Chapter 1

Though serene and full of stars, an indistinct blemish passed through the region of space like a shadow of fear. In its wake, following at a cautious distance, were three Romulan warships.

'Sir, we are nearing the Federation's border,' the navigator warned.

The eyes of the ship's captain remained hard, unyielding. 'Deter its course.'

'Aye. Launching a spread of photon torpedoes.'

'On screen. Maximum magnification.'

The view became murky, indistinct, despite the piercingly bright objects, three, six, nine of them, hurtling just ahead of the black-on-black guess passing before the stars.

'Sir, there is no change in course or speed-'

'We are entering Federation space-'

'Damn!' All eyes turned to the captain who hesitated only for a fraction of a second. 'Inform the other ships that we are engaging cloaking devices. Shoot to disable.'

The navigator and chief gunner exchanged a look that hid what they were feeling.

'Aye, sir.'

-

The young officer reported to the escape pod as ordered, rolled the unwieldy container inside, heaved it into one of the empty seats, began securing it in place using the safety harness, only to find that the catch didn't quite reach. Realising there was no time and that the container had to be somehow locked into place as-is, she turned around, leaned her back against it, braced her feet against the wall of the pod, and heaved.

With relief she heard the catch click home, shifted herself upright-

-and came to in darkness, coughing, breathing acrid smoke. She thought at first that something was wrong with her senses, until it dawned on her that the lack of sensation was caused, not by paralysis, but by weightlessness! Something was wrong with the ship!

Grabbing a handhold, she manoeuvred herself to the door and the pod's one tiny window, and peered out expecting to see the lighted corridor-

-but instead saw pale sunlight and the arc of a blue and white sphere looming below-

With a rush of superheated air the pod hit the atmosphere, slamming her against the padded wall. At once the temperature inside the pod increased, the air filling with acrid white smoke. Guided half by memory, half by instinct, she held her breath and shut her eyes tight, pulled up the bottom of her shirt out of her uniform and over her face, spat on the cloth until it was damp, held it down over her mouth and nose, and began breathing once more.

From the way the pod shuddered and shook, she knew it was damaged. Through the window she could see fire, not simply the flame of air superheated by the pod's skin, but real fire caused by burning, edged with black smoke and occasional bits of metal flaring brilliantly white-hot as they were torn loose and incinerated.

There was a sudden roar as the retrorockets cut in, and the crushing press of deceleration. But something was wrong! The pod slewed drunkenly, the engines guttered, died, restarted themselves, guttered- and then came the unmistakable sound of a line rupturing, the scream of fuel jetting out and igniting-

-and then the pod was rolling end-over-end, slamming her from wall to wall . . . she realised dimly that had the interior not been covered with a thick layer of crash-padding that every bone in her body would by now have been broken. With a final sick thud and loud hissing, the pod slithered to a stop.

Her lungs screaming for clean air to breathe, she glanced at the sensor device mounted on the door- now the ceiling- noted with relief that the pod had correctly followed its programming and selected the nearest inhabitable planet, pulled the lever and heaved the hatch open-

-only to pull the door half-closed again with a curse. A brief glimpse had revealed endless white hills, a pale silver sun, and air tinged with a halo of ice-crystals.

A crackling got her attention, and with an inner groan of despair she realised that the pod was burning, still filling with smoke. Coughing, she heaved herself outside into the bitter cold, got turned around on the edge of the hatch, slid off, and sank up to her waist in deep powered snow.

Instantly, she was hit with a blast of air so cold that it watered her eyes and stung her skin. Her vision a silvery smear, she began heaving her way through the snow around the pod to where it burned. Within moments the pod was a roaring inferno, forcing her to back away to a safe distance. The side of her away from the fire was too cold, the side nearest too hot, so she began turning in order to distribute the heat while it lasted. A sound caught her attention, and turning her silver-smeared gaze skyward, stared in sick dread as the pale blue skies became streaked with burning, falling debris.

-

A dull sound brought her out of a half-frozen stupor, a low vibration felt as much as heard through the deep snow. Blinking stinging soot and the possibility of freezing-death from her eyes, she struggled out from under the pod, now burned out and cold, wondering if the vibration meant rescue or an end to her misery at the hands of an enemy.

