The Betazoid shook her head. "No, thanks. I won't be staying long. There is too much I still need to take care of today."

It reminded the first officer that even during a crisis, life went on. Troi would have her usual round of consultations and evaluations to perform, regardless of whether the captain was here or not-or what kind of political turmoil the Gorn homeworld was in.

"So," he said, "what brings you here in the middle of your busy day, Counselor? Not that you need an excuse, mind you."

"You bring me here," she replied. She glanced at the computer terminal. "You know, you're supposed to be using this time to sleep, not to tinker."

Riker shrugged, feeling some cramping in his shoulders where they met his neck. Reaching across his body, he kneaded the muscle on the left side with his right hand. It was as hard as a rock.

"Can't help it," he told her. "I was exploring my options." He glanced again at the computer screen. "Such as they are."

Coming around to a position directly behind him, Troi peered past him at the screen. "Bon Amar?" she asked. "The Bajoran pirates?"

"The pirates," he confirmed. "Deanna, would you mind ... ?"

Before he could even finish the question, he felt her remove his hand from his shoulder muscle. In the next breath, her fingers probed along either side of his neck with just the right amount of firmness.

Of course, she was an empath. She could feel what he was feeling, even as he was feeling it, and make whatever minute adjustments were necessary. In the time it would take someone else just to figure out where the ache was, Troi would have already made it go away.

"The Bon Amar," she reminded him, making small, circular forays into the muscular trouble spots. "Am I to understand that they represent one of your options?"

Riker stared at the screen and sighed. "They could," he told her, "if I allow them to. Apparently, Ro knows how to contact them. She offered me their services in locating Captain Picard."

The Betazoid played the cords at the base of his neck like piano keys, loosening them up a bit more. "And will you take her up on her offer?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so. I keep trying to imagine what the captain would do in my place. And I can't see him enlisting outlaws in his cause-no matter how right or important that cause might be."

"The ends wouldn't justify the means?" Troi suggested.

Riker nodded. "Something like that."

Now that he was somewhat relaxed, she dug a little deeper. "And what about Geordi? What sort of progress is he making?"

The first officer frowned. He could see Troi's face reflected in the computer screen, superimposed over the data on the Bon Amar. She was frowning, too.

"Not enough," he confided. "And there's a problem now with the station. Some sort of power surges, which could destroy the equipment at any moment. And if the equipment goes ..." He allowed his voice to trail off meaningfully.

The Betazoid nodded. "I see."

Her fingers delved as deep as the epicenters of his discomfort. Riker winced at the pain she aroused with her explorations, grateful for her a.s.sistance.

"And," she went on, "the situation on Gorn doesn't seem to be getting any better. Two days is not a lot of time when you are searching so large an area."

"No," he agreed, "it's not." He could feel his nostrils flare with frustration. "Deanna ... between you and me ... I don't think we're going to make it."

Troi paused in her ma.s.sage for just a fraction of a second-but Riker was aware of it. "You don't think we're going to find the captain? But just the other day ..."

"I know," he told her. "I was confident.Hopeful.Despite the odds, I wasn't going was the other day. Today, I've got bad feeling." A very bad feeling.

In the next moment, he felt simultaneous, tiny bursts of agony-one on either side of his neck. Then the pain was gone. Just like that.

Reaching up, he grasped one of Troi's hands. It felt good in his. Slim and soft as it was, he took strength from it. And she left it there just long enough before reclaiming it.

"Of course," she said, "you could change the odds. You could exercise the option that Ensign Ro has put in front of you."

He turned in his chair to look up at her. "They're outlaws," he reminded her.

Troi's dark eyes fixed on him. "Yes. But they could also be the captain's salvation."

"Then if you were me," Riker asked, "you'd bend the rules? You'd ask the Bon Amar for help?"

The Betazoid smiled wistfully. "I'm not you, Will."

And yet, he had a feeling which way she'd go.

The first officer grunted. "Thanks, Counselor. For your help-all of it."

Troi shrugged, gently patting Riker on the shoulder. "It's my job," she said, "to lend support to my commanding officer in times of duress."

He returned her smile. "And you're d.a.m.ned good at it."

Then she was on her way to the door, and those other responsibilities that awaited her. Riker waved to her as she departed, leaned forward in his chair, and eyed the computer screen.

The Bon Amar...

"Last time, I got the impression Commander Hronsky wasn't so eager to see me down there," noted Picard.

