Riker nodded. "Thank you, Ensign. In the meantime, I'll have Lieutenant Worf map out the routes I'd like your friends to search. And-"

"Begging your pardon, sir," Ro interrupted, "but I think they'll prefer to map out their own routes. That's just their way."

He could live with that. He said so. The ensign turned to go, then stopped herself and looked back at him.

"You know," she said, "you surprised me. I thought you'd hold out until the bitter end."

Riker allowed himself a smile. "So did I," he admitted.

Ro looked at him frankly. "What changed your mind?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, exactly. I guess desperation has a way of clarifying your priorities."

She smiled back. "Right." And a moment later, the ready-room doors were closing behind her.

Squinting in the rays of the hot midday sun, Picard kept his phaser hidden in the crook of his arm as he and Julia made their way across the colony's plaza to the sensor facility. Fortunately, there were few of the colonists around, and those who were didn't seem to take any inordinate interest in them.

At the entrance to the facility, they stopped, waiting for the security system to announce their presence. The captain looked around uneasily, then turned as the doors started to slide aside.

Of all people, it had to be Hronsky himself who stood there, his eyes popping open suddenly as he realized whom he was facing. Before he could sound the alarm, Picard drew his weapon and pressed the trigger.

The chief engineer staggered under the impact of the blast, hit the wall behind him, and slid to the ground. With one last sweeping glance, to make sure this hadn't been noticed by anyone in the plaza, the captain took Julia by the arm and led her inside.

"d.a.m.n," she whispered, kneeling for a second by the unconscious Hronsky. "Did you have to stun him, too?"

"Yes," Picard replied-also in a whisper. "There was no time to do anything else."

Scanning the interior of the structure, he saw that it was spa.r.s.ely populated now-in contrast to the day before, when the chief engineer had announced his discovery. And all those present were too occupied with their monitors to notice what had happened to their superior.

The controls that related to the power source were in the center of the room. No one was watching them at the moment. Perhaps that had been Hronsky's job. Or perhaps he had decided not to post anyone over them, as a show of disdain for the prisoner's warning.

In any case, the captain and Julia were able to get halfway to the controls before anyone even glanced in their direction. But once one of the engineers noticed them, the others all raised their heads-almost as if there were a telepathic link between them.

"What do you want?" blurted one of them-the red-bearded man that Picard had seen here before. He was looking not at Picard's face, but at his leveled phaser.

"Not to harm you," the captain a.s.sured him.

"He's here to sabotage the power source," concluded a woman with long, blonde hair tied up in a braid.

There was no point in explaining, Picard decided. He had tried that once already and failed miserably. So instead, he merely took the few extra steps he needed to reach the control console.

Julia stayed with him. She must have felt terrible, the way her fellow colonists were staring at her. Like a traitor. But she was acting in their best interests, even if they would never believe it.

A stocky man with graying temples seemed on the verge of making a move. The captain froze him with a glance.

"Don't even think about it," he said.

The man scowled. "Why are you doing this?" he asked. "Who are you, anyway?"

Picard ignored them, lowering his gaze to the level of the power-source monitors. He didn't like what he saw there. Pressure in the containment vessel was up markedly. Punching a few raised pads on the console, he saw that the trend was accelerating. Another couple of hours of this and it would have been too late to stop the process.

But it wasn't too late now. At least, not according to the captain's calculations. There was still time to keep these people alive, at least for a while.

He was just about to reduce the magnetic injector ratio to two hundred when he heard the doors to the place slide open and felt a hot breath from the air outside. Whirling, Picard saw a single figure silhouetted in the brightlight.

"d.a.m.n," spat Travers, starting toward the limp body of his chief engineer. "What in the name of heaven is going on here?"

The captain realized that, with his body in the way, he'd been blocking the commodore's view of his phaser. Instantly, he remedied that.

Travers's eyes opened wide as they fixed on the weapon. Then, slowly, he looked up to meet Picard's. For a moment, the man just stood there, trying to decipher the situation-to find an option worth pursuing.

