Nog gritted his teeth in preparation for delivering bad news.

"That was a grimace," Maxwell said. "Why is there a grimace?"

"I wouldn't recommend going to warp. We don't know how fragile warp s.p.a.ce is around the station. We have to a.s.sume it's fragile."

"Impulse?"

Nog made a slightly less pained expression.

Maxwell sagged. "Thrusters?"

Nog and O'Brien nodded in unison. "We just need to get clear," O'Brien said. "And wait for Deep s.p.a.ce 9 to send a ship to pick us up."

Maxwell acquiesced. "All right. I'm going to let you two explain this when he beams you over."

"What about him, Captain?" O'Brien asked, jutting his chin toward Finch.

"What do you mean, 'What about him?' " Maxwell asked. "He comes with us. He goes to prison. I know a good one. Nice ocean view. Good doctors." He jabbed a finger at O'Brien. "And stop calling me captain."

Nog turned away so neither hew-mon would see him rolling his eyes. The Romulan was attempting to get their attention, probably had been trying for a couple minutes. Nog unmuted the audio. "Yes, Cretak. Status?"

"I've beamed aboard everyone I could. Some of your comrades are in poor health. I have provided first-aid supplies. Now, may we please leave here as quickly as possible?"

"Of course," Nog said, resuming his role as negotiator. "We'll be ready to beam over in-stand by." He muted the audio and pointed at the blinking red square of light in the lower right-hand corner of the monitor. "What's that mean?"

Maxwell stared at the light for just a fraction of a second too long. "That?" he asked. "Nothing. Proceed with the beaming."

"You've become a terrible liar, Captain," O'Brien said.

"You mean I was a good liar once?"

"You were an officer, so I a.s.sume you were." The chief pointed at the light. "But you're avoiding the point. Problem?"

"Yes. Problem."

"How big?"

"Pretty big," Maxwell said. "Something just ate a hole through the reactor shields."

"How much time do we have?" O'Brien asked.

"Not much," Maxwell said, just as lights went out and the artificial gravity failed. "All right," Maxwell said from the darkness. "How about none?"

O'Brien grabbed the console, careful not to move too suddenly and go careening into a bulkhead. When he was sure he was stable, he flicked on his light. A moment later Nog and Maxwell did the same, two friendly pools of light framing worried faces. "Okay," he said. "What's the plan?"

"I go shut down the reactor," Maxwell said. "Before this bad day gets worse."

"Right," O'Brien said. "I saw a bag of tools over there. Yours? Yes? Let me see what we'll need." He pointed Nog toward the spot where Finch had been. "Secure him before he floats away. Try to raise our friend on your suit's communicator. If you can't, push Finch out the hole so the Romulan can see you."

"No, Miles," Maxwell said.

O'Brien, who was already making his way toward the tools, had to halt awkwardly. "Why? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Maxwell said. "It's just that there's no reason why we both have to go. It's my reactor. I rebuilt it from scratch. If I can't shut it down in the next few minutes, then it's not going to be shut down at all."

"You might need help," O'Brien began.

"No, Miles," Maxwell said, pushing himself off the console and easily gliding to the tool case. He swung it up and fished for a clip on the back of his suit. "This isn't one of those kinds of problems."

"Either we all live," O'Brien said, trying to pa.r.s.e Maxwell's logic, "or we all die. I'm coming with you."

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm the captain," he replied, fastening the pack.

For several seconds, the only sound O'Brien heard was the inhalation and expulsion of breath inside his helmet. Then Nog said, "I think he might have you there, Chief." O'Brien jerked around to face his fellow engineer as if he meant to throw a punch, but the sudden movement sent him into an uncontrolled spin that he could arrest only by grabbing on to Nog's shoulder. "Got you," Nog said, bracing against the console.

O'Brien looked at Nog, still gripping his shoulder. Then, with a nod, he patted him, released his hold, and turned to Maxwell. "You better get moving," he said. "We'll get as far away as we can. If nothing happens in ten minutes, we'll come back."

Maxwell said, "Good plan." He pointed at the thruster pack that they had used to burn back the Mother. "What about that? You're sure it's tapped out?"

"Positive," Nog said. "Though there's another one in the hangar that has some fuel left. a.s.suming the hangar is still there."

"One problem at a time," Maxwell said. Just before opening the hatch to the core, he looked back over his shoulder. O'Brien thought he was making sure they were leaving, but then he shone his lamp on a spot on the ceiling, revealing Ginger, who was anxiously twitching her forelimbs. "And, Commander?" Maxwell called.

"Sir?"

"Make sure Ginger goes with you."

"Yes, sir."

"If anything happens to her, Nita will kill me."

