"We're on a wild-goose chase," he said softly. "Aren't we?"

"It is a little too soon to say," she replied.

"No, it's not. Not for you," he pressed. "If there were somebody here, you would have known it already. You would have sensed them."

The counselor bit her lip. "There are minds to which I cannot gain access," she reminded him. "The builders of this place may fall into that category. They may be so different from us-so emotionless, perhaps -that they simply do not register with me."

"But more likely," he suggested, "they're just not around anymore." He indicated the towers ahead of them with a sweep of his arm. "If you lived here and six strangers showed up, wouldn't you react somehow? Come out to greet them? Shoot at them? Something?"

"Unless they're hidden," she said. "Unless they're afraid of us. Don't forget, they went to the trouble of shielding this place."

"There's always that," he agreed. And it was a real possibility. "But you don't believe that, do you? Not in your heart of hearts."

Troi returned his gaze. "I hate to say it, but..." She shook her head. "No. I don't. Whatever happened to the rest of the population must have happened here as well."

Riker sighed. "That's life, I guess. You win some, you lose some."

But he didn't stop walking. And neither did she.

"We're still going on?" she asked, just to confirm the fact.

"Yup. We've still got to check it out top to bottom," he said. "Those are our orders. Besides, we've come this far. It wouldn't make sense to turn back now."

Scott looked from one monitor to the other. The first one showed a graphic representation of the ion path they'd been following. The second displayed the section of the Dyson Sphere directly below them.

"This is the end of the rainbow," Geordi noted. He was intent on the monitor attached to the captain's seat.

"Aye," agreed Scott. "The end, all right."

"But still no pot of gold. No Enterprise."

Scott pointed to a detail on his monitor. "Look at the momentum distribution of the ions," he said. "It would take an impulse engine at full reverse to put out a signature like that."

"So wherever they went," Geordi said, picking up the line of reasoning, "they didn't go willingly. That makes sense. Tell you what... I'll search the surrounding s.p.a.ce, you scan the surface of the sphere."

"Ye've got yerself a deal," the older man agreed.

As he worked, he shook his head. He still believed that the Enterprise had vanished inside the sphere; there was no other explanation. But if that was the case, how had it been accomplished? There was no visible means of entry... and without one, his theory-unlike the sphere-had a pretty big hole in it.

"Anything?" asked Geordi after a while.

Scott shrugged. "Some low-level radiation. And a lot of meteor debris." Suddenly, something caught his eye. "Wait," he said. "What's this?"

Homing in on a finite portion of the sphere, he brought up a sensor map. And sure enough, the surface of the thing wasn't as smooth and uninterrupted as it had first appeared.

"C'mere, lad," he told Geordi. "I've got something here ye might want to take a look at."

Moving to his side, the younger man peered over Scott's shoulder. "That circular line," he said. "It looks some kind of doorway. Or..." He paused. "Or an entry hatch!"

"Aye," Scott confirmed, vindicated. "Now look at this."

Working at his control board, he superimposed the image of the ion trail over the image of the hatch. The trail ended right above the circular line etched into the sphere. Scott and Geordi exchanged a look.

"I'll bet ye two bottles of scotch that the Enterprise is inside that sphere at this very moment," said Scott. "And that they went in right through that hatch."

"No bet here," said Geordi. "The question is ... how do we get the door to open for us?"

Aye, thought Scott. That was a good question. Together, they examined the display for a moment. Then Geordi pointed to something.

"Look here. This appears to be some kind of communications array."

It looked familiar. "Aye," said the older man. "We found hundreds of them when we did our initial survey seventy-five years ago."

"Did you try hailing them?" asked Geordi.

"Sure. That was standard procedure in my day-nae that it did us any good. There was never any answer." He scowled. "And then the power coils blew up."

The younger man grunted. "Hailing is standard procedure today, too ..." Suddenly, his face went taut with thought. "Wait a minute, Scotty. What if these aren't communications arrays? What if they're some kind of remote access terminals ... that are triggered by subs.p.a.ce signals on certain frequencies?"