Gliding towards her through the snow was a vehicle unlike anything she'd ever seen, like a water craft. Mostly white with round tinted windows, it plowed through the snow on its hull, trailing a wake of powdered snow. Within moments it came to a stop mere metres away, then disgorged a dozen orange-clad humanoid bipeds. Their faces were covered, preventing speech. Working rapidly, methodically, she was extracted from her hole, strapped onto a stretcher, and taken straightaway to the strange snow-craft.

As they carried her through a side doorway her ears were buffeted by the roar of blowers belching heated air. Within moments she found herself on a table in what was obviously a sickbay. Her heart leaped as a woman like herself entered the room. But then the woman began speaking in a tongue that was strange to her ears . . . strange, and yet distantly familiar . . .

The woman's eyes narrowing with distrust, she said words that this time were understandable. '. . . no, not Vulcan. Romulan.'

'Romulan!' a man's voice blurted in surprise. 'What the hell is she doing here?'

A second woman, human this time, appeared and introduced herself. 'I'm Doctor Beverly Crusher. You're on board an emergency medical vehicle. We're going to treat you for hypothermia . . . can you tell me your name and what you're doing here?'

'I am called Raya,' the young Romulan woman replied in English Standard, realising these were Federation people. 'I was . . .' she considered her response carefully, ' . . . working on an escape pod when it accidentally ejected itself, bringing me here. I ask that you return the remains of the pod and myself back to my ship.'

The doctor and the others exchanged a look in response. The Vulcan nurse then made a move to begin ministering to the Romulan woman but she demurred and sat up. 'The damage to my person is minimal. I will be recovered shortly. But I insist on being returned-'

'You have no ship to return to,' the doctor told her gently.

Raya gave her a sharp look. 'My ship was destroyed?' She recalled the debris falling from the sky, an eyebrow upraised as the truth became plain to her. 'There were two others . . .' she stopped herself, seeing the look the others exchanged.

'I'm commander William Riker of the Federation starship Enterprise,' the man said, introducing himself. 'Look, I don't have time to mince words with you. We were alerted to the presence of three of your Romulan warships entering Federation space in pursuit of something. As they entered our system, your warships were observed cloaking themselves. Shots were then exchanged between your ships and the intruder they were chasing. During this exchange your ships were destroyed. A dozen Federation ships are now following the intruder at a safe distance. If there's anything you wish to tell us, now would be the time.'

The young Romulan woman swallowed, visibly shaken by this news. 'Destroyed . . . how is this possible?'

'The intruder was observed emitting some type of energy bursts at your ships,' Riker told her. 'Each scored a direct hit, destroying their target.'

'But our ships were cloaked!'

Riker shrugged. 'I don't know what to tell you, except that the intruder evidently is very powerful and has advanced technology that can see ships even when they're cloaked.'

Raya hesitated, then said, 'There is something in the escape pod that must be returned to my people . . . it was strapped into one of the seats.'

'Whatever it was,' Riker told her, 'it's gone. Everything inside the pod was destroyed by fire.'

'That is untrue,' the young Romulan told him. 'There was a case, the content of which is able to withstand many times the heat of a normal fire. The case itself was extremely heat-resistant.'

'We did find the container,' Riker admitted, 'but it was empty . . .' he stopped himself, seeing the young Romulan's reaction. 'What is it? What was inside that thing?'

'Something that has now escaped, it seems,' she replied, her mien an unwilling admixture of respect and dread, one eyebrow upraised in thought. Appraising Riker directly, she said, 'It seems that our problem has now become yours.'

-

'Come,' Captain Jean Luc Picard said brusquely as he was hailed by an electronic sound from the intercom. He was seated as his desk deep in thought, chin resting on his fist, but looked up, his gaze drawn to Lieutenant Commander Worf because his chief of security stood stiffly at attention- a bad sign of things to come. 'What is it, Mr Worf?'