They spotted the Romulan ship as soon as they were outside the station. O'Brien thought that the pilot was much too close to the Hooke. Maybe one of his pa.s.sengers was making sure he stayed near. Probably Nita, he guessed. Probably looking for her girls. And, predictably, Ginger was the first one to disappear in a swirl of transporter effect. Which must be thrilling for the people on the shuttle. Nog disappeared a moment later, followed soon after by Finch. O'Brien tried to look back over his shoulder at the station before the beam immobilized him, but there was nothing to use for leverage. He'll be all right, O'Brien thought as the transporter took him. He's come through worse than this in one piece.

Central Core A long life, Maxwell thought as he shut the hatch behind him, filled with many bad decisions, and this may be my worst. The feeble glow of his torch barely pierced the gloom when he leaned over the handrail and looked down to the bottom of the core. Bits of debris floated past the cone of illumination. Six decks down, he knew, was the hatch that led to the generator room. He could take the safe route and pull himself down the metal stairs along the handrail, but that would take much longer than Maxwell imagined he had. This was one of the many problems he faced (but didn't want to share with O'Brien and Nog). He didn't have a clear idea what he would confront when he reached the bottom of the core. The blinking red light was a very generic warning indicating only that there was a problem with the reactor.

When the sensors detected a problem with the core, lockdown programs should have isolated the tiny blob of antimatter the station reactor used for fuel and brought the backup generator or batteries online. Maxwell's guess was that the first step in the lockdown had occurred, but not the second. Why? The logical a.s.sumption was because something had interfered with the program. What? Maxwell felt sure he knew, and a part of him really didn't want to go find out. A vivid mental picture formed: a gigantic, shivering blob of purple goo sprouting writhing tentacles. For some reason, this new version of the Mother had a red-rimmed, bulbous eye in the center of its ma.s.s. Maybe it would be better to just wait here in the dark, he thought. Either the reactor goes or Miles comes back to get me in ten minutes.

Sighing, he said, "That's not what they pay you for, Ben. Time to clean up the mess." He vaulted the railing, his tools poking him on the back when he moved his arms. Maxwell awkwardly clung to the steel rail, his feet pressed flat against the stairway's frame. Bending his knees, he pushed off and dropped down into the darkness, watchful for large chunks of debris.

The railing for the stairway on the opposite side of the core, but one (or possibly two?) deck down, whirled into view, much faster than Maxwell had expected. He was barely able to get his arms up in time, but managed to grab the rail and check his progress by swinging his legs around to brake against the stair. "Not too bad," he said approvingly. It reminded him of the time he and Maria had gone zip-lining through a forest canopy.

He turned around, aimed, and pushed off again, exerting a little more force this time, mindful of the ticking clock.

Halfway across, he almost collided with something large, curved, and with what looked like a long, hairless tail. The shape barely registered before Maxwell had pa.s.sed it. He didn't even have time to shout in surprise before another railing zoomed into view. Maxwell raised his arms and bounced off. Realizing he had missed his chance, Maxwell tried to judge if he was going down or up or simply back toward the center of the core. If he was, he was in big, big trouble. Nothing to push against, nothing to grab.

Instinctively, Maxwell windmilled his arms, feeling foolish even as he did it, knowing it wouldn't help, but unable to calm the primitive part of his brain that told him he should be able to twist around or rise above the imagined flood tide.

Maxwell's hand brushed up against something. He grasped it before he could bounce off. If it was large enough, he knew he could throw it and use Newtonian physics to get moving again. He tried to bring the object around and shine his wrist-mounted lamp on it, but was surprised when the movement instead swung his body around.

Whatever he was holding wasn't ready to move. Maxwell gripped it tighter, steadied himself, and brought the lamp up.

He stared at a line, taut as the cable in a suspension bridge and thick as a climbing rope. One end must have been anch.o.r.ed up above, on the core's ceiling, while the other end was fixed below. He touched it with the tips of his free hand. Sticky, he thought, but not too sticky. The glue or gum was meant to aid movement, he realized, and not immobilize. He shone the torch from side to side, searching for other threads or for a familiar set of glittering eyes, but saw nothing.

Pointing his head down, Maxwell tugged hand over hand, headed toward the lower decks, careful never to let go.

Reaching the bottom of the core, Maxwell flipped around and reoriented his inner gyroscope, fixing the hatch to the reactor room in his sights. Pressing his feet to the taut cable, he released his grip, pushed off carefully, and sailed across the gap. Grasping the hatch handle, he twisted and pushed while wedging his foot against the bottom step of the stairs.

The hatch swung open without resistance. Good housekeeping, he thought.

