The others in the conference room-Data, Troi, and the handsome, bearded, young First Officer Riker -listened raptly to the captain.

The Huxley's Captain Bowles had been one of the fleet's great explorers, as Picard was now. The fate of Bowles and his ship had been one of the major unsolved puzzles in Starfleet's history.

"We've already recovered the marker. It's badly damaged and has yielded few facts. But it seems the Huxley was deliberately attacked, and the attack occurred in the rho Ophiuchi system. Quite nearby, but right in the middle of a nebula thick as bouillabaisse. You can see the nebula out the port, there. Counselor, you have a question?"

"Is there an indication that the Other-worlders were involved in the fate of the Huxley?"

"Inconclusive, but I'd guess not," said the captain. "The marker's damage has been caused by a thermonuclear device, of the type used hundreds of years ago on Earth. There appears to have been a battle between the Huxley and one or more other ships. We may soon find out more. Starfleet has already told us to enter the nebula and check the planet indicated by the marker for survivors. We'll do that tomorrow morning ship's time."

"Captain," said Data, "the nebula is known to reflect subs.p.a.ce frequencies. We will be unable to contact Starfleet while inside it."

"Yes, Mr. Data, Starfleet knows we'll be out of touch for a while. I've had to speak with our two diplomatic pa.s.sengers, who are most understanding. Starfleet has gotten permission from their government for the delay in their travel schedule. Number One," said the captain to his first officer, "you and I will meet later to plan the particulars of this mission. That's all."

Picard, Data, and Riker left. Deanna Troi rose, but lingered in the room. She looked out the port at the rho Ophiuchi nebula: a dense blue veil with a single star-eye behind it, peering at her.

The prospect of being in there, cut off from Starfleet, was ominous. It made her feel trapped. It made her more aware of the nearby presence of the Other-worlders, hidden in their own universe or state of being but following with the ship, following her, and she began to shiver with a kind of ague.

She tried to stop her shivering. There should be nothing wrong with me physically, she thought.

She had just come from an examination by Dr. Crusher. "Evidence of stress, that's all," Beverly had said. "Nothing a little rest won't cure."

Dear Beverly had made Troi promise to rest for at least two days. But that wouldn't be possible. She had to talk with the ship's computer, find out what she'd been doing during those hours before her experience with the Other-worlders.

The thought of being alone in her cabin and asking the computer anything filled her with dread, though she didn't know why.

She considered the calm curiosity with which Captain Picard always faced the unknown, and wished for a moment that she could be like him. But the thought made her feel lonely. He seemed so solitary and self-contained, his feelings and affections streamlined like a tree growing in a wind tunnel.

No, she thought. I couldn't be like that.

His father had sneered that the pace was too slow, and had hiked off on long adult legs and left him there, a nine-year-old boy on a faltering, treacherous mountain trail. He'd never been alone in the wilderness before, and he panicked, and lurched along, crying, feeling lost in the cold landscape and in the world as a whole. Where do you turn for solace or justice when your own father is unfair to you? He looked about but got no reply from the frigid glacier and the foreboding shadows under the rocky cliffs.

First Officer William T. Riker returned from this memory with a familiar aching feeling as he approached the turbolift.

If I ever find the time to get married and have a family, he thought, I won't be like my father. I'll be kind to my kids. I'd probably have to watch out for overcompensation, for being too kind.

He boarded the turbolift and was surprised to see that it already contained two preschool-age children.

"Deck Twelve, gymnasium," Riker told the lift, which began to move.

Riker wondered what the two children were doing unattended on a turbolift. He'd have to ask them. He felt it odd that they seemed to have appeared as if cued by his own reverie.

The toddlers were turned toward each other in a close huddle, and Riker couldn't see their faces. They were whispering and giggling and making soft smacking noises.

Riker was about to speak but suddenly his eyes widened in alarm and his question died in his throat. The toddlers were kissing. This wasn't just child's play. This was Eros. They were really making out.

Riker was baffled. Surely they shouldn't be engaging in such behavior for at least another decade. What was he supposed to do, throw water on them? He wished someone more experienced were here to handle it.

He coughed discreetly.

They kept right at it.

"Um, ahem!" said Riker.

