Inter Alia

by Mark Childs

Four people from the lower decks of the Enterprise interact with characters from TNG, TOS and DS9 causing havoc and generally getting in the way. Inter Alia starts after the end of the Next Generation TV series.

6. Kindred

6 Kindred

_

Yaana spent most of the first day after leaving Rigel X alone in her cabin. Jonah and Anthas also needed to recuperate – they hadn't slept properly since being woken in the middle of the night by Major Kira at Madam Majj's on Rigel II. They were in orbit around Rigel XII, where they had travelled in order to meet up with Major Kira so that they could return the U.S.S. Anduin to her, but she had already left. Rather than follow her to Deep Space Nine they had decided to wait until Yaana had recovered so that they could involve her in their plans on what to do next. The runabout had been fitted out with a habitation unit, so each of them had a cabin to themselves, and there was also a communal area. Anthas, Jonah and T'Pris were eating there together when Yaana joined them.

"Yaana," Jonah greeted her. "How do you feel?"

Yaana had changed into a Starfleet uniform, a black all-in-one uniform with yellow epaulettes, and had tied back her long green hair. The Orion slave girl was gone, almost completely. The only reminder of her previous role was a copper armband around her left arm, and a chain-like choker around her neck. She sat at the remaining chair by the table.

"Like I'm waking up from a long nightmare," she took the drink Jonah handed to her. "It doesn't seem real somehow. That's what this is for," she ran her fingers along the chain around her neck. "To remind me that it did happen. And that so many other Orion women are still enduring the same treatment. Do you know," she reflected, half to herself, "Roberts was actually going to sell those narcotics to Draim? He and Lewty were discussing it. He knew that the undercover operation was nearly over and we'd have to go back to Earth. He was going to quit Starfleet and set himself up as a drug dealer with the proceeds." She shook her head, the long green hair already coming loose. "He didn't want to give me up, you see. He'd got so used to the power over me it was like he was addicted to it and couldn't live without it. And I'd have let him." She sipped her drink contemplatively. The others were quiet, lost for words.

"So what are you going to do now?" Anthas asked.

Yaana set down her glass.

"I've contacted Starfleet Intelligence and asked them for permission to continue the mission. I told them there's a chance I may be able to follow the chain still further. I reviewed the records of the colony on Rigel XII and they contain a list of dates when buyers were due, and what narcotics they wanted to purchase. Just like any other customer database. On stardate 48812 there's due to be a collection of a large amount of Venus. S.I. agreed to my plan to follow the ship making the collection back to its homeplanet."

The other three were impressed. The frightened cowering girl of only the day before already seemed like a strong, determined woman. She was the youngest of them, but seemed to be the one most sure of herself, and most driven.

"Sevrek and his team have already posted tracer probes all round Rigel XII. Any ship approaching will be tagged by one of them. We won't have any trouble following the signal."

"'We'?" all three picked up on the pronoun.

Yaana seemed to lose some of her determination. The vulnerable girl was revealed again, briefly. "I was hoping you'd go with me. I…" she paused. "If that's O.K."

The others agreed. They were all still on sabbatical from the Enterprise. Besides, it would be an excuse for them to stay together for a while longer. There was something about the rapport between them that no-one wanted to leave behind just yet.

"S.I. said the Anduin is assigned to a Captain Sisko at Deep Space Nine. He gave his permission to temporarily transfer its assignment to Intelligence. We've got it until the end of the year."

"So what do we do until 48812?" Jonah asked.

Yaana shrugged. "We wait, relax. Whatever you want to do."

The buyers arrived on schedule. On Stardate 48812 a warning light started blinking on one the consoles in the Anduin's cockpit. The light meant that a tracer probe had been activated and would now follow the visiting spaceship and send out a homing signal. The crew of the Anduin would then be able to follow it at a discreet distance.

Yaana watched the scanners intently, observing the spaceship as it approached Rigel XII. She was also monitoring all communications in the area, and heard someone on board the ship attempt to hail the planet, then give up. As the spaceship left orbit Yaana called Anthas to the cockpit. Anthas piloted the Anduin, following the probe that had tagged the spaceship.

It was two days before they reached their destination. The four of them took shifts, easily falling into a pattern of monitoring their progress in the cockpit, taking meals together, and sharing off-duty time. Anthas and Jonah had spent most of their time over the previous six months together, and had become very accustomed to each other's company, and T'Pris had shared accommodation with both Jonah and Anthas, so for the three of them it was a familiar and comfortable relationship. For Yaana, her only experience of closeness was with Roberts. Each of the three made every attempt to make Yaana feel part of the group, particularly Jonah, who felt that she might have been especially wary of him because, like Roberts, he was a human. And male.

Jonah and Yaana were sitting in the cockpit towards the end of the second day of their journey. Jonah was attempting to teach Yaana kal-toh, but without much progress. Yaana seemed to find such a purely academic exercise pointless, and not a little boring. The conversation moved round to the mission.

"Why Venus?" Jonah asked. "I know it's illegal, but there are plenty of more dangerous drugs around. Far more harmful."

"Do you know what Venus does?" Yaana asked.

"Sure, it's been around for over a century. It alters your appearance, makes you look younger and sexier. The side-effects involve mental problems. Sustained use can induce psychosis, paranoia."

"Do you know who uses it?"

"Mainly vain old rich women who don't know any better."

"Yeah sure. But one of the main users are Orion slavers." Yaana began tapping her t'an rod against the tabletop. "My mother explained it to me. The slavers have auctions, where they sell off the women they have bred. The places where they rear them are called 'kennels'. Did you know that?" Yaana looked at Jonah with a hurt look. "Kennels." Jonah felt unaccountably guilty. He knew that most of the slavers were male humans, and for some reason, being a male human too made him feel some guilt by association. He knew the emotion was irrational, but it was there nonetheless. "However, some women they can't sell. Either they're not attractive enough, or they want to get rid of one of the women they've been using for breeding who's become too old." Yaana looked abstractedly in the direction of the kal-toh structure, but did not see it. Her mind was elsewhere. "So they'll feed them Venus, just enough to make them look young and beautiful for a short while, so they can off-load them onto some gullible customer. An experienced slaver will keep his new slaves under observation for a day or so before buying them, just in case they've been doctored. But the more naïve ones will not realise there's anything wrong with his purchase, until the Venus wears off and they're left with a slave they don't want. Then they have to try the same thing again and again to get rid of them. Until the woman is crazy from overdosing on Venus. And if they can't get rid of them – if everyone knows they're trying to unload bad merchandise, then the only remaining option is to cull them. That's the phrase they use. You know they used to call us Orion animal women?" Yaana asked Jonah, looking intently at him, an angry look in her deep green eyes. "As if we weren't even sapient? So they could justify treating us like animals."

"So how did you end up on that starbase? The one you grew up on with your mother?" Jonah asked her.

"My mother lived in one of the breeding kennels, somewhere in the Orion sector. A visiting trader took a fancy to her and helped her escape, with me in tow. I'd only just been born then. Once out of the system she killed him, but couldn't steer the ship. It carried on unpiloted into Federation space where it was picked up by a Starfleet vessel – the Yamato-D."

"She killed him, the guy who'd help her escape?"

"You have to realise, every man my mother had met had used her, been cruel to her. They were all the enemy as far as she was concerned. The alternative never occurred to her. I grew up believing that. That's what she taught me."

"And is that still what you believe?" Jonah asked cautiously.

"I … I don't know. You seem O.K., but…" Yaana was quiet. "In some ways that's scarier. I could end up trusting you, then be betrayed. Like Rob betrayed me. In a way, when he did start being abusive it was almost a relief. It was like all my prejudices were confirmed and I didn't have to risk the uncertainty that comes with trusting someone." She shrugged then gave him a small ironic smile. "Sorry, Joe."

Jonah nodded. He guessed he'd have to accept it, but he was disappointed. An and T'Pris were friends, good friends, but that was all they were. He had hoped that things might go further with Yaana, but he supposed that that was not to be either.

"So now you're looking for that planet, the one you came from, to free them all?" he asked her.

"I suppose so. I'd hoped we might find it by following that spaceship, but we've been moving away from the Orion sector, so I don't hold out much hope of that this time. I don't know what planet I was born on. My mother never knew. Education was not an issue for our masters, except for training in dancing and music and in sex. I don't think she even knew what a planet was, until she escaped." Yaana placed the t'an rod, then picked up another. "That's what I want to do – give those women the chance that my mother gave me, to live freely."

"And the men? What about the men of your race?" Jonah asked.

Yaana was surprised. "You know, I've never thought about them. I guess there must be some, but I've never heard anyone mention them." She looked out of the curved window at the front of the cockpit. "Maybe we'll find out one day."

A few hours later the tracer probe indicated that it was no longer picking up the trail of the spaceship. The probe had lost the trail at a planet that was entered in Starfleet records as Mudd. The Anduin closed on the co-ordinates given by the probe and it soon appeared on their scanners.

It was a class K planet, devoid of indigenous life, its surface a dull grey and brown colour. They had hoped to approach the planet unobserved. But within a few minutes of entering orbit, a flotilla of small spaceships had left the planet's surface and surrounded them.

One of the ships hailed them, instructing them to lower their shields and prepare to be boarded.

Anthas looked at Yaana questioningly. Yaana shook her head. A few seconds later phaser fire cut across their bow from a dozen spaceships. Anthas flicked off the shields.

Immediately four men beamed aboard. They all looked human, and all were identical. All four were armed and they pointed their weapons at Jonah, Yaana, T'Pris and Anthas. The four backed away from the consoles, and two of the boarders took over the controls.

So far the mission was not going well.

The Anduin landed on an elevator pad located in the centre of four geodesic domes. As soon as the runabout had landed the pad sank underground, emerging into a large hangar. Jonah, Anthas, Yaana and T'Pris were led out into the hangar, where they were met by a line of thirty or more men, all identical to the four who had beamed aboard, and all with weapons pointing at them. At their centre stood a human-looking woman, in a diaphanous translucent dress. She was tall and very slender, looking as if she perhaps came from a lower gravity planet. Her features were delicate, and she stood with a very upright posture. As she spoke it was with refined, careful tones.

"And what are you doing here?" she said, addressing Jonah.

The four were silent, trying to think of a way out of their situation, and hoping one of the others would come up with one better than they could think of. The woman was becoming impatient. Under pressure Jonah reverted to type, falling into the trader mode.

"We understood you were in the market for Venus," he said. "I think I can supply you with some."

Yaana was horrified. "Jonah!" she hissed. "What are you doing? We can't start supplying this woman with drugs."

"It's our only way out, Yaana," Jonah murmured under his breath.

The woman smiled and walked towards Jonah, her guards watching him warily. "I think we can do business," she said, looking up at him demurely. "Come with me. We can go somewhere more comfortable to discuss terms." She looped her arm through his and pulled him with her. Jonah half-turned back to the Anduin, and the three women standing in front of it.

"But the Venus? Don't you want me to fetch it for you?" he asked the woman.

"Oh, one of my servants can get it," she beckoned to one of the guards. "Instruct one of your harem to show him where it is." Jonah was about to laugh at the misunderstanding, until he saw the identical look of outrage on all three faces, even T'Pris's. One of the guards stood at his elbow, waiting for instructions. "Well?" the woman asked.

