"So?"

"My mother was captain of the Hera Hera. The ships that caused these wakes killed her. I just thought . . . I thought we needed to establish a common ground, since we're now on a shared mission, Chairman." The word stuck in his throat.

"So we both have dead mothers?" Sela scoffed. "The same mission I'll grant you-to return home. The difference is that I didn't just just sign on a dotted line somewhere that I would uphold the rules of the service I was joining. I was raised into that service. It's a privilege, not just a duty." sign on a dotted line somewhere that I would uphold the rules of the service I was joining. I was raised into that service. It's a privilege, not just a duty."

"Your father was an admiral, wasn't he?"

"What of it?"

La Forge couldn't resist a sad smile. "You think you're the only person who was inspired to come out into s.p.a.ce because of your parents? My mother became the captain of that starship, and my father is in Starfleet as well. I knew from the time I was old enough to hold a toy starship where I wanted to go and what I wanted to be."

"As did I, in spite of my mother."

"I'm sorry to hear that." La Forge meant it. "Chairman of the Tal Shiar is a bigger job than being proconsul, I hear. She'd have been proud of you for doing so well, even in a foreign government."

"In the end I was better off without her. Perhaps other people might be too, especially humans."

"No, I don't think they would be. In fact, I don't think you were better off without her. I think you were probably better off because you remember a time when she was there." He tried to wrap his head around Sela's viewpoint, but, truthfully, wasn't sure that he could. "Somehow, her death drove you forward, and even did you good, but it can't have done that without her having been there in the first place."

"I killed her, Captain." Sela's voice was momentarily strained, and exactly how he remembered Tasha Yar's. It was like hearing a ghost. The moment pa.s.sed as she continued. "At least I was responsible for her execution. And I never looked back. All the way up the ladder."

"We're getting away from what we need to be discussing," La Forge said.

"Survival is what we need to be discussing." Sela frowned. "Is it my imagination or is the gravity getting a little stronger?"

"We haven't adjusted the setting . . . There isn't enough power to spare." He raised himself on his toes experimentally. "No, but you're right, I feel a little heavier than I did a few hours ago . . ." They went out onto the bridge, where La Forge checked the environmental control station. "Point six g g . . . but we're only generating point five." . . . but we're only generating point five."

"The only reason we could be experiencing an increase in local gravity is if the Challenger Challenger is accelerating," Sela pointed out. is accelerating," Sela pointed out.

"Which it's not going to do unless we get out and push."

"No . . . Which means we must be accelerating toward a ma.s.s of some kind. But what?"

"The questions are, 'What is it? And how soon before we hit it?'"

34.

"Wotcher, Doc," Vol called up from engineering. Vol called up from engineering.

Leah, knowing that she was the doctor Vol was calling to, answered, "Go ahead, Vol."

"The sensor net is cooking with gas now. External sensors only, though."

"Externals are perfectly adequate, Vol. With any luck we can identify the gravitational attractor that's pulling us." She brought the sensors online and began scanning in the direction in which Challenger Challenger was accelerating by point one was accelerating by point one g g. There was nothing in range. She knew it was only a matter of time however, and set the computer to notify her when it had a result.

Then she started scanning for trans-slipstream wakes.

This time the results were immediate, and she called La Forge over. He leaned in beside her at the ops station. "What have we got?"

"The trans-slipstream wake signature. Actually, more than one. I'm reading a whole lot of them."

"If there's a gravitational attractor in the area . . . Let's scan the area for that quantum granulation in subs.p.a.ce that Sonya reported was everywhere in G-231."

"Any particular reason why? Or this just a hunch?"

"There was a lot of granulation in the vicinity of the black hole near G-231, which means a lot of trans-slipstream wakes, which means a lot of traffic by whatever causes them, if they're using high-ma.s.s objects as marker buoys."

"Right."

"So, why near the black hole? It's a natural navigational buoy."

"This gravitational attractor isn't on the same level as a black hole."

"But it's the only attractor around, so a species that uses gravity wells as navigational markers, and comes out here, isn't going to pa.s.s up the only marker for thousands of light-years. It's as big a deal out here as a superma.s.sive black hole would be in a stellar-dense area."

"That's a pretty big a.s.sumption, Geordi. Just because they seem to have used the Bolus Reach, and we've ended up here, that doesn't necessarily mean they use gravity wells that way on a regular basis."

"It's not just that. The report the Klingons sent was about something matching the trans-slipstream wake spotted near a black hole. The Carda.s.sians saw something resembling it in a dead system with a super-dense neutron star."

"All high-ma.s.s gravity wells."

"It's the only common factor, and that has to be significant."

"It looks like you're right," she said slowly, as the numbers scrolled past major subs.p.a.ce granuation. "The peaks and troughs are off the scale. This is definitely a major hub for the ships that are causing the wakes. It's a regular traffic jam."

"Then all we need to know is what the attractor is, and where."

"I've set the computer to call me when it has that information."

"Then it's time we had lunch."

"You're thinking about lunch at a time like this?"

"I'm thinking about blood sugar and alertness levels. n.o.body's any good if they're not properly fed and rested."

