"It's Federation . . ." Qat'qa exclaimed.

"Nebula-cla.s.s," Nog confirmed.

La Forge hardly dared breathe. "Let's see if the probe can shine some light on her, Nog."

Nog manipulated more controls, turning on a powerful light source built into the probe. He guided the probe over the upper forward section of the saucer, casting its light over the registry number. "NCC-62006."

"The Hera," Hera," La Forge breathed. His eyes filled with tears. "It's the La Forge breathed. His eyes filled with tears. "It's the Hera." Hera."

35.

La Forge was awestruck, in every sense of the word. It was not just a great joy but an emotional tsunami that crashed over him. "I don't believe it . . ."

"I thought it was exactly what you were hoping to find," Leah said, puzzled.

"Hoping is one thing, but I never actually expected expected it. I mean, not to find the it. I mean, not to find the Hera Hera so intact. It's like . . ." He didn't even know what it was like, really. To have come to the end of a personal quest that had been a shadow over his life for so many years, whether he admitted it or not. "It's like finding the Holy Grail." so intact. It's like . . ." He didn't even know what it was like, really. To have come to the end of a personal quest that had been a shadow over his life for so many years, whether he admitted it or not. "It's like finding the Holy Grail."

Scotty was delighted for La Forge. The lad deserved his closure, and, in any case, to find the ship all the way out here was something of a miracle. Enough of one, Enough of one, Scotty thought, Scotty thought, that anybody in the crew could appreciate. that anybody in the crew could appreciate. And this was the ma.s.sive gravitational attractor? He couldn't even begin to imagine how that could be the case, but he couldn't wait to find out. It would beat thinking about how many cellular regeneration treatments he had missed. And this was the ma.s.sive gravitational attractor? He couldn't even begin to imagine how that could be the case, but he couldn't wait to find out. It would beat thinking about how many cellular regeneration treatments he had missed.

"I've been in Starfleet for over a century," he said when he came to the bridge, "and I've never seen the like."

"This is what I joined Starfleet for," Nog agreed. His voice was filled with amazement.

Sela watched the probe's telemetry on a screen in her quarters. The sight was impressive, but the only thing that she could think was this couldn't possibly be a coincidence. La Forge's mother's ship, brought here by the trans-slipstream wakes years before they were supposedly discovered by Starfleet?

She didn't believe a word of it. She knew Saldis wouldn't have believed it either.

"So," she said to her junior officers, who were gathered around. "This is proof that the Federation has been experimenting with the trans-slipstream technology all along."

"It seems obvious," one of them, an eager young centurion agreed.

Sela didn't reply. I wonder if they sacrificed his mother, the way they sacrificed mine? I wonder if they sacrificed his mother, the way they sacrificed mine?

"Captain La Forge, can I see you in private?"

Guinan's request was sufficiently unusual that La Forge immediately responded. She wasn't in Nelson's but in her quarters. The cabin was hung with silken drapes, and filled with incense. For the first time ever, La Forge saw her without a hat.

"What is it, Guinan?"

"I needed to talk to you about what's happening, and what's about to happen. And about why I came aboard the Challenger." Challenger."

"Back on Starbase 410, you said you wanted to give your engineer friends your time."

"Yes, I did."

"I've been thinking about that."

"Maybe you're thinking about it too much."

"There's something about the way you've been watching, and talking. It's as if you're waiting for something. Or someone," La Forge said.

"Maybe I am."

"Who, or what?"

"I don't know yet. But it's why I needed to talk to you."

"You're waiting for someone or something that you don't even know?"

"That's right. It's happened a lot in my life, actually. At least for the past hundred years."

"Hundred years? Since you were pulled out of the Nexus?"

Guinan nodded. "Sometimes I just know that I ought to be in a particular place at a particular time, because something important will happen there, or then."

"Your connection with the Nexus tells you these things?" La Forge supposed.

"Tells is too strong a word. Hints would be more like it. Or maybe suggests, guides, arranges behind my back."

