"Wait a minute," interjected Hronsky. As he peered at Picard from beneath his s.h.a.ggy, dark brows, he unconsciously laid a paternal hand on the top of his control console. "What if this man is a spy for ..." He tilted his head to indicate the console's monitor, where the telltale sensor image was still in evidence. "... for them?"

That stopped everyone dead in their tracks-Travers included. He looked at the stranger in their midst with a whole new level of mistrust.

"That would explain why he was so eager to throw a monkey wrench into the project," Hronsky went on. "He didn't want us to catch on to the fact that there was a civilization out there."

Schmitter nodded. "Makes sense, in a way. Of course, he's human-but that doesn't really mean anything. He could have hired himself out to an alien race ... maybe not even the one that the sensors picked up."

Travers turned to his security chief. "You mean the Klingons?"

"Or the Romulans," Schmitter suggested. "Could be they wanted that civilization all to themselves. And they needed someone on the inside to keep us from getting wind of it."

"That's ridiculous," Santos argued. She turned to the captain, her eyes clouded with just a hint of suspicion. "It is ridiculous, isn't it?"

Picard nodded. "Yes. I am not a spy-not for the Klingons or the Romulans or anyone else."

The commodore grunted. "Then who are you?"

The captain frowned. "Believe me," he said. "You don't want to know."

Travers looked from one of his officers to the next, taking them all in. Only Santos showed any faith at all that the stranger wasn't up to no good-and even she didn't seem so sure of it. Finally, the commodore turned back to Picard himself.

"I'm not entirely sure that I buy this spy story," he decided. "For one thing, you could have gone to more trouble to secure a believable ident.i.ty." He shook his head. "But whoever you are, I don't trust you one little bit." Without looking at his security officer, he said, "Hans?"

Schmitter straightened. "The brig, sir?"

"The brig," Travers confirmed. "At least until we can get a starship out here to take him into custody. After that, he's Starfleet's problem."

"I've got another one," Barclay announced proudly.

Geordi turned away from his own work below a denuded control console to look at the lieutenant, who was standing in front of a similar console on the other side of the room. Barclay's fingers were running over the pads and keys on his control board while he eyed the monitor above it.

Data and O'Connor had popped their heads out as well. O'Connor looked hopeful; the android was as emotionless as ever, at least on the outside.

"Good going, Reg," said the chief engineer. "Any idea what it is?"

La Forge tried his best to keep the strain out of his voice. After all, Barclay was high-strung enough as it was. The last thing he needed was a stepped-up sense of urgency.

"Don't know," said the thin man, his eyes flickering across the screen. His lips pressed together as he concentrated. "Not for sure, anyway. But ..." Suddenly, he cast a glance in Geordi's direction. "I wonder if this could be ... their retrieval beam!"

The chief engineer cursed softly. So far, working like demons, they had coaxed a number of systems into operation-even if they hadn't the slightest idea how they worked.

First, there had been the sensor-access monitor, which was virtually useless as a search tool without its a.s.sociated memory banks. Then they'd gotten something similar to an annular confinement beam up and running. Next, they had restored what appeared to be a transporter lock. And most recently, they'd added a time-s.p.a.ce adjustment device, which allowed for the pa.s.sage of planets through s.p.a.ce.

After all, any given world could move tens of millions of kilometers in as little as half a solar year. If the transporter couldn't adjust for this, it might only send people and things to a world's current location, as opposed to the position it occupied at a designated point in the past. The result? It would be beaming its transportees into the void, which would hardly be to their liking.

In any case, with all these systems purring contentedly, they could now lock on to a subject-provided they knew where it was-and by virtue of the monitor, actually see what they had locked on to. Then, with the help of the time-s.p.a.ce adjuster and the confinement beam a.n.a.log, they could establish a path through s.p.a.ce and time for the subject's atoms to travel along.