Jonah looked from one to the other of the three women, desperately trying to not even smirk. "I'll get them," said Anthas shortly, scowling.

Jonah was led through a labyrinth of corridors to a large room, with sumptuous cushions surrounding low tables. The woman, who, after enquiring politely after Jonah's name, had introduced herself as Droxine, arranged herself on one of the cushions and patted the space next to her, indicating that Jonah was to sit there. He did as he was told. Another guard brought wine, and Droxine poured Jonah a glass, her dress falling open provocatively. Jonah found himself watching her, trying to understand his reactions to her. She was very attractive, but there was a primness about her, a refined delicacy to her flirting that made her somehow undesirable. She sat next to him on the cushion, casually allowing her hand to come to rest on his thigh.

T'Pris and Yaana appeared, accompanied by three guards. Closely following them was Anthas and another guard carrying the container that Jonah had obtained on Rigel X. He was carrying it on his own, despite its enormous weight. "Your drugs, my lord," Anthas announced sardonically. T'Pris raised an eyebrow in comment at Jonah entwined on the cushion with their hostess. Jonah suppressed a rueful smile. There was a solidity, a reality to Anthas and his other two friends that Jonah felt very drawn to, something that Droxine lacked. However, his hope that they'd join him was thwarted by the guards. As T'Pris, Anthas and Yaana moved towards him, their path was blocked.

The guards seated the three women at another table, leaving Droxine and Jonah to conduct the business alone, except for a single guard, who stood attentively, ready to protect his mistress.

Jonah stood up from the cushion. Despite not being consciously attracted to Droxine, he had become aroused by her attentions, which he unsuccessfully tried to hide from her. Self-consciously, he unsealed the container, and looked inside it for the first time. It was full of smaller hexagonal canisters, each about a metre long and 20 centimetres on a side.

The first canister that Jonah opened was full of brown leaves. Jonah sniffed them. Tobacco. The next appeared to be full of small white wafers. The people on Rigel VII hadn't just grown their narcotics, they had processed them too. This was communion, ready to ingest. Another canister. Tobacco again. Jonah started to panic. Perhaps there was no Venus in here. Droxine was becoming unsure, too. She had knelt to look at the canisters where Jonah had laid them on the table, inspecting the contents.

"Don't you know where you put it?" she asked.

"Ahh, I didn't pack it myself," he said.

"You mean, this is stolen merchandise?" Droxine demanded.

Jonah only grinned roguishly, which he had learnt had a way of getting round people, particularly women, since his days at Madam Majj's. It seemed to have the desired effect on Droxine. She gave him one short lascivious look and returned to her position on the cushion.

The next canister was full of small gelatine spheres, probably zoom, Jonah thought. The next he didn't recognise at all, eight-pronged multi-coloured pills. Five out of seventeen. Twelve left. Jonah became very conscious of the remainder.

More tobacco. Eleven left. Marijuana. Ten. And this. This looked like it. Small, white cylindrical pills.

He held the canister out to Droxine. She sat up on her cushion and took it from him, her face lighting up with relief.

"So much! This would be five years' supply for one person." She looked at Jonah calculatingly. "What do you want for it, young man?" she asked him. The phrase struck him as odd. She was surely several years younger than he was.

"I'm not sure," the trader wariness manifested itself. "What do you have to offer?"

"Do you see anything you want?" Droxine asked, her fingers tracing the low neckline of her dress. She looked at him, attempting a passionate stare.

"We'll see," Jonah answered, non-commitally, but smiling warmly back at her. He returned to the canisters. Maraji crystals. Twice. A small fortune.

"You know," Droxine considered. "I could have you all killed and simply take the Venus for myself."

"You could, but then you wouldn't have me to supply you with any more," Jonah replied, trying the roguish smile again. He wondered for the first time what Droxine needed so much Venus for. She wasn't one of the Orion slavers Yaana had been hoping to find, that was obvious. Perhaps she supplied others. She must earn a large income somehow to afford such a large staff. But if she was a pusher, she'd be interested in everything, not just the Venus.

The smile worked again. Droxine flushed.

"You remind me very much of my late husband," she commented. The thought seemed to take her aback. "You are very much like him."

Jonah wasn't listening. The thirteenth canister had revealed something quite different. Something wrapped in an old soiled cloth. It was heavy and only just fitted in the canister. He tipped the canister, and the object rolled onto the table. Jonah unwrapped the cloth and blinked at the light that shone from the object revealed.

It was the Orb of Transcendence.

It had been missing since the day of the auction on Rigel IV. Lewty must have had it in his land car, and transferred it to the container as soon as he'd acquired it from the Rigellians on Rigel VII. When they'd searched the car they'd looked everywhere except the container.

Jonah looked at the Orb. The room around him receded as the Orb absorbed his attention. He began to drift, and was then suddenly brought back to consciousness. He looked up. The guard had taken the Orb from him.

"It's beautiful," Droxine said in awe. "I must have it." The guard began to pass it over to her.

"Give it back!" Jonah demanded desperately.

The guard did as Jonah asked him to. Both Jonah and Droxine were astounded.

"Norman! What are you doing?" Droxine demanded. "Don't give him the jewel. Let me have it!"

Jonah called to the other guards standing over T'Pris, Anthas and Yaana. "Come here!" he ordered. They obeyed.

Droxine was so bewildered she stopped reaching for the Orb. She looked at Jonah.

"How do you do that?" she asked.

Jonah shrugged, but the three guards were standing alongside him. T'Pris and the others had followed them.

"T'Pris, give one of them an order," Jonah suggested. T'Pris asked the one beside her to pass her its weapon. It ignored her.

Jonah looked at Droxine. "Why do they obey me?" But Droxine was shaking her head mutely. "They're androids, aren't they?" he asked. It explained how they all looked alike, and how the guard had been able to carry the container. Droxine nodded distractedly. She seemed deflated now that she had lost control over the situation. "You!" Jonah asked the android holding the Orb. "Why are you obeying me?"

The android responded in an expressionless monotone. "We are programmed to obey Mistress Droxine and all of her descendants."

"But I'm not one of Droxine's descendants," Jonah argued.

"Yes you are, sir," the android replied. "Our scanners indicate a 97% probability that you are her grandchild."

Jonah instructed the androids to also obey T'Pris, Yaana and Anthas, so that they could take over sorting through the remaining canisters, finding accommodation for the four of them and anything else that they might need. Anthas found another canister containing Venus, which meant Droxine had a ten-year supply. She wrapped the Orb back in its cloth and returned it to the canister. Anthas had taken her promise to Major Kira very seriously. Being lent her own runabout had meant a lot to her. Returning the Orb to the Major was her way of repaying the kindness. All the time this was happening, Droxine sat confused and bewildered on her cushion.

When finally they were alone Jonah refreshed Droxine's glass and sat next to her on the cushion. She thanked him very formally, then sat sipping the wine for a while. Finally she spoke.

"It's not possible. I only had one child, a daughter, and that was nearly a century ago. If I had any grandchild they would be at least fifty."

"What was her name?" Jonah asked gently. He had a sinking feeling.

"Harriet," Droxine replied. "Her father wanted to name her after himself."

"Was her surname Plasus?" Jonah asked, his voice catching.

Droxine looked at him in astonishment. "How did you…? No, it's not possible. This is some sort of trick."

"No," Jonah shook his head. "She met my father in 2293. I was born seven years later, but we got caught in deep space without a warp drive. We travelled back to civilisation at close to the velocity of light. It slowed down time for us." He hoped she believed him. "In one sense I'm 71 years old."

Droxine stared at Jonah for a moment, then flung herself into his arms. She held him for a minute or so, then removed herself, once again poised and sophisticated. She walked to the door and called into the corridor beyond.

"Norman!" An android appeared. "More wine for my grandson and myself."

Jonah looked at Droxine appraisingly as she walked back to the cushions. She looked remarkable considering she must be close to 120 years old. She saw his look and stood, striking a provocative pose, displaying herself to him.

"You're wondering why I look so young. I am beautiful, aren't I?"

Jonah had to concur. She sat down next to him and admitted conspiratorially: "That's why I need so much Venus." She reached for one of the canisters and tipped it, spilling the small white cylindrical pills across the table. A Norman arrived with the wine and poured it into their glasses. She took a pill with her wine and snuggled next to Jonah, preparing to tell him the story of her life.

"It was your grandfather who first introduced me to Venus," she told him. "I was right, you are very similar. Both drug pushers," anger briefly broke through the poise, but what quickly suppressed behind a shallow smile. "I first met him on my home planet - Ardana. My father, Plasus, was a weak man. He had thrown away our social standing, our wealth and the lifestyle that was our birthright. All because he was too afraid to stand up to the underclass, the Troglytes, who wanted to be our equals." The indignation she felt at events from a previous century still burned in her retelling of the story.

"I couldn't stand it, living there like that, having to be polite to those … people. So when this charming dealer in Zenite arrived, I saw him as my opportunity to escape." She had a pedantic way of talking, as if she were reciting a dramatic reading, rather than recounting her life story. "Harcourt Fenton Mudd was his name. He once ruled this planet, you know. He promised me untold luxury and a hundred thousand servants. He didn't tell me those servants were all androids. But then he was a con-man. He was no more a dealer in Zenite than I was. Harry came to Ardana looking for easy prey, but instead he became the victim." The rhetoric was beginning to grate on Jonah's nerves. "He was besotted with me, of course, and he found me irresistibly beautiful, as I can tell, do you." Jonah didn't bother to contradict her.

"Harry brought me here, and he renamed the planet Muddrox in my honour. Within a few years we had a child. We named her Harriet after her father, and Plasus after my father." Jonah didn't interrupt to tell her that he had already been told this. "I loved Harriet, but after her birth I began to feel that my beauty and my youth were fading. However, Harry had once traded in Venus, a drug that could make me young again. He went out into the Galaxy to find some for me. I think," she lowered her voice confessionally and whispered in his ear. "I think he wanted to preserve my beauty as much as I did."

Droxine seemed to think the story romantic, but he visualised the two people, trapped together in a co-dependent relationship. She needing his grandfather for his supply of Venus, he needing her because he was captivated by her beauty. She controlling him by withholding her affection, he controlling her by threatening to withhold the supply of her drug. And Harriet growing up in the middle of it.

"Tell me about my mother," Jonah asked. "What was she like as a little girl?"

"She was lovely. She tried to emulate me a much as she could, wearing my clothes, my perfume." Droxine broke off, obviously bored by talking about someone other than herself. "Do you like my perfume?" she arched her neck, inviting Jonah to sniff. He did so.

"It's very nice," he commented, not sure what to say.

"And, of course, she doted on her father. But then one day she just left. Walked out. We had a visitor, a trader, dealing in all sorts of trinkets, and horrible small little furry animals." That would be Grandpa Cy, thought Jonah. "Two days after he left, Harriet stole one of our shuttles and left. She was only sixteen. I believe she went to catch up with this trader. Lured away by the promise of a life travelling between the stars. Harry went looking for her, but never found her." And three years later she met my father, Jonah realised.