Scott felt a trickle of cold sweat run down his spine. "Frequencies like our standard ship's hail?"

"Exactly. When the Enterprise saw this terminal, they probably did the same thing you did seventy-five years ago-opened a channel. Only this time it triggered something that activated the hatch and pulled the ship inside the sphere."

Scott thought for a moment. "But why would the Jenolen nae have been pulled inside as well?" And then he answered his own question "Ah. Because it was nae near a hatch."

"No," said Geordi, "it wasn't. But you might have activated a similar mechanism-one designed to shunt an incoming vessel to a hatch. Except... except maybe the Jenolen wasn't big enough or strong enough to survive the shunt, and its power coils bore the brunt of it."

The older man nodded admiringly. This Geordi La Forge had some promise after all. "A nice bit o' reasoning, laddie. Very nice indeed."

Geordi flashed a smile of thanks. But it faded a moment later, as he remembered the fix they were in.

"Let's a.s.sume for the moment that we're right," he told Scott. "How does that help us help the Enterprise? If we try to open the hatch, we might be pulled in like they were."

"Aye, lad. That's certainly somethin' to consider." And consider it he did.

Suddenly, it came to him. He snapped his fingers. "On the other hand ... maybe all we need to do is get our foot in the door!"

Geordi was obviously puzzled. "Our ... foot in the door?" he echoed. "I don't get it."

Suddenly feeling full of energy, Scott explained. "All right then, here it is. Y'see, we trigger the remote terminal with a subs.p.a.ce transmission ..."

"Trigger it? But then, won't we be pulled in by whatever got the Enterprise?"

Scott shook his hea d. "Nae if we're far enough away-say a half million kilometers." He scratched at his jawline, playing out the scenario in his head. "Then, when the hatch starts to close again-wham! We rush in and use the Jenolen to jam the thing open until the Enterprise can escape."

Geordi looked at him as if the man had gone completely crackers. But Scott didn't mind. He was already moving toward his engineering consoles. After all, the sooner he got started, the sooner they could put their plan into action.

"You can't be serious," said the younger man, following him to the console. "That hatch ... it could crush this ship like an egg-and a pretty fragile egg at that."

"Leave it to me," said Scott. "I can increase the shield strength by running warp power through the relay grid."

Geordi shook his head. "No way. These engines are barely holding together as it is. You push them too hard and they'll explode."

Scott shrugged off the possibility. "They'll hold, lad, don't ye worry about that. I know how to get a few extra gigawatts out o' these wee bairns."

Geordi sighed. "Scotty, this is suicide. I am not going to let you get us killed. There's got to be something else we can try. Something less ... well, less crazy."

But Scott would not be so easily denied. When he looked up at Geordi, his voice was a mixture of conviction and entreaty.

"Geordi, m'lad, I've spent my whole life figurin' out how to make crazy things work." His eyes fixed on the younger man's VISOR. "I'm telling ye-one engineer to another-I can do this."

For a moment, they looked at one another. Scott could almost see Geordi searching his heart and his instincts for a course of action. Finally, he made his decision.

"All right," he said. "Let's do it."

Grinning from one side of his face to the other, Scotty clapped him on the shoulder. "Attaboy, Mr. La Forge," he said with true affection. "Welcome to the club!"

And together, united in purpose, they turned their attention to what had to be done.

On the bridge of the Enterprise, Picard steeled himself against the impact of the onrushing solar flare. All around him, his officers did the same.

"Impact in twenty-two seconds," Worf announced.

The captain frowned. They had survived almost every manner of a.s.sault imaginable. They had weathered the most hideous of cosmic phenomena.

And here they were, virtually helpless in the face of a simple solar flare. It would be the ultimate irony if something so utterly commonplace accomplished what the Ferengi, the Romulans and the Borg had failed at the destruction of Starfleet's premier vessel.

