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  Krissten’s face was a study in concern. “An accident like that could have happened to anyone, under the circumstances.”

  Not to anyone with my talents. Not to anyone with my genetically engineered reflexes and stamina.

  Not to me.

  It occurred to him for the first time that something substantive might really be wrong with him. He recalled the vertiginous, seconds-long eternity during which the shuttlecraft Sagan had collided with the giant alien artifact’s interdimensional wake. The shuttle had been tossed about on the quantum foam like a cork on some wine-dark cosmic sea. Could the encounter have caused the Sagan’ s crew to suffer unpredictable deleterious effects?

  But why this effect? It made no sense. And neither Ezri nor Nog had complained of any symptoms. Perhaps he was jumping at shadows.

  He forced a weak smile. “Maybe you’re right, Krissten. Thank you.”

  Behind Bashir, the medical bay door hissed open to admit someone.

  “I prescribe rest for the entire medical staff,” Krissten said, smiling back at him. “Then we can forget that any of this ever happened.”

  If only it were that easy.

  Bashir thanked the ensign, then turned to the doorway.

  Ezri stood on the threshold. He wondered for a disjointed instant just how much she had overheard.

  “I was curious about the last of our patients,” she said as she entered. Then she scowled and gripped the door-jamb tightly. “And what the hell’s going on with the gravity in here?”

  Bashir gave her a quick explanation of the environmental needs of his alien patients, as well as an update on their steadily improving condition.

  “Do you think these people might be able to shed some light on that alien structure we ran into out there?” she said. “Commander Vaughn is getting pretty curious.”

  Bashir smiled wryly at her understatement. Vaughn had stopped by earlier, during the busiest part of the surgical procedures. He’d obviously been beside himself with questions about the two groups of aliens, their conflict, and the weird structure that the Sagan had encountered out in the Oort cloud—questions that he’d had no opportunity to ask.

  “There’s no way to know what they can tell us,” Bashir said, “until we figure out how to talk to them.”

  “Good point. Until then, can you spare some time to help me brief Commander Vaughn and the rest of the senior staff about our survey mission?”

  Bashir glanced back at Krissten, who nodded affirmatively. Her wan smile reminded him of how fidgety she always became during staff briefings. She was obviously content to stay here and watch over the last four convalescing aliens, letting the officers sit shuffling padds around a mess hall conference table. She evidently liked formal meetings a good deal less than she did the lowered gravity.

  “I’ll call you immediately if anyone’s condition changes, Doctor,” Krissten said, making an effort to appear casual while clinging to the side of one of the biobeds as though her very life depended on it.

  “All right,” Bashir said. Smiling, he turned to Ezri. “After you, fearless leader. Let’s regale everyone with our tales of derring-do from the far frontier.”

  * * *

  Because of the alien ship’s low gravity and dim, amber-colored illumination, Nog moved about with extreme care. Junior engineers Permenter and Senkowski seemed completely involved in their attempt to mime basic engineering concepts to the tall, thin pentaped who seemed to be in charge of the engine room.

  Nog was glad that Shar had come along as well. Although the Andorian science officer was still more tight-lipped than usual, Nog hoped that getting engaged in the repairs to the alien ship would help draw him out, encourage him to discuss whatever had been bothering him.

  Nog noticed that Shar, who was absently holding a hyperspanner, was looking in his direction. Shar’s antennae twitched in evident curiosity.

  “Are you unwell, Nog?” Shar said.

  “I’m fine,” Nog lied. In fact, he felt anything but fine. The itch he’d first begun to notice while parking the Sagan had continued unabated and seemed to be intensifying. Until maybe forty minutes ago, Nog had been willing to consider Ezri’s suggestion that the itching might have been psychosomatic, something related to his acknowledged aversion to being forced against his better judgment to share space aboard DS9 with Taran’atar. But now it felt as though hundreds of carnivorous Hupyrian beetle larvae were building a hive in his biosynthetic leg. How could the cause of this be something in his head?

  He promised himself that he’d run, not walk, to the Defiant’ s medical bay just as soon as he was certain that this wreck of a warp core wasn’t going to blow up in everyone’s face. Until then, he’d cope with the discomfort. Concentrate past it. Suck it up.

