Geordi turned to Data. "Think you can do it?" he asked.

The android's lips formed a straight line. "I can try," he responded. Then, without any further ado, he bent over the console and applied himself to his task.

Picard knew that he should have left the place as soon as he was able. But he couldn't do it. Something held him back.

Certainly, it wasn't the need to hide his comm badge-not anymore. He had safely buried the device nearly an hour ago, out here in the shadow of the almost metallic-looking crags that rose up erratically behind the doomed outpost.

When Captain Kirk landed in another day or so, he would find the Gorn encamped on the other side of the colony, past the armory and the administration center and the now-disabled generator. Kirk would launch plasma grenades at the enemy, keeping them at bay until he could figure out what had happened here.

Some Gorn would be killed in the encounter. Some of their weapons would be damaged or destroyed. But not Picard's communicator. That would remain intact, so that Commander Riker could find it a hundred years from now.

No, it wasn't the communicator that kept the captain here, riveted in place. It was the sight of the colonists, scurrying from one part of the installation to another, escorted by grim-faced security personnel.

By now, of course, Travers had to have ordered the shields up. Picard couldn't see them, but he was certain that if he hurled a rock at one of the buildings, it would have been deflected short of its target.

The commodore would be trying to communicate with the aliens, to find out the reason for their apparent belligerence-and to see if there were some way to dissuade them from it. But the Gorn wouldn't respond; their own historical records showed that. They would simply wait until they had a.s.sessed and targeted all the colony's defenses, then go to work.

As the captain watched, spellbound, a young man carried a little girl in his arms as a young woman kept pace with him. With a start, he recognized them as the family he and Julia had seen on one of their walks. Even at a distance, Picard could discern the worried expressions of the adults-their fear for their lives and that of their daughter.

They were right to be worried. The colony's shields were no match for the Gorn's weapons systems. Before this day was over, all three of them would be dead. The captain felt his throat constrict at the thought of it.

In all, more than five hundred colonists would fall victim to the Gorn invasion before the slaughter was complete. Once, he had seen them as statistics, to be pitied-but only in the abstract. Now, he saw the pallor of their faces in his mind's eye, saw the way they looked back at the heavens in their haste-and he felt their dread as surely as if it were his own.

It was impossible not to. One could not be human and ignore what was happening here. One could not be made of flesh and not cry out inwardly at the injustice. These people were innocents, as Lieutenant Harold would later testify. They had committed no offense. They had only come here, to the fringe of known s.p.a.ce, to further the Federation's stores of knowledge.

Would they still have come if they had known that this was to be their fate? To be exterminated by an unknown enemy? To lose their lives without ever understanding why?

Again, Picard replayed Harold's account in his mind, seeing the man plead for compa.s.sion from his enemy even after it was too late. "We tried to surrender. We had women and children, we told them that. But they wouldn't listen."

The captain let his forehead fall onto his forearm, which in turn rested on an outcropping of hard rock. He tried to swallow back the guilt. But he couldn't. It roiled in his belly like a living creature, scratching and clawing to get out.

That was why he couldn't leave this place, wasn't it? Because he could have prevented what was happening here. Because it had been within his power to warn the colonists in time, and he had chosen not to.

Picard forced himself to look up again, to fix his gaze on the people whose doom he had sealed. It was the least he could do. If he couldn't stop it, he would at least bear witness to it, Certainly, he owed the colonists that much.

Even as he came to that decision, the first green disruptor beams began to rain down from the otherwise flawless blue sky. Those who were still in the plaza screamed and ran for the shelter of the nearest building.

A good many of them didn't make it. They were skewered by the slender bolts of green fire and eaten from within. As the captain watched, his eyes stinging with horror, his guts twisting, the slaughter came on in earnest. Beams of destruction walked the expanse of the plaza, claiming life after life, turning living beings into charred, smoking husks.

Then the disruptor bolts plunged into the buildings themselves, one of them striking a phaser battery. As soon as the beam touched down, the battery erupted in a conflagration of warring energies. A moment later, the other phaser battery went up as well.

