Picard shook his head, and he turned toward Geordi. "Mr. La Forge, you've worked with Mr. Crusher more than any of us. In your opinion, are Mr. Crusher's talents being properly utilized in medical investigation?"

Geordi considered the question carefully. His immediate reaction was that they were not, that Wesley's first, best destiny was engineering. But Geordi had learned through his own sources what Wesley was really doing, and he was not going to be the one who slammed the door on young Mr. Crusher.

"I think Mr. Crusher's talents are formidable, no matter what he's applying them to, sir," said Geordi. "His research talents are second to none ... well, second to Data, I guess, but that's natural."

Picard paused, trying to decide whether they should retire to the conference room before he said what was running through his mind. Then he tossed out a question. "Does everyone here on the bridge know what we're talking about?"

Slowly everyone nodded their heads.

"It's a small ship, Captain," offered Troi.

"All right then, I can be blunt. Do you think Mr. Crusher is wasting his time trying to find a cure for this disease?"

Riker said, "Who are you asking, sir?"

"All of you. Feel free to jump in."

"I think he's an idiot," said Chafin.

"No one asked you," Geordi snapped.

"But-"

"I believe that Wesley is wasting his time, yes, Captain." It was Data who had spoken. "However, I believe he should be allowed to proceed."

"Why?"

"Because he might succeed."

"And," Deanna put in, "because he is a young man who refuses to believe that he's incapable of accomplishing anything he wants."

"I see," said Picard. "So either he'll fail, realize his limitations, and be miserable. Or he'll succeed against all odds and become insufferably confident in his ability to do anything. Does that sum it up?"

"I would not have said 'insufferable,' " Deanna commented. "But other than that, it's a fair a.s.sessment."

And Worf said, "Of course, you could order him to stop."

"In which case," said Riker, "when his friend dies, Wesley will blame you."

"Now that is the most irrational argument I've ever heard," snapped off Picard.

"Yes, sir. But no one ever said sixteen-year-old boys are rational."

"He could carry out his duties here and concentrate on other activities on his own time," suggested Data.

Picard shook his head. "That would be all that I need. A preoccupied teenager at conn. All right. Let things remain as they are for now. But at the end of this current mission, Number One, a decision will have to be made about Mr. Crusher, one way or the other."

The door buzzed several times before Wesley even heard it. "Go away," he snapped.

"Orange, it's me."

Wesley turned away from the computer screens. He rubbed his eyes, naturally closing them as he did so. The moment they were closed he felt his sleep-starved brain beginning to shut down and he immediately forced his eyes open. "Come in."

Jaan entered, looking around the quarters in amazement. The deterioration of Wesley's quarters was paralleling the deterioration of the young man, himself. Nothing had been put away. Hand-written notes were scattered all over the place, piles and piles of them. He picked up a few and read them. Hurried memos, reminders about certain drugs to be checked out, half-completed thoughts on new recombinations. "What, in the name of Kolker, is all this?"

"I'm working, Jaan. What is it?"

"What is it? It's this! Orange, why are you doing all this?"

"To help you, d.a.m.n it!" He shook a fistful of notes at Jaan. "All this! It's for you. You're not just going to wither away and die, not while I'm around."

"Orange ... Wes ... I appreciate the concern, but-"

"Appreciation doesn't mean anything. Only results mean anything. And I'm going to get them." He was rubbing his forehead. "Head's splitting. But I think I'm on to something. There's another race with similar biology to Selelvians ... at least, I think it's similar. There's so much to a.s.similate. Some organs are in different places, but the blood composition is close. And they had-"

"Wes, for pity's sake, get a grip on yourself." He took Wesley's face in his hands. "You're coming apart at ... at ... "

He looked into Wesley's eyes. Wesley's determined, unyielding eyes ...

And he knew. He realized what had happened.

The Knack. His Knack.

He was making Wesley do this. It had been unintentional. His own anxiety had caused his power of suggestion to completely envelop Wesley. He hadn't intended it to do so.

Or had he? Now he wasn't sure. After all, he was in control. Was Wesley, in fact, doing exactly what Jaan wanted him to do?

He paused a moment, uncertain of what to do. He had influenced Troi deliberately, that was certain. Troi had been making accusations, veiled innuendo. She might have given Picard a report on Jaan that would have prompted the captain to throw Jaan off the ship. Besides, she was a d.a.m.ned attractive woman. Attractive, and uncertain in recent days about the value of her ability. Put it all together and he'd had several reasons why he was perfectly comfortable with having given Deanna Troi a little push. Indeed, he'd have happily given her a little more if Riker hadn't shown up.

But this business with Wesley, this was unintentional. Except ...