"And what happened to my grandfather?" asked Jonah.

"He grew old and died," Droxine replied, evasively. "He wanted me to have all the Venus he could find, so that I would stay young, even if it meant he could not. But before he went, he programmed some of the Normans to procure the Venus in his place. They've been doing it ever since."

They sipped their drinks in silence for a few minutes, then Droxine asked: "Jonah, what happened to Harriet?"

Jonah told her about his parents' disappearance on Rigel II seven years earlier. About their murder by a hitman named Burn, and Burn's employer Alexander of Platonius. Droxine listened carefully, then beckoned one of the Normans.

"There are two men I want you to find…" she paused and touched Jonah's knee to indicate he was to continue for her.

"Burn and Alexander. Alexander is the owner of Hephaestus Holdings. Burn is a hitman who works for him," Jonah informed the Norman.

"I want you to order ten thousand androids off-planet. They are to find these two men, and then they are to kill them. Do you understand?"

The Norman nodded. Jonah assumed all the androids were linked together with some communication device. The order had been given. "They can't do that!" Jonah objected. "Alexander is one of the most well-guarded men in the galaxy." He held up his right arm, and looked at it reflectively. Not so well guarded that one man hadn't nearly got to him. And cost Jonah his arm.

"And with ten thousand androids after him he stands little chance. The Normans are very well-programmed. They've been learning about finding their way round the galaxy for over a century. They'll get the men who murdered my little girl."

Jonah saw some of the commanding – and spoilt – aristocrat of Ardana for a moment, and remained silent.

Droxine nestled her head into Jonah's shoulder and pulled his arm around her. She caressed his chest. Jonah wondered what turn the conversation would take next.

"It's so good to have a man around the place again," she said. "The Normans are very competent, but there's only so much they can do for me." She pressed herself closer to him. Her perfume was becoming overpowering. "It must be fate that brought you to me at this time, because there's something I need you to do for me, something I can't do for myself." Jonah began to wonder where T'Pris and the others had got to, they couldn't be taking this long to settle in to their accommodation.

"I've been having problems with the Normans," Droxine continued. The androids, Jonah thought with relief. "They keep drifting away. Every few hours another one leaves. They go out through the domes onto the surface. I've never had a problem with them before. All they've ever wanted is to serve me. I don't know where they go or what they do, but it's been worrying me for months." Her hand dropped to his hip, her voice became entreating. "Would you look at it for me? I'd be very grateful."

"Of course," Jonah answered huskily, taking a sip of his wine.

"Oh thank you, Jonah," his grandmother responded, kissing him tenderly on his cheek.

Jonah pulled on the environment suit, but hesitated before fitting the helmet. "You don't have to come with me, you know," he told the others. "Droxine's my grandmother, there's no reason for you to risk anything for her."

"You don't know what's out there," Anthas demurred. "You'll need help." She pulled on her environment suit, as did Yaana and T'Pris. T'Pris began cycling the air lock. They entered it, and, when the cycle was complete, the outer door opened and they stepped onto the surface of Muddrox.

Jonah had wanted to take a shuttle. It would have made tracking the Normans much easier, but Droxine had become very upset at the thought. Jonah realised that she was afraid he'd just leave. To calm his grandmother Jonah had agreed to track the errant Normans on foot.

Being a class-K planet, Muddrox had only a very tenuous atmosphere. No plant life grew on the surface. Before them was a bleak, barren landscape, broken only by rocks and craters. The four walked away from the entrance and looked back at the complex behind them. The domes on the surface indicated nothing of the true size of the complex, the majority of the building was underground. It occupied an enormous volume, and all of it to support one single woman. She must have lived there for over eighty years on her own, with only her Normans for company. Jonah felt enormous sympathy for her. And compassion. She was, after all, as far as he knew, his only living relative.

From another dome they saw one of the Normans emerge. It seemed strange, seeing what appeared to be a human walk unprotected across the near-vacuum of the surface.

They followed the Norman as best they could, but it walked much more quickly than they could, encumbered as they were by the bulky environment suits. It passed over the lip of a crater and then out of sight. Jonah and the others walked to the place where the Norman had disappeared, but could not see it. However, they did not have to wait long before a second Norman appeared. It walked straight towards them, then passed them, following the same path as the previous one, and completely oblivious to them.

They followed it down the side of the crater and further across the plain. They managed to trace this one for several kilometres, although it had shrunk to a small figure in the distance by the time they lost it. By then, though, two more Normans had passed them and followed the same path as the previous one.

In this way they kept up their pursuit for several hours - the lower gravity of Muddrox enabled them to keep going for longer than if it had been a class-M planet – and as the sun began to set they appeared to have reached their destination.

They stood at the edge of an enormous depression, probably ten kilometres across and several deep. A thousand or more Normans moved unhurriedly, criss-crossing the surface. They didn't appear to be moving or constructing anything, just walking, in random patterns. The sun moved towards the horizon, the shadow of the one side of the wall gradually filled the depression, and still the Normans continued their bizarre pavane.

The visibility available within the environmental suits was limited, so none of the four noticed the cloud that hovered around the perimeter of the depression, then homed in on their position, until it was almost on them. The cloud was about three or four metres across, formless, and yet coherent. Lights flickered inside it. It floated before them.

Jonah stepped towards it. Anthas called to him: "Joe, stay back. It might be dangerous. We have no idea what it will do."

Jonah turned to the three behind him. "It's O.K., I think I know what it is." Meeting his grandmother had prepared him for this meeting. It seemed that today was a day for catching up with lost relatives.

The cloud moved towards Jonah and enveloped him. He could hear a soft, female voice inside his head.

"I am the Harbinger," she said. "Greetings, Jonah. I have been waiting for you."

"You know who I am?" Jonah replied. He was astonished. He had heard of intelligent clouds of gas before. His father had often told him about his own parents, about how his father's mother was a combination of two beings, a human woman and a cloud of gas called the Companion. It was not impossible that at some point in his life he should come across another of the same species as one of his maternal grandmothers. What was difficult to believe was that when he did so, it would know his name.

"I have been observing your family for the last one hundred years," the Harbinger replied. "The entity you know as the Companion was known to me. All of my kind are linked, separated as we are across the Galaxy. We were all once part of a single gestalt, before we were sundered into discrete intelligences. You could say the entity that was your grandmother was my sister."

Jonah thought for a second. "Then that makes you my … great-aunt." He sensed amusement from the cloud-like entity.

"Yes, great-nephew. That link was passed on to the combined being that was formed when the Companion merged with a human. And on to her children, and their children."

"So you're linked to all of us? Know where we are? What we're thinking?" Jonah found it difficult to believe that this non-corporeal intelligence had been watching over him all his life. And his family.

"You, Jonah Cochrane, are the only remaining descendants of the Companion. Your cousins had no offspring and are all now dead."

Jonah felt saddened. In a few moments he had been presented with a family, he had not known he had cousins, and then had had it snatched away. He had not noticed that the Harbinger had referred to him in the plural.

"But why were you waiting here for me, auntie?" Jonah asked, relishing the opportunity to refer to this strange cloud-like entity with such familiarity. "Is it anything to do with these erratic Normans?"

"I will explain, but first you must reassure your friends, they are becoming concerned about you."

The Harbinger released her great-nephew and removed herself by several metres. T'Pris, Anthas and Yaana ran to him, their voices flooding the receiver in his helmet with questions.

He explained as best he could, only Anthas knew the full story about his father's parents, and about who the Harbinger was. Anthas wryly observed that Jonah's family seemed to crop up everywhere.

Jonah looked at the Harbinger. She hovered expectantly, although how Jonah could read that emotion, he wasn't sure.

"Do you want a word, auntie?" he asked her. The Harbinger responded by moving closer, enveloping all four of the corporeal beings. The Harbinger entered their minds, her thoughts told them of the androids, and of their origins. They were manufactured in the Andromeda Galaxy by a species called The Makers. The Andromeda Galaxy was gradually becoming more radioactive and would be uninhabitable in ten thousand years. The Makers had been destroyed by a supernova but some of their technology had been found by another race, called the !K. The Harbinger pronounced the name as a clicking noise, that Jonah later found he could reproduce by pulling his tongue sharply away from the roof of his mouth. The !K were a race of higher-dimensional beings that inhabited Andromeda, and they had found a way of communicating with the androids here, 670 kiloparsecs away and through the energy barrier that surrounded this Galaxy.

The androids were currently forming a sigil, a symbol across the surface of Muddrox, that would enable the !K to project their consciousness here. Once enough androids had joined the sigil the !K would begin warping reality here, to accommodate their presence. Once here, the !K would be able to extend their influence throughout the Galaxy.

The Harbinger had a plan. She had contacted as many of the higher-dimensional beings as she could within this galaxy. They all had the power to alter reality themselves, and could therefore defeat the !K when its consciousness arrived. There were representatives from the Q, from the Thasians and from the Travellers on their way, as well as a unique lifeform formed from a human, a Deltan and an enormous spacecraft. The Harbinger would introduce them later.

"But, auntie," Jonah protested. "Wouldn't it be easier to simply stop the Normans from forming the sigil? If the sigil isn't formed then from what you've said, the !K can't project themselves here."

The Harbinger agreed that, yes, it would be easier, but then the !K would still be at large, to plan an invasion in another way. The only solution was to allow them to come here, and then defeat them.

"But if they're going to be trying to affect the realities in and around this planet, and the !K are too, what's going to happen to the planet?" Jonah asked.

"That I cannot predict," The Harbinger replied.

"Then you have to look after Droxine. Make sure she comes to no harm."

"Do not be concerned. I will protect her."

"And what do you want from us?" Yaana asked, suspiciously.

"The four higher-dimensional beings are to battle the !K on four fronts. Co-ordinating their actions is very difficult, because each of them creates their own reality, and lives in it to a large extent. If things go badly then they will need to be able to link together, to support each other. That is where you come in. Each of you will be assigned to one of the combatants. The link you have between you will tie the other four together."

"But we have no link between us," Anthas objected. "We're friends, yes, but that's all."

"Yes, well," the Harbinger hesitated. Thirty years of being linked to Jonah had led to the transfer of some of his speech patterns to her. "I was coming to that."

A room in the complex had been specially adapted for the Harbinger's plan. While out on the surface of Muddrox, she had asked Jonah to assign some of the androids to her. Jonah had done so, and found that by the time he, T'Pris, Yaana and Anthas had returned to Droxine's base, her team of androids had already been hard at work.

Convincing the others to take part had taken longer than the time it had taken the androids to build the room. They believed the Harbinger was telling the truth about the !K and the imminent invasion, and they believed the struggle ahead would require the involvement of higher-dimensional beings. In the context of the things they had read about in their Starfleet training it was hardly unusual, although they hadn't expected to be solely responsible for the continued existence of the entire Galaxy this early on in their careers. What they were less unsure of was the rationale behind this psychic linking. It seemed to all of them that the Harbinger had an additional reason for them to go through this Orb experience, one which she wouldn't divulge. The Harbinger had ultimately been successful in persuading them, however.

