The captain felt a thrill of surprise shoot through him. "Archangel?" he blurted, completing the name.

The other man c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Then you do know them?"

Picard leaned forward again. "I met them some time ago. Though ..."

The admiral looked at him. "Yes?"

"Frankly, I am at a loss to explain what they're doing here. They reside in another frame of reference-another universe, as it were."

"I have a grandson who is said to do the same," Kashiwada commented. "But I have a feeling you mean it in a more literal sense."

The captain confirmed it. "Did the X- ... that is, did your guests say how they got here? Or what purpose they had in mind?"

The admiral held his hands out-a gesture of helplessness. "From what they tell me, their arrival was not a matter of design, but an accident. Their only intention, they insist, is to return home."

"I see," said Picard.

"I can send you the information they gave us concerning their arrival. You may find it helpful."

"I would appreciate it," the captain told him.

"In any case," Kashiwada went on, "since these people seem to know you, and since Starbase 88 is more or less en route to your destination ..."

"You thought I might come by and pick them up."

The admiral smiled. "It might be a good idea for everyone concerned. At least one of our guests seems ill-suited to a Starfleet environment. And, given his rather ... let us say surly disposition, I would be surprised if trouble did not ensue."

Picard nodded. "That would be Wolverine," he guessed.

"It would," Kashiwada agreed.

The captain sighed.

Even if Wolverine weren't threatening to become a problem, he would have felt compelled to help the X-Men. After all, they had proven themselves dependable and courageous allies in their own universe. The least he could do was stand by them in his own.

He turned to Lt. Rager, who was manning the helm. "Make the necessary adjustments," he told her. "Warp six."

Rager nodded. "Aye, sir. Setting course for Starbase 88."

Picard regarded the admiral again. "The Enterprise should be there in a day or so, sir. In the meantime, I trust you'll find a way to keep your guests properly entertained."

"Oh, yes," the older man a.s.sured him. "One way or the other. See you then, Jean-Luc. Kashiwada out."

A moment later, the admiral's image was supplanted by that of the starfield. The captain stroked his chin thoughtfully.

The last thing he had expected was to run into the X-Men again. However, he had to admit that the prospect intrigued him ... especially when it came to one X-Man in particular.

As Erid Sovar entered the room, he took note of three things.

The first was the presence of a thickset, blue-uniformed administrator behind a large, blackwood desk. His name was Osan, or so Erid had heard. The man didn't look the least bit surprised by Erid's appearance. But then, by that time, he had probably seen even stranger transformations.

The second thing Erid noticed was the light streaming in through a large, oval window. It slashed across the only other chair in the room, which was positioned opposite Osan's.

Erid's third observation was that there were no guards in the room. The two who had escorted him from his room had remained outside. It was a sign of trust-one that seemed strange to the youth, as it stood in direct opposition to everything Erid had experienced over the last two days.

Ever since he had been discovered and taken into custody near the Vuuren Pa.s.s, he had been handled like a criminal. He had been transported by silent guardsmen and locked up in this old, stone fortress, where he was surprised to see others who had changed in bizarre ways.

In Erid's case, maybe there was some justification for such treatment. After all, he had destroyed some of the ancient prayer perches at Otros Paar, even if it wasn't his intention to do so.

But the others to whom he had spoken, or-more often-whose conversations he had overheard in the yard ... they hadn't destroyed anything. They had been incarcerated simply because of their transformations.

Because the government was afraid of them, some said-afraid of what they might do if they remained free. The fortress guards had told the transformed that wasn't true. The guards said that they had been gathered here for their own protection.

To Erid's mind, only one thing was certain: the transformed were inside the walls of the fortress and every other Xhaldian was outside them. Nothing else really mattered.

"Please," the administrator said in an almost paternal way, "sit down." He indicated the empty chair with a beefy hand.

Erid considered the chair. It gleamed in the shaft of light.

"What is it?" asked Osan, noticing the youth's hesitation.

"I cannot sit there," said Erid.

The administrator's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

The youth indicated the window with a tilt of his head. "The light. It activates the energy in me."

Understanding dawned on Osan's face. Understanding ... and something else as well. Something like concern, only stronger.

Erid was almost tempted to call it fear.

"I see," Osan said. "In that case, you may move the chair away from the light. Or stand, if you prefer."

Erid chose to stand, though it made his legs feel even heavier. "I want to speak with my family," he declared. "When can I do that?"

The administrator looked sympathetic. "That's difficult to say. Right now, all our resources are concentrated on the rescue operation. New transformations are taking place every day, you understand."

The youth shook his head. "I don't understand. What have your resources got to do with my speaking with my parents?"

Osan leaned back in his chair and frowned. "We have to regulate the flow of information. If people find out what we're doing here, they may misinterpret our actions. The situation could instantly spiral out of control, to the detriment of all concerned."

"In other words," Erid said, "you have no intention of letting me speak with my family."

The administrator's frown deepened. "As I said, we're regulating the flow of information. But that's just a temporary condition."

"How temporary?"

Something stiffened in Osan. "I believe I answered that."

But he hadn't. Not really.

"Do my parents know what's become of me?" Erid asked. "Do they know where I am? How I've changed?"

The administrator sighed. "That, too, would const.i.tute potentially incendiary information. It's in everyone's best interests that they don't know. At least, not yet."

Erid glanced at the window. Somewhere beyond its glare was the yard, where the transformed were allowed to congregate twice a day.