"Oops, we're sorry," replied the little girl, without actually turning toward Riker. Then she spoke to her partner. "Let's tell him that we're married," she said.

"Later," the little boy said with a laugh. He started kissing her again, and still neither of them had bothered to turn and look up at Riker.

Riker couldn't shirk responsibility. He was determined to be firm.

"Uh, well, I'm not the best person to explain to you about marriage," he said as a single drop of sweat slipped down the side of his face and lodged in his beard. "But I don't think you're quite ready for it."

It was as though he'd told the biggest joke in the galaxy. The toddlers sputtered and laughed so hard Riker thought they might hurt themselves. The first officer found himself feeling at a disadvantage, as though, incongruously, these children had played a sophisticated joke on him and were laughing at his expense.

After a moment they contained themselves. For the first time, they turned to face Riker, and the little boy spoke with a steady, measured voice.

"I am Oleph, and this is my wife Una."

They bowed gracefully.

"But I think we've already met, First Officer Riker,"he continued, "under more formal circ.u.mstances, when we first arrived on your ship."

"I realized I had been talking to the two cultural envoys from the First Federation. Grown adults of their species! One hundred years ago, their people had initiated a first contact with us, and now I was condescending to correct their s.e.xual behavior."

Riker chuckled and glanced over at his captain, who walked beside him along the corridor. Picard looked more disquieted than amused.

"I don't think any diplomatic damage was done, sir," said Riker. "They seemed to have found it funny rather than offensive."

"Good," said Picard. "We have more pressing matters to contend with. Counselor Troi dug around in the ship's computer and found out her location on the ship in the hours before the Other-worlders came to her. It turns out she was with Oleph and Una. Her amnesia keeps her from recalling what she did with them, but she's sure that Oleph and Una have some connection with the Other-worlders. I want to ask Oleph and Una about it-before we begin our mission to rho Ophiuchi."

"Here's your chance," said Riker.

Farther down the corridor, a door had opened. Oleph and Una had stepped out. Now they saw Picard and Riker approaching.

"Greetings Captain, First Officer," said Una.

"Greetings to you," said Picard.

Picard and Riker realized they were standing at the door to Worf's cabin. And there was Worf himself. The dark-skinned, herculean Klingon, chief of Enterprise security, was standing just inside, in the act of receiving an electronic padd from Oleph's tiny hand. Worf towered over the two diminutive envoys from the First Federation, making them look like porcelain figurines.

Worf shared a private look with Oleph as he took the padd and held it nonchalantly at his side.

"h.e.l.lo, Lieutenant," said Picard.

"Captain," intoned Worf, in a deep fearless voice that seemed to vibrate the ship's bulkheads.

The awkwardness of an interrupted moment kept all parties silent, until the captain spoke directly to Oleph and Una.

"I'm sorry to trouble you, but I need information. My counselor, Deanna Troi, had contact with alien and possibly dangerous life-forms shortly after she was with you today. Do you recall what you did while with her?"

"We discussed her work, and our work," Oleph said.

"We are ethnographers," Una added. "We study and record aspects of indigenous cultures all over this part of the galaxy. On your planet we might be called cultural anthropologists."

"Nothing unusual happened?" Picard asked.

Oleph and Una looked at each other. Una's child-eyes pleaded a mute question. Oleph gave her a silent nod of confirmation. He looked at the floor for a moment, and when he looked back up at the captain of the Enterprise, his face wasn't that of a toddler, but of the formidable adult he in fact was. A firmness in his voice completed the transformation.

"Just a visit, and the exchange of ideas."

For a moment he and Picard held a tense stare.

"I'm grateful for the information," Picard said finally. "And to your government for its cooperation-I'm sure the mission in the nebula will be short, and we'll have you back on your itinerary in no time."

"We don't mind at all, Captain," said Una. "We are enjoying your ship-and the scintillating company of your security chief."

Worf gave a short, deep grunt of acknowledgment, his eyes looking over everyone's head toward the opposite wall. Una squeezed his huge hand. Actually she was able to squeeze only two fingers.

Picard and Riker looked at Worf, both wondering what this fiercely loyal, taciturn security chief was finding in common with the two tiny ethnographers. This was clearly a friendship of a kind uncommon for Worf. As the only member of his warrior species permanently stationed on the Enterprise, he tended to keep to himself.

