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JUST A DREAM

Hoshi, reveling in her study of the Amagadan language, hardly noticed as Malcolm came and went. She could hardly believe the opportunity presented here; to be able to learn languages all the time and study them from conception to contemporary forms--it was a dream come true, to say the least. Pyrrih, quite pleased by her excitement, had shown her how to enhance her own memory so that she had perfect and total recall of any new facts she chose to learn. "You are a true scholar," he told her. "Just what we need here. We don't have anyone researching linguistics."

She grinned and followed the green-skinned Amagadans through their town. The buildings reminded her somewhat of an architect from a few centuries ago, all geometric shapes arranged with perfect mathematical precision. She couldn't quite remember his name, Frank something or other, but it didn't matter.

Ajatx, the leader of the group of children that she was trailing, stopped and shouted at the littlest ones skipping at the rear. "/Hurry up,/" cried Ajatx. "/We don't want to miss the kditiul ceremony!/" Ahh, this is heaven, thought Hoshi, and scanned through the mental list of adjectives that she'd compiled. Nothing matched, so Hoshi decided to follow them and see just what kind of ceremony this was.

Pyrrih appeared beside her, a shining mist slowly coalescing into the shimmering golden Betweener, grinning proudly. "You have taken to our ways like a fish to water, Hoshi Sato. You make your teachers proud, young one."

She swelled with pride at the compliment and grinned back. "This is amazing! I can't believe what I've learned already, Pyrrih! I could watch them forever!"

"Do you want to rest? Or go anywhere else? We don't need sleep, technically, but we can idle our thoughts for a while and it is often a relief to do so, if you have been watching for long hours."

"You showed me how to go from place to place, if I get bored," said Hoshi. "I'm not tired at all. Shall I come and find you in a bit?"

"Oh, someone will find you, Hoshi. I will be busy for some time, so simply call for another and they will assist you if you need it." He smiled down at her and disappeared again. Quickly, so she didn't lose them, Hoshi dashed after the children and caught up with them just as they reached a great stone temple carved with symbols and signs on every available surface.

Wonderful, sighed Hoshi happily, simply wonderful. I could stay here forever.

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"What are you hiding?" cried Malcolm, struggling to get away from the stronger Thetik. He could not wrench away from the hand on his shoulder, no matter how hard he tried.

It was not because Thetik was physically stronger; Malcolm had enough combat training to defeat an enemy without regard to size. No, he could feel the true strength of the Betweeners working on him--the mental, which he had little experience with, and with which Thetik could effortlessly hold him all day.

"What do you mean?" Thetik said. "Why are you struggling so?" But the emotionlessness of his voice merely indicated to Malcolm that he wasn't even trying to deny it anymore.

"Who was that, standing behind Ensign Mayweather?" Malcolm gave up for the moment. There was no way he could defeat this stronger mind by struggling.

"It is a Betweener," said Thetik. Out of the corner of his eye, Malcolm saw the universe swirl and twist and form itself into Pyrrih.

"What is the matter?" cried the golden Betweener. "Why do you fight us, when we give you such a great gift?"

"Great gift?" Malcolm cried, his eyes narrowing. "Great gift? Bloody hell, you call that a great gift?" He pushed hard and fast against the bonds of Thetik's mind, and caught him by surprise, so that Malcolm's own abilities shot out like a bullet from a gun. He swirled away in space, running for Enterprise, and called over his shoulder, "Nothing but watching for eternity? That is not a gift!"

Without really having picked a destination, he spun out of control onto the deck of the ship, through it, and finally stopped himself in Sickbay, halfway through the floor already.

Two people lay on the diagnostic beds. Gorge rising in his throat, Malcolm slowly reached out to his own body, death-pale and silent but for the beeping of the life-support monitors attached all over. His proper body, now, not the silly child-form he wore now, with brown hair and pink skin and blue eyes that belonged to him and not to some creation of the mind of a Betweener.