  Deal with it, Cadet! Deal with it!

  He recalled his earliest Academy days. New plebe cadets couldn’t afford to display any sign of weakness. Especially not Ferengi cadets. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, reminding himself that his lowly cadet days now lay more than two years behind him was doing precious little to bolster his confidence.

  Nog came out of his reverie when he noticed that Shar was still looking at him expectantly. He was thankful that Permenter and Senkowski were still preoccupied with their instrument calibrations. Nog tried to put on his best tongo face for Shar, though he didn’t want to appear as evasive as his friend always did whenever he was asked a direct question about his family. Concentrating on that helped distract him from the mounting agony in his leg.

  Until he saw the alien ship’s chief engineer extend two of its impossibly slender lower limbs toward one of the countless handholds that covered every bulkhead, loft itself spiderlike toward the ceiling, and fetch several of its tools and instruments with its remaining three appendages.

  Watching a creature whose movements so resembled those of a Talarian hook spider made it very difficult not to think about legs, itching or otherwise.

  Shar still stared at Nog, his antennae fairly vibrating with unasked questions.

  Nog knelt long enough to fetch an EPS pattern tracer from his open toolkit. He focused past the pain in his left leg as he rose.

  “I’m fine, Shar. Really. Now let’s finish getting this engine room shipshape so we can get back to the Defiant.”

  The alien structure turned slowly end over end, hovering in midair about a meter above the longest table in the mess hall. Commander Vaughn sat at the head of the table, his fingers steepled before him as he watched the object’s ever-changing profile.

  How long has it been drifting all alone out there? Vaughn thought, his soul filled to bursting with an almost religious ecstasy at the sight of this marvelous, inscrutable thing. How many aeons have come and gone since its builders turned to dust?

  Seated across the table from Vaughn, Ezri Dax absently scratched at her abdomen. Then she gestured toward the hologram that dominated the Defiant’ s ad hoc briefing room as she finished relating the tale of the Sagan’ s near collision with the ancient object. Dr. Bashir sat beside her, listening attentively. The four remaining chairs were occupied by Lieutenant Sam Bowers, Ensign Prynn Tenmei, and science specialists Cassini and T’rb.

  Vaughn looked around the room. Bashir, T’rb, and Cassini began reading the sensor reports that now scrolled across everyone’s padds. But Bowers—whose specialty was tactical and security rather than science—seemed completely entranced by the image of the artifact. Tenmei appeared utterly absorbed by it as well.

  Vaughn smiled to himself. Maybe the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree after all.

  Vaughn watched as the artifact turned, shrank almost to invisibility, then grew a series of outsize flanges and sprouted structures resembling the flying buttresses of a medieval cathedral. Then, as ephemeral as a ring of smoke, the thing’s shape changed utterly yet again, adopting an austere, Platonic solid aspect.

  “I don’t suppose anybody will mind if the tactical officer asks a really obvious and dumb question at this poi
nt,” Bowers said. “But how does this thing change its form? I’ve never heard of any type of architecture capable of doing that.”

  “Strictly speaking, Lieutenant,” Bashir said, “it isn’t really changing its form at all.”

  “Come again?” Bowers said, looking perplexed.

  “Imagine you’re on a boat floating on an ocean,” Bashir said in a professorial tone. “Floating nearby is an iceberg. All you can see of the iceberg is the little bit that’s peeking out of the water. The bulk of it is hidden by the water.”

  “All right,” Bowers said, clearly expecting more.

  Bashir obliged him. “Now imagine that the iceberg is slowly rotating on an axis that’s deep under the water. You’ll continue to see just a fraction of the ice at any one time—but always a different portion of the whole.”

  “And,” Cassini added, “if you row your boat too close to the spinning berg, you’ll be caught in its undertow and get dragged under the water with it. That’s what appears to have nearly happened to the Sagan.”

  “Metaphorically speaking,” T’rb added, rubbing at the vertical line that bisected his sky-blue forehead.

  “So what is the thing?” said Ensign Tenmei.