The next objective was the sensor a.n.a.lysis section, not far from one of the ruined phaser facilities. As a bolt plummeted to earth, it drove deep into the heart of the building. For a long, eerie moment, the place crawled with what looked like a swarm of tiny, green insects. Then, as if it had never existed in the first place, that portion of the colony's semicircle was gone-exposing its soft, living insides to the next devastating barrage.

That was the pattern the a.s.sault would follow, now that the bulk of the colony's population was nestling itself deep in the bowels of the installation. It was all in the Gorn histories. They would take the place apart piece by piece. Perhaps half the semicircle would be destroyed in the next few minutes-and with its shields useless, the rest would soon follow.

The procedure would be cold, methodical. Like a praying mantis dismantling a beetle for the succulent meat inside its sh.e.l.l. There would be no animosity, just savage and unswerving purpose. No cruelty, just cultural imperative.

But lives would be sacrificed on the altar of that imperative. The tender lives of children, of fathers and mothers, of men and women who had brought their grace and dignity to this place.

So intent was he on the havoc in the installation, he almost failed to notice the glint of sunlight on red-gold scales. Rolling sideways just in time, the captain avoided the stab of green light that shattered the rock he'd been resting on.

In a fraction of a second, he took in the extent of his peril. Three Gorn stood before him, all of the smaller, red-or brown-streaked variety, each one armed with a hand disruptor. As far as he could tell, they were alone.

But they wouldn't be for long. He remembered now ... the hands-on stage of invasion, the bloodiest part of all.

Not that any strategy dictated it. Certainly, the Gorn could have destroyed the colony from their position in orbit, without ever risking one of their own in the process. But they were warriors first and strategists second-and their tradition demanded that a commander meet his enemy face-to-face.

That was why they were beaming down-to apply the coup de grace in person. And as far as these three were concerned, Picard was just another human to be cleansed from Gorn territory.

There was no chance of their letting him live. Nor could he get away without disarming them, at a minimum. Unfortunately, he would have to accomplish that without being armed himself.

As the foremost Gorn aimed his weapon for another shot, the captain did the last thing his adversary would expect: he charged straight at him, ducking low to avoid the imminent disruptor beam. Even as the weapon discharged, Picard slammed into the Gorn's knees.

The impact rattled the human's teeth, but it accomplished what it was supposed to. The Gorn lost his balance, staggered to catch himself-and in the process dropped his disruptor. Before either of the other invaders could react, Picard's fingers had latched on to the device.

There was a moment when the captain's eyes met the Gorn's, both of them struggling to resist an almost hypnotic inertia. Then he raised the disruptor and fired. One of his adversaries was sent hurtling backward by the force of the blast, interfering with the other one's aim.

As green energies ran helter-skelter over the first Gorn's serpentine hide, tearing him apart from within as well as without, his companion recovered. Picard and the invader fired at the same time.

One of them missed. The other didn't.

Picking himself up off the ground, the captain winced as he saw the Gorn shiver and smoke under the influence of the disruption effect. The air turned ripe with the acrid stench of burning lizard flesh.

Now there was only one enemy left to deal with. As Picard turned to him, the two of them acknowledged with a mutual glance that the human possessed a distinct advantage, considering he was the only one holding a weapon.

But before the captain could decide what to do about it, the situation changed again-radically. Some fifty yards off, another team of Gorn began to materialize. Obeying an instinct, Picard whirled-and saw a third team taking shape behind him.

Seeing that he was distracted, the last of the human's original adversaries made a break for it. Nor did Picard attempt to stop him. He was too busy trying to figure out what to do next.

Certainly, he couldn't remain here. Not with the place growing thick with Gorn. The prudent thing to do would be to retreat deeper into the midst of these crags, where he might escape the invaders' notice.

For a fleeting moment, he thought of the fate that awaited the colonists now-the way they would be dragged from their shelters and individually subjected to the Gorn's handheld disruptor beams. It made him flush with anger and revulsion.