"But if you were beamed out of the Nexus a hundred years ago, how can it still have an effect on you? Was it that strong an experience, or . . . Did you see an expanse of future history-"

For once, she looked serious. "It was the strongest experience of any kind I've ever had. Stronger and more real than anything in what, for want of a better word, I'll call my real life. But it wasn't a matter of just seeing some display of prophecy and trying to remember all the dates and places. It's a far more vague, and deeper, connection."

"Like a Vulcan mind meld?" La Forge offered.

"Yes, that sounds not too far off. But it's not a meld with another person, or with the energies of the Nexus itself. It's more like a mind meld with my own shadow. With a memory of myself."

"What sort of memory?"

"When I was beamed out of the Nexus, I fought to stay there. I willed myself not to go, not to give in to the transport beam. And something of me did stay behind. An echo, a shadow . . . Whether it's because I so desperately wanted to stay there, or whether the Nexus does that to everyone who enters it, or some mix of both and the energy of the transporter . . . I don't know. I just know that to my . . . shadow, all time is one, and it feels that I should be here on the Challenger." Challenger."

"Because something important will happen?"

"I guess so. But the definition of important may vary. It could be saving the universe from invading aliens, or discovering the perfect c.o.c.ktail recipe that uses kanar." kanar." Her eyes twinkled. "There must be something that Her eyes twinkled. "There must be something that kanar' kanar's good for."

"I'll take your word for that." La Forge let himself relax. Guinan had deftly turned the conversation around, and he was grateful, because he didn't really want to pursue anything too deep right now. "If you find it, they'll probably inaugurate an all-new culinary Z Magnees Prize just for that."

36.

Challenger swung gently into a distant orbit around the swung gently into a distant orbit around the Hera, Hera, settling into a stable course, that was no longer under acceleration, so the gravity had stabilized back to half a settling into a stable course, that was no longer under acceleration, so the gravity had stabilized back to half a g. g.

"Nog," La Forge asked, "has there been any communications traffic from the Hera Hera?"

"None, Captain."

"Not even a distress signal?"

"Nothing. They're completely signal-dark." Nog spread his hands helplessly. "Their power may be as dead as Intrepid Intrepid's was."

"A starship's automated distress signal has a separate power source just in case of exactly that kind of total power loss. It should be able to keep transmitting for decades." La Forge gritted his teeth, frustrated. "It's been a dozen years since the Hera Hera went missing, but the automated distress call should still be running." went missing, but the automated distress call should still be running."

"Unless it was deactivated manually," Leah suggested.

Nog agreed. "Maybe they abandoned ship and went somewhere else. They wouldn't need the distress signal to be running if they thought they were safe."

"Where could they have gone? Kat, are there any planetary systems within sensor range?"

"Nothing, Captain. No stars, no planets. Just whatever gravitational attractor was pulling us in the direction of the Hera Hera. I can't even seem to get a reading on the interior of the Hera." Hera."

"No life signs?"

"No. I read the usual physical makeup of a Nebula- Nebula-cla.s.s hull, with tritanium, duranium, and so on, but I get no sensor readings at all beyond the hull substrate. It's as if . . . It's as if there is no interior. Or the interior is cloaked."

"You're right, that is odd." La Forge thought for a moment. "Keep trying, but modulate the sensor wavebands you're using. Scan for anything that might show signs of a malfunctioning cloak on board, just in case."

"A cloak," Leah asked, "on a Federation starship?"

"Do we have enough power restored to run the astrometrics lab?" La Forge asked.

Leah nodded. "Just about."

"Then we might get a few answers."

Challenger's astrometrics lab was a holodeck, with a ramp jutting out into a three-hundred-and-sixty degree s.p.a.ce. Projections were displayed into the interior of the room, giving a true display of s.p.a.ce.

"Is this just a pretext to get me alone?" Leah asked as she and La Forge entered.

"Believe me, that's the last thing on my mind."

"I was joking, Geordi."