Now Barclay thought he had gotten the retrieval system going. If he was right, they had everything they needed to bring the captain back. Except for two little items, of course. One was the ability to rea.s.semble Captain Picard's atoms once they were drawn back into the station. The other was a set of coordinates describing where and when he was.

But first things first. If they really had a working retrieval system, it would be simple enough to prove it. And if not, at least they would know where they stood.

"Reg," Geordi ventured, "can you get your system working in tandem with the others?"

Barclay's brow creased as he attempted to comply. A moment later, he recoiled a couple of inches. Then he looked to his superior and shrugged.

"Apparently," he explained, in his characteristic start-and-stop way, "the system's beaten me to it. I mean, it's working in tandem with the other routines already. I guess that's how it was designed."

Geordi felt grateful for the small favor. At least something was going right. "All right, then," he said. "In that case, let's put it through its paces."

Careful not to hit his head as he had before, the chief engineer swung himself up to a standing position and crossed the room. Stopping just behind Barclay, he watched the man lock on to a subject pictured on the sensor system's monitor. Immediately, the images flickering across the screen stopped.

What it showed them now was some kind of ancient building, more than half in ruin. To Geordi, it looked like the remnants of the Achorri civilization that he'd seen with his family at the age often. Or was it eleven?

In any case, it gave them a convenient object to use in their test. The chief engineer pointed past Barclay to the central structure in the ruins-something that might have been a statue of a venerated ancestor, if the race in question had four arms and six legs. On the other hand, it could also have been a piece of furniture; it was hard to tell.

"Let's try for that thing," Geordi instructed.

Barclay nodded. Operating the controls accordingly, he activated the system. There was a hum, more felt than heard, which lasted only a few seconds. Then all was silent again. His pulse racing, La Forge turned to Data, who was closest to the monitor that kept track of the internal sensor network.

They had worked together for so long, and at so many intricate tasks, the engineer didn't even have to ask. Data knew exactly what he wanted.

"The object in question has been retrieved," the android reported, his eyes fixed on his screen. "What is more, it is on this level." He looked up and gestured toward the corridor outside. "Just down this hall, behind the third door on the left."

Geordi grunted. That solved that question. Up until now, they'd had no idea where anything beamed aboard the station would actually appear. Now they had located the beam-on point, at least in this particular node.

"I'm going to check it out," the chief engineer announced. He put a hand on Barclay's shoulder. "You too, Reg. You're the one that got the mechanism going. You deserve to see the fruits of your labor."

A brief smile of grat.i.tude flickering across his face, Barclay followed him out of the control room and down the corridor. The third door on their left had a pad next to it, but Geordi didn't expect it to work for them. He was all set to pry off the panel next to it when the door simply slid aside at his approach.

Apparently, its program was still intact-unlike many of the station's programs, which had been wiped clean during the surge that sent the captain reeling through time and s.p.a.ce. Stepping through the portal, the chief engineer peered inside.

The room was dark, and a lot bigger than it had looked from the outside, with graceful arches in the places where the walls met the ceiling. The only illumination within was a circle of very dim, red light at floor level-and even that was fading fast. As Geordi took a closer look, he saw that the ruddy glow had come from a series of energy coils recessed into the deck.

"Look," said Barclay. "There's something here." Kneeling just outside the circle of energy coils, he played his tricorder over the area described by them.

The chief engineer knelt beside him and used his tricorder as well. Sure enough, there was something there, something that wasn't part of the transporter arrangement. Geordi would have recognized it sooner, except the material had basically the same texture and energy absorption factors as the surface below it.

But Barclay was right. Concentrating, he saw that there was a solid film coating the center of the aliens' transporter platform. And it hadn't been there before, he bet.

"Could this be ... ?" The thin man's voice trailed off ominously.

The chief engineer frowned under his VISOR. "I think it is, Reg. Whatever it was we transported here, this is the shape it arrived in." He sat back on his heels, still regarding the film. "So much for working without a rea.s.sembling device. But at least it got here. We're a step ahead of where we were before."