Except the Knack was not some sort of mind-controlling power. All he did was give certain priorities to thoughts and feelings that were already there. Deanna found him attractive. Deanna didn't really want to have to recommend he be sent home. So it was simple to convince her of that with finality. And Wesley ... he wasn't forcing Wesley to do anything. Wesley wanted to help him. Wesley wanted to save him.

And maybe he could? h.e.l.l, he'd saved the ship several times. A thousand lives. This was just one life. It should be easy.

So the Knack was making Wesley compulsive about it. So what? What was the harm, really?

That stuff that Troi had said, about Jaan being willing to do anything to live, well, that was just wrong-headed. He wouldn't kill to live, right? He wouldn't sacrifice someone else, right? But this wasn't evil. This was just giving Wesley an additional push to achieve the greatness that he certainly already had within him.

That was all. Nothing wrong with it.

He realized that Wesley was staring at him blankly.

He put a hand to either side of Wesley's face and said gently, "It's okay, Wes."

"Is it?" said Wesley.

"Sure, Orange. Look ... I understand what you're doing. I understand why. I've never had a friend like you, and I know I never will again."

"Oh, you'll have lots of friends, Jaan. I'm going to save you. And you'll live for years and years."

"Okay, Orange. You keep at it. I'll be back in touch with you to check on you from time to time."

"Sure, Jaan."

Jaan stood and walked quickly out of Wesley Crusher's quarters. When the door closed, Jaan leaned back against the wall of the corridor and let out a trembling sigh, wondering how much of his soul he'd just sold off in the hopes of living.

Chapter Twelve.

THROUGHOUT THE GALAXY, like bits of intergalactic flotsam and jetsam, mysterious objects had long been turning up. Here a bit of machinery, there an artifact that defied description and hinted of civilizations far advanced and farther gone. For years, various archeologists and starships had been stumbling over the findings, debating over them, categorizing them. Wondering about the technology that was cast off like so much dross.

By far the largest such find was DQN 1196. It was the farthest out in s.p.a.ce. It had offensive capability beyond imagining. And at the moment it had several Kreel crawling over it, continuing the work that had been done by the earlier exploring party.

No Klingons had dared come near the planet, and the Kreel cheerfully took the weapons that they found and set forth to hara.s.s the Klingons. Except the Klingons had been fighting back, and unfortunately those weapons the Kreel found, while marvelous and plentiful, couldn't be everywhere. As much as the Kreel had hurt the Klingon Empire, by the same token the Klingons were laying waste to those Kreel outposts and ships that were as yet unequipped.

What the Kreel needed was time. Time to overcome the one great handicap of the weapons.

Power source.

While on the planet, the weapons worked fine. But they appeared to have only minimal energy reserves, for when they were removed from the planet, their energy drained off within a very short time. DQN 1196 apparently acted as some sort of giant battery. Removing the weapons meant having to find alternative sources, and the amount of power the weapons required was ma.s.sive. When mounted on Kreel ships, it tapped virtually everything they had when fired. Indeed, eight ships had actually blown themselves up in the process of attacking Klingons, without the Klingons having fired a single shot.

Hence the bid ... the bid for peace, and for time. Time to get the hang of the weapons' full potential.

A Kreel science team (a phrase any Klingon would have immediately designated an oxymoron) were busy continuing the work that the earlier landing party had started. They explored the underground outpost on DQN 1196 room-by-room, carefully testing each weapon and finding out what they could do.

The planet had been Kreel-held since the very first, and several Klingon attempts, in escalating numbers of ships, had been repelled by ground fire with absolutely devastating range. A Klingon warship could lay waste to the entire planet, but only if it got close enough. The planetary defenses (which, if the Klingons had known amounted to precisely one gun, would have probably resulted in ma.s.s suicide) were simply too devastating.

They tried circling the area to prevent Kreel ships from getting in and departing with weapons, but they had to be so far out in s.p.a.ce to avoid being picked off from the planet that it was pointless. Kreel ships simply slipped into warp s.p.a.ce like sneaking through the back door.

The upshot was that the Klingons conceded DQN 1196 and concentrated on fighting back at other more vulnerable points.

Just before the Enterprise rendezvoused with the Kreel diplomatic delegation (to the Klingon's, another oxymoron), however, there was a small mishap. It happened as follows: There had been a six-member science team experimenting with the weapons. That number had been reduced to five when one of the Kreel scientists made another endeavor to get through the large, jagged-toothed door that had melted the late, unlamented Budian. He was certain that he had worked out the code on his computer and endeavored to punch it up on the multicolored keypad. His confidence evaporated along with the rest of him.