"Ten seconds," counted the Klingon.

Picard's teeth grated together. He refused to believe it would end this way. The Enterprise would survive, if by no other means than the force of her captain's will.

"Five," said Worf. "Four. Three. Two. One."

As the blossom of flaming plasma exploded against the cobbled-together shields of the Enterprise, the ship was shaken like a leaf in a windstorm. Picard held onto the edge of Data's console, barely keeping his feet.

But before that first split instant of impact had pa.s.sed, he knew his ship had survived. And as he listened for Worf's voice, his conclusion was confirmed.

"Shields holding," the Klingon rumbled. "But down another fifteen percent, sir."

d.a.m.n. Another couple of flares like that one, thought Picard, and they'd be down to no shields at ail. It was starting to look as if Data's prognosis-grim as it had sounded-was actually too optimistic.

Abruptly, the android turned to him. "Sir?" he said, asking for permission to speak.

What now? wondered the captain. More bad news? "Go ahead, Mr. Data."

"Helm control has been restored," his second officer reported. "Impulse power stands at sixty percent."

Picard smiled. "Excellent."

Under the circ.u.mstances, sixty percent sounded pretty good. Maybe their luck was finally changing.

"Ensign Rager," he said, "take us out of here at half-impulse. Double our distance from the star."

"Aye, sir," said Rager. "Three hundred thousand kilometers."

They'd reach their destination in seconds. And at that distance, the captain judged, they would be reasonably safe from the flares-even with their shields impaired.

Descending to Data's side, he added "Now all we need is a way out of here."

The android looked up at him. "I could conduct a search for another hatch or portal that might still be open."

"Good idea," remarked Picard. "Do so."

"However," Data went on, "the interior surface area of the sphere is more than ten to the sixteenth power square kilometers. It will take seven hours to completely scan the surface."

The ship shook again, though not as badly as before. Apparently, they were still in range of the flares. Picard glanced at the android meaningfully.

Data nodded. "I will endeavor to speed up the process," he promised.

"Thank you," said the captain. And as he turned his attention to the main viewscreen, he wondered how the away team was doing.

Chapter Thirteen.

AS KANE WALKED alongside Sousa toward the next tower, he grunted. Something had tousled his hair. Turning in that direction, he felt a breeze. How about that? There was a wind coming up. Good. It would make this place seem like less of a tomb.

His fellow ensign seemed to take note of the wind, too. For a moment, their eyes met, and Kane saw the regret in Sousa's. But only for a moment, for after that he turned away, setting his sights on their destination.

It figured he'd end up being paired with Sousa, after what had happened between them. And it figured as well that he'd end up on this away team.

I finally get off the ship, he thought, and it turns out to be the most boring mission in the annals of Starfleet. He glanced at Riker, who was off on a parallel ramp toward another tower entirely. Thanks for nothing, Commander.

After Riker had finally conceded the uselessness of this mission, he'd split them up to get it over with that much faster. At least there was that, Kane told himself. At least it would be finished soon.

And then what? He didn't have much to look forward to back on the ship either. Unless, of course, his being included in this away team was an omen of things to come, and the first officer had finally decided to give him a break ...

But first, there was this next tower. This last tower. Sighing with impatience, Kane followed a torturous bend in the ramp and walked up to the arched entranceway. Sousa was with him every step of the way. As if they were still buddies, still looking out for one another.

And whose fault was it that they were no longer buddies? Sousa's, by virtue of his pity? Or Kane's, by virtue of his humiliation?

It was one thing to hang out with people like Andy Sousa when you were riding high, and could feel good about throwing them a crumb. But when you were down, you didn't want to see them. You didn't want to be reminded of how far you'd fallen. And you certainly didn't want to accept pity from them, because pity was something you should be giving them-not the other way around.

So maybe it was his fault that he and Sousa were no longer friends. So what? Who cared?