Barclay nodded and turned to his superior. "So I guess you could say this was a ... success?" He glanced pointedly at the stuff within the circle of coils as he awaited an answer.

"I guess," Geordi agreed. Standing up, he took out his phaser. "But we've still got a long way to go." Adjusting the setting, he aimed the phaser at the platform. Then he activated it.

After all, if-no, when they ever got a fix on the captain, they didn't want to have to have to transport him with foreign material on the transporter pad.

The stuff burned off in a matter of seconds. When he was finished, La Forge put the phaser away. "Come on," he said, gesturing for Barclay to follow. "Let's-"

Suddenly, the energy coils lit up. Only for a second, but enough to make them wary. And before they could comment on it, it happened a second time. Out in the corridor, the light levels dipped-then, just like that, gave way to a darkness punctuated only by the lights they'd brought with them.

"Uh-oh," said the chief engineer. "I hope that's not what I think it is." But even as he uttered the words, he knew his hope wouldn't amount to a hill of beans.

More than likely, there was a fair-sized power surge coming. And if that was the case, this room full of energy-transport coils was the last place he wanted to be.

"Come on," he urged Barclay, grabbing him by the sleeve. "We've got to get out of here."

The other man didn't have to be told twice. As Geordi lunged through the doorway, Barclay was right on his heels. No doubt, he remembered what happened when Varley was caught half in and half out of a chamber.

They had barely made the turn toward the control room when they saw a series of light pulses run the length of the bulkheads and back again. If there had been any doubt of what was going on before, there wasn't any now.

Geordi's teeth ground together as he ran down the hallway. Not now, he told himself. We were just starting to get to the point where we could bring the captain back. We can't have come this far only to have to close up shop ahead of time.

The chief engineer beat his companion back to the control room. Fortunately, the lights were still on in there. Planting his hand against the far side of the entrance to stop his forward progress, he wrestled himself inside. O'Connor was busy monitoring his tricorder while Data worked furiously at one of the consoles. The android barely looked up to acknowledge his friend's entrance.

"How bad is it?" Geordi asked.

O'Connor shook her head. "It's hard to tell, but it seems to be escalating. And if the trend continues, it could be as bad as the surge that transported Captain Picard."

The chief engineer bit his lip. They would never make enough progress in the next few minutes to bring the captain back from wherever he'd gone. As much as he hated the idea, what choice did he have ... but to evacuate?

"Commander," said Data, as calmly as if all of eternity were at his beck and call, "I am pursuing an idea that just occurred to me. Though there seems to be no way to prevent the energy surges, perhaps I can coax the station into releasing some of the pent-up energy."

Geordi thought about it for a moment. Release the energy? Sure ... but how? He asked the question out loud. Nor was the android slow in giving him an answer.

"I am attempting," he said, "to boost the input levels on the aliens' confinement beam by recycling power through the emitter array."

Barclay, who had been standing off to the side, shook his head. "But we're not transporting anything else aboard right now. What's the point of sending out a beam if-"

And then he stopped himself, no doubt realizing what Data had in mind. By then, Geordi had seen the android's strategy as well. The confinement beam expended energy-a fair amount of it, too, considering it had to travel through time as well as s.p.a.ce. And if they could get energy to leave the station almost as quickly as it was building up, the confinement beam might turn out to be a pretty good safety valve.

At least, that was the theory. In practice, there was no guarantee at all that it would work-other than the knowledge that Data had some confidence in it.

"Reg," said the chief engineer, "make sure all our forcefields are still in operation. If Commander Data's plan doesn't work, I want to know that we've still got an escape route."

"Aye, sir," replied Barclay, heading out into the corridor to carry out his orders. His voice trembled just a little, Geordi noted. But after that, his attention was fixed on the android, whose fingers were flying over his console so quickly now that no biological imaging system could have kept up with them.