The stairwell to the generator room was predictably dark, but a quick sweep with the torch revealed it was un.o.bstructed. It was narrow enough that Maxwell could propel himself down it without worrying about losing an opposable surface. Reaching the end of the corridor, he faced the door to the reactor room, which had been Maxwell's home, his lair, his place of safety. To his right was a stairwell of only a half-dozen steps that led to the hangar-or, judging from what Nog had said, what was left of it. Tempting, Maxwell thought, pointing the torch down the gloomy stairs, though delusional. The only thing I'll find down there is open s.p.a.ce and certain death. He turned back to the generator room door. As opposed to only almost certain death.

"Really no choice at all," Maxwell said, and yanked open the hatch.

The lights were all on, and Honey was home. Or, to put it another way, she had made herself at home. Zero gravity was not a problem when you could make web lines to scurry up and down and round and round.

Honey hung in the center of her web about five meters off the deck. She quivered when Maxwell stepped into the room, and her web jittered in response. Behind her, a sickly orange light spilled out of a crack in the generator housing mounted on the bulkhead. Oh, Maxwell thought, with more surprise than he would have expected. I'm dead. And then realized, with more relief than he expected, Or maybe not. If Honey wasn't dead, no matter how st.u.r.dy her alien physiology might be, then the reactor wasn't spewing out radiation. Not enough to be immediately lethal, anyway.

"To work," he said aloud, and then suddenly realized how thin the air in his suit felt. He glanced at the gauge on his gauntlet and cursed. Fifteen minutes left, maybe twenty if he stayed calm. Ha!

He approached Honey's web. Naturally, the controls to shut down the reactor were on the other side. "I have to get past this, Honey. No offense." Maxwell knew the arachnoform couldn't hear him, but he also knew she needed to feel safe with him. This is how he usually acted around her: he talked and went about his business. It was their little dance. Maxwell would work, and Honey would hover nearby, watching him, usually from a safe distance.

Maxwell pulled himself along the bulkhead-fortunately festooned with many k.n.o.bs and handholds-intending to work his way around the room to the point where the control console met the wall. From there, it was only a few meters to the reactor controls. "I'm just going to turn this off, girl. And then we can sit here in the dark together until Miles comes back to get us. Won't that be fun?" The arachnoform didn't stir. He added, "Did you know I used to be in Starfleet, where I did all kinds of dangerous things?"

When Maxwell reached the junction of the bulkhead and the console, it was as if he had crossed an invisible line. Honey shuddered and scrambled down from the center of the web to stop a centimeter above the deck, no more than a short hop from Maxwell. If he wanted to reach the console, he would have to pull himself past Honey. Maxwell found this idea unaccountably distressing.

Beside him, one of the console's data screens flickered to life. Images and text rapidly scrolled down the screen, stopping occasionally as if an unseen reader had found some bit of information that was especially interesting. Maxwell tried to read it, but he found it difficult to focus his attention on the screen for more than a half second at a time. Whenever his gaze flickered back to Honey, she was still hanging where she had been, uncharacteristically still. She was watching him, Maxwell realized, as he watched the images slide past. Sensing she wanted him to see what was on the screen, he tilted forward to get a better look.

Most of the data appeared to be old Starfleet reports: log entries and accounts of missions, the sort of thing cadets read at the Academy. Some of them dated back to the twenty-second century, though others were newer. It looked like they had been taken from Kathryn Janeway's Voyager logs. The headings for all of the reports shared two words: First Contact.

"What is this?" Maxwell asked. He looked from side to side, expecting someone to step out of the shadows and announce their presence. "Who's doing this?"

Honey hung from her thread, her legs folded loosely along her sides. She twitched when he spoke, almost as if she could hear him despite the vacuum. Leaning closer, Maxwell shone his torch directly on her, carefully inspecting her. Before, when she had dropped down to the deck, he had believed the arachnoform had been hanging by one of her threads, but now, near as she was, Maxwell saw that it wasn't a thread at all. A strand of glistening purple goo protruded from the back of her cephalothorax. Slowly, carefully, so as to not make a mistake, he traced the strand back up to a spot where it emerged from the crack in the reactor vessel. "Oh, Honey," Maxwell said, genuinely surprised by how the realization grieved him. "I'm so sorry."

In response, Honey climbed down and pressed the tip of her abdomen, the spot where her spinnerets were, to the deck. She moved back and forth, her back legs shifting in a controlled, staccato action. The sticky stuff she had on the tips of her long legs that allowed her to climb walls was keeping her from bouncing around in zero g.

Maxwell felt the seconds ticking past. He knew he was running out of air and that the generator needed tending, but he felt sure he owed Honey whatever time she needed to complete her task. Besides, he was pretty sure if he tried to get past her, she would find a way to stop him.

Honey's limbs fell still and she rose up off the deck, though whether the purple strand tugged her up or she climbed, Maxwell could not say. Something glistened on the deck where she had crouched only a moment ago. Braced against the console, he leaned down and shone his torch on the spot.