Half asleep in their dining chairs in Nelson's, La Forge and Leah listened to the faint creaks and pops of distant metal cooling in s.p.a.ce, which would normally be drowned out by the sound of the engines. In fact, they were sounds which would rarely happen when the ship was fully powered.

"I've been thinking . . ." La Forge began.

"Me too."

"We're already pretty much sharing quarters. I wondered if, when we get home . . ."

"Do you think we'll ever get home?" The words came out a little more anxiously than she intended.

"I can't let myself think that we won't."

"Me neither," she lied. "So . . ."

"I was hoping that someday our arrangement might become more permanent."

"Every probability curve must have a far end," Leah said.

"That's what I was hoping you'd say."

"Some days," Guinan's voice interrupted softly, "working the night shift brings its own rewards."

"Anything you just imagined you heard," La Forge said without opening his eyes, "is cla.s.sified information."

In engineering, Barclay was a flurry of hyperactivity, helping Vol with this, helping Voktra with that. Anyone who didn't know him would have taken him for a super-efficient worker with no sense of fear.

That, of course, was exactly the impression he was striving for. He didn't like for his crewmates to see his anxiety at the best of times, and he sure as h.e.l.l didn't want a group of Romulans to see him afraid or nervous. They could probably smell fear, but he was going to do his d.a.m.nedest to uphold the image of a Starfleet officer.

"We're outside the galaxy," he was saying, "which means that sooner or later we're going to have to go back through the galactic barrier."

"How could we have pa.s.sed through the barrier in the first place?" Voktra asked.

"It has been known to happen, but almost always by accident. No one has ever developed a drive and shielding that could allow it on a regular, repeatable basis."

"Haven't they . . . ?"

"No one that I've ever heard of."

"What about whatever dragged us here? I don't see it crippled beside us." Voktra let herself smile, and Barclay was taken aback. He'd never seen a pretty Romulan before, nor had he ever thought of one that way. "Think of the strategic advantages of being able to exit the galaxy, travel around through empty s.p.a.ce, and re-enter at a point of your choosing, without pa.s.sing through hostile s.p.a.ce in between."

"You mean circ.u.mvent borders."

"That's exactly what I mean. No one's going to look for warbirds entering their s.p.a.ce through the galactic barrier."

"And was attracting one of those things worth the chance to do that?" Barclay asked.

"We didn't attract whatever hit us." She frowned, puzzled. "What are you suggesting?"

"You're sure? We know they use high-gravity bodies as navigational markers, and you have an attractive body." Barclay blushed furiously, and waggled his fingers as if to wave away the slip. "I mean, a forced quantum singularity, in your engine core. That might have attracted-"

"Romulans are not in the habit of attracting other species," Voktra stated flatly.

"Er, that's one way of putting it, I suppose."

"I'm sorry, that came out a little . . ."

"Strangely?"

"It's a stressful situation, and my mind is rather preoccupied."

"Oh, I know exactly what you mean."

"Good."

"So," Barclay continued hesitantly, "what exactly happened when your ship was. .h.i.t?"

"We were trying to locate and neutralize sabotage set by one of the chairman's political rivals. The warp core had been rigged to overload-or overfeed-the singularity."

Barclay nodded, understanding. Voktra's story made a lot more sense to him than Qat'qa's suspicions. He looked at his hands, relieved that they weren't shaking. "You know, you don't seem like a Romulan."

"I'll try not to take that personally."

"I meant in a good way."

"You don't seem like a Starfleeter."

"Oh." He was disappointed. His efforts to uphold the image must have failed.

"You're not as lazy."

Barclay beamed.

"I have tested out our maneuvering capabilities," Qat'qa reported when La Forge and Leah returned to the bridge, slightly refreshed for having eaten. "The power we're drawing from the runabout is giving me a delay in response to controls, but it is workable."

"Plot a series of orbital courses we can use, and take us into the best stable orbit you can manage around the attractor."

"Aye, sir."

"Once we're in orbit we should be able to catch our breath and see what kind of shape the Challenger Challenger is really in, and figure out what to do next." He turned to Leah. "What kind of sensor readings are we getting from the gravitational attractor?" is really in, and figure out what to do next." He turned to Leah. "What kind of sensor readings are we getting from the gravitational attractor?"

"None."

"None?" That was weird; every high-gravity phenomenon La Forge had heard of put out hard radiation. "Not even X-rays or hard gamma?"

"No, no X-rays, no gamma rays, nothing I'd expect to see from any natural source."

"Nog, launch a probe toward the attractor. I want to see what it is we're about to start hanging around with."

Nog keyed the appropriate command on his console. "Probe away." After a few moments, Nog reported, "Still no sensor readings from the probe, other than in the visual spectrum. We can see the attractor."

"What is it?"

Nog hesitated for a heartbeat. "It appears to be a starship."

"On screen."

The main body of the ship was the same size and shape as the Challenger Challenger's own primary hull. It was lightless, but a faint edge of galactic light picked out the shape. A wedge on one side clamped two nacelles to the disc, while a triangular structure stood above the opposite surface.