If he were a character in a Dixon Hill novel, he might have tried to "make a break for it." As it was, the commodore seemed to know when was out of luck. Of course, he wasn't going to step inside until the captain asked him to. There was still a chance that someone might spot him and realize that the sensor control section had been taken over.

"Please," said Picard. "Come in."

Frowning, Travers complied. The doors swept closed behind him as he got down on his haunches to look at Hronsky. Satisfied that the engineer was still alive, he looked up at his antagonist.

"I'm curious," he said, "about how you expect to get away with this."

Very simple, thought the captain. I don't. Not unless I can figure out a way to signal my first officer, and quickly.

But what he said was "Never mind that, now. Move over here, with the rest of your people." He gestured with his phaser, to make it clear as to what he wanted Travers to do.

En route, however, the commodore appeared to notice that the doctor wasn't standing with everyone else. She was right in front of the power control console. Travers put two and two together.

"No," he said, his eyes s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up in his face. "Not you, Julia. Not you, too."

"I believe him," she told the commodore, refusing to lower her gaze. "Though I don't expect anyone else to."

"That's good," Travers replied, not bothering to keep his scorn out of his voice. "Because no one else here is that gullible, as far as I can tell."

Julia didn't say any more. She knew that she would be called to a court-martial for helping a mystery man sabotage the sensors' power source. And her only defense would be the readings in her tricorder.

If Picard were the judge advocate a.s.signed to the case, he was sure he'd have a difficult time finding her innocent. So would anyone else. But apparently, the doctor had already accepted that prospect.

"If it is any consolation," said the captain, "I do not plan to disable your power source. Only to make it impossible for you to tamper with the injection ratio-in the short term, at any rate."

Glancing back and forth between the console and the colonists, he remembered to keep his phaser aimed at the latter with one hand, while he worked at the former with the other. Before long, he had discovered the subprogram that governed the action of the magnetic injectors. Adjusting it, he inst.i.tuted an elaborate pa.s.sword system to stand guard over the alteration. Then he stood back.

Travers was glowering at him. "We'll meet again, Mr. Hill. You can count on that. And when we do, you'll have occasion to regret this incident."

"Perhaps," Picard conceded. "However, you will not."

The question in the captain's mind now was where to go from here, With the power-source crisis firmly fixed in the front of his mind, he hadn't had time to make any longer-range plans. Now he had no choice.

The problem, of course, was that he hadn't yet figured out a way to contact Riker. And until he did, it would be impossible for him to formulate a real plan of action. On the other hand, he couldn't stay here-or anywhere in the colony, for that matter. That left just one option: taking to the hills.

Before he could withdraw, however, he saw the man with the red beard glance over to the corner of the room. Following the glance, Picard saw the intercom unit on the wall-and remembered that there might be engineers elsewhere in the facility. Engineers who would rush to his prisoners' aid upon hearing a call for help.

Seeing that the captain had caught on to his intention, the bearded man either took the initiative or panicked. Either way, the result was the same. He darted in the direction of the intercom, moving more quickly than anyone his size had a right to.

Picard had no choice but to try to stun him. Tracking the man with his phaser, he pressed the trigger. In almost the same instant, the phased energy beam lanced across the room and struck its victim square in the shoulder.

As the captain expected, it knocked the bearded engineer off his feet. But he had also expected it to deprive him of consciousness-and that it did not do.Though the man was woozy, he was still in control of his senses.

Bad news, Picard remarked silently. Very bad news. Apparently, the phaser had all but expended its power reserves. Leave it to me, he thought, to be afflicted with a guard who forgets to recharge his weapon.

Nor was he the only one who'd grasped the situation, he noted. A couple of the colonists, including Travers, were looking at him with slitted eyes, wondering if he was as vulnerable as they thought.

"That phaser's out of energy," the commodore growled. "Now's our chance. Get him-before he can escape!"

As the engineers started to move forward, the captain hurled his weapon into their midst. Then, casting a last, grateful glance at Julia, he spun about and took off for the exit.