  “It could be anything,” Bashir said with a shrug. “A space colony. An observatory. A retail establishment.”

  “A police station,” Bowers said.

  “An interdimensional ski lodge,” Tenmei said with a tiny smirk.

  “A hospital,” Dax said quietly. “Or a church.”

  “Whatever it is,” Bowers said, “could it be related to the fight between our alien guests and the folks who attacked them?”

  “Until we crack the language barrier,” T’rb said, “the reasons for that conflict will pretty much be anybody’s guess.”

  Bowers scowled. “Maybe not. It would help if some of our engineering detachment could snoop around a bit aboard the damaged ship. See if they can find what they’re doing way out on the fringes of this system.”

  “Unfortunately,” Vaughn said, “the aliens seem to be supervising every move our people make over there. It looks like interviewing our patients may be our only hope for figuring out the aliens—and the artifact.”

  Vaughn noticed the wry smile that had appeared on the doctor’s face at Ezri’s suggestion that the artifact might be a church of some sort. “Regarding the alien object,” Bashir continued, looking in Ezri’s direction as he spoke, “all we really know is that an intelligent and perhaps extinct species built it more than five hundred million years ago for some purpose which remains obscure. We also know that this structure possesses certain higher-dimensional characteristics that we don’t fully understand. We really don’t have any other information—except for the alien text file we downloaded from one of the thing’s internal computers.”

  Vaughn smiled back at Bashir. From Vaughn’s perspective, the doctor was a mere pup. Vaughn knew that in his century-long life, he’d very likely forgotten more than even a genetically enhanced thirty-five-year-old could have learned. But Vaughn was often impressed by how painstakingly empirical Bashir could be in the pursuit of knowledge. And he was occasionally amused by the young doctor’s apparent obliviousness to all matters mystical. He recalled the Orb experience that had led to his taking command of this ship—and to this mission. Yes, mortal beings had built the alien artifact; this was not the work of enigmatic gods or supernatural spirits.

  But knowing those facts made the thing no less wonderful or awe-inspiring to Vaughn.

  Aloud, he said, “That alien text file has got to be the key to discovering the artifact’s origin and purpose.” He fixed his gaze on the Defiant’ s security chief. “Mr. Bowers? Lieutenant Nog placed the text file in your care. Please give us a report.”

  Bowers touched a control on his padd, and the holographic image of the alien artifact was replaced by scrolling lines of swooping, unreadable characters. “For starters,” Bowers said, “the file is huge. More than eighty megaquads, which is about a third of our computer core’s overall storage capacity.”

  “That fact alone is going to put a real strain on our number-crunching—or, in this case, text-crunching—resources,” said Cassini.

  “It’s too bad we have to tie up so much of the computer core,” Tenmei said, “with a document we can’t even read.”

  “You mean we can’t read it yet,” T’rb said, apparently very sure of his abilities. “Cassini and I have already started running a cross-comparison between this text and samples of written language groups we’ve downloaded from adjacent sectors of Gamma Quadrant space.”

  Cassini sounded equally confident. “It might take a while, but if we’ve ever flown anywhere near the Gamma Quadrant’s equivalent of the Rosetta stone, we’ll crack this thing. It’s just a matter of time.”

  “Perhaps then we’ll also be able to converse with Dr. Bashir’s new patients,” Vaughn said.

  Bowers leaned back wearily in his chair. “That would be a relief, sir. It’s damned difficult to work out repair schedules and visits to the aliens in the medical bay when all you have is the one or two concepts the universal translator can recognize. Everything else comes down to hand gestures and interpretive dance.”

  “We can’t assume that the language the Kuka—that the aliens speak,” Bashir said, “is in any way related to the ancient text.”

  It’s not like Julian to stammer like that, Vaughn thought, scowling. Glancing at Ezri, he thought he noticed something different about her as well. She seemed to be getting rather pale. And was one of her eyelids beginning to droop?

  Stroking his neatly trimmed beard, Vaughn said to Bashir, “I want to know more about this interdimensional wake the Sagan encountered near the artifact. Specifically: Could it have had any harmful effect on the shuttle’s crew?”