"Sorry." He brought up a display of local s.p.a.ce, showing Challenger Challenger orbiting orbiting Hera Hera. "What we need is a projection of the gravitational effect we're under. Something that shows the position of the center of the gravity well."

"I've got readings from when the sensors came online, and at regular intervals until now."

"We know we've been pulled in this direction since we arrived in this region. We know the gravitational force has gotten a little stronger, so we should be able to project the source." Nothing new appeared in the display, but the Hera Hera swelled slightly. "That's impossible. It's showing as no further away than the swelled slightly. "That's impossible. It's showing as no further away than the Hera." Hera."

"Unless . . . could it be the Hera Hera herself?" herself?"

"I don't see how. Maybe if it were a Romulan ship, the singularity in their warp core could have begun to consume matter and grow, but I can't think of any way a Starfleet warp reactor could react that way. Can you?"

Leah barely suppressed a laugh. "I've been designing warp engines for a long time now, and I've never seen anything artificial that could generate a gravitational field of that magnitude. No matter how far something went wrong."

La Forge could feel a tightness in his kidneys, and a spreading chill. "All right, I don't doubt for a moment that you're right and it's impossible, but . . ." He touched a console b.u.t.ton. "La Forge to Nog."

"Nog here, Captain."

"Can you give me a sensor reading on the Hera Hera's ma.s.s?"

One moment . . ." There was a slight gasp, almost a squeak. "Captain! It's impossible, but . . ." "Captain! It's impossible, but . . ."

"I kind of expected it would be, Nog. What's the ma.s.s of the Hera Hera? I'm guessing it's not the three million metric tonnes that it should be."

"Forty-seven hundred . . . solar ma.s.ses."

Leah and Geordi exchanged a look. "Impossible!" Leah exclaimed. "There wouldn't be a ship there. Only a superma.s.sive black hole could have a ma.s.s like that. And its attraction would be a h.e.l.l of a lot greater than it is."

"I wish Data were here," La Forge said with feeling as they returned to the bridge. The android could run numbers quicker than any living man and had a decidedly non-mechanistic instinct for having and playing hunches. La Forge could have used that kind of ability right about now.

Scotty sympathized entirely with Geordi's thought. He had been quite impressed with the android officer aboard Enterprise Enterprise, and was saddened to hear of his death. At least Spock was still alive, but it was a d.a.m.ned shame that there was no way to get hold of him and bring him out here.

If they could have done that, he reflected, they wouldn't actually need to. It was a frustrating paradox, and one of too many that Scotty had experienced over the years. He stepped around the bridge rail to stand beside Nog.

"A penny for them?"

"What?"

"Your thoughts," Scotty explained. "Ye looked a little lost in them."

"I was just wishing Jadzia Dax was here . . ."

Sela looked out of the viewport of her quarters, and saw only her own reflection. Her mother's image, which followed her everywhere, haunting her.

She closed her eyes and, when she opened them again, focused on seeing the Romulan standing before her. It was a shame that it wasn't another Romulan. Or, preferably, a warbird or two.

Reinforcements would have been very useful in her current situation. Very useful indeed.

Scotty and La Forge stood in the circle of consoles in main engineering, running numbers. Vol hovered above them, enjoying the lighter gravity. "There's an oddity about this gravitational attraction of the Hera," Hera," La Forge was saying. La Forge was saying.

"Apart from the existence existence of a gravity well or the continued existence of the of a gravity well or the continued existence of the Hera Hera in the same s.p.a.ce?" Scotty said. "But ye're right. It doesna' have the gravitational power that four and a half thousand solar ma.s.ses would. Maybe the sensors are a wee bit b.u.g.g.e.red." in the same s.p.a.ce?" Scotty said. "But ye're right. It doesna' have the gravitational power that four and a half thousand solar ma.s.ses would. Maybe the sensors are a wee bit b.u.g.g.e.red."

Vol lowered himself, upside down, to peer at the figures. "Well . . . maybe the one oddity is an explanation for the other."

La Forge looked up at the octopoid's single eye. "I'm open to ideas. Go ahead."