"Power surges still mounting in intensity," reported O'Connor. "Also, they're coming no more than fifteen seconds apart. Estimate systems overload in four and a half minutes."

It would take at least a minute to leave the control room, return to the hatch, and get back into their shuttle. And another thirty seconds or so to remove themselves from the vicinity of the station, so that if something exploded, they would be well out of range.

So Data really had three minutes, maximum. And he must have known it, because his synthetic fingers seemed to weave and st.i.tch their way over the controls even a little faster than before.

There was a sound of footfalls clattering along the corridor, and Barclay popped back into the control room. "All's clear," he informed them. "Everything's working the ... um, the way it's supposed to." Before he finished, he was staring at the android, too.

"Data?" prompted Geordi. "How are we doing?"

His friend answered without taking his eyes off his work. "The beam is operating at maximum output. I cannot increase it any further; I can only make certain that the output does not tend to diminish."

"Three and a half minutes," noted O'Connor. Which really meant two.

The chief engineer had never felt so helpless in his entire life. The captain's life was hanging in the balance, and all he could do was watch. Each second seemed to drag on forever.

"Three minutes," announced O'Connor. And then: "Two and a half." Which meant one and a half, and finally one. One minute before they had to abandon the place-and Captain Picard along with it.

"Hang on," said O'Connor. Her brow creased as she stared at her tricorder. "The surges have stopped accelerating."

Geordi realized that his hands had curled into fists. He forced them to relax. "Stopped?" he repeated.

"Aye, sir," replied O'Connor. "We're still experiencing the surges, but they're not getting any worse. In fact," she went on, her eyes reflecting her readout, "they're starting to cycle down."

The chief engineer let out a sigh. They weren't out of the woods yet, of course. But he would embrace any excuse for optimism he could find.

And he found another excuse in the corridor outside, as the corridor lighting dimmed and went out. The station was returning to normal, or at least as normal as it got here. Data's idea seemed to be working just fine. It had just taken a while, is all.

"The surges are all but gone now," the android told them. For the first time since the crisis had begun, he looked up at Geordi. "Power levels are stabilizing. Now would be a good time to resume our work, I think."

La Forge nodded. But first, he'd have to call Commander Riker and tell him that the situation was getting worse. If they were going to retrieve the captain, it would have to be soon.

Chapter Seven.

THE COLONY'S BRIG had an inhospitable feeling about it-as if it hadn't been used for ... what? Months? Years? Or, for that matter, ever?

As Picard paced the narrow limits of his cell, with its three solid walls and a transparent energy barrier across its front, he mused that ever was probably the correct answer. The plastic containers piled immediately outside the brig's entrance were a clue, telling him that his place of confinement had been used as a storage area until shortly before his arrival.

The captain eyed the tall, dark-haired security officer who stood guard in the larger room outside. He doubted that the man would fall for a feigned attack of food poisoning or the like. Even in the twenty-third century, the Academy had warned their security cadets about such ploys.

Leaning against one of the walls of his cell, Picard sighed. He would not have thought it possible for his situation to get any more complicated. And yet, as if some fiendishly s.a.d.i.s.tic deity were looking after him, it had.

If time unraveled the way history had taught him it would, Lieutenant Harold was slated to survive the ma.s.sacre by the Gorn. That was just about the only fact he could cling to with any certainty.

However, a matter-antimatter explosion would leave no survivors. That was an irrefutable scientific fact. Therefore, if time was to follow the course he knew, there would be-could be-no explosion.

And yet, he had seen evidence of the power source's instability. It was real, not imagined. If left alone, it would have devastating consequences.

The captain scowled. So there were two possibilities. Either history would be changed-or someone would prevent the explosion. And if someone did prevent it, who would that someone be?

Try as he might, he could come up with only one answer.

It was an almost poetic notion, wasn't it? To be thrown back in time by an apparent accident-only to find oneself the instrument by which history maintains its course. Poetic indeed.