But it was too late for it to turn out any other way. There was no saving these people, not at this late juncture. There was no going back on his decision to let them die.

Just then, a group of perhaps fifty armed colonists broke from a point in the semicircle, headed for the administration building. The group consisted of men and women, in roughly equal numbers-and it seemed to Picard that Julia was among them, though he couldn't be certain.

They were going to try to make a stand there. They had no chance of success against the invader's superior numbers, against his superior weaponry, but they were going to make the attempt nonetheless.

The Gorn were materializing all over now. If the captain was going to escape, he had to do it quickly, before the newcomers realized that there was a human among them. Otherwise, all his efforts to survive would come to nothing.

Let the colonists put up their last-ditch defense, he told himself. It's what the timestream demands of them. It has nothing to do with you.

Still, he found himself unable to run for it. He hesitated, against all common sense. And turned again toward the colony. And felt his teeth grate as a t.i.tanic struggle took place inside him.

He could not leave them, could he? And not as a result of his guilt alone, but because he had become a part of this colony-a victim of this insupportable tragedy as surely as anyone else.

Even though he had spent his entire stay here fighting history, he had been a component of it from the beginning. He saw that now, with startling clarity. And seeing it, he had but one choice.

With all the speed he could muster, he took off in the direction of the administration building.

Chapter Nine.

AS BARCLAY WATCHED, Commander Data worked the controls that would fix the captain's position in time and s.p.a.ce. Knowing where to look was a big help, but the job at hand required the utmost precision-and the android hadn't had much in the way of practice. In fact, when it came to a live transport with this alien equipment, he'd had no practice at all.

Still, with his inhumanly quick reflexes and his ability to compute necessary adjustments on the fly, he was by far their best shot. As long as the various systems remained functional, there was a good chance they would see Captain Picard again in one piece.

Barclay sincerely believed that-until he saw the lights flicker and heard the low hum that had accompanied the last two power surges. All at once, the three humans in the room exchanged glances. If Data noticed, he gave no outward sign of it.

"d.a.m.n," said La Forge. He looked about, obviously using his VISOR to track things that Barclay couldn't hope to notice. "It's starting again."

"I am at a crucial stage in the retrieval procedure," said the android. He still hadn't looked up. "If I attempt to siphon off the excess energy as I did before, I will have to begin the process all over again."

The chief engineer continued to track phantoms across the walls and ceiling. At least, they seemed like phantoms to Barclay. But the fact that he couldn't see them didn't mean he couldn't be hurt by them. No, sir.

Varley had been hurt by them. He had been hurt a lot.

And they were so close to getting Captain Picard back. If only there were a way to activate the confinement beam, boost its output as Data had, and nip the power-acceleration pattern in the bud-without interrupting the android's work ...

Then again, maybe there was.

"Wait," blurted Barclay. "I've got ... I've got an idea."

La Forge turned to him. "We could use one about now. Let's hear it, Reg."

The thin man licked his lips. "All the nodes on the station are connected by major power circuits, right? It's just the controls and the transporter mechanisms that seem to be decentralized."

The chief engineer looked at him. "So?"

Barclay shrugged. "So we don't have to use the confinement beam in this node to let energy out of the system. We can use a confinement beam in a different node. All we've got to do is find another control room and activate that system the way we hooked it up here."

La Forge frowned as he thought about it. "It's risky, Reg. We've made this area safe by putting our own locks on the doors. But anywhere else on this station ..." His voice trailed off ominously.

The thin man swallowed. "I know," he said. "Still, I'd like to try it."

The chief engineer's attention was caught by another will-o'-the-wisp of electromagnetic energy. "All right," he decided. "But I'm going with you."

Barclay nodded.

A moment later, he was jogging down the curving hallway with Commander La Forge beside him, hoping that nothing terrible would happen before they could put their plan into effect.

Julia Santos had never used a phaser in her life. There had been an optional course in its use at the Academy, but she had decided not to take part in it.