'Sir,' the Klingon bit off in his habitual deep, clipped tones, 'the intruder has just breached the security barrier put in place by Federation engineers. Its heading is unchanged.' He said the word unchanged to emphasise his surprise at the near-effortless manner in which the intruder had passed through a force field which could virtually halt an entire planet in its tracks.

Picard leaned back in his chair and set down the dictapad he'd been reading from. Despite the impossibility of what the Klingon had told him, he was not about to question Worf's word. Instead, he said, 'Is there any further word from the Romulans?'

'Only that they advise us to use the utmost caution in regaining the contents of the container that were released when one of their escape pods crashed on Murius VI.'

'And did they explain what those contents were?'

'I think that you should speak with the lone survivor who was in that escape pod,' Worf said slowly, considering his words carefully.

Captain Picard showed his surprise. 'Why?'

'The Romulans will say very little,' Worf told him in that same careful tone, 'I suspect because they know very little. We might learn more from an eyewitness who has at least laid eyes on whatever was inside that container.'

Picard sighed and considered the message from StarFleet on the face of the dictapad once more. 'Very well. Send her in.'

-

Captain Picard's senses tightened the instant he laid eyes on the young Romulan woman. He could tell a combat soldier when he saw one. Though lithe and of medium build, and quite attractive, this was a formidable and potentially lethal adversary.

'You wish to speak with me?'

'Please, Lieutenant Raya,' he said gesturing, 'take a seat.'

She hesitated, arms crossed, her eyes fixed on a point somewhere above his head. 'I prefer to stand when being interrogated.'

'This is not an interrogation,' he said in a manner calculated to put her at ease. 'Please, sit.'

She did so.

'I've been in contact with the Romulan High Command regarding the incident on Murius VI. As a matter of interstellar goodwill there will be no complaint, formal or otherwise, about actions taken there or their consequences. Further, we have expressed our condolences over the tragic loss of life which occurred there. However, as you were reported to have so eloquently put it, as the subject of this matter is now our problem, we would like some answers.'

'That depends on the nature of your questions,' Lieutenant Raya replied evasively, looking him in the eye.

Captain Picard sighed, sensing a lack of cooperation from the young woman. 'All right. What was in that container? And what is the nature of the object that is now in Federation space?'

'I . . . can't give you a direct answer to those questions,' she told him hesitantly.

'Why not?'

Her look softened fractionally. 'Because we are . . . I am . . . uncertain as to what they are.'

Picard raised an eyebrow at that. 'Is there anything you can tell me?'

'I can give you a general description of events and my observations, for what they're worth,' she told him, as though what she had seen and would testify to were untrustworthy, 'but must warn you that mere words are not enough to describe a thing that perhaps is not to be accurately described or understood.'

He considered her words in silence for several long moments, then said, 'Start from the beginning, then. Tell me what you do know.'

Reluctantly, she began. 'You little know what you ask . . . it is a long tale, some of which you may already know.

'It begins with the ancient rogue asteroid which was ensnared by Romulus as the planet was forming- ah, I see that you know of it.'

'I have an interest in archaeology,' he told her, 'and among archaeologists there has long been talk and speculation about . . .' he searched for words, ' . . . certain aspects of that celestial body.'

Raya nodded. 'It has long been surmised that, unlike normal asteroids, this object was part of a planet that was destroyed billions of years ago when its sun's life came to its end; that it was hurled out of its system to wander the void of space for millennia, eventually to fall under the influence of a newly forming system.'

'But what has any of this to do with the matter at hand?' captain Picard asked her, trying to keep impatience out of his voice.

'A great deal,' she replied firmly, sensing his mood. 'Three of your solar decades ago, geologists found evidence of past life on the asteroid. Archaeologists were summoned in secret, and within six years they found evidence of an ancient civilisation. You have heard of this?'

'There has been a certain amount of wild speculation for some time,' he told her, 'outlandish rumours that seemed to have their basis in ancient Romulan myth.'

'Ah, you speak of rumours associated with the creation myths.'

'Actually, it's a much older myth I'm referring to,' he replied with a slight smile. 'The one about the leviathan woken by an ancient race of people who delved deep into the earth and awakened a monster.'