"You need not have seen that," said a voice behind him. Pyrrih, of course, and Thetik with him, as Malcolm found when he turned around.

"You are dead," said Thetik bluntly. "It is only the technology that keeps your heart beating. You will never wake up again, Malcolm Reed."

He shook his head wildly, and let himself fall through the deck plating again, down into decon and the shuttlebays. A group of crewmen disembarked slowly from Shuttlepod Two, removing their helmets without exchanging a word. They carried scanners and equipment cases. For finding us, realized Malcolm with a jolt. They found us and they don't know what's happened.

But he found it odd that they did not speak to each other, not a single word, and so he went closer to them.

"Go away," said Ensign Harris quite firmly. "It is not your time."

For a moment Malcolm thought that the ensign was speaking to one of the other officers, but then he realized that the words had been directed at him. He peered closer and then recoiled, stumbling backwards across the shuttlebay.

"Get out! That isn't yours!" he cried at them. All of them, every single one, had a Betweener shining from their eyes, looking straight at him. "Get out!" he shouted again, and then ran as they advanced menacingly, quite forgetting that they could not attack him until he'd gone three decks higher up.

"Are you quite done?" said Pyrrih, keeping pace with him easily. Malcolm abandoned all caution and went outside, on the hull of the ship, trying to escape into the emptiness of space. Deep in his rational mind he knew it would ultimately be fruitless to try and escape; instinct, however, had gotten the better of him.

"You see it," said Thetik from his other side, an almost pleading tone in his voice. "You see it right away, when it takes most of us centuries or even millennia to realize that watching forever is no substitute for truly living, even for a short time. We will not harm them, Malcolm Reed. Their minds will create a haven for them to live in while we experience life." He shivered, and added, "And death, of course," caressing the word with his lips until the sound became rich and sensual. "All things must end, Malcolm Reed, in the natural universe. But we, who come from the natural universe, do not end in the unnatural realm Between."

"You are stealing people's lives!" cried Malcolm, sinking to his knees. He felt a tear (an imaginary tear, nothing is real, his rational mind said cruelly) slip down his cheeks and drop onto Enterprise's hull. But his fingers, seeking to wipe it away, felt no wet, and his tongue, reaching out for the moisture left on his cheek, tasted no salt. He did not exist in that world, after all.

"We want lives of our own. Is that so much to ask?" said Pyrrih. "It has been done this way for aeons. When beings without the potential to experience Between come near a portal, we call to them and bring them through so that we may experience the universe."

"And we were a trap, eh?" said Malcolm. "You called Hoshi and me there so that someone would follow and go through the portal. And then you could bring others down too, until all of Enterprise is gone and you are in their places."

"Yes," said Thetik simply.

"Couldn't you just have killed me?" cried Malcolm.

"We cannot kill. There is no end Between," said Pyrrih. He glanced at Thetik.

"But there is confinement," said Thetik, and turned away from Malcolm. "You are too much of a risk, Malcolm Reed. Goodbye."

"NO!" screamed Malcolm, suddenly knowing what they were about to do. He tried to run, but Thetik and Pyrrih held him fast.

"Do you know who we will be?" said Pyrrih softly. "Your captain and your commander. Your friends Jonathon Archer and Charles Tucker. Thank you, Malcolm Reed."

"You bastards!" hissed Malcolm. Pyrrih merely smiled.

And Malcolm felt their combined powers wrap around him, and throw him away from Enterprise once more, far away into that endless black emptiness he had experienced before coming fully Between. He screamed, furious, and ran until he could not take the emptiness, and then simply tumbled through the endless, featureless space, shouting his fury silently into the void.

Hoshi, he wailed. Hoshi, please, you're the only one who can help me. Get me out of here, please, please, please...

Hoshi, Hoshi, Hoshi, please, even watching forever is better than emptiness...Trip, Travis, Captain Archer, T'Pol, someone...please...

Please...

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