In jagged, blocky letters, Honey had written SOME BUG.

All Maxwell could do was look up at Honey exasperated and ask, "What?"

Her large eyes glistened. She c.o.c.ked her head. If the Mother had taken control of her like it had Sabih's body, then it was doing a perfect impersonation of Honey's expectant stare. After a minute, expectation dissolved into disappointment. Honey dropped back down to the deck and painted new words.

When she rose again, Maxwell leaned in and read the new patch of lines: NO KILL I.

So many things depended on Maxwell moving, but all he could do was stare at the words and rack his brain.

NO KILL I. SOME BUG.

Maxwell was suddenly overwhelmed by the memory of his daughter, Sofia. She was, at most, five years old, and sitting in his lap, the back of her head smelling like sweet gra.s.s. She was leaning forward and pressing her fingertip to a padd, tracing the lines of words in an ill.u.s.tration.

All in a rush, the answer came to him.

Maxwell knew the clock was ticking. He knew that his air was almost gone. He knew his friends were wondering whether he was alive or dead and whether they had much longer to live. He knew all of this, and yet, he couldn't help himself. He couldn't stop.

Maxwell started to laugh. His eyes were streaming, which was frustrating, because he couldn't clear them, and he was quickly out of breath because of the great, giant, oxygen-consuming whoops of hilarity. He had to grip the edge of the console or risk floating away into the center of the room or getting stuck in Honey's web, which was difficult, weak as he was. When the onslaught subsided and his ears stopped buzzing, he tried to steady his breathing and clear his head.

" 'No Kill I,' " he said. "The Horta. It's been a James Kirk kind of day, hasn't it? And 'Some Bug.' That took me a minute." He shook his head in wonder. "Sofia loved that book. Cried every time we read that chapter. 'Some Pig.' " He readjusted his grip on the lip of the console, feeling steadier. When he glanced at the monitor, the well-remembered cover of Charlotte's Web appeared. "Poor Charlotte," Maxwell said, feeling genuinely sad, not only for the spider, but for his own behavior, his own suppositions and prejudices. He looked up to the crack in the reactor housing from where the purple strand descended. "Sorry," he said. "Not Mother, but Other."

The orange glow from the reactor was fading and the room was growing darker. Without needing to look at the control panel, Maxwell knew that the danger of the reactor overloading had disappeared, consumed. Whatever this piece of the Mother had wanted with the energy source, it had finished its meal, the energy used to give birth to . . . something. But what? He glanced at Honey. "What are you now?" he asked.

The arachnoform appeared to understand the question. She shrugged. Maxwell laughed. "Well, that's strange," he said. "A shrugging spider." Maxwell rearranged his grip so he could continue to observe Honey in the lengthening shadows. "You know," he said, "when I joined Starfleet, all those years ago, that was the promise they made to you: ' . . . strange new worlds. New life. New civilizations.' It turned out that when you find strange new worlds, sometimes the new life you find wants to kill you. The universe needs soldiers just as much as anything else."

Honey took a step closer. The light from Maxwell's torch made her eyes gleam. He had the distinct feeling she was listening to him.

"But I never got to do a first contact." He reached out and the arachnoform took another step closer. "Until now. What are you in there now? Mostly Honey? Mostly the Other?"

Honey took the last step forward and pressed her head into Maxwell's open palm. He couldn't feel the b.u.mps and ridges of her carapace through his gauntlets, but he felt the pressure, even a little warmth. Maxwell was suddenly conscious of the cold. Whatever heat the room had held was quickly dissipating.

He tipped his gauntlet, even as he kept rubbing Honey's head. The gauge on his gauntlet was blinking furiously. The needle was inching into the red. "So, here's the thing, dear girl. Small things do not do well with me. Even if we can get out of here, I can't really guarantee that we'll make it very far."

Honey pulled her head away and stretched her many legs. Limbering up. Maxwell pointed at the purple strand that terminated in Honey's thorax. "Or can you even go?"

The arachnoform shivered. The strand broke away and crumbled like a dried fern.

"Easy as that?" Honey stared at Maxwell. "And how do I know you're not just going to try to take over the galaxy once we get out of here?"

Honey pointed to the message on the deck: NO KILL I.

"Okay," he said. Maxwell carefully worked his way back to the hatch, Honey at his heels, like a dog cheerful at the prospect of a walk on a sunny morning. "I'm going to hold you to that."

Chapter 22.

January 10, 2386 Romulan Shuttle "Is it this one?" O'Brien asked. "Or this one? Dammit, which b.u.t.ton do I push?" The Romulan shuttle's controls were largely unlabeled, and though he was able to distinguish which panel controlled the sensor grid, he was unsure which switches were used to fine-tune the array.