'Then you know,' she said into his irony, 'what the archaeologists awakened when they delved into the centre of the asteroid.'

He stared, looking for humour or irony, and saw none. 'Wait, you're telling me that they came upon a life form . . .'

'Deep within the heart of the asteroid,' she finished for him, 'where it has slept for billions of years.

'It was not yet awake when it was first discovered,' she continued. 'The archaeologists initially thought they had come upon a fossil, taking a piece of it to be studied-'

'A piece of it,' Picard echoed, sensing something unpleasant behind her words.

'An artifact that is now loose below us on Murius VI,' she said, completing his thought.

'And you were doing what with it?' he said, more to himself. 'Following this thing . . . to do what?'

'To buy time,' she told him. 'When our researchers began studying the piece that had been taken, they soon realised that it was but one small part of a vast organism. You must understand, we lost more than three ships and all hands aboard them. We lost a team of our best scientists, too, and I would advise that you do as we were doing: regain the part that is lost and make the attempt to understand it.'

'The main organism-'

'You will never get close enough to study it,' she cut him off. 'And I must warn you: even with a piece of it in your hands, your chances of unlocking its mysteries are not good.'

-

'She was right about one thing,' chief engineer Jordie La Forge said into the communicator badge on the breast of his heavy parka as he studied the remains of the burnt-out escape pod, 'our chances of understanding this thing aren't good.' The howling wind was kept at bay by a ring of tough synthetic sheets affixed to sturdy poles which surrounded the pod site.

'Why do you say that, Mr La Forge,' captain Picard's voice asked him through the communicator.

'Well, for one thing,' Jordie said as he swept the area yet again with his tricorder, 'we're picking up traces of the most unconventional matter I've ever seen. I don't know whether this is the result of some incredibly advanced technology, or whether it's the residue of an organism that came from some exotic region of space, but the arrangement of subatomic particles is like nothing I've ever seen.'

'She did say that it's many billions of years old,' the captain told him. 'Perhaps this is some type of early matter.'

'There is that possibility,' the chief engineer agreed. 'The earliest matter formed at a time when the universe was extremely hot, which means that the conditions were right for putting together combinations of subatomic particles that were very different from what we know today. But if that's right, we're going to have a hell of a time getting a handle on this thing. It could be so different that we'll never begin to hope to understand it.'

-

Captain Jean Luc Picard felt an ugly knot forming in the pit of his stomach as he switched off the intercom, left his chair, and moved to stand before the window of his quarters to think. An ancient life form or form of technology . . . perhaps both, perhaps neither. In all his years in space there was little he'd come across that had struck his senses as being truly alien. There was always something common or familiar to be found, even if it was a civilisation whose languages and thought patterns baffled even the most intelligent and experienced linguists. There were still commonalities such as language, civilisation, intelligence, beings that were recognisable as such.

But this might be something that pushed the boundaries of what was knowable and recognisable and identifiable to the limit. It was quite possibly a rare encounter with something that was truly alien, in ways that went beyond the bounds of everything that was known.

Why, then, did he have such a bad feeling about this? Why did he feel threatened instead of challenged? Worried instead of curious? Deep-rooted angst instead of wonder?

With more force than was necessary, he punched the intercom. 'Mr Data, have the senior staff meet me in the ready room right away, and bring the Romulan. We need to know everything she does.'

'Aye, sir.'

-

Waiting before the window, he studied the black reaches of space and wondered why, for the first time, he felt its black emptiness yawning like impending death.

When everyone was assembled, captain Picard addressed Mr Data directly. 'I'm told you found the artifact with little trouble. Why is it not yet contained and aboard this ship?'

The android's yellow eyes held his own. 'Locating the artifact is not the problem. Containing it is another matter entirely.'

'Explain,' the captain responded.

'I will attempt to do so,' the android said, still holding his gaze, 'but we've encountered a problem, although based upon what Lt Raya has told us, this was to be expected.

'The artifact is like nothing we've ever encountered. We are treating it as though it were a life form but its behaviour could just as easily be explained by some form of alien technology, or an entirely unknown type of physics unique to whatever the artifact is.'

