Jean-Luc Picard walked alongside Ensign Jacqueline Picard, reflecting that even her bearing and pace seemed familiar. On the way to the observation lounge and during the briefing, she had mimicked Beverly's softer posture, but now she moved with his own calm, yet hurried determination. Her legs were long, like Beverly's, and her face had a seriousness that he had often seen in the mirror. For a time, they walked in an awkward silence.
"This must all seem very strange to you," Jacqueline said, "but I hope the circumstances won't distract you from concentrating on the Borg threat."
Although Captain Picard could think of many questions to ask Jacqueline about her family—questions that he knew he should not ask—he felt immeasurably more comfortable discussing Starfleet business. He looked straight ahead as he replied. "I think that once I immerse myself in the Borg file, my attention will be very focused. Although Captain Shelby didn't really discuss why she rejected Starfleet's contingency plan in its entirety, I have to say I agree with her conclusion."
"Well, then," Jacqueline responded, "you must be right." She turned and entered her quarters before Captain Picard could check her face for the subtle grin, her mother's smirk, that he felt was there. Jacqueline walked over to a computer on a glass-topped desk and called up the Borg file. "Can I get you anything to drink?"
"Yes, tea, please. Earl grey."
This time, he saw a familiar smile. "I suppose some things are constant across the multiverses."
Captain Picard watched her traverse the room and order his tea from the food dispenser. She seemed so relaxed and sure of herself, so wise beyond her years. If meeting her father's younger doppelganger from a different universe was upsetting to her, she certainly did not show it. Still smiling faintly, she placed his teacup on the desk as though it were the most natural thing in the world to be entertaining a man from another universe in her quarters.
"I think you'll find that the computer, the food dispenser and other things work essentially the same as they do on your ship," she said.
He nodded warmly. "I'm sure I'll manage."
She paused before leaving.
"Jacqueline," Captain Picard began, "I'm sorry that your father is missing. Communications from sector 001 will undoubtedly be difficult for some time. There is every reason to believe that he is still alive."
She smiled another of Beverly Crusher's smiles, the sad one that he knew too well. "I know. It's still difficult to accept everything that's happened. I know that my father and mother may just as well be gone, too."
Picard grew concerned at the mention of Beverly. "Your mother?"
Jacqueline nodded. "In the last communication I have from my father, he was exploring the ancient ruins of Volnus V. He said he was going back to Earth to pick up Mamán and they were getting out of there." Captain Picard stared at her and she realized that he needed more information. "My father, the admiral, retired two years ago and he enjoys the occasional archaeological field trip. Thank heaven he was close to home this time. My mother is the head of Starfleet Medical." Jacqueline's eyes wandered as a new fear overcame her. "I hope he didn't have any difficulty persuading her to leave her post."
Yes, Jean-Luc Picard thought, some things must remain constant across universes, including apparently Beverly Crusher's fierce devotion to duty.
"Wow," said Geordi Laforge, drawing the word out for at least eight seconds. He was looking at the rock that contained the gateway through his visor and marveling at what he alone saw—waves of energy swirling patternlessly around a center that expanded and contracted wildly. "Data, this distortion is way too unstable for a humanoid to enter."
"Yes," Data confirmed, "it has grown significantly more unstable in both size and intensity since the captain entered it." He consulted his tricorder. "Gravimetric fluctuations have now increased sevenfold."
"Then we cannot use the gateway to find Captain Picard," Worf concluded.
"That is correct."
Frustrated, Worf began to walk around the cave, hoping to find some other key to unlocking the mystery of the gateway. His search was as fruitless as the captain's had been. Laforge moved closer to the rock surrounding the distortion to try to examine its interior and gradually backed up, taking in its fluctuating edges.
"I'm not finding anything that even remotely looks like a pattern in those fluctuations," Laforge reported.
"Furthermore," Data said, "there are no artifacts of Arvesan civilization anywhere in this cave, which continues for another seventeen point three meters. There are no drawings on any of the walls—"
"But the walls are covered with dust," Worf pointed out.
"I did not rely on a visual examination of the walls," Data responded. "I set my tricorder to scan beneath any material covering on the walls and to record any variation in rock depth. I scanned the entire cave, but found nothing."
"What does this mean?" Laforge asked.
"I believe it is unlikely that the distortion in the space-time continuum had anything to do with the disappearance of the Arvesans."