  Bashir paused for a moment before answering. “It’s possible, sir. But I’ll need to run some tests before I can say for certain.”

  “I have run some tests,” said Tenmei. Vaughn and Bashir both favored her with a blank look. “On the Sagan itself, I mean. The Sagan is in close to optimal condition. Except for a peculiar quantum resonance pattern, that is.”

  “Meaning what?” Vaughn said.

  Tenmei shook her head and shrugged. “I wish I knew.”

  Vaughn abruptly put aside every reverent thought he’d had about the alien artifact thus far. He didn’t like the direction this was taking one bit.

  Vaughn looked at Ezri again. This time he had no doubt—she was indeed looking pale. Why hadn’t Julian noticed? “Lieutenant, how long have you been feeling ill?”

  Ezri sighed wearily, evidently deciding it was best to come clean. “It happened…I think it started during the flight back from the alien artifact.”

  “I see.” Vaughn was fully aware that this fact might or might not be significant. Shifting his gaze to Bashir, he said, “Has anyone else from the Sagan’ s crew experienced any symptoms?”

  The doctor suddenly looked uncomfortable, as though he wanted to be parsecs from the mess hall. He appeared to be groping for words.

  That wasn’t like him at all.

  “Doctor?”

  “I…believe I may have experienced a lapse in concentration while tending to our alien patients,” he said finally. “I’m not at all certain what to make of it. If anything.”

  Vaughn felt his cheeks flush with anger. He glared first at Bashir, then at Ezri. “And you were both planning on reporting these difficulties exactly when?”

  Bashir stiffened at that. “With respect, sir, at the time neither of us was aware that there was a problem. I’m still not entirely convinced there is one now.”

  Vaughn moved his hand through the air as though to wave the question of timeliness away. “All right. But what about Nog? How has he been feeling?”

  “I’ll contact him,” Bashir said. “He’s still making repairs to the alien vessel.”

  At that moment, Dax cried out and collapsed across the conference table, clutchin
g her belly and screaming in pain.

  Ignoring the pain raging in his leg, Nog watched as the alien EPS conduits finally lit up in the correct sequence. Power had begun flowing into the proper channels. And, more importantly, nothing had exploded.

  Permenter heaved a theatrical sigh of relief, then displayed an I-told-you-it-was-going-to-work grin to the still sheepish-looking Senkowski. Even Shar wore a triumphant smile, which Nog knew was a carefully constructed affectation on the Andorian’s part, for the benefit of the humans around him. Even the alien engineer looked pleased, his chitinous mandibles moving from side to side to display what might have been happiness or gratitude.

  “Release the magnetic bottles now, Shar,” Nog said. After Shar touched the appropriate controls, Nog could feel the rumble in the deckplates that signaled the resumption of a controlled matter-antimatter reaction. Now that warp power was partially restored, the rest of the repairs would go forward much more easily. Force fields could be erected strategically throughout the ship, buttressing the collapsed sections and reinforcing the crude patching that had already been applied to some of the exterior hull breaches.

  But I won’t have to supervise the rest of it directly, Nog thought, now eager to get to the Defiant’ s medical bay so that Dr. Bashir could examine his leg.

  The deckplates continued throbbing, with increasing intensity.

  The throbbing sensation moved up from the deckplates and into Nog’s left leg, which suddenly felt as though it had been thrust directly into an unshielded antimatter pile. Nog screamed and watched the bulkheads trade places in slow motion. Deck became wall. Bulkhead became ceiling. His back pressed up—or down?—against something cold and unyielding.

  He looked up, straight into the impenetrable eyes of the alien engineer. Beside the alien stood Shar, his image pulled and twisted as by a crazily warped mirror.

  “Defiant, emergency beam-out!” he heard Shar shout as darkness engulfed him.

  7

  Two weeks, RO thought as she leaned back in the chair behind the security office desk. Unbidden, a muscle in her upper back began rhythmically clenching and unclenching itself. Rolling her shoulders to work out the kink, she tossed the padd containing the incident report—the unfinished incident report—onto the desk.