They were descending the metal stairs that led to the colony's sensor control facility. Julia looked back at him and winked.

"I don't think he'll notice," she said. "He's too busy accepting congratulations from everyone. Besides, he's always been a lot more close-to-the-vest than he has to be. I mean, you're not exactly a Romulan spy."

No, the captain agreed silently. He was something a good deal more dangerous, though he certainly wasn't about to say so.

"Congratulations?" he echoed. "For what?"

"That would be telling," she noted. "And I promised not to do that."

Fortunately, he wouldn't be kept in the dark for long. With Julia taking the lead, they entered the control center-only to find the place even more crowded than the last time Picard had been there.

In the middle of it all, Hronsky was holding up his hands for silence. "Calm down now," he was saying, though his expression said that he wanted anything but calm. "We don't know anything about them yet. We just know they're there."

Them? Abruptly, the captain felt a trickle of ice water slide down his back. Could it be that Hronsky had ... ?

"Then the rumors were true," observed a man with thinning hair and a red beard.

"Apparently," replied the chief engineer.

"Are they s.p.a.cefaring?" a woman asked.

"As I said," Hronsky told her, "we don't know a thing. What we've hit on could be an entire civilization or an outpost world of something much larger. There's just no way to tell at this point."

But Picard knew. After all, he'd been through this part of s.p.a.ce often enough to be an expert on it-and there was only one sentient race close enough for the sensors to have detected. Only one race close enough to resent the Federation's presence on Cestus III.

The Gorn.

The captain marveled at the bizarre irony. The colonists had had some advance knowledge of their attackers after all. Not the kind of knowledge that would have helped them, certainly, but knowledge nonetheless.

Yet history never recorded this. Which was to say, Matthew Harold never mentioned it, since he was history's only source in the matter. Had he simply neglected to mention it? Or had he been so badly traumatized that it escaped his mind?

"So," said Julia. "What do you think, Dixon?"

Picard returned her gaze. "It's ... very exciting," he responded. "Very exciting indeed."

"How in blazes did you get a fix on something that far away?" The captain recognized the voice as belonging to Travers, though he couldn't see the man for the crowd between them.

The chief engineer shrugged. "It wasn't as hard as you might think. I just stepped up the magnetic injection ratio in the power source. Not much, just a dozen points, the way they did it on those starships recently. Once I had all that extra juice, it was child's play to extend the sensor range."

Picard was still mulling over Hronsky's discovery, so deep in thought as he considered the ramifications that he failed to hear the engineer's words on a conscious level. However, he must have heard them on some other level, because an alarm went off in his brain.

Hronsky had done what? Stepped up the magnetic injection ratio a dozen points? But when the captain had seen the ratio last, it was already at two hundred-the maximum recommended number for this kind of reactor.

At an increase of twelve points, the pressure would become too great. The dilithium crystal would shatter, causing a runaway reaction that would eventually breach the reactor's magnetic vessel and cause the whole thing to explode-taking the colony and a sizable chunk of Cestus III along with it.

"No," the captain said out loud. "It's too much."

Julia's forehead wrinkled ever so slightly. "I beg your pardon?"

"It's too much," he repeated. And before he realized it, he was making his way through the throng toward Hronsky-not knowing what he would say, but knowing that he had to say something.

Before he quite got there, however, he felt a hand close on his arm. Tracing it to a face, he saw that it was the commodore who'd gotten hold of him.

"Hill," Travers said flatly, as if the very word left a bad taste in his mouth. "What are you doing here? This area is supposed to be secure." Peering over the heads of the a.s.sembled colonists, he must have spotted Julia's among them, because his next comment was "Oh. I see."

"Let me go," insisted Picard. "I must speak with Commander Hronsky."

The commodore's brow furrowed. "And why is that?" he asked.

The captain frowned. "Because if he's not careful, he's going to blow up the whole colony."

Travers regarded him, not certain whether to get angry or to laugh, "Blow up the colony," he repeated. "And I suppose you've got some property on Risa you want to sell me."

Shrugging off the commodore's grip, Picard continued his pa.s.sage toward the chief engineer-and beyond him, the control console for the sensor array. Hronsky held up his hand.

"That's far enough, Mr. Hill. Don't make me call for security."

All eyes were on the captain now as he pointed to the power gauge on the console. "Two-twelve is too high. Your dilithium crystal won't be able to take that kind of pressure."