The captain had asked Mr Data because he was hoping for answers less dissatisfying than those given by Lt Raya and Mr La Forge. 'All right. Mr La Forge, have you learned anything new about the artifact?'

Geordi made a frustrated sound. 'We still don't know anything about it, and I mean anything! I mean . . . have you seen it yet?'

The captain shook his head.

'Well, it's grey,' Geordi continued as though the word grey was somehow offensive, 'and that's about all I can tell you. 'Other than that, it changes shape and moves pretty much where it wants to. At Lt Raya's suggestion we were finally able to corner it by creating a mini-holo-deck and boxing it in, but we don't know why it's staying there, and if it decides to go somewhere, we don't have a hope in hell of stopping it.'

'The artifact seems able to pass through conventional matter at will,' Data said, 'and the manner in which it does so is disturbing, to say the least.'

'One of our engineers told me that it can penetrate solid rock,' Commander Riker said. 'He said it was like watching a miniature juggernaut at work, that it simply punched its way through solid rock like an icepick through a block of cheese.'

'Except there was a lot of noise and smoke and heat generated,' Geordi grumbled. 'We thought at first that it was burning a path through solid rock, but it was actually pushing its way through.'

'And yet you say this thing seems to have no physical weight,' Deanna Troi put in, her brows knitted, trying to understand, 'and expends and emits no energy. How can that be if the rest of it was able to destroy three starships and pass through a force barrier?'

Geordi shrugged. 'The stuff this thing is made of is somehow able to put out more energy that is allowed for its mass. Conventional mass,' he explained, 'can be converted directly into a measurable amount of energy. But the rules don't seem to apply, here. I think Raya's right, that this thing is so far out of our experience that we don't even know the right questions to ask.'

'Why don't we start with what we do know,' the captain said. From his tone it was neither a question nor a suggestion. 'For instance, we do know that it's grey, which in itself seems to be a matter of some contention.'

'Right, well . . .' Mr La Forge began, 'it only appears grey to us because it doesn't reflect conventional light the way it would its own . . . what passes for light, or passed for light, in its original environment.

'You get the same thing if you, say, put a bird's feather underneath a microscope. Everything the microscope sees appears grey because colour doesn't take magnification into account.'

'In other words,' Dr Crusher put in, 'we see green because light bounces off something containing minute bits of stuff that's the same physical length as a given light wavelength, say, for the colour green. With a bird's feather, the light is bouncing off filaments which reflect colours that match their length. But what I'm not getting is why this thing only appears grey to us. Surely there must be corresponding bits of it to match light wavelengths.'

'Which is assuming that light is able to interact with it in ways we understand,' Data told her. 'Perhaps we should rephrase what we mean by saying that we "see" this artifact. I do not believe that we are actually seeing it. I think what we are seeing is the lack of something.'

'Coming from you, Mr Data,' the captain said with a slight smile, 'I would call that "being philosophical".'

Before the android's positronic brain could puzzle that out, Lt Worf interjected, 'I am not satisfied that we understand the nature of the danger this artifact represents. It responded when threatened, despite the likelihood that the ability to damage it was beyond Romulan technology.' He eyed Lt Raya as though challenging her to deny this. Getting no response, he added, speaking to her, 'The Romulans clearly understood this thing to pose a threat, otherwise why try to intercept it or attempt to alter its course?' All eyes turned to Lt Raya as he said this, sensing the truth of his words.

'Is there anything you're not telling us?' captain Picard demanded.

The Romulan woman raised an eyebrow at that. 'I assume you're referring to the artifact? As far as that goes, I have told you what seems most pertinent to the present situation.'

'Then I suggest you tell us the rest, even if it does not seem pertinent,' the captain told her in an icy tone.

She hesitated, fractionally. 'Very well. What would you know? That all attempts to discover the artifact's secrets met with failure-?'

'Did those attempts meet with any loss of life?' the captain cut her off.

Not looking at him, she replied in an odd tone, 'No, there has been no loss of life.'

Wondering if he was making a mistake, the captain decided not to pursue this line of questioning, and instead asked, 'What tests were conducted? And did you witness any of them?'