Laforge was not expecting an anthropological perspective. He was more interested in the nature of the unusual distortion and more concerned with finding Captain Picard. "Data," he ventured, "I think you're right about that, but there's more to this thing. A distortion in the space-time continuum with these properties doesn't look stable enough to have been around that long. I would guess that this gateway appeared fairly recently." He kept peering into it intensely.
Worf abandoned any pretense of searching for physical evidence and looked over Laforge's shoulder. "Does that mean it will also disappear soon?"
"Right." Hands on his hips, Laforge sighed. "I'd say the captain as good as fell through a wormhole. Our chances of retrieving him from there are . . . ," he sought a description that would be accurate yet not demoralizing and, finding none, he sighed again and settled on, " . . . not good."
After two hours of studying Data's file on the Borg, Jean-Luc Picard felt more mentally fatigued than he had at any time since studying for final examinations at Starfleet Academy. Remembering his own unpleasant experience with the Borg was painful. Over the last twenty years, the Borg had assimilated a number of other races that had added improvements to their technology. In all likelihood, he reasoned, the Borg had learned from their earlier defeat in sector 001 and erected a barrier to any transmission of unauthorized commands to the central processing unit. At the time, Picard's idea to have Data send the "sleep" command to the Borg ship was novel and unexpected. By this point in the Borg's evolution, he thought, it would probably be as potent as throwing stones at the cube-shaped monoliths that were the Borg vessels.
How desperate the Federation must be to resort to such a transparent tactic. Indeed, he thought, all of the larger ships in the fleet had already been destroyed. With the Borg at their doorstep, Federation diplomats had negotiated a mutual aid agreement with the Romulans, but Romulan technology would at best only delay five Borg ships. The Klingon ships providing assistance were laughably obsolete.
Yet, somehow Shelby or someone working with her was able to either create or manipulate a gateway through the space-time continuum to bring him here. Could they not employ that same technology to combat the Borg? If he were going to help devise a way to stop the Borg, Picard would need information about every resource available to the Laforge. He decided to do some additional research.
Before beginning, he allowed himself a quick glance around Jacqueline Picard's small quarters. She kept a few flowering plants, which brightened up the rooms, and two interesting sculptures that he guessed were Rughalian. Walking around, he spied a volume of Shakespeare on her coffee table and picked up the book. The inscription on the inside cover read, "To Jacqueline on her sixteenth birthday, Love, Papá." Picard held the book delicately and re-read the words for a moment, then steeled his face, willing his thoughts back to the task at hand.
"Computer, display the route the Laforge took for the last month." The screen promptly displayed what appeared to be a routine patrol route. After the Borg attack began, the Laforge immediately headed toward sector 001, but changed course 24 hours later. "Computer, stop. Why did the Laforge change course on stardate XXXXX.X toward the Angalan system?"
"The course change toward the Angalan system was made in compliance with orders from Admiral Cho of Starfleet Command to await potential further attacks by the Borg and divert Borg ships away from sector 001."
"Hmm," Picard pondered the wisdom of that decision. It certainly made sense to save some starships from a battle that could far surpass the Borg's massacre at Wolf 359, but an attempt to ambush five Borg ships in this way seemed as futile as the contingency plan Starfleet had just implemented. He wondered who was in charge of strategy at Starfleet Command and whimsically thought he was glad that he had retired in this universe.
"Continue," he ordered the computer. The Laforge dutifully patrolled the Angalan system for thirty hours, then abruptly changed course to travel to the Arvesa system at high speed and entered an orbit around Arvesa IV. "Stop. Computer, why did the Laforge leave the Angalan system to come to Arvesa IV?"
"The course to Arvesa IV was plotted and entered on stardate XXXXX.X."
"By whom?"
"Ensign Jacqueline Picard."
"Was this in response to a directive from Starfleet Command?"
"Negative."
"Was Starfleet alerted of this course change?"
"Negative."
This was curious. "So, as far as Starfleet knows, the Laforge should still be in the Angalan system?"
"Affirmative."
"Computer, why did the Laforge come to Arvesa IV?"
"Insufficient information to process that request."
"Had the Laforge ever been to Arvesa IV in the past?"
"Negative."
"Scan the personnel assigned to the Laforge. Have any of them ever been to Arvesa IV?"
"Negative."
"From its position in the Angalan system, could the Laforge have perceived the distortion in the space-time continuum present on Arvesa IV?" He knew that the answer in his universe and his time would have been no, but the Laforge could have possessed superior long-range sensors.
"Negative."
"Then how the hell did the Laforge know to come here to find me?"