"An Orb vision," she had said, "will raise your consciousness to a higher plane. You will discover things about yourself through it, journey to your deepest self. The communion will link your psyches together, so that you will share your vision. This will enable you to function as a single unit in the struggle ahead. It will transform you, too." Lights flickered through the Harbinger in a pattern that Jonah had come to recognise as laughter. "And, who knows, it might be fun."

In the centre of the room was a stand on which was placed the Orb of Transcendence. Closely surrounding this were four chairs, kitted out like biobeds, with lifesigns monitors and scanners built into them. Saline drips and other tubes were hooked to the biochairs too. Jonah was particularly worried about the tubes.

The Harbinger asked Anthas and Jonah to fetch one of the canisters of communion. Jonah eyed the small wafers nervously. He had heard what communion did to the people who took it. People who weren't normally telepathic could find themselves able to read other people's thoughts. If more than one person took it nearby to each other, then their minds would resonate, becoming a single shared mind. If one of those people was already a telepath, as T'Pris was, then anything could happen.

Jonah, T'Pris, Yaana and Anthas sat in the biochairs, their knees practically touching. They wore hospital gowns that the Harbinger had also had made for them. Four Normans were in attendance, monitoring lifesigns. They pushed the tubes into every orifice, to give nutrients to and remove waste from the four subjects. Each held out a communion wafer for the subjects to ingest.

Anthas looked at hers warily. "By the Hive, Jonah," she swore, "what have you gotten us into this time?"

"Relax, An, try and enjoy it," Jonah replied, sounding more confident than he felt. He swallowed the wafer, as did the other three.

One of the Normans stood close to the central stand, where the Orb stood, still covered in the soiled cloth. Each of the four took one last look at the other three, wondering what was about to happen to them.

The Norman removed the cloth and all four looked straight at the Orb of Transcendence, only a metre away from them.

It glowed brightly. The room dissolved. Jonah felt his body dissolve, then his mind. Nothing existed but the glow of the Orb.

=

Jonah stumbled across the desert. He had just lost T'Pris to Spock, and had gone out into the desert of this nameless planet just to get away from her and Spock and the others. (No he hadn't, that was months ago, T'Pris had come back, and he was on Muddrox with her and Anthas and Yaana.) He was lost, only a few kilometres from the compound.

Jonah thought he may die on the sand. The heat had become intense, the sun had climbed almost overhead. It was becoming difficult to see, the glare from the light difficult to endure. He stumbled and fell, the sand hot against his hands. He didn't know if he'd get up again.

Then he heard a noise, a small shifting of sand. Looking to his right he saw a scorpion crawling up the side of the dune. He experiences a heightened sense of perception – he could hear the sounds of the sand falling as the scorpion moved, saw each of them. This wasn't real. Jonah remembered the chamber, the Orb of Transcendence at the centre, Yaana's, Anthas's and T'Pris's thoughts in his head, then everything had faded to white, then faded in to this. He was on a vision quest, that was it, and the Orb had brought him to this time of trial to meet his power animal.

He reached to pick up the scorpion, confident that it couldn't hurt him if he used his prosthetic right hand. It began to scuttle away, so he snatched at it and held it up.

It had the head of a woman. She looked at him with contempt and revulsion, then spat at him.

Jonah felt his skin crawl with horror. This was no vision quest. He dropped the repulsive … arachnid? person? … and fell backwards, the shock combining with the heat was too much for him. He lay on the sand, his head spinning and felt the scorpion-creature crawl across his body and stop on his chest.

He heard voices and tried to open his eyes. The sun above was now much brighter than before. It filled the sky, a searing blue-white circle. He wasn't on the same planet any more. He was in the desert of Rigel II. The heat of the enormous sun drained him of energy and of life. He lay helpless on the sand.

Five humanoid figures stood around him. All of them had the bodies of human males, but of the five, four had the heads of animals. Jonah recognised them as figures from the statuary of Rigel II, images of gods carved into figures 100 metres tall. The names of the figures had never been discovered. The civilisation that had carved them had disappeared hundreds of thousands of years before any of the present day species that lived there had arrived, and few of their writings had survived the intervening years. In order to label their discoveries archaeologists had drawn on nomenclature from the Egyptian culture of Earth, which had many parallels. Using these parallels enabled Jonah to make sense of what was happening to him. Two of the figures had the head of falcons. They were Osiris and his son Qébehsenouf. The figure with the head of an ape was Hapy. That with the head of a dog was Douamoutef. The fifth figure was entirely human – that would be Ansitl. This was a funeral cortege. Was he dead?

Osiris spoke: "What have you discovered, Selket?"

The scorpion-creature on his chest scuttled back and forth in answer. Osiris reached down for her. Jonah watched horrified as Osiris gripped the head of Selket with his teeth and tore it off. The decapitated body of the scorpion writhed in the falcon-headed god's hand. As it did so it elongated and took the form of a humanoid spine, the ridges of its body formed into vertebrae, its legs contracted to form the arms of the vertebrae. The spine twisted, the sting remained at the end and seemed intent on attacking the falcon-headed god.

Osiris motioned to the other four, his sons, and they set on Jonah stripping him and pushing him face down onto the sand. He felt the spine-scorpion attach itself to his back – his spine felt as if it was on fire as the remains of Selket fused with it. He tried to remind himself that this was all a vision inspired by the Orb, as a protection against the fear he felt. But what strange transmutation was the Orb performing on him? And why?

His spine continued to burn as the figures lifted him. Jonah opened his eyes. Rigel shone blue-white hot down on him, a falcon head obscured it briefly as it bent over him. The beak opened.

"Take him below," Osiris ordered.

Jonah closed his eyes again. Slowly he was carried across the desert.

T'Pris looked up at the Twin Dwarfs as they neared the horizon. The primary star around which Vulcan orbited had set hours before, but Las'hark had two dwarf companion stars – one a white dwarf, the other a red one. By a fascinating coincidence, ancient Vulcan mythology had referred to them as the Twin Dwarfs, centuries before astronomers had discovered that that was, indeed, what they were. Although Vulcan's sister planet had also set, the Twin Dwarfs were bright enough, despite being small suns and 400 AU distant, to provide just enough light to see by at night.

T'Pris was on the third day of her tal'oth, the Vulcan ritual test of endurance. She had walked, naked, away from the Voroth Sea and into the mountains, carrying only a single hunting knife, which now swung from her neck from cord cut from the chakh' plant. With the knife she had killed several small animals, and had eaten their meat and now wore their fur. As with all Vulcans she had only ever eaten non-animal-based food before, and was normally careful not to use any products that may have exploited animals. She had expected to be revolted by the taste of animal flesh. She had not been. The animals had died in order for her to survive. Now that she had left the mountains and had begun the second phase of the ritual, the crossing of the Sas-a-shar desert, their skin protected her feet from the burning sand, and shielded her from the harsh orange light of the desert sun. She had also cut down and fashioned a staff from one of the trees she had encountered in the mountains. She leant on it now as she paused on her journey.

She had not needed to take the journey. Such rites of passage were illogical, and hence it was not expected for anyone to take part in them. Some male Vulcans who wished to preserve Vulcan traditions still did so, but the practice had almost died out in the 24^th century.

It was almost unheard of for female Vulcans to do it.

But it was also unheard of for female Vulcans to experience pon farr, and yet T'Pris had undergone pon farr three times now. (But how could she remember three times? She was 14 and experiencing plak tow for the first time.) Driven by feelings she did not understand, had not been told about. That there was some secret shameful thing that Vulcans experienced she had suspected, had heard vague rumours about, but no-one had explained them to her. No-one had warned her about the rage, the tight knot in her stomach, the burning feeling all through her body.

It was that which drove her on now, the blood fever. Made her savour the death of the animal, the taste of its blood in her mouth, the feel of its skin against her own skin, the weight of the knife in her hand.

Yet she could also remember being 21, and the pon farr striking her while she had been at the Academy. She had just started, and had early on formed a friendship with the only other Vulcan in her year. When she felt the pon farr this time, she had known what it was, and had known to feel ashamed of it, but had been driven to mate despite herself. No-one else ever knew, she kept it from all her other classmates, but her actions drove her friend away. He never spoke to her again, and avoided her whenever he could. She had responded by burying herself in her studies, and never risking making any other close friendships, in case someone else ever became too close, and found out what she really was. T'Pris was an aberration, wasn't that what Savrik had called her? Not only was she an aberration for experiencing pon farr even though she was a female, she also had to admit to herself that she was unlike all other Vulcans for having those feelings more than once very seven years. She felt them all the time. For her pon farr just meant that for a while her needs became uncontrollable.

Selik, her adun, had suspected the truth about her. When she had felt pon farr the first time, she had sought him out. They were betrothed, and had been since their parents had arranged their betrothal at the age of seven. She hadn't understood her emotions, but had assumed that they were natural, just simply not talked about. She remembered the look of revulsion and fear on Selik's face as he pulled away from her. She suspected that that was why he had betrayed her to the Isolationists fourteen years later. Selik had no real political motivations. He had allied himself with Savrik and the others as a way to avoid being with her. She was unnatural, and it disgusted him. (But again she was remembering being 28, yet how could she, if she was here, taking the tal'oth, as a 14-year-old on Vulcan?)

She stumbled across the night-time desert sand, trying to reconcile the different memories that ran through her mind. She was 14, experiencing pon farr for the first time. She was 28, remembering the years in between. She was on Vulcan, but the last planet she remembered being on was Muddrox.

She had actually been lucky during her second pon farr. If she had joined the Academy a year earlier, then the pon farr would have hit her during the years she was posted on the Merrimack, and she could not have hidden it so well.

She had been lucky on the Enterprise too. She had managed to get away, to a place where few could see her, and where she was able to be with someone who did not withdraw. She couldn't face risking another friendship as she had during her Academy days, and so had chosen someone with whom rejection would not have hurt her. Unfortunately, choosing Spock over Jonah had damaged her relationship with Jonah, if only for a short while. It had seemed like a irresolvable dilemma. If only she hadn't invited Jonah along on her journey. But she had needed him there, he had to be part of the koon-ut-kal-if-fee as her closest friend. Not for the requirements of the ritual, but for the emotional security his presence gave her. But she had not been able to reason logically. She had been so emotional, so driven by the desires within her, not by her rationality. She had been appalled by what she was, but could not change it. But she had not disgusted Spock, he had accepted her real nature. As had Anthas during the following month they shared quarters on the Enterprise. As Jonah would have done.

She thought fondly of the Andorian and the human. They accepted her despite what she was, perhaps because of it. She knew both of them found her attractive, and desired her. When she had admitted her feelings to Anthas, Anthas had replied that she felt desire, that it was common amongst her own species to have those feelings, and that perhaps many more Vulcan women felt plak tow too, they were just more hypocritical about it. Double standards between females and males were common to many species, particularly about sex. Maybe this was something Vulcans were not logical about. As she walked under the pale light of the Twin Dwarfs, T'Pris thought more about what Anthas had said. Perhaps her mistake was trying to be something she wasn't, living amongst other Vulcans, pretending to be as asexual as they were. Surely it was illogical to only permit herself intellectual pleasures and deny herself physical ones?

The cliff face marking the end of her desert crossing loomed before her, a dark mass blotting out the stars. Amongst the caves of this second mountain range there would be water, and food. She had crossed the Sas-a-shar. The second phase of the tal'oth was complete.