He recalled how it had been for him there a couple of days earlier. Frightened by his transformation and his subsequent imprisonment, still uncertain of how his powers worked, Erid had made the mistake of wandering into the center of the yard.

In moments, beams of brilliant laserlight had sprung from his fingers, just as they had that first time at Otros Paar. And the guards who lined the battlements had fired their weapons at him, making him shiver and convulse and finally lose consciousness.

Perhaps Osan was right. Perhaps it was better his parents didn't know. It would be easier for them to think their son had perished than to picture him as a monster in a stone cage.

But that wasn't the point, was it? It wasn't a matter of who would suffer if word of his transformation got out. It was a matter of his right to make that decision for himself.

"You had no right to take me," Erid told the administrator. "And you have no right to keep me here."

Osan regarded him. "You may be right about that. We may have no right at all. But we have a responsibility to the people of Xhaldia, and we must carry it out as best we can."

Erid saw he would get nowhere with this man. Still, it irked him that it should be so.

A part of him even considered stepping into the light and becoming what Osan feared-a dynamo of deadly and unpredictable energy. But that would only earn Erid a barrage of stun fire from the guards outside, and he dearly wished to avoid another experience like the one in the yard.

"Some day," he told his captor, "you'll regret what you've done here." It was less than a threat, but more than a prediction.

Osan smiled a grim smile. "This may surprise you," he said, "but I regret it already."

Erid was still pondering the meaning of the man's words as he left the room and returned to his barracks.

Captain Picard got up from his center seat and eyed the bridge's forward viewscreen, where he could make out a speck of gray against the sea of stars. "Maximum magnification," he said.

"Aye, Captain," replied Data, who was sitting at Ops.

A moment later, the speck became a full-blown Federation starbase-in this case, Starbase 88. Picard considered it for a moment, then cast a glance over his shoulder.

Lt. Sovar, a security officer with bronze skin and a brush of blue-black hair, was manning the tactical console. He looked up from his monitors, seeming to sense the captain's scrutiny.

"Lieutenant," said Picard, "hail the station. Tell them I would like to speak with Admiral Kashiwada."

"Aye, sir," Sovar replied.

Before long, Kashiwada's countenance replaced the image of the starbase. By the frown lines around the man's mouth, the captain could tell the X-Men's stay was proving stressful for the admiral.

"Jean-Luc," said Kashiwada. "I see you made good time."

It was a joke, of course. Starship travel was precise. Seldom did a vessel vary from its schedule by more than a few minutes.

"I was eager to see you in person again," Picard replied.

"More likely," said the admiral, "you were eager to see my guests. As you may have guessed, they are eager to see you as well."

The captain smiled. "I imagine they are. I trust their visit with you has been mutually profitable?"

Kashiwada grunted. "That would be one way to put it. I'll meet you in our transporter room, Jean-Luc. Say, in ... half an hour?"

"Half an hour will be fine," Picard a.s.sured him.

"Excellent," said the admiral.

His face disappeared, the image of the starbase taking its place. But Kashiwada's expression remained with the captain.

Quite clearly, it hadn't been a happy one.

Chapter Four.

ERID SOVAR WALKED out of the fortress's low, stone mess hall last and alone. But then, that wasn't unusual. More than most of the transformed, he mainly kept to himself.

As he emerged from the coolness into the hot, crowded yard, Erid hugged the high, curving wall on his right. That way, he could protect himself from the rays of the sun and the indignity of another energy fit.

Others among the transformed had the same problem. Erid had learned that over the previous couple of days, as the prisoner population had grown from twenty to just under thirty. In fact, fully five or six of them possessed powers triggered by sunlight.

Like him, those individuals kept to the shadows as best they could. And in the rare instances where they forgot to do so or defied fate, and their powers ran rampant, the guards on the ancient battlements buried them in a storm of stun fire.

Of course, some fits seemed to take place without any provocation at all. Suddenly, one of the transformed would emit a web of electrical energy or grow twelve feet tall. And while they were trying to come to grips with what had happened, the guards would turn them into convulsing wretches.

Erid shivered at the thought. It had become almost as hard for him to watch such an event as to experience it.

Of course, not everyone was quite so sensitive to the feelings of others. Some seemed hardly to care at all. But then, the transformed at Verdeen were as diverse as any cross-section of the population.

The youth was reminded of that fact as he skirted the yard, watching his fellow prisoners meditate, or exercise, or talk in small groups. No two of the transformed were exactly alike.

There were shy, quiet types, and those who were loud and angry about what had happened to them. There were friendly, compa.s.sionate people, and those who hated everyone they looked at. There were young men and women who were frightened and wanted only to go home, and those who seemed to barely mind their imprisonment.

What's more, they had all changed in different ways. Even with his enlarged, purple blood vessels and the loss of his blue-black skull brush, Erid was hardly the most grotesque of them.

Some of the transformed had grown an extra set of arms. Some had sprouted horns or some similarly peculiar appendages. Still others had seen an alteration in skin texture or eye color. Only a fortunate handful seemed to have undergone no outward change at all.

Their powers were unique as well. Where one had become immensely strong, another had become lightning-quick. Where one could draw energy from everything around her, another could turn solids into liquids or create illusions in the minds of others.

All of them different. And yet, all bound by a common destiny-to become something their world had never seen before, near the occasion of their twenty-second birthday.

No one knew why they had changed. No one knew how. They knew only that they had been altered, and for the time being-at the very least-there was nothing any of them could do about it.