As he reached the doors, they started to part. Picard braced himself for the wash of hot air-and felt something close around his ankle, causing him to fall forward. As he caught himself with his hands, he looked back and saw that Chief Engineer Hronsky had begun to emerge from his phaser-induced siesta.

Shifting his weight forward onto his hands, the captain lashed back at Hronsky with his free foot. It caught the man in his jaw, snapping his head back. For the second time in the last several minutes, the engineer slumped senseless, Then Picard was diving out through the open doors, squinting against the sudden glare of the desert sun and trying to remember the general direction of the place where he had been found. Not that there was any advantage in returning there, but it seemed as good a destination as any.

Riker sat in the middle seat of the Enterprise's command center and stared at the blue-green world pictured in the viewscreen. According to its last survey, it boasted no less than three presentient species, each one the master of a different continent, each one more or less on an evolutionary par with the other two.

Things would get interesting there in the next several million years. But that was someone else's concern. All the first officer cared about right now was whether or not a single sentient being had been transported there accidentally by an alien s.p.a.ce-and-time machine.

Rubbing his eyes, Riker could hear the quick, sure tapping of Worf's fingers as they moved over his controls. Without looking, the human knew that his tactical officer was studying his monitors, trying to expedite the operation of the ship's sensors as they completed their planetary scan.

The Klingon, at least, had used his rest period to get some legitimate shut-eye. The first officer envied him that. For Riker, sleep simply hadn't been in the cards. It had eluded him like a wily fugitive in a maze of shadowy corridors-each of which led back to the bridge and the search for Captain Picard. As a result, he'd returned to the center seat half an hour ahead of schedule, telling himself that there was no point in prolonging the agony.

After all, this was where he wanted to be, where he needed to be, and where he would be-for another thirty-three hours or so, until his orders forced him to call off the search. At this point, horrible as that prospect might be, the first officer could envision no other conclusion.

Sure, he still held out a slim hope that somehow, some way, they would find what they were looking for. But his Alaskan upbringing had forcibly made a realist out of Riker, and he knew, in his heart of hearts, that they were just playing out the string.

"Commander?"

The first officer turned at the sound of Worf's voice. He couldn't help but search the Klingon's face for a sign of good news. But Worf's expression told him that it was just more of the same.

"The scan is negative," he concluded softly, knowing the Klingon would be as disappointed as he was.

Worf nodded. "That is correct."

Riker returned his attention to the viewscreen, where the cla.s.s-M planet with its three presentient species still hung in the void. There were seventeen other worlds in this star system, but none of them were even remotely equipped to support human life.

The first officer sighed. "Proceed to the next system," he said.

Worf ran a quick calculation. "That would be Beta Artemnoron. Estimated time of arrival twelve hours and thirty-six minutes."

Riker felt his heart sink inside him. That was more than a third of the time they had left. If they failed to locate the captain there as well, they would have no choice but to recover Geordi's away team and make a beeline for Gorn. And even then, they'd be cutting it close.

"Beta Artemnoron," he told his helmsman. "Best speed."

"Aye, sir," came the reply, as Ensign Rager-whose shift had just begun-brought the Enterprise about. A moment later, they were making their way out of the system at full impulse, waiting for clearance to go to warp.

As Riker watched, he found himself wondering what would have happened if he had taken Ro up on her offer a little sooner. Say, a day earlier. Or two. That might have made the difference. But he had let his pigheadedness get in the way of his finding the captain, and he would have to live with that the rest of his life.

Speaking of Ro ... she deserved some thanks for her efforts, both as acting exec and as proponent of the Bon Amar plan. The ensign had done all he had expected of her and a good deal more. As soon as she reported to the bridge, he would ask her into the captain's ready room and let her know what all her help had meant to him.

For now, however, he had a more pressing responsibility. He had to contact the moderate faction on Gorn and let them know that Jean-Luc Picard would not be available for the negotiations. Riker would take the captain's place at the ...