After all, she was a doctor. Her business was saving lives, not ending them. Until now, she thought, hefting the weapon that Travers had slipped into her hand before they took off across the open plaza.

As the last of the colonists piled into the still-intact administration center, Julia peered out the window and looked around. Her heart sank like a stone in a deep, dark pool.

She had been prepared for the sight of the lizardlike invaders, ugly as they were to her human sensibilities. h.e.l.l, the whole reason they decided to hole up here was because they had glimpsed the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds on their short-range monitors, and knew that they were now approaching on foot.

But she was unprepared for the numbers in which they swept toward the colony, like a tide of green and gold, glittering in the sun. There must be a couple of hundred of them already, and there were more beaming down all the time.

It was hopeless. Utterly hopeless. Their phasers might as well have been slingshots, for all the good they would do them.

And Dixon ... or rather, Jean-Luc. Had he known about this? Had it been preordained, a fixture in his future timeline? Or had this come as a surprise to him as well? But why would he save the colony from destruction only to see it ravaged by some-?

"My G.o.d," spat the commodore, pressing forward to get a better look through the window. "It's him!"

Julia followed Travers's pointing finger to the leftmost extremity of the colony's semicircle, where one of the phaser batteries had been before the invaders blasted it out of existence. Sure enough, there was someone there, running toward them. And he wasn't lizardlike at all.

Without warning, the commodore thrust forward the muzzle of his phaser rifle, punching a webbed hole through the shatterproof window gla.s.s. Julia flung an arm up out of instinct. But she recovered quickly enough to grab hold of Travers's arm.

"What are you doing?" she demanded of him.

The commodore glowered at her, his face florid with hatred. "I'm paying him back," he snarled. "For betraying his own kind." His nostrils flared. "For throwing in with them."

The doctor shook her head. "No. Can't you see? If he was one of them, he'd be with them-not running from them. He's no more their friend than we are."

But Travers wasn't buying it. "Now I'm to believe you, am I? A traitor, just like him?"

Julia could see that it hurt him to say that. Of course, he didn't really believe it, or he wouldn't have let her pick up a phaser and join him here in the administration center. The commodore's lips trembled, but it was too late to take back what he'd said.

"You know I'm not a traitor," she replied evenly. She jerked her head, to indicate the man from the future. "And neither is he." At least as far as she could tell.

As if to underline her conclusion, a couple of fiery green beams sliced across the plaza, cutting into the dirt at Jean-Luc's feet. He went down in a cloud of dust, making her heavy heart sink even deeper.

Then she realized that he had only lunged forward and rolled, in an attempt to make himself a more difficult target. A split second later, he was back on his feet again, pelting forward with all the speed he could muster.

"We've got to help him!" cried Julia. "They'll kill him!"

Without thinking, she made her way to the door they'd locked behind them. Maybe she wouldn't be able to hit anyone, her marksmanship being what it was-but even a few scattered shots might buy her friend the time he needed.

"Where the devil do you think you're going?" bellowed Travers.

But she was already halfway out the door, seeking out the lizard-beings who were trying to end Jean-Luc's life. Nor were they hard to find. There were two of them, charging at him as fast as they could, which wasn't fast at all.

Gauging their relative progress, the doctor decided that they would beat the human to the administration center-unless she acted first. Raising her phaser to eye level, she aimed and prepared to press the trigger.

As it happened, she never got the chance. Someone else's phaser beam lanced across the plaza and took down one of the lumbering invaders. Julia turned just in time to see the commodore fire a second time-and with unerring accuracy, plant a beam in the chest of the second lizard-being.

For a moment, their eyes met-and the doctor realized what Travers had done. He had apologized for his outburst in the only way he could. This time, his eloquence left nothing to be desired.

Still, Dixon wasn't out of danger yet. Several more of the invaders were closing in on him from the other side. Discharging his weapon on the run, he cut down one of them in a slash of emerald energy, but the others scored the ground around him with their fire.