IT HAD TAKEN TWO WEEKS to have a Federation negotiating team formally a.s.signed and dispatched to the Lethanta-Krann negotiations, and another week to get the team properly briefed, but it was finally done. The professional diplomats were on the job, and the Enterprise was free to move on.

Captain Picard was in Ten-Forward, looking out the window at Nem Ma'ak Bratuna. Riker was standing next to him. "They'll be fine, I think," Picard said. "With Hek out of office, slightly more moderate people have come into power in the Fleet Congress. The emphasis here is on 'slightly,' of course."

"Yes, sir," Riker agreed. "They'll have a lot to talk about. Many of the Krann, especially the younger people, want to settle in this star system."

"And many do not," Picard pointed out. "That puts a large part of a vast fleet on our doorstep, and the Lethanta are on the edge of developing warp drive for use in starships instead of doomsday weaponry. What if they should get together?"

"Let's hope they stay friendly if they do."

"Indeed. You know, there's one thing-"

"What's that, sir?"

"Ro Laren mentioned it to me during her convalescence, and I must confess I hadn't realized it myself. She said she'd seen parked ground vehicles all over the capital city while she and Data were there. It bothered her for some reason, but it didn't hit her until later what that reason was. There was something we had not seen parked, not anywhere. Something important."

"And what was that, Captain?"

"The asteroids, Will-the asteroids the Lethantans arrived in. They're not in orbit anywhere in this system, and if they'd impacted on the planet following orbital decay, we'd have seen traces of those impacts; those rocks were big. So where did they go?"

Riker thought about it for a moment. "I have an idea about that, sir."

"So do I, but it staggers me to think about it."

"Have you asked Kerajem about it?"

"No," Picard said. "I won't do that, Will. I won't make him tell me his people's most important secret."

"Yes," Riker said. "If all else fails-"

"Exactly," Picard agreed, looking out at all those millions of stars. "I wonder if we'd have the courage to do the same?"

The cell was cold and uncomfortable, but Hek Portside Hull Patcher had grown used to discomfort since his unseemly departure from office. He had started out cold, broke and hopeless; if he finished up that way, well, it was all right by him. There was a bunk and a toilet and some insects, and that was it.

As a matter of fact, Hek was bored. They had given him nothing to read or write with for the nearly three weeks he'd been held here, and there had been no one to talk to or yell at. His was the only occupied cell in the entire block. If he was going to be executed, he wished they'd get on with it. They'd thrown him out of office for starting the war for no reason, and then they sentenced him to death in absentia for all sorts of crimes, not the least of which involved making a lot of his peers fearful of him while he was Presider.

Hek wondered if they'd make him take a walk into Hek's Closet. That would be appropriate. Whatever they did to him, it would probably be kinder and quicker than what had happened to Graff, the poor wretch.

There was suddenly a clang! from somewhere down the row, and then there came the hollow sound of footsteps. Someone was coming. Although he had no timepiece, Hek knew it was too early for the next meal. Someone was actually coming to see him-or s.p.a.ce him.

It was Drappa Fuel Filter Examiner, Leader of the North Nation and the new Presider. "h.e.l.lo, Hek," he said in that dull, grating voice of his.

"Greetings, Drappa. Congratulations, I think."

"You're in no position to make jokes." Drappa thumbed open the door of the cell and entered. "Mind if I sit down?" he asked, throwing himself onto Hek's bunk. "I have a proposition for you."

"I'm listening."

"The Fleet Congress has tentatively decided that our people will settle on the fourth planet of this system and that we'll dismantle the Fleet. We're going to make that proposal at the next round of the Federation talks, and we're sure it will be accepted. It'll certainly make the Federation happy."

Hek was shocked. "Why? It flies in the face of all that we are!"

"Because the population wants it that way," Drappa told him. "Many of our people believe the days of the Fleet are over because we'll soon get warp drive for ourselves, now that we've been given the hint that it exists. Faster-than-light travel will make our present ships obsolete, certainly, but that hardly matters."

"It doesn't?"

"Not to most of our people. We're being granted a pristine world of our own, a new Ma'ak Krannag, and they want to live there. Only a few of our people want to remain s.p.a.ceside and live the way we've been living all these centuries, always free, but those few represent enough people to fill perhaps fifty of our larger ships. And there's something else, too."

"What is it?"

"These peace talks may not succeed, Hek. Everything seems fine now, but war could still break out between us and the Lethanta. Millennia of hatred and suspicion do not evaporate away into vacuum just because a doctor sees something odd through her microscope. And there's another thing, too. Even if the talks are successful, war could still come a century or two from now. It happened just that way once, long ago, back in our native star system. It could happen here as well."

"I can certainly see that. And if it does-?"

"If it does," Drappa said, "I don't want any of the Lethanta to escape our vengeance, to mock us by their continued existence, should we become extinct. Hek, I've learned something. Something vital. When our Fleet was first detected coming in, the Lethanta went back into s.p.a.ce, back to where they'd left their asteroid ships thousands of years before, and they recovered and refurbished them. They packed the asteroid ships full of volunteers and supplies, and they sent them on their way again. That's why they called this star The Last Stand, Hek. This is where they were going to sacrifice themselves and destroy us in order to protect the small group of their own people they'd sent farther on."

"Which way did they go?"

"I don't know," said Drappa. "The asteroids are shielded against our sensor probes-and the Federation's, too, for that matter. The asteroids could have gone off in any direction and at any acceleration. For security reasons, their destination wasn't to be selected until they were out of this star system. The asteroid ships could have remained together or split into several flights headed in different directions, and they have been on their way for decades. They'll never be found except by the sheerest accident while in flight. Now, Hek. How would you like to be the commander of a Seventh Fleet, a new Fleet, dedicated to finding and dealing with these escaped Lethanta when they finally do arrive at their destination?"

"A Seventh Fleet?"

"Yes. Your mission would be the same as that of our beloved forefathers of the First Fleet-find the Lethanta. The job won't be completed within your lifetime, no-but it would be a job that would last for the rest of your life. If war comes and there are to be survivors, we want them to be Krann and not Lethanta."

"And you want me for this duty?" Hek asked. "Why?"

"I can think of no one better suited for this life. I need your single-mindedness and your fanaticism." He smiled, but it was a dangerous smile. "Executing you would be a waste of material."

Hek thought for a moment. "Won't this Seventh Fleet be detected on the way out?"

"We've altered the cloaking systems aboard the selected ships," Drappa said. "They are again undetectable. The Federation knows that the ship census is inexact. Fifty ships among a hundred sixty thousand will never be missed. You'd be free to go out there, go anywhere, all on your own. You and your descendants will go to other star systems and build new ships as you need them." He paused. "Things would be the way they were meant to be."

"Yes," Hek said softly. "Things would be the way they were meant to be." His aquamarine eyes shone in the gloom of the cell.

"You can think about this for a while, if you want," Drappa said, rising from the bunk.

"I don't need to think about it at all," Hek replied.