'All the standard tests demanded by our physicists were used to attempt to examine the artifact, all to no avail. What little they discovered is what you already know: that it is not comprised of conventional matter, that it does not adhere to any conventional dimensionality-'

'Whoa, stop right there!' Geordi interrupted. 'No one said anything about dimensionality, conventional or otherwise.'

'I stand corrected,' the Romulan responded with thinly veiled sarcasm. 'I would have thought your famous team of Starfleet scientists would have looked into that already.'

'We've barely got the damned thing contained!' Mr La Forge shot back, his temper flaring at her jibe. 'It's not exactly in the best situation for conducting tests of any kind!'

'What do you know about the artifact's dimensionality,' the captain asked Raya quietly, instantly and pointedly resetting the mood to calm.

'Only that it is not as we see it,' she responded. 'I suspect that only part of it, or certain aspects of it, present themselves within our dimension.'

'That would explain why it appears flat, no matter what angle you're looking at it,' Geordi said. 'I thought it was just something to do with my visor.'

'Could it be a two-dimensional object?' Will Riker queried.

'That is a distinct possibility,' Data put in, 'given the nature of the early universe. But,' he added, 'there are any number of other possible explanations, including any number of dimensional possibilities-'

They were interrupted by an urgent hail. 'Bridge to captain Picard!'

'Go ahead.'

'Sir, the artifact has breached its containment and is on the move, fast, and is heading for open space!'

'Lay in a pursuit course and get us under way!' the captain ordered, rising and breaking up the meeting. 'Don't let it out of your sight!'

-

'Where is it headed?' the captain demanded as he took the command chair.

'Out of Federation space,' the young officer said, unable to conceal her relief. 'And we've just been informed that the rest of the artifact is now through Federation space and heading for deep space as well.'

The captain hesitated only fractionally. 'Until we understand what we're dealing with, we're going to pursue this thing and attempt to unlock its secrets. It may be benign, but it may also cause harm which would be on our heads, within the Federation or without.' There was palpable disappointment at the thought of going after the artifact but the captain ignored it, saying, 'Mr Data, where is the artifact headed?'

The android frowned as he scanned his instruments. 'It doesn't appear that the artifact has set itself any particular objective. It seems to be doing nothing more than heading for deep space, and it will be a good many light years before it comes even remotely close to any system.'

'Can we alter its course?'

Uncharacteristically, the android frowned. 'It is theoretically possible, although there may be a fair amount of risk involved.'

'Would you care to elaborate?'

'As you know, the ship's propulsion system works by warping space,' Data said. 'The object is small enough that, if we were to draw alongside, close enough to one of our warp nacelles, we should be able to curve the space through which it's heading and alter its course.'

'Splendid!' the captain applauded, relieved. 'What is the nearest class "M" planet which lies somewhat close to our present heading?'

Data checked his instruments. 'It appears that there is only one, sir,' the android responded, 'but it seems that access to it is somewhat restricted.'

The captain frowned. 'Restricted by whom?'

The android turned to face him. 'By its owner; one Linus Seagram.'

'Of the Rothman financial empire?' Commander Riker blurted. 'That Linus Seagram?'

'That would be the one, sir,' Data responded.

'What is it, Will?' the captain asked him.

'Linus Seagram is said to be something of a recluse, although buying your own planet out in deep space is a little extreme in my opinion. But knowing how the Seagram's made their fortune, he's probably up to something illegal, which would explain why he would allow only limited access.'

The captain slumped in his chair, feeling railroaded. 'Call ahead, Mr Worf. Advise Mr Seagram that he's about to have guests.'

'Aye, sir.'

-

They arrived at Linus Seagram's world a week later and watched as the artifact decelerated, entered the atmosphere, and eventually came to a stop on the planet below.

'Any official word yet from our host?' captain Picard asked Mr Worf.

'No sir. Just the same prerecorded message asking us to announce our arrival, and that he will contact us as soon as he's able.'

'Very well, Mr Worf. Go ahead and ring the doorbell to the mansion.'

The big Klingon gave him a sour look, and muttered, 'Aye, sir.'