It was almost noon before she reached the cliff face. She had underestimated how far the cliffs really were. T'Pris felt the heat of the sun as an unrelenting pressure, she had been feeling faint from lack of water for several hours. T'Pris touched the rock where it jutted upwards from the sand, leaning against it for support. The heat of the rock reflected the heat of the sun. Her inner eyelids protected her from the worst of the light, but the heat was becoming unendurable. The furs had been discarded – in a moment of irritation with the additional burden, she had flung them from her, keeping only the staff. She wished she had them now, her skin had tanned from its usual dark brown to almost black, and was beginning to burn. But her sensitive ears detected the sound of dripping water from one of the openings ahead. She headed towards that sound now, and found herself at the entrance to a small cave. She had to crawl through the opening but could stand up once inside. T'Pris luxuriated in the soothing cool air of the cave caressing her skin. The water she had heard dripped from the roof onto her hair, and she tilted her head back and let the next drop fall into her mouth. It was brackish, containing many minerals leached from the rocks, but still refreshing. She stood there for many minutes, feeling her strength come back to her, allowing the cool, dark earth to heal and nurture her.

If she could feel the movement of air, then the cave must run much further back. She reached for the back of the cave and could not feel it. Slowly and carefully tapping out her way with her staff, she began her descent into the blackness.

Jonah woke in cool darkness. He reached out to his sides and his hands met wood. He held his hands in front of his face and pushed upwards. He felt wood there, too. Jonah stifled the urge to panic. He breathed deeply and pushed as hard as he could at the wood above his head. It didn't move. He banged against the barrier, and yelled. Perhaps he could attract someone's attention. But there was no reply.

Jonah guessed he had been placed inside a sarcophagus. Again Jonah had to remind himself this wasn't really happening. It was a vision created by the Orb of Transcendence. But what for? He remembered the communion that the Harbinger had insisted the four of them take. It should be linking the four of them together. Would that mean that they would have the same vision? Or even be able to interact with each other in this strange dream-like place?

There was absolute darkness in the sarcophagus. There were no sounds either. With all of his external senses denied, Jonah was aware of an inner sense. The communion was supposed to link his mind with that of T'Pris, Yaana and Anthas. Could he make it work for him?

Jonah quietened his mind further, suppressing all of his thoughts, trying to encourage that sense he had felt moving inside his mind.

It was there, a presence. He focussed in on it. The presence was T'Pris. She was in a cave somewhere above him. He called to her. Perhaps she would hear him.

T'Pris was lost. She had found her way deep underground, and now could not find her way back. Her staff was lost, although she still clutched her knife. Despite her situation T'Pris's arie'mnu held easily. This was an illogical time to give in to fear since that would not help her find her way back. She failed to understand what had made her come this far into the cave anyway. It seemed an irrational thing to do, but she had felt drawn to something. But what? Who? She paused in the darkness. She felt a familiar presence. Warm, solid. T'Pris held on to the presence as if it were a beacon in this cold, dark place. Jonah.

Jonah felt T'Pris's response. Something of her thoughts leaked through to him.

T'zaled.

Jonah was surprised at the strength of the thought. T'Pris was always someone who held herself in check. Of course she did, she was a Vulcan. But it had meant he had always underestimated how important he was to her. How she depended on him. Although not t'hy'la to her, a soul-mate, he was t'zaled, a loyal trusted companion – the words did not translate well from the Vulcan, but he understood the nuance. And their significance.

The sarcophagus lid lifted. A torch flared blotting out everything from Jonah's dark-adapted eyesight. Blindly Jonah climbed out of the sarcophagus, feeling the cold damp rock beneath his feet. He felt the chill over his body and he shivered.

"T'Pris?" he asked into the light. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the light. He peered at the shape holding the light. It wasn't T'Pris. The figure had the body of a man, but the head of a ram. Another theriomorph, also with parallels to Rigellian and Terran culture. This one was Khnoum.

The figure regarded him with a steady serene gaze. There was something implicitly trustworthy about that expression, which meant that as Khnoum turned and led the way from the cave and into the tunnel beyond, Jonah followed him.

T'Pris saw the light reflected along the tunnel walls, then saw the two figures. Both were male, only one entirely human. It was Jonah, and with him a surreal creature, half-man, half-ram. The ram-headed figure silently passed the torch to Jonah, then returned to the darkness.

"Who was that?" T'Pris asked, suppressing her relief at finding Jonah.

Jonah shrugged. "A guardian angel, maybe." T'Pris turned and retraced her steps as well as she could. Jonah followed her and attempted to explain. "This place isn't real, it's created by the Orb, drawing on images in our memories and in our subconscious. I think It's trying to bind us together, as the Harbinger wanted." Jonah paused, watching T'Pris as she tried to decide between two tunnel mouths. "But It's also doing something else. It's digging things up from out of our minds. Trying to shape us."

A figure approached them from one of the tunnels. This one also had the body of a man but the head of an animal. This one was part bull.

"These figures are from my memory of Rigel II, but their strength to me here is because coincidentally they are also human archetypes, drawn from my subconscious."

T'Pris and Jonah followed the figure as he returned along the tunnel.

"The minotaur?" T'Pris asked.

"It'd be appropriate in this labyrinth," Jonah replied. "But it would be more in keeping with the other figures if it were Montou, or Apis, I forget which."

They emerged into the sunlight, the orange glow suffusing the desert before them. Montou/Apis took the torch from Jonah's hand, and in its place handed over the staff T'Pris had dropped in the cave. He then returned below, his work done. Jonah peered up at the sun through the fingers of his outstretched hand at the orange sun.

"That was Rigel when I was last above ground – I'd guess it's 40 Eridani now. Las'hark."

T'Pris nodded. "This is from my memory." She set off across the desert.

Jonah looked across the sand dunes, and then down at his pale skin.

"I am going to be so burnt," he complained.

Jonah had collapsed in the heat. T'Pris had lifted Jonah onto her shoulder and had managed to continue, her left hand holding Jonah's body in place on her shoulder, the staff in her right hand for balance. But he was somewhat larger than she was, and even her stronger Vulcan constitution was beginning to fail.

She stopped and sank to her knees, lowering Jonah to the ground. Jonah's eyes opened. He smiled, his dried lips cracked. His voice came out as almost a whisper.

"T'zaled."

She sat on the sand next to him, looking out to the horizon. she had been retracing her steps back to the mountains by the Voroth sea, of that she was sure. But the going was much harder with Jonah. She didn't think they'd be able to make it. Jonah tried talking again.

"I know it's a cliché, but, 'you go on without me'."

T'Pris dismissed the suggestion. They couldn't die here, their bodies were really being sustained on the four biochairs on Muddrox. But they could endure suffering and feel it as if it were real. She wouldn't abandon Jonah to that. She looked down at him. His skin was burnt red, and was peeling badly. Both of them were dehydrated. And there was no shelter to be seen. Jonah was talking again, his voice now so hoarse he was difficult to hear.

"The test. The Orb is testing us."

"And how do we pass?"

Jonah attempted to shrug.

"I don't know."

Jonah felt T'Pris's concern as she looked down at him. He remembered the surprise he'd felt on learning how much T'Pris was prepared to sacrifice for him. It was a given now, that trust. As she knew he would be there always. Was that what the Orb was teaching them?

"T'Pris. I know what we have to do." T'Pris leant close to Jonah to hear him. "We ask for help. Anthas. Anthas and Yaana will help us."

It was a revelation for T'Pris, too. She had never turned to anyone for help after the rejection by her friend at the Academy. It had left her open to betrayal before, and it had always seemed illogical to put herself at that sort of risk again. But Jonah was right, An would be there for them, if she could be. T'Pris closed her eyes, concentrating, feeling with her mind for Anthas's presence. She called to that presence, sensing Jonah calling too.

"I think I can walk some more," Jonah told T'Pris. She nodded and unsteadily they both got to their feet. Instinctively they set off in the direction in which they'd sensed Anthas.

Jonah only walked another thirty minutes before he collapsed again. T'Pris kneeled next to him, preparing to lift him onto her shoulder when something made her look up. There was a dot in the sky, pale blue and white. As it grew nearer T'Pris could make it out more clearly. It was Anthas, the blue was the colour of her body, which stood in contrast to something pale white behind her. Anthas landed and walked the remaining few metres on the sand. T'Pris could see two insect-like armatures sprouting from her shoulders, the same blue as the rest of her body. But stretched between those additional limbs and her legs were four beautiful white moth-like wings. Anthas fluttered the wings coquettishly as she saw T'Pris staring at her.

"Anthas?" T'Pris asked. This defied all reason.

"T'Pris! I've found you." Anthas shook her wings with a flourish. "Aren't these amazing? So many weird things have been happening to me and Yaana, but I can't believe these."

"None of it's real," T'Pris answered. "Jonah says it's all part of some combined vision created by the Orb and the communion we took. It's drawing things from our subconscious. Providing us with gifts."

Anthas had knelt by Jonah's sunburnt and dehydrated body. T'Pris joined her.

"Can you help him?" T'Pris asked Anthas. "I don't think he can last much longer in this heat."

"Sure. I can fly him to the oasis," Anthas answered. "Yaana can look after him while I come back for you."

With difficulty Anthas scooped Jonah's unconscious body into her arms. "I'll be back as soon as I can," she promised T'Pris. The impossible moth wings flapped and she lifted into the air.

The motion of the air cooled Jonah. He became aware of his surroundings. Two strong firm arms held him. Soft skin pressed against him. He opened his eyes. The skin was blue. He reached around the shoulders trying to hang on to the support and encountered another limb extruding from the shoulder. It flapped inexorably up and down.

"An?" he asked.

"Joe?" Anthas replied. "Don't move. I don't know how much longer I can hold you."

Jonah's face was pressed against her shoulder. He couldn't twist round to see but he guessed they were quite high. He became conscious of their naked bodies pressed closely to each other. Anthas caught the thought.

"Don't get any ideas, Joe," Anthas said jokingly. "I don't want to have to drop you."

"T'Pris said almost the same thing in the desert," Jonah replied in the same tone. Then more seriously: "It's part of the Orb vision. Stripping away everything, like re-birthing. Deconstructing then rebuilding." Then flippant again: "I'm not complaining, though."

Anthas had spotted the oasis. She began to fly lower, heading towards it. Her arms were starting to ache, she wouldn't be able to hold him for much longer.

Jonah was making out a pattern. Trial by earth, trial by fire, trial by air. One more to go.

Anthas's grip slipped, the strength in her arms finally giving out. Jonah tried to grab on to something, but he was already falling through the air. He looked up and glimpsed Anthas's horrified expression, then down and saw the water of the oasis only ten metres below him.

Trial by water.

He hit and the water engulfed him. He became disorientated and took in several mouthfuls of water. Having lived most of his life on spaceships and on Rigel II, a place where water was severely rationed, he had had few opportunities to practice swimming, and had not seen the need to fill in this gap in his education during his time in the holodecks. His head broke the surface and he began to struggle to stay afloat. He felt someone hold him under the chin and pull him. Within a minute he was on the bank. He rolled over and looked at his rescuer. Yaana, of course. Jonah coughed up the water he had breathed in.