The engineer looked at him askance, his arms folded across his chest. "And how would you know? This isn't the same kind of engine they use on commercial vessels."

Indeed, how would he know-if he were truly Dixon Hill, captain of a merchant ship called the Stargazer, and not the man in charge of the twenty-fourth-century Enterprise?

"I've known a few Starfleet officers in my day," said Picard. "And none of them would think of taking their injection ratios higher than two hundred."

Hronsky harrumphed. "Then, obviously, you haven't been introduced to Captain Lasker of the Iroquois. Or Captain Tranh of the Peerless. They've been running their injection ratios at two-fifteen for weeks now, with no sign of a problem." He shook his head derisively. "As if I need to answer to you, Mr. Hill."

The captain let the remark slip off his back. There was no room for emotions here. He had to get his point across before this celebration turned into disaster.

To be sure, Hronsky was right about both ships. But some twenty-five days after it initiated the experiment, the Iroquois suffered a runaway reaction that tore it in half. And the Peerless would have suffered the same fate-or at least, that's what an investigation showed-if it hadn't pulled back on its injection ratio when its sister ship was destroyed.

"Those vessels have bigger core chambers," Picard pointed out, rightly enough. "In their cases, it will take longer for the pressure to build up. But here ..." He indicated the power gauge again. "The chamber is small. We've got to lower the ratio now, while there's still time."

Travers shouldered his way in front of the captain. "You sound quite sure of yourself, Mr. Hill. But Starfleet Command is quite sure of the contrary, or they wouldn't have authorized the experiments on the Peerless and the Iroquois."

Picard's lips compressed in a thin, tight line as he tried his d.a.m.nedest to hold back his frustration. He couldn't stop what Hronsky was doing without giving away who he was. And he couldn't give away who he was without risking a mutilation of this timeline.

"Starfleet Command is wrong," he told the commodore-rather weakly, he knew. "The Iroquois won't last the month. And the Peerless will discontinue the experiment." The captain cursed inwardly. "Listen ... just humor me. Turn the pressure down for a few days. Run some more tests. And then, if-"

"If nothing," said Travers. "I don't recall asking you for advice on how to run this colony, sir. In fact, of all and sundry a.s.sembled here, you are the last person I would ask for advice."

He looked to Julia, who had come up behind Picard. "Sorry," she told the commodore. "I didn't expect there to be any problem with bringing him here."

The captain turned to her. "Julia ... I am not trying to mislead anyone. I know of what I speak. If nothing is done, this colony will be annihilated."

She looked at him, wanting to believe-wanting not to think he was crazy, or worse, a deceiver of some kind. But he hadn't produced any evidence to convince her or anyone else. Nor was he likely to.

And in the long run, did it matter? The Gorn would be here soon enough. Either way, these people were going to die. Either way, they- "Commodore?"

They all turned around to see First Officer Schmitter standing in the doorway. The man was looking straight at Picard-not a good sign, in the captain's estimate.

Travers returned his security officer's gaze. "Yes, Hans? What is it?"

Still scrutinizing the man he'd known as Dixon Hill, Schmitter cleared his throat. "I've just received a response to the inquiry we placed with Starfleet Command, sir. They say there is no one named Dixon Hill currently operating a commercial vessel-nor, for that matter, has there ever been."

The commodore smiled grimly. "I see," he noted. "And the ship our Mr. Hill claimed to command?"

Schmitter allowed himself a small, private smile. h.e.l.l, Picard might have found this amusing too, if their circ.u.mstances had been reversed.

"A Stargazer was destroyed almost a year ago," replied the security officer. "On the other side of Federation s.p.a.ce. According to Starfleet records, the Stargazer's travels never took it within a hundred light-years of Cestus Three."

Picard swallowed. Apparently, the jig was up.

Julia Santos was shaking her head, refusing to believe that her newfound friend had lied about these things. But her bias in his favor was hardly a secret these days-and even she couldn't argue with cold, hard Starfleet facts.

Travers cleared his throat-almost happily, the captain thought. "Well, Mr. Hill-or whatever your name is. Care to comment on this less-than-startling revelation?"

Picard remained silent. What could he say now that they'd believe? At this point, not much.

The commodore looked at him askance. "Cat's got your tongue, I see. No surprise there either, I suppose. Of course, that still leaves us with a mystery on our hands, namely-"