"Is there any other way we can help you?" asked Oleph with unmistakable impatience.

"No, and I'm sorry we interrupted," said Picard. "Good night."

"Captain, Commander Riker," Worf said to his two superior officers in his resonant ba.s.s voice.

Riker added his own good night and he and Picard continued walking down the corridor.

They heard Oleph, Una, and Worf speak in muted tones behind them, then Worf's door hissed shut. Riker glanced rearward. The incongruous trio had gone back into Worf's cabin.

"I've often thought, and still do," said Picard, "that we know little of all there is to Worf. But he's more than proven his trustworthiness, and I'm sure he'd report to me anything he knew of contact with new life-forms. I'm just as sure that Oleph and Una are hiding something. Professional people from their world have a code of confidentiality with colleagues; it's a sanctified relationship. That's got to be why they're holding back about what they did with Counselor Troi. Will, I want you to have a talk with Worf before he retires for the night. Tell him he has to be the one to keep an eye on Oleph and Una. Tell him they may have something to do with the Other-worlders."

"I'll watch them all the captain wants," Worf told himself as he sat in front of his computer terminal later that night, after Riker had spoken with him, "but I'll be one with the dead before I'm forced to tell anyone else about ..."

He thought of the portentous secret he shared with Oleph and Una. He looked at the keypad of his terminal. Would he make the call now?

He growled like a wolf and took a sip of tranya left him by Oleph and Una before they'd returned to their cabin. Their ceremonial beverage had gotten him quite drunk.

The possibility of glory, of vertiginous triumph undreamt just days before, swirled around his cortex, overwhelmed him with unfamiliar joys and terrors.

After an endless adrenal moment, he managed to order his thoughts.

He entered his personal code into the computer, then he opened up a secured and scrambled channel to a place thousands of light-years across the lonely void.

But the tranya caught up with him and he pa.s.sed out before he was able to make his call.

Chapter Four.

SEATED IN HER SPOT to the captain's left, Troi watched the planet grow larger on the bridge viewscreen. Behind the planet its mother sun, rho Ophiuchi, illuminated a nebula that surrounded star, planet, and now the Enterprise like a candescent blue fog.

Again Troi found herself feeling that this hidden star system was some kind of trap for her. She sensed the Other-worlders around her, sensed their intention to send her through that awful paralyzing transformation they'd attempted once before, and feared that this star system would be the stage for the transformation. She couldn't tell if this was a purely irrational fear on her part or if she had picked up some real intention from the Other-worlders.

Suddenly wary of attracting another contact with them, she shifted her awareness away from the Other-worlders. She focused on the minds of Picard and Riker beside her.

So cool and remote these men were-emotions suppressed, the mien of command. She tried for a moment to alter her mood to match theirs. She imitated them the way a non-empath imitates a facial expression.

She surprised herself, for she found she could achieve that coolness, that absolute restraint, at least for the moment. It was a place of respite and eased her anxiety.

"Five minutes until orbital insert, Captain," said Ensign Crusher, navigating.

"Subs.p.a.ce communications, Mr. Data?" asked Picard.

"Blocked by the nebula, Captain."

"Sensor information on the planet?"

"Coming in range now. I'm picking up electromagnetic transmissions from the surface. Radio band."

"Please put them through the translator."

"That will not be necessary, sir. They are in our own language."

The bridge became very quiet. Picard rose slowly.

"Put them on the speakers, Mr. Data."

Data touched his controls. For several moments, the bridge crew listened to a mix of voices-telephone conversations, weather forecasts, civilian navigational chatter. An entire populated planet going about its business.

Riker, sitting to Picard's right, spoke up.

"There are no Federation colonies on record here, Captain. No Starfleet ship besides the Huxley has ever strayed near this nebula."

"That was only ten years ago," said the captain, "not time enough to seed an entire society. I'd say we've discovered an already established independent human colony." Picard looked at Troi. "We may not have found your Other-worlders, but what we've got may be just as important."

The captain turned to the teenage ensign at the Conn station.

"All stop, Mr. Crusher."

"Answering all stop, sir."

Worf's dark eyes scanned his board quickly. "Sir, we are being hailed."

"Put it on the screen, if you can."