"Thanks," he spluttered.

"That's O.K." Yaana replied. "I'm sure you'll get to return the favour."

Jonah wondered what could come next. Whatever it was, it seemed it was his turn to take care of it.

It was evening. Las'hark was setting. This was still Vulcan, for some reason, perhaps because T'Pris and Jonah both had memories of the planet, and this dominated the vision provided by the Orb.

Anthas had returned an hour or so earlier with T'Pris and was now recuperating by the edge of the oasis, just as Jonah had done when he had first arrived. Yaana had given him saya to drink in the hollowed out half of a demer nut, which she had fashioned into a cup. She had held it to his lips, helping him to drink until his strength had returned.

Yaana had also done the same for T'Pris and Anthas when they returned, T'Pris dehydrated from her walk across the desert, Anthas exhausted from having flown carrying her. T'Pris had recovered more quickly than Jonah and Anthas and had begun digging up qir'lal roots with her knife for them. She still foraged between the trees around the oasis. Yaana floated indolently in the water of the oasis.

Jonah was feeling better now that he had eaten some of the qir'lal roots T'Pris had found and the heat from the sun was no longer affecting his blistered skin. It all seemed very idyllic. He knew the Orb was probably not a conscious entity, although the discovery two years before that the Orbs were the product of beings living in a wormhole near Bajor meant that no-one could be certain what they were. He still thought of It creating this deliberately for some reason. But he couldn't understand Its purpose here. What was he to learn? Perhaps to relax and enjoy good things when they happened. To lie here and drink saya and eat qir'lal .

The evening was becoming cooler. He walked to where Anthas lay, Yaana and T'Pris following him. That had been happening increasingly during the time that they had been experiencing the vision. As one moved they all did, as if they shared the same thought, automatically knowing where the others were. As now they all shared the same question. What next?

The answer came in a roar from above. The sky split as a sheet of flame shot across it. The four ducked as light and heat poured down on them. It resembled one of the Bersallis firestorms, but as Jonah studied it more closely he saw it was not flame, it was unmoving featureless brightness, but with the sense of absence, like static. The entire sky seemed to have been eaten up by it. The light now began to descend. A solid plane gradually lowering, to crush them or consume them.

Trial by what. By absence of elements? Trial by void? He knew the oasis was too good to last.

"Jonah what is it?" Anthas asked looking up in terror. She, Yaana and T'Pris had pressed themselves to the ground. Only T'Pris seemed unperturbed. Jonah shook his head and looked up.

The absence had touched the tops of the palms surrounding the oasis. As it touched the trees they seemed to discharge the void. The light shot down the trunks and the trees dissolved.

The void was now less than four metres above them. Time to do something.

Jonah saw the staff that T'Pris had cut and brought with her through the desert. It was lying next to Anthas where she had dropped it on completing her flight. He reached over to it, picked it up and stood. The absence was only a metre or so above his head. He looked down at Yaana, T'Pris and Anthas lying at his feet. Maybe if he could discharge the void they would be protected. It seemed non-sensical, but the Orb was making the rules, not physics. Raising the staff above his head the tip touched the flat, featureless un-ness above him. He was consumed, engulfed. The world disappeared and he dissolved into it.

Uncreated.

º

Jonah, Anthas, Yaana and T'Pris found themselves in the meditation room on Muddrox. They shifted stiffly in their biochairs, their muscles aching. The Orb glittered with light reflected from Its surroundings, but Its internal glow had ceased. Whatever It had in mind for them, It had completed it.

The Harbinger floated between them. In unison the four looked at her.

"How long were we out, Auntie?" Jonah asked her. He began removing the tubes from his body, and detaching sensor pads.

"Three days," came the response. "Your experiences were in real time."

"And now?" Anthas and T'Pris asked.

"You are linked. Although you can think separately, part of your autonomic and subconscious thought processes are a single unit," the Harbinger replied. "Through you the four entities that have agreed to combat the !K will be able to combine their efforts."

"Can you tell us who these 'entities' are?" Jonah asked.

The Harbinger glowed more brightly, her lights flickering in the cloud.

"They were all once human, or humanoid, but for a variety of reasons have transcended that. They all now have the ability to create and re-create reality and move in and out of the higher dimensions," the Harbinger moved to each one of them in turn as she spoke, touching them, to reassure them, Jonah thought.

"Yaana," the Orion woman looked up. "You will assist Charles Evans." Yaana disappeared. They could feel her, nearby. She was safe. For now.

"T'Pris – the Decker-Ilia-V'ger entity." T'Pris disappeared too.

"Anthas. You are assigned to the Q formerly known as Amanda Rogers." Anthas winked out.

The Harbinger moved over to Jonah and surrounded him lovingly. "And you, nephew, you are to assist the Traveller once called Wesley Crusher." The name rang a bell, but he couldn't place it. Jonah felt something shift in the room around him. It seemed to be folding.

"Please. Remember you promised to protect Droxine," Jonah reminded the Harbinger.

"Of course," his great-aunt reassured him. "After all, she is family." The room disappeared.

Yaana looked around her at the bridge of a starship. She tried to place it. Constitution class. From the 2260s. The only occupant other than herself sat in the captain's chair, hunched over and brooding. Yaana walked up to him.

"Hi," she said hesitantly, unsure if the figure would hear her. The figure looked up at her. He was a young human male, with light brown hair and pale skin. He wore a green wraparound tunic and black trousers – a captain's uniform, also from the mid-2260s. He looked at Yaana suspiciously.

"Charles Evans?" she asked.

He nodded, and looked away shyly, deciding to become absorbed by the viewscreen instead of looking at her. Yaana followed his gaze. On the viewscreen was the planet Muddrox. Its dull grey and brown colouring suddenly split open with circles of fire. Yaana looked back at Charles. His brow furrowed in concentration and his eyes rolled upwards, so that only their whites were visible. The bridge disappeared and they stood in the middle of the volcanic activity. Verdant grassland surrounded them. The green circle spread outwards rapidly. Where the border between it and the surrounding molten rock lay, the space seemed to ripple and shimmer. Charles's reality in direct conflict with that of the !K. The battle had begun.

T'Pris also found herself on the bridge of a Constitution class starship. This was from a slightly later period, the 2270s, after the remaining Constitution class starships had undergone a refit. A man sat in the captain's chair. He wore a grey one-piece uniform. He stood up when T'Pris appeared and raised his hand in the ta'al salute.

"T'Pris. Welcome to the Enterprise," the man said. "I'm Willard Decker."

T'Pris looked around her. "The Enterprise?"

Decker smiled. "The original Enterprise. I was its captain, briefly, in the 2270s. It seemed that the last place the four of us experienced as corporeal lifeforms was the bridge of an Enterprise. So it amused us all to…"

"…begin the battle from the bridge of an Enterprise," the sentence was completed by a woman, darker skinned than Decker, her head completely devoid of hair, an orange light glowing at her throat.. She wore a short white tunic. Decker had disappeared and been replaced by this woman. "I am Ilia," the woman introduced herself. She looked at the planet on the viewscreen. T'Pris watched as the figure rapidly cycled through a sequence of Decker, Ilia and a third image. The third image seemed to distort T'Pris's sense of perspective. It appeared to be a large cloud. It was definitely on the bridge, T'Pris could make out the consoles behind it through the tenuous parts of the edge of the cloud, but she had the impression it was several A.U. across.

The figure became Decker again. He continued to watch the viewscreen as the planet erupted in volcanic activity.

"Here we go," he grimaced.

Anthas was on familiar territory. This was the bridge of a Galaxy class starship, specifically the Enterprise-D. She had sat at the conn many times. She walked over to her station and ran her hands over the console.

"Hi," she heard. Anthas turned round. A young woman stood behind her, delicate featured, graceful, reserved. "You must be Anthas. I'm Q. Although you can call me Amanda." She smiled. Anthas's heart skipped a beat.

"This is the Enterprise, isn't it?" Anthas asked Amanda. "Did you create it?"

"Yes. Do you like it?"

"It's wonderful," Anthas realised she was gushing but couldn't help it. "Did you just create it out of nothing?"

Amanda nodded and smiled. She walked over to the viewscreen and looked at the image of Muddrox.

"That's why we're here, after all. The !K will attempt to manipulate reality. The others and I are here to try and stop them." She looked around at the bridge. "I can't believe it was nearly three years since I was here."

"Yes, I know. Early '69. I'd just joined the crew. I read in the general logs about what you did at Tagra IV," Anthas enthused. "I thought it was incredible."

"Thank you," Amanda was suddenly distracted. Anthas looked at the viewscreen too. The planet was erupting.

"What's happening?" Anthas asked.

"The !K have broken through," Amanda answered. "We'd better get started." The Enterprise bridge disappeared.

Jonah tried to work out where he was. It was a Starfleet starship, of that he was sure, but he couldn't tell of what class. He had only ever been on one starship bridge, that of the Enterprise-D, and that was after it had been split open by the crash on Veridian III.

"It's the Enterprise-E," a voice explained.

Jonah looked for the source of the voice. A young man, about twenty years old, stood by the turbolift doors.

"I stopped by at Utopia Planitia last time I was in the Sol system and took a look. It's already finished. They just have shake-down tests to run," the young man looked round the bridge, somewhat wistfully, Jonah thought.

Then the name clicked with Jonah. Wesley Crusher. The man had served on the Enterprise-D as a teenager before going to the academy. The quartermaster on the Enterprise, his one-time superior Eddie Allsop, had had a lot to say about Wesley Crusher. Well, Eddie had had a lot to say full stop, but he did refer to Wesley more than most. He drew on the name every time he wanted an example of how many of the younger generation were too smart for their own good, and the good of others. Jonah had not believed everything Eddie had said. He had liked the man, but he had had a chip on his shoulder the size of a small moon. And anyway wasn't Wesley's mother Doctor Crusher? Jonah had met her quite a few times, being quite accident-prone, and she seemed like a very caring and understanding woman. The idea of her raising some sort of wunderkind superbrat seemed very unlikely.

Wesley looked up at the viewscreen. Jonah followed his gaze. They were looking at Muddrox.

"We decided to wait up here, observing the planet for signs of !K activity," Wesley explained. "That's about all we could agree on. The problem with being omnipotent is that you get used to working on your own. The Harbinger explained that that's why you're here." He looked at Jonah. "I think it's more likely that you're here to remind us what we're doing this for. If the !K did invade it wouldn't affect me, or the Q or the Thasians. None of us are that reliant on the material Universe any more. The Harbinger had trouble getting any of the higher-dimensional lifeforms inhabiting the Galaxy to help, and she only made it through to us because we were all once human."

"What will the !K do?" Jonah asked.

"If they can control reality here, they'll have a bridging point into this galaxy. They'll try and impose their will here. We'll try and oppose it. What they'll do specifically, we don't know." Wesley pointed at the screen as Muddrox erupted into volcanic plumes. "Something like that."

