrowed mischievously. "Oh, no," he said, his deep baritone voice reverberating off the ops center's dingy walls. "Show them everything and ask them what they think. But, before we do, let's find out more about our Lieutenant Commander Nog and Chief Miles...o...b..ien."

Runabout Amazon "What is this place?" Nog asked, though he had already submitted a search to the computer. "And who is Robert Hooke?"

"You've never heard of Robert Hooke?" the chief asked.

"No. Should I?"

"Have you heard of Isaac Newton?"

"Of course," Nog replied. "He was a physicist." His mind raced. Or a baker?

"Well, you wouldn't have heard of Isaac Newton if not for Robert Hooke," O'Brien replied. "Hooke figured out most of the rules for the motion of planets, work that Newton later completed."

"Most of the rules? Why not all? That seems like something you'd want to finish."

O'Brien shrugged like he was making excuses for a friend. "Hooke was easily distracted. He had lots of other interests: microscopy, experimental physics, surveying. You know the type."

"I know the type," Nog said. "So he asked his friend Newton to take over?"

"They hated each other. I don't think Hooke wanted Newton to finish his work. He just did. Newton was like that."

"How do you know all of this?" Nog asked, impressed despite himself.

"Ah, well. No trick to it. I looked it up when Captain Maxwell told me he was stationed . . . well, working here."

"Captain Maxwell?"

"I should be more careful," O'Brien admitted. "He hates it when I call him that."

Captain Benjamin Maxwell. The name rang a bell. And not a good bell, Nog thought.

"Look it up, Nog," the chief said. "It's quicker than me telling you."

The computer had already retrieved the search about the Robert Hooke, but Nog nudged the results to the side and opened another search pane. Official Starfleet reports were the first results, including an image of Benjamin Maxwell, a middle-aged hew-mon, slight of build, gray-haired, with pleasant features and warm blue eyes. He was smiling slightly in the image-unusual for official Starfleet portraits-and there were crinkly lines around Maxwell's eyes that made Nog want to smile back.

"The image is old," O'Brien said. "Almost twenty years."

"Captain of the Phoenix," Nog said, quickly scanning the article.

"And the Rutledge before that," the chief added. "He was my commanding officer."

Nog scrolled through the high points. Most were very impressive. The last one was not. Nog didn't need to read the details; he remembered hearing the story in the Academy, a cautionary tale of a captain who lost his way and decided he knew better than the admirals and a.n.a.lysts. "You were on the Enterprise then."

"Just a couple years before I went to the station," O'Brien added.

He skimmed through the text and stopped to read the brief of the court-martial in more detail. "Maxwell claimed the Carda.s.sians were rearming for another push into Federation s.p.a.ce. The science station was a supply depot?"

"Probably," O'Brien said. "It was never proved definitively, but Captain Picard said the evidence strongly suggested that Captain Maxwell . . . that Mister Maxwell . . . that he was probably right."

"Captain Picard even offered to testify on his behalf at the court-martial."

"I would have spoken too," O'Brien said. "But they never called me. He'd already confessed to everything. There was no need, but I would have. He didn't have anyone left."

Thirty-eight Years Earlier Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, Earth There hadn't been much left to bury, not that Maria would have wanted to be buried on Setlik III. "This isn't home," she had said on more than one occasion and never in earshot of the kids. They'd only lived at the colony for two years, but it was the longest either Carlo or Sofia had stayed in one place-the itinerate life of a Starfleet brat-so they considered it home, but not Maria. Earth was home, or, more accurately, Mexico, and his wife had every intention of settling there someday. The operative word was someday, as she was happy to say given any opportunity.

Maxwell looked at the tiny container that held his wife's remains: mostly just ash and a few bone fragments. Carda.s.sian torpedoes were legendarily brutal, designed to instill maximum terror and damage. "If it helps," the recovery specialist had told Maxwell, "if it means anything at all, they never knew what hit them. These things burn so hot . . ."

He knew the specialist had been lying. They were trained to lie, trained to conceal and comfort and help the bereaved find some modic.u.m of peace. Maxwell knew this because, being a captain, you just know these things. It was the curse of being a captain-knowing things, even the worst things. You had to know because you had to make sure you could be prepared, prepare your crew, prepare the people who depended on you.

"Thank you," Maxwell had said. "That . . . helps." For good measure, he added, "And at least they were all together in the end."

He looked at the two other tiny containers, both burnished to a gleam, even in the low light of the ship's tiny makeshift chapel. All three containers would remain there until the Rutledge reached Earth and Maxwell could bring Maria home. He would bury the containers on the hillside near Maria's parents' home. Her brothers would help him. Marco and Miguel would cry all afternoon as they carved out the graves and squared them off. They would cry through the funeral-quiet, manly tears-and cry afterward when they filled in the graves and replaced the sod they had carefully removed. They would cry some more at the dinner and all the time they were getting gently yet deeply inebriated on the tequila they distilled in the garage behind Marco's house.

They would give Maxwell a shot of the tequila and tell him to drink, which he would. They would tell him, in low tones, that it was all right to weep, to release his grief, to wail and curse G.o.d. Maxwell would smile and thank them. He would, too. He would when the time was right. "I'll cry," he promised, "when the tears come."

But he knew that he never would. Tears had to come from someplace inside you, but there was nothing left inside Benjamin Maxwell except perhaps ashes. He felt them there, inside him.

He studied the small silver containers in his ship's chapel, but he didn't dare touch any of them. His hands were too heavy, too clumsy. He knew he would break the containers open if he tried to handle them, and the ashes, the ashes, they would fill the room and be sucked away by the air scrubbers until they were shot out into s.p.a.ce. His wife and children shot out into s.p.a.ce, disbursed, and never to be recovered.

January 9, 2386 Ben Maxwell's Quarters Robert Hooke Maxwell opened his eyes and silently counted backward from ten. He tried to remain still, not wanting his cabin's motion sensor to detect him and turn on the light. He wanted the dark to remain dark.

. . . Seven, six, five . . .

Years of therapy kept him in the moment, experiencing the feelings, letting them wash over him.

. . . Four, three, two . . .

He heard the voices of his counselors in the back of his mind, all of them speaking in low tones, offering encouragement: Stay with it. Feel it. Don't deny the emotions.

Maxwell thought about the ocean, thought about surfing. Despite living in New Zealand for years, he had only tried surfing a couple times, and only in curated areas. Having spent most of his childhood living near or on the water, knowing what dwelled beneath the waves, he had too much respect for those creatures to play on the roof of their home. He had told Doctor Gunther, "There are great whites down there." Gunther had been one of the best surfers at the hospital, he and his sons. "You know what one of them can do, don't you?" Maxwell had asked. Gunther had only laughed. Of course he knew. He'd lived his whole life on the waves. He knew everything about the water, everything above and below. He respected the hunters, but never worried.