Riker stopped himself. No one could take Captain Picard's place-not in this or anything else. He would merely fill in as best he could.

Of course, he had never even met a Gorn, much less matched wits with one-except in the holodeck recreation of Captain Kirk's historical first encounter. And he had a feeling that that would be slim preparation for what was ahead.

In short, the outlook wasn't very bright.

Chapter Eight.

PICARD LOOKED BACK over his shoulder. The distant buildings full of colonists were hidden behind a bone-white shoulder of rock. That was good. After all, if he couldn't see them, they couldn't see him either.

Of course, that situation wouldn't prevail for long. Though the captain hadn't seen any signs of pursuit earlier, as he made his way posthaste across the flats between the outpost and the lowlying mountains, that didn't mean there wouldn't be any. Travers was not the sort of man to just let him go, after what he had done.

Negotiating the blunt ridges and folds that composed the foothills of the range, he tried not to think about the heat. He had already soaked through most of his clothing, and sweat still ran in rivulets down the sides of his face. Pretty soon, he would need something to drink, though he hadn't the slightest idea where he would find it.

It was not exactly the way he had hoped to leave the colony. Apparently, the old saw was correct: beggars could not be choosers. And for all intents and purposes, he had been a beggar these last few days, depending on the kindness of others.

No more. Now he was on his own-in more ways than one. He still hadn't concocted a method of contacting Will Riker. Nor, given the pace he'd have to keep up in order to stay out of the commodore's clutches, was he likely to again have the luxury of pondering the problem at his leisure.

Maybe you're approaching this the wrong way, he mused. Up until now, you've been looking at the problem from your end. Put yourself in Will's position instead. If it were you looking for the captain now, not vice versa, what type of signal would you be watching for?

Once more, his thoughts returned to his communicator. Disgusted with himself, he attempted to tear them away again, but they kept veering in that direction. This is ridiculous, he told himself. Will would know that the d.a.m.ned thing couldn't maintain its signal into the next century. He would reject that line of inquiry and try a ...

No. Wait. Picard stopped himself short. There was a way to signal his officers with his communicator. Not the way it was normally done, but effectively nonetheless.

All along, he had been thinking of his comm badge as only an active signaling device, and therefore having no value here. But it could also be a pa.s.sive signaling device-because terillium, one of the metals that enabled it to operate over long distances, was an alloy that would not be developed for another fifty years!

Will would know that. And even if it didn't occur to him right away, someone else would point it out. Then all he would have to do is conduct a long-range sensor scan for terillium-knowing that when he found it, he would find Picard, because no undeveloped planet would possess it naturally.

That would lead him to Cestus III. By nucleonic dating, he would determine how old the alloy was. And then he would know approximately how far back in time the captain had been tossed. Of course, it wouldn't provide a precise fix, but Picard hoped that Geordi could take it from there.

Why hadn't he thought of this before? It was so ... so obvious. Or anyway, it should have been. Perhaps if he had not been disoriented to such a degree, he would have come up with the solution days- Suddenly, the captain's mouth went as dry as the dirt beneath his feet. His jubilation turned into a cold and cloying fear. True, the terillium in his communicator would serve as a red flag to Riker-but only if it wasn't destroyed in the interim.

Picard looked about him, at the gentle slopes that rolled higher and higher as they left the colony behind, eventually piling one on top of the other like playful lion cubs until they became full-fledged mountains. These were the hills that Captain Kirk would bombard shortly after his arrival. And before he would finish chasing the Gorn back to their ships, the entire area would be an explosion-pocked mess.

Rocks would be pulverized into dust, dust would be ground into finer dust. And what were the odds, in the midst of that complete and sweeping devastation, of a single terillium element remaining intact? Or at least, intact enough to be discerned by a starship's sensor array one hundred years later?

What's more, the communicator might not even last until Kirk arrived. After all, the reason Kirk had trained his phasers on this area in the first place was because this was where the Gorn were entrenched. It didn't stretch the imagination much to picture one of them stumbling on something round and shiny, picking it up, and taking it with him when he fled.