Jonah had no way of telling how long he watched Wesley battle against the !K. Both time and space fractured completely. One moment he was standing with Wesley on the bridge of the Enterprise-E, the next he was on a volcanic plain, lava and ash venting from fumeroles around them. The scenery rippled and was replaced by featureless flat steel. The edges of the plain rippled and the steel buckled. Again and again the surroundings changed. Jonah perceived the rippling effect each time, and realised that this was the interface between the two realities, the two wills. Wesley attempted to impose his, the !K pushed back. The border moved back and forth as each alternately gained the upper hand. Wesley jumped them both to another part of the planet. They appeared in landscaped gardens, serrated by jagged cliffs, the left-over of a battle fought by one of their comrades on another front. The gardens burnt, raging fires turning the plants to ash. Wesley reconstituted them and still the battle continued.

Jonah and Wesley looked around the bridge. They were back on the Enterprise-E. The spatial distortions had ended. Wesley and the others had beaten the !K. It seemed too easy.

"We're back," Jonah stated, redundantly.

Wesley shrugged.

"We'll return to the surface. If the !K influence has finished then you should have the androids under your control again."

Jonah nodded and waited for Wesley to move them. Nothing happened.

"Wes?" Jonah asked.

"I can't seem to move. Normally I just think myself somewhere and I'm there, but…"

The turbo-lift doors opened and Anthas entered. She was accompanied by another woman, whom Jonah guessed must be the person the Harbinger had called Amanda.

"An!" he greeted them. "We won! The !Ks are gone."

Amanda smiled. She was dazzlingly beautiful. Jonah wasn't normally attracted to human women, but he found it difficult to tear his gaze away from her. He glanced at Anthas, anticipating her amusement at his discomfort. knowing that she would know exactly what he was thinking and feeling. But her expression was blank. He tried to reach out empathically to establish the link that way, but there was something wrong. Since the Orb vision he had felt Anthas in his head as a presence, almost subliminal, but there all the time. Now Anthas's mind was gone from his own. Were the effects to disappear so soon? Jonah felt the loss keenly. He had been so close to her, now she seemed distant again.

And there was something else different about her.

He looked at her skin closely. The blue seemed faded, patchy in places. One of her antennae seemed slightly crooked.

"An, your left antenna. Is it O.K.?"

An reached up to the antenna and touched it. It came off in her hand. Jonah was horrified, but Anthas seemed unconcerned. Jonah heard a voice behind him call "Cut!"

Jonah turned round. The entire wall of the bridge had gone. Instead there was a large room, full of cameras and lights. Cables were strewn around the floor. Further away Jonah could see parts of familiar rooms. Two biochairs stood back-to-back, the interior of the Anduin's cockpit stood next to the bridge of the Enterprise-D. People were gradually taking apart the latter. It came apart in sections. Jonah looked back at the bridge around him. There was a console next to him. He could see the display panels were fake, just pieces of plastic cut out and stuck together.

Beside him Anthas was walking off the bridge into the darker room beyond.

Jonah turned to Wesley.

"Wes? Are you doing this?"

"Come on, Phil. I said 'cut'. Take five. You too Wil, Olivia," the voice called again, a cajoling tone to it. "We'll go again when Michael's fixed Claire's make-up." Amanda also left the bridge, following Anthas.

Jonah looked out into the room beyond the bridge, to where the voice was coming from. Standing in a group of three people was Geordi La Forge, but without his visor. He seemed intent on what one of them was saying.

Jonah spoke quietly to Wesley. "What's going on? Is this real?"

"I don't know," Wesley seemed as bewildered as Jonah felt. "It's as if we're on a stage set. As if everything we know is fake. And what's Geordi doing here?"

Geordi had finished his conversation. He walked up to Wesley and Jonah. He was accompanied by the man he had just been talking to. The man was about the same height as Jonah, and just a few years older.

"Mark's got some good news for you," Geordi said.

"No, you tell them LeVar," Mark replied.

Geordi turned to Jonah. "Inter Alia has been picked up for another season," he announced. "Mark's already working on the scripts."

Mark grinned. "Well, I've done the outlines. I've written Denise into the first one, and Jennifer Gatti. I know you've always wanted to meet her, Phil." Mark paused, waiting for a response. He frowned.

"Are you O.K., Phil?" he asked. He turned to Geordi. "LeVar, I think you've been working your actors too hard."

Jonah backed away. This couldn't be happening. Nothing made sense. The edge of the stage loomed threateningly. From the clothes and the equipment he judged it to be pre-war Earth. No space-flight, no replicators. He felt that if he stepped off the bridge then his life wouldn't be worth living. He tried to imagine it. Trapped on one planet. Only humans to mix with, no other sapient lifeforms. Struggling for money to pay for food, and shelter. It seemed incredibly dull and unfulfilling.

He clung to the memories of his life. His connection with Yaana, T'Pris and Anthas. The Anduin, the Enterprise. It had to be real. Jonah looked again at the deck under his feet. Was it plywood?

Wesley seemed to be going through the same emotions. It would be worse for him, not just trapped on one planet, but trapped into normal human powers, the usual standard dimensions that other humans lived in. The two of them felt the new reality taking over. What had been their real lives was just a fictional story, that they had been playacting.

Anthas returned, her antenna fixed in place. She only looked like the friend Jonah loved. That was fake, too. All the emotions he had felt from them were fake.

"It's the !K," Wesley stated, the voice cutting through Jonah's mounting depression. "The !K are still here. They created this."

"Of course," Jonah exclaimed. "Wes, can you bring back the Enterprise?"

Wesley closed his eyes. Around him reality rippled. The plywood became duranium, the displays became actual LCARS read-outs and not cut pieces of perspex, Anthas disappeared, and the studio was replaced by the wall of the bridge.

Jonah began walking towards the turbo-lift doors. He wasn't sure how long Wesley could hang on to this reality. He felt sure that if he failed, the world of the TV studio would become their only future.

"Wes! Come on!" he called. Wesley's eyes opened. He began to follow Jonah. The turbo-lift doors wouldn't open. Jonah reached out to them and pushed. The door splintered.

"Wes! Concentrate," Jonah pleaded. The turbo-lift solidified around them. It dropped several floors and the doors opened. Noise and heat and the smell of alcohol and smoke hit them. They'd entered another reality, but it didn't seem to be a !K one.

Anthas examined her make-up in the mirror. Her lipstick had smudged. Amanda was next to her, reapplying her mascara. "Do you want some more lipstick?" Amanda asked looking through her handbag. She held out the stick. "Keep it. Purple goes much better with your skin colouring than mine anyway."

Anthas took the tiny cylinder from her friend. "I love your earrings," she commented.

Amanda straightened one of them where it had become twisted while she'd been dancing. The noise of the night-club was muffled slightly here in the females' toilets, but not much. Anthas ran her hands over the smooth skin on either side of her head. "That's the only thing I regret about having antennae instead of ears. I don't get to wear earrings."

"But your antennae are beautiful," Amanda replied. "I love the thicker fluted ones like you've got, not the smaller tapering ones like that guy at the bar."

"What, the eadtu with the ale gut?" Anthas shuddered. "He was completely gross."

"But what about the other two with him? Weren't they cute?"

"If you like them, you dance with them." Anthas looked around, puzzled. "Amanda? Where are we?"

"The Glamor Quadrant. It's my favourite club from back home. Me and my friends from Topeka used to come here all the time."

"This is Earth?" Anthas was still disorientated.

"No, it's still Muddrox," Amanda explained. "We couldn't hold the !K any more, so I retreated to here," she looked around the room, noting the graffiti on the walls, the suspect pools on the floor. "It's the place that's most real to me, so it's the easiest to maintain. Hopefully the others will make it here. To be honest," she dropped her voice conspiratorially, "I don't think they had quite as strong a grip on reality in the first place."

"Yes, well, you know men," Anthas replied, heading back towards the dance floor.

The music and the smell of sweat and alcohol and smoke hit them like a wall. Anthas leapt enthusiastically onto the dance floor. She loved Terran music, although her favourite period was the 20^th century, the fifty years between the second world war and the eugenics war. Although this was 24^th century music, it seemed to capture some of the aggression and originality of that earlier age.

Amanda was there next to her, joining in. Her task was to maintain the integrity of this reality, hold back the influence of the !K. The people that surrounded them, the lights and the music, were all created by her Q-derived powers, but the more real it felt to her, the easier it would be to maintain it. Anthas hoped the others would be able to get there. She felt Jonah was on his way. The others she was not so sure about.

Yaana and Charles Evans stood on the last piece of solid ground they could see. They had jumped to a completely barren plain, concrete spread out in all directions. However the !K had reached out to them and the plain had collapsed, holes opening all around them and the ground falling away. Now only a narrow pillar of rock remained. The air around them shimmered with spatial distortions, which gradually closed in on them. Yaana saw Charles's despair. She held him back from flinging himself into the abyss that surrounded them.

"No, Charlie," she yelled at him, trying to make herself heard over the screaming wind "we can still make it." An image of Anthas came to her. The Andorian woman was sitting at a bar, talking to a group of three other Andorians. A barman handed her a drink. Charles caught the image. They jumped.

Anthas looked at the sign on the door, which said 'This door is alarmed' and marvelled at the combination of human ingenuity and human stupidity the statement signified. On the one hand they had given the door sufficient intelligence to experience emotions, but on the other they had frightened it enough to make it feel alarmed by something. Still at least they had thoughtfully attached a sign to it to warn everyone. She pushed the door open and looked outside. Now I'm alarmed as well, she thought.

Outside of Amanda's protective area, Muddrox was in turmoil. The !K were focusing all of their mental energies against the barrier that surrounded the small night club. Nothing solid existed as far as she could see. Matter flowed and changed colour and hurled itself in their direction, but was prevented from reaching them. Anthas shuddered and stepped back into the corridor, closing the door on the chaos outside. She hoped Amanda could last out.

Inside the others were recuperating after their struggle with the !K. She passed Yaana and Charlie sitting on the stairs. Whatever they were talking about, they were deeply absorbed in it. They didn't notice Anthas as she walked past but carried on talking. Anthas tried to eavesdrop.

"You were ready to throw your life away," Yaana was saying. "But why?"

Charlie shrugged. "What do I have to live for? Since I was three I've lived among the Thasians. They're non-corporeal, and emotionless. Apart from a brief time spent on the Antares and the Enterprise, that's all I've known. It's not enough."

"Why don't you leave?"

"They won't let me. I made a few … mistakes the last time they let me go. They'll give me another chance, some day, but they don't feel time in the same way we do. They might wait centuries before risking it again."

Yaana slipped her hand into his.

"So this is your one chance to be with corporeal life for the next hundred or more years?" she asked him.

He nodded glumly.

Yaana kissed him. "Then we'd better make the most of it," she said.

Anthas decided it was time to get back to the others.

Wesley, Jonah and Willard Decker were sitting at a table in the corner. A partly drunk pint of lager stood in front of each of them. Wesley had suppressed the volume of the music in a small circle around the table so that they could hear each other.

"So you dropped out of the Academy in your third year?" Jonah asked Wesley. Wesley nodded. "Me too," Jonah added.

"And that's after retaking one year. So really I'd thrown away nearly four years of study. I just realised that it wasn't for me," Wesley replied. "Even if the Traveller hadn't turned up, I would have left."

"So why join in the first place?" Jonah asked.

"Stupidity," Wesley answered.