So it had been five scientists who discovered a particularly fierce-looking weapon in one of the lower rooms. It had been the only weapon in the room, and the room had had glyphs on it that were utterly unreadable to them. This did not deter them from bringing the weapon topside, mounting it on a tripod and testing it. If they had been able to read the sign which, roughly translated, meant "Remarkably stupid weapon. Do not use," they very well might have tested it anyway.

The test was quite simple. They picked a small mountain several hundred kilometers away, aimed the weapon, found the trigger, and fired it.

At first, it seemed to work extremely well. A deadly blue bolt ripped out of the bowels of the weapon and, inside of a second, had drilled a hole right through the mountain.

The ray then, in total defiance of logic, adhered to the curvature of the planet and kept going.

The immediate result was that as the Kreel scientists were congratulating each other on finding the deadliest weapon of all, the beam, in little more than an instant, completed its circuit of the planet and struck them from behind. The beam blew holes through two of the scientists who were in its path, struck the weapon and blew it up. The resulting explosion wiped the remaining Kreel scientists from the planet, not to mention from the annals of Kreel science. The subsequent fire burned itself out in a day.

The end result was that the planet, for the first time in a month, was utterly unoccupied by Kreel. Since the ground fire gun had never been set on automatic, DQN 1196 was now completely unprotected. If so much as a Klingon scoutship had arrived, they could have taken the planet and everything would have ended. But the Klingons were giving DQN 1196 a wide berth, since coming within pa.r.s.ecs of the place had been nothing less than suicide.

The foregoing provided three lessons: Never fire a weapon if the instructions are incomprehensible; if you must fire such a weapon, do so from a distance; never concede a planet, since anything can happen.

So after a month of activity, the planet was now peaceful once again. But now, having yielded up some of its secrets, the planet seemed to be waiting for something else to happen. As if it antic.i.p.ated a long-delayed meeting were at last about to occur.

Chapter Thirteen.

THE OTHER SHOE dropped.

The Kreel arrived.

Picard was extremely cautious in the Enterprise's first contact with the Kreel diplomatic ship. But Worf's careful sensor scan of the Kreel vessel revealed no hint of the extraordinary technology that the previous ship had carried. So it was with a bit more relaxed, but nevertheless cautious att.i.tude, that the Enterprise had lowered her shields and made ready to transport the Kreel diplomatic party aboard.

Picard made d.a.m.ned sure to greet the Kreel in exactly the same manner in which he'd greeted the Klingons.

A security team would have been advisable, but the Kreel would have viewed it as a sign of weakness by Picard-that here, on his own ship, he felt the need to protect himself with armed guards. Still, Picard had such a team hovering within a hundred feet, out of sight ... just in case.

Riker and Deanna were at his side as the transporter chief locked on to the coordinates of the Kreel ship. The only one missing from the welcoming party that had been there earlier was Worf, for obvious reasons.

"Do not," said Picard, "under any circ.u.mstances, break eye contact with them when standing face-to-face."

Riker nodded. "Yes, I've heard about that. They'll consider it a sign of weakness."

"You're talking as if you're mapping out a battle strategy," Troi said.

"That is a fairly accurate a.s.sessment, Counselor. All right, Transporter Chief ... beam them aboard."

Riker suddenly decided that he was standing a couple of feet too close to the transporter and moved back. He never cared to forget that what was happening within the parameters of the transporter field involved the molecular unscrambling of anything (on the platform) and its subsequent reintegration at a specified point. It was a formidable process.

Riker remembered a time in Starfleet Academy when a much-detested instructor was about to beam down to headquarters to accept an award no one felt he deserved. So Riker and one of the computer whizzes had performed some hot-wiring to the transporter console. It was staggeringly simple, really. Minutes before the instructor was sent down, the transporter was programmed to extract from the molecular mix any molecule that was not biologically based. Synthetics, for example.

The result was that when the instructor materialized on the other end, to be greeted by a welcoming committee of twenty distinguished sorts, his clothes didn't make it down with him.

It was quite a scandal and ma.s.s punishments were threatened, but the students closed ranks and the head of the academy (who privately thought that the prank was absolutely brilliant, not to mention deserved on the part of the instructor) eventually let the matter drop.

But Riker always made sure to treat that particular technology with respect.

So he stood a safe distance back as the Kreel materialized.

They stood on the platform, muscles bulging, their minimally-clad bodies rippling with power. They looked around with the unabashed curiosity of those unaccustomed to the transporter. There were ten in all, just as many as had been in the Klingon party.

Slowly, cautiously, they stepped off the transporter platform, and one of them approached Picard. He was about half-a-head taller than the Enterprise captain and looked as if he could break him in two.