"Insufficient information to process that request."
Data concluded his report on Captain Picard's disappearance without any recommendations, which was so uncharacteristic of him that it took Will Riker a few moments to realize Data was finished.
"Commander," Worf said, "may I make a supposition?"
"Of course," Riker replied, happy to have any input.
"The gateway is a recent phenomenon. It practically pulled Captain Picard into it. Then it became highly unstable, preventing us from retrieving him. I believe it may be controlled by beings who have abducted the captain." Worf, suspicious of others by nature and by profession, sounded convinced of his theory.
Deanna Troi almost opened her mouth in shock. "But we have no concrete evidence of that at all."
"True, Counselor," Data interjected, "but Worf's analysis is one viable interpretation of the data we have collected. In the absence of any concrete evidence to support any one interpretation, all possible analyses are, unfortunately, equally plausible."
Troi looked at Riker. "Why would anyone from another time want to kidnap Captain Picard? Who could create a rift in the space-time continuum like that?"
Riker was impatient and wanted answers. The best way to reach those answers, he had learned from Captain Picard's own example, was to brainstorm with the senior officers. "Theories?"
"Well, Q certainly has the power to do that," Laforge offered.
"Yes, but in the past," Riker replied, "Q has simply visited the Enterprise and taken the captain off with him. He doesn't need to create a gateway and lure the captain through it." Riker was a bit disappointed that Q could be dismissed as a suspect so summarily—no other being they had ever encountered had mischievousness and power in such ample supply. No other being they knew of could be such a likely suspect.
"What about the aliens that abducted the captain for their research on command relationships? They were able to take him without our realizing it," Troi offered.
"They also did not need to employ a gateway," Data pointed out.
"And the captain scared them enough that I doubt they'd come knocking on his door again, at any point in time," Riker added.
"It could be the Cardassians," Worf said. "They have shown an interest in the captain in the past and Starfleet Intelligence knows very little of their technological capabilities."
"You could say the same thing about the Romulans for that matter," Laforge said.
"True," Riker allowed, "but their technological breakthroughs are much more likely to be in the areas of weaponry or engine design. The kind of scientist that would develop a way to manipulate the space-time continuum would be working for the military in the Romulan or Cardassian empires."
"The Ferengi?" Troi ventured. "A gateway like this could certainly be very profitable."
"But why would they want the captain?" Laforge countered.
No one offered an answer.
"I am afraid our conjectures are limited by our own time bias," Data finally said. "We can only theorize based on the beings and situations we have already encountered. If someone did abduct Captain Picard through the gateway, that person may be from the future. It is possible that we have not yet met that being, or that the abductor is someone known to us who has not yet developed the power to carry out an abduction across the space-time continuum."
Beverly Crusher had remained unusually silent throughout the meeting. Since Jean-Luc Picard had disappeared, she had felt a twisting knot in her stomach and a worry worse than any she had known for over twenty years. She had been surprised and distressed to realize that Jean-Luc meant so much to her. She felt his absence as strongly as she had once felt another man's absence. Every fiber in her body wished for a different outcome this time. After their telepathic experience on Kess-Prytt, Crusher had had an opportunity to show Picard how she felt about him, but she had been afraid to tell him, for many reasons. Since he had disappeared, her fears had seemed incredibly foolish to her.
At the beginning of the meeting, Crusher's pain kept her from contributing to the potluck postulating of the senior staff. Every minute that Picard was gone was torture and talking about him—especially in such a pointless manner—only made her feel sicker.
During the discussion, however, a very eerie calm crept over Crusher. She experienced it as a wave, or series of waves, each one bringing more serenity as it lapped up against her. He is going to be all right, she found herself thinking, and he is going to come back. These phrases repeated like a mantra in her mind as the waves rolled over her. He is going to be all right and he is going to come back. Her scientific mind concluded that she was trying to reassure herself with a normal human coping mechanism, but she knew that this was a different feeling. The waves did not originate in her own worried subconscious—they flowed from some external source. They grew in size and power, finally rushing over her until the solace that they brought was a part of her being. The thought of Jean-Luc being safe and returning to the Enterprise comforted her, but the uncertainty of why she knew that bothered her. She realized that she had not been paying attention to her colleagues' discussion and tuned back in as Data spoke.
" . . . or that the abductor is someone known to us who has not yet developed the power to carry out an abduction across the space-time continuum."
Crusher suppressed a gasp. Suddenly she understood.