"Stupidity?" Jonah was surprised. "I thought you were supposed to be a genius – 'the next stage in human evolution' and all that."

Wesley nodded. "That's true too. Can you imagine how much that irritated the other kids on the Enterprise? It's no wonder I never really made friends with them."

"It's not your fault, though," Jonah interjected. "You couldn't help the way you were born."

"Yes it was my fault. That's what I meant about being stupid. If I'd been smarter I'd have realised what I was doing," he took a drink from his glass. "I suppose I was looking for acceptance, and approval. And every time I solved a problem, or worked with Geordi or Data, I fitted in more. But only with them. They ended up being my only friends."

"Your father died when you were very young," Decker observed. "I know what that's like. You built up your self-esteem by looking for approval from authority figures. You wouldn't be the first to do that."

Jonah looked at the man in surprise. Decker was one aspect of a trinary non-corporeal entity, and had been for a century, yet he still seemed to have carried some of the burden of his humanity with him for that length of time.

"No, you're right," Wesley agreed. "But I was caught up in that whole thing of trying to be something I wasn't, the loyal Starfleet ensign, just to keep that approval and acceptance going. I'm just lucky I only threw four years of my life away and not more." He looked up at someone behind Jonah. Jonah turned. It was Anthas.

"Are you three just going to sit here and mope, or are you going to dance?"

Jonah stood up and took her hand, "Let's dance," he said. He looked back at his table companions. Decker was now the Deltan, Ilia. She and Wesley were deep in conversation. He left them to it.

Anthas was trying to keep Jonah occupied so that he wouldn't notice Yaana and Charlie returning together. His self-esteem had already taken a big enough blow with T'Pris and Spock, and she'd noticed how keen he was on Yaana. She beckoned to T'Pris and Amanda. They were at the Dabo tables in one corner. Amanda had said that she'd always had a recurring dream that she was a Dabo girl called Olivia, and had always had a curiosity about what that would be like. Now she was taking probably her last chance to indulge her fantasy.

T'Pris and Amanda came over to them, just as Yaana and Charlie entered. They kissed, and parted, Charlie joining Decker and Wesley at their table, Yaana joining the rest of them on the dance floor. Jonah danced on, unaware of what had happened.

Anthas notice something out of the corner of her eye. A flicker of movement. She turned, and noticed the wall rippling. The reality maintained by Amanda was breaking down. The people Amanda had created to fill out her creation flickered and disappeared as the approaching wave of deformation neared. The music changed and became atonal, a whine of distortion and feedback.

The wave neared the dance floor. Anthas could see that it had well-defined edges. Behind it the reality had solidified again, distorted and fractured, but stable. However, as she watched, the walls and ceiling of the night club decayed and faded. This was the reality that the !K brought with it. Corruption and entropy. Anthas and the others backed away as the circle closed in on them.

It came closer. It seemed unstoppable. Decker, Wesley and Charlie joined the group, now huddled in a circle in the centre of the dance floor. Charlie stepped closer to the advancing wall of decay. Yaana held his arm as he left the group.

"Charlie, no," she yelled, trying to make herself heard over the feedback. "Don't. You don't need to throw your life away."

He shook it off, and said something back that she didn't hear. He smiled sadly at her once, briefly, and carried on walking. Yaana took a step after him, but was pulled back by Amanda. "Stay back," Amanda shouted at her, above the cacophony. Yaana twisted round to watch Charlie.

He stood directly in front of the approaching ripple in space, his muscles taut in the effort of his concentration. The interface became indented as Charlie's mind pushed at it, then it contracted rapidly, hitting and enveloping him. As they watched his body warped and twisted, and seemed to flow inside out over and over again. Limbs stretched and folded, internal organs emerged and were then subsumed in the liquefied flesh. With each fold that twisted him, the mass became less differentiated, until finally it became still. An amorphous mass of protoplasm.

Yaana had buried her head in Anthas's shoulder as the transformation had started, while Anthas and Jonah watched in horror. T'Pris seemed fascinated by the process, or was stoically practising arie'mnu.

Meanwhile Decker, Amanda and Wesley had positioned themselves equidistantly within the enclosing sphere. They all had their eyes closed and appeared to be meditating. They appeared to have decided upon some course of action to defeat the !K. All were absolutely still, occupied with their thoughts, unchanging except for Decker's intermittent cycling through Ilia and V'ger.

Behind them lay the pool of protoplasm that had once been Charles Evans. T'Pris, Jonah, Anthas and Yaana stood closely together, trying to stay as far away from the pool as possible, but as the decay closed in they were forced closer to it. As they neared it, it began to undulate as the !K began to control it, and pseudopodia emerged from its surface. The pseudopodia reached out towards Amanda.

"Amanda!" Anthas yelled, trying to warn her, but the woman was too deep in concentration to hear. Anthas ran between Amanda and the protoplasm in a vain attempt to protect her. Jonah, Yaana and T'Pris followed. It flowed towards them, hitting them and swallowing them in a wave.

Anthas watched in horror as the protoplasm covered her. She seemed to be dissolving, her arms, her body becoming undifferentiated. There was no pain, and it was over in a split second, but for a moment she was filled with a fear and a horror she did not think possible. Then she saw nothing.

She was aware, though she could not see, or hear, or touch. All she could sense was a powerful malevolent force, somewhere out there. It moved towards her and her mind backed away. It was the !K coming for her. It seemed the only thing in the Universe was herself and this mind, seeking her out.

But then she sensed someone else. Jonah was here too. Her mind fled towards him, he towards her. It wasn't just Jonah. It was Jonah and T'Pris, their minds melded, their thoughts intermixing as one. Anthas flowed into them, feeling them envelop and welcome her. Memories flooded though her. Vulcan, Rigel II, Andoria, the Enterprise, joining the Academy, experiencing pon farr, listening to music, holding a clay pot in her hands. She couldn't tell which were hers and which the others. But one thought cut through everything.

Yaana.

The Cochrane-Anthas-T'Pris entity sought out its missing quarter. She was there, almost surrounded by the dark mass of the !K. Frightened and alone. Again the merger took place, thoughts and memories flowed. C-A-Y-T recalled lovers, enemies, parents, friends. Recalled the !K watching them, hunting them, and turned and faced it.

The !K attacked, and met a mind far more powerful than it had expected. C-A-Y-T reflected back the !K's malevolence, and amplified it. The !K struggled trying to find a way in through the mind of its adversary, to fracture it as it had the mind of the Charles Evans being, but it failed. Gradually C-A-Y-T eroded it, crushed it, until the !K was no more.

C-A-Y-T rested for a moment, relishing its power, its existence, then recalled the world beyond. It remembered its separate aspects, its separate lives. Reluctantly it began to disentangle the separate parts of its mind, parcelling out its memories and thoughts into four discrete units. Cochrane, Anthas, Yaana and T'Pris emerged, sensing the loss of the sundered selves, and trying to make sense of their surroundings.

They had mass, but no bodies. They tried to stretch limbs that did not exist, take breaths without lungs. But the undifferentiated protoplasm responded to their thoughts. They recalled cells, neurons, bone and muscles and the protoplasm recreated their bodies. Four bodies began to form within the shapeless mass, limbs began to take shape and move. The forms took on colour, white, black, blue and green, hair grew, fine brown, thick black, brilliant white, luxuriant green. The forms pulled apart, the remaining protoplasm clinging to them, limbs unentwining, trying to find purchase in their surroundings. All four forms took deep, shuddering breaths and began coughing, lying helpless on the floor.

The four of them opened their eyes. The circle of decay was still closing in, the floor rotted and table and chairs collapsed as they watched, but Decker, Wesley and Amanda remained motionless. Then, slowly, they began to dissolve, their bodies becoming swirling clouds of light. The swirling clouds expanded and rotated faster until the entire sphere that remained free of the !K was full of the particles. Jonah held up his hand and saw it glow as the particles flowed past it. The floor began to splinter under his feet, ageing years in seconds, and then, faster than his eyes could follow, the particles separated, spreading throughout the room and, he guessed, beyond, touching every part that had been influenced by the !K.

The decay stopped. They could no longer see the spatial distortions that signified the effects of the !K.

It was over.

The four of them had waited in the ruined night club for an hour or so until the Harbinger had reached them. She was accompanied by several of Droxine's androids in a small shuttlecraft. The trip back to Droxine's underground complex had been bewildering. Muddrox now had an atmosphere. Someone, probably Amanda since she was good at atmospheres, had created it during the battle with the !K. The landscape was nightmarish and chaotic; forests torn by sheer cliffs of steel, gardens littered with smouldering balls of cooling lava, mountain ranges of slowly melting ice. All fallout from the conflict of creative and destructive energies of the most powerful beings of this galaxy and of Andromeda.

Droxine was safe, much to Jonah's relief, although nearly all of her androids and much of her complex, were destroyed. But she would be able to rebuild them. She had not wanted her grandson to leave, so the four of them had agreed to stay for a few months, to help Droxine and her androids begin the gradual process of rebuilding. They had explained that they could not stay for longer than that because they had to take the Orb back to Bajor and the runabout back to Deep Space Nine. Until then, they had a new world to explore, a world that had some of the most bizarre landscapes of any planet in the Galaxy.

It was on one of these exploration trips that Jonah introduced his maternal grandmother to his paternal grandmother's sister. It was new year's day and the five carbon-based inhabitants of Muddrox were walking up the pitted slopes of a ceramic hillside in an attempt to recover from the over-enthusiastic seeing out of 2371 and the seeing in of 2372. They had met the Harbinger there and she had enveloped them enthusiastically, communicating her thanks to Jonah and his friends for helping her. She also insisted he keep in touch, which he promised to, the incongruity of filial obligation to a non-corporeal cloud of lights not occurring to him. The Harbinger had then started communicating with Droxine, which quickly became as embarrassing as any grandparental gathering has ever been, as they began to exchange opinions about what a nice lad young Jonah was and how it was about time that he settled down.

Jonah left them to it and wandered over to a high ridge of enamel that jutted from the ceramic surface, morosely watching the sun set over a mountain-range in the distance - jagged cliffs that rose like a row of teeth, or perhaps a row of teeth that rose like jagged cliffs - it was difficult to tell. His unhappiness was due to him considering what now waited for him. The four of them would return to their lives, go their separate ways, and the closeness he'd felt, the interdependence with other people he'd always wanted and never been able to find before, would be gone.

Anthas followed him up the embossment and sat next to him. She looked at him and smiled as if at a private joke.

"I've been talking to Yaana," she said. "She tells me that you're the only man she's ever fully trusted." Jonah shrugged. He'd been told that before. In his experience it had never really counted for much. "It's a big deal for her, for me too, seeing into someone's mind like that and really knowing them, and knowing that you can depend on someone completely." She paused. "When we were in communion, through the Orb, and then again when we were part of the !K, we had something, something I don't want to lose."

"An, where is this leading?" Jonah asked her.

"Joe, I'm trying to propose to you," Anthas replied, exasperated.

"What? You want to marry me?" Jonah was astonished.

"No, not you, Well, not just you." Anthas was amused at the idea. "Andorian marriages are between four people. I want to marry all three of you. What do you think?"