The young man screamed. With his hands tied to the cold steel slab of the examination table he had nowhere to go but to arch his back in pain. The bright, unforgiving lights glared down into his pallid face. The pinpricks of his pupils stared back up at them, overloaded and unseeing. The silver bar torc about his neck tightened and the red marker lozenges glowed. He screamed again. At the foot of the bed stood a tall man dressed in long black robes, a large red collar framed the back of his head. His face was blank and had the sallow grey texture of a corpse, disturbed only by a short grey beard. No one knew how old he was – probably hundreds of years. One bony hand rested on a small glass dome beside him. In it was a pale blue pulsing, vibrating brain. The man's eyes lit up suddenly with an inner blue fire that reflected the colour of the brain. The young man screamed again.

A short, stocky young woman stood tensely in the corner of the room. She looked at the white shelves stacked with vials and bottles containing liquids and solids of every colour and hue. She looked at each one with an earnest interest, trying to block out the voice of the human, as if studying the powders and potions would transport her out of the room and far away. But she knew that was not going to happen. No one had ever been able to resist Galt and the Providers. She rubbed at her bare yellow arms. The screams made her feel cold and afraid. Why did they have to choose her trainee? Why not Shanna's Kirk or Lars' Uhura? She thought back to the moment she had first met him. He had captivated her from the start. She had brought nourishment to his cell. His dark eyes and intense expression had stopped her at the door, bringing on a flood of new emotions and making her behave in ways she had never done before. A desire had overcome her immediately – he had to be selected for her. She made her intentions clear, had even learnt his name, which she found so difficult to pronounce with its mixture of guttural and clipped sounds. Chikoof, she had tried. He pronounced her name, Tamoon, effortlessly and with a soft T that she found endearing. She had confided in Shanna and was surprised to find that she was experiencing similar confusion about her trainee. Only he seemed to be returning her feelings and was leading her on into thoughts and acts that she wasn't sure she should be indulging in. Chekov on the other hand had been hesitant and nervous. Where she had wanted him to be open, he had been withdrawn. He did not want to learn how to fight in the games and become a thrall. He was stubborn and uncooperative in everything he did. She had persevered and found that he fought like a boy – wildly, driven only by anger and not by cunning or strategy. She valued that passion. She wanted to channel it towards her and turn it into something sweeter, but he kept on rejecting her. This had made her sad and angry. So she decided to see Galt. If Chekov would not willingly agree to her selection, then she would force him. Galt had listened in silence to her pleas and nodded, dismissing her with a silent wave of his hand. The next day he appeared in their training session outside the ruined city where she had been instructing Chekov in the spear and net. Galt had told them to put down the weapons and follow him. Chekov had started to resist like he always did, but she managed to stop him. Something in her eyes made him falter. She hated to see him punished – on his knees, pulling at the collar around his throat, choking for air until Galt decided to release him. They had walked the short distance back to the arenas and into the cave buildings, their ancient metal doors creaking open and scraping on the rocky ground. It was usually forbidden for thralls to enter the caves and only Galt was allowed free access. Rumour had it that it was here that the Providers lived and kept all their equipment to keep them alive. It was guarded night and day by the Providers unseen eyes. All the thralls knew that they could read minds and possessed great powers. No one could plan anything against them without their knowledge.

"Where have you come from?" Galt's question reverberated around the room and within her head, forcing her attention back into the moment. His voice was a seamless mixture of his own and the Provider's when he spoke the Provider's words.

Chekov lay on the table, drained, his chest heaving, gasping for air. "Please stop," he said weakly, his voice hoarse.

Tamoon looked away again. Why him? She thought to herself.

Galt turned his blank eyes towards her. "Because he is the youngest of his group and his mind is still open and pliable. He absorbs information more efficiently than the others and he is more easily open to suggestion. It is his greatest asset and his greatest flaw. He is their navigator and he knows the stars. We will use that."

Tamoon froze to the spot. The Provider had read her mind and had spoken directly to her. That was a great honour. She bowed her head quickly. Galt turned back to the table. His eyes flared into life with their icy blue fire and the torture began again. Chekov strained against the leather straps that held his wrists, tried not to cry out but the longer Galt sifted through his mind, unpicking the pathways one by one, the more unbearable it became. He was brave, she realised, but she wished he'd give them what they wanted.

By the time it was all over she wasn't sure whether it was day or night any more. It must have been several hours at least since they had entered. The Provider had wanted to know where the humans had come from, where they were going to, whether they had been to somewhere called Cyliss. Question after question had been put to Chekov, followed by punishment from the collar when he failed to answer. But he had known all the answers and it was only a matter of time until the Provider had extracted each piece with painful precision, forcing him to reveal them, the words heaving out in violent torrents beyond his control. Galt drifted silently over to the side of the table and looked down dispassionately at the agonized, tear-stained face of the human, slowly untying the straps from his wrists with a strangely fatherly care. As soon as his arms were released Chekov covered his face with his hands, burning with shame and humiliation. He lay exhausted, unable to move. Galt glided off to the side and to one of the many shelves that lined the walls. He scanned along until his eyes alighted on a small vial of green liquid. He reached up and grasped it with his long fingers and took it down, resting it on the bench before taking down a small metal cylinder from another shelf. He decanted a small amount of the green liquid into the cylinder and replaced its flat metal cap with a dull click. He turned back to Chekov and grasped the young man's bruised wrist, pulling it firmly away from his face. Chekov looked at him in horror and tried to pull away but his strength had faded and Galt was unflinching. He watched helplessly as Galt pulled up his sleeve and pressed the cylinder to the crook of his arm, depressing a small button on the cap. It was a hypospray Chekov realised. He panicked. Was this the final lethal injection? He felt the thick sludge of liquid seep into his veins, down into his fingers and up his arm. He sat up with a sudden energy brought on in a last exertion of energy and adrenaline. Galt put out a hand against his chest, pushing him back down with a calming firmness.

"The liquid will make you forget everything that happened here today. You have given us all the information we need. But you have condemned yourself, your ship and your planet. You must have no recollection. You must tell no one." The Provider's voice thundered through his skull. He lay back gasping on the table, the last of the pain fading away. He needed to hold onto something, he realised. He needed to grasp some memory of this room, something, anything that he might be able to use to undo the damage that they had made him do. Why couldn't he have been stronger? Try to remember, he told himself. It's what you're good at. Some thought, some feeling. But the liquid seeped across his chest, though his ribs and up his spine, turning his thoughts into an evaporating mist.

"Sleep," he heard Galt command and he obeyed.