Ooh, thanks for all the lovely reviews again! And Ally, yup, this was around this time last year, and like an idiot I withdrew it, edited it up and sent it as a proposal to Pocket Books. They didn't even reply to send a rejection slip, so needless to say I've washed my hands of them and thought I'd be much happier ( and it would be much nicer) to put it all back on the Internet for anybody to read for free. I'm glad you're all enjoying it! It's sort of restored my faith a bit.

CAT'S EYES

Reed reached up, his eyes uncomfortably never straying from hers, and plucked a single hair from his tousled head. He held it out to her, clasped between his finger and thumb, light catching sharply along its fine edge.

In here, he said, with a bitter, razor blade smirk, there are at least one hundred nanobots. We only need one.

Hoshi stared silently at the thin dark hair twisting lazily in the dim light. In length it was little more than her smallest finger, yet it held one hundred submolecular machines, machines invisible to the naked eye but capable of affecting his hearing, his sleep, his appetite . . . cause a deliberate sleepwalk to lead him to engineering on an errand neither of them could guess, or wanted to.

How do you know all this? she asked, eventually, apprehensive but helplessly awed.

They told me, he responded. His stinging excitability, so like him and so unlike, was almost tangible to touch.

Hoshi ran a nervous tongue over her lips and shifted her weight a little onto one thigh, the other deadened from kneeling on the hard floor. She wanted to move away, completely away, afraid his agitation would somehow burn her; but for more reasons than she could consciously give attention to, she was unable to move a muscle.

Aren't you afraid to sit so near? he asked, quietly. His gaze never moved from her, and Hoshi shifted again uncomfortably, certain this wasn't normal. Honest a question as it may have been, there were several reasons, to her mind, that might have driven him to ask it, and many different reasons he might have hoped to startle from her. This was Malcolm Reed, and it was not. She saw him watching her through a stranger's eyes.

Why would I be afraid? I think I know you well enough to trust you, Malcolm. We're hardly strangers, she said at last.

He was motionless, a breathing waxwork whose forced inhale and exhale was the only sign of life. Only his eyes, like dry ice, betrayed that. He was an inverted cyclone—still on the outside, furious within. That isn't an answer, he said.

Hoshi offered a smile, merely a trembling flutter devoid of all pretense at mirth, but attempting, at least, to infuse some warmth into the still air. The only sound was the purr of the engines rocketing through the deck beneath her. Would you be afraid to, if you were me? she tried, at a loss for anything with which to reply.

That's hardly relevant. We're different, Hoshi. He sighed, a pull that seemed to draw breath from the very soles of his feet, and expel it to the air. More than you realize.

Which I can take any way I want, Hoshi thought, taking encouragement from the revelation. He's probably just as uncertain of all this as I am. More. He'd never admit he's afraid. That's not his way.

But I'm nobody's fool.

Can you hear them now?

He shook his head, wearily. No. All I hear is you and the engines.

What were they saying to you . . . before?

Reed huffed low in his throat, and settled back straight and rigid in the chair, his hands falling limply from his face. You're humoring me, aren't you? You don't believe any of this.

I believe that something's wrong and you need my help. Isn't that enough?

She realized the moment the words left her mouth that they were a mistake; implying that he was in need of her help was tantamount to implying that he had lost control. But it was done, now; and, perhaps more importantly, it was also true.

What I need, Ensign, is your expertise, he snapped. I could have gone straight to the captain with this. Probably, I should have. But this is an important mission, Hoshi—the Vulcans have never truly believed we belonged out here, in space, and if we complete this favor for them then we'll have proved differently. But I think I'm beginning to understand the captain after all this time. At the first sign of a hiccup, he'll pull the plug, and have these things removed. I don't want to be responsible for that.

As he spoke, gazing at her and through her, a little of his old, placid boyishness returned; he had never been altogether as calm as he made out, she knew that, but this change she saw was a return of his logic, his wit, and his passion for the job he had been specially selected to do. He was Malcolm Reed again. She believed him when he said he heard things; about that, she had been telling the truth. She believed that he wanted to know the cause, that his reasons for keeping this to himself were honest, if in contrast to her own first instincts to tell somebody about it. But he had told somebody about it, she reflected—he had told her.

The captain had warned her, and all his senior crew, about this; that Reed may experience hallucinations from the nanobots. And he had also ordered, actually and formally ordered, that Reed not be told any of this, not wanting to risk alarming him unnecessarily. Or, perhaps, causing any kind of psychosomatic reaction. Hoshi suspected that the captain had never thought it would become an issue, and if he knew the situation his answer would be much the same as hers—to tell him, now, before these visions and voices grew any worse, and stole any more of his peace and theirs.

Because now it was an issue. He deserved to know; only one look of those wild, forcibly tempered eyes convinced her of that. But she was duty-bound to keep it from him. Duty had never stuck so sourly in her craw as this did, and she could not help but speculate, once more, that in every way but the professional she was not cut out for space exploration.

Maybe you should tell me what you've been hearing, she stammered, at last. We might be missing something.

Malcolm sat back, and nodded, slowly. If I knew, I'd tell you. But most of it seems to have happened in my sleep, and I only barely remember it when I wake up. The rest of the time . . . well, I've been hearing voices, but I can't make out a word they say. They're whispered, muddled . . . a bit like receiving too many messages at once over the com.

Hoshi nodded back, understanding the illustration, if not fully believing the reply it accompanied. She scanned his face quickly, hoping to see evidence of his telling her the whole truth or not—but if any of the humans onboard had made a study of facial neutrality, it was him, and there was nothing to tell her more than his spoken answers did. And you think these nanobots are responsible?

Either that or I'm losing my mind. I'd prefer to think it was the first option. Besides . . . it only started happening at the institute. That's too much of a coincidence for me.

And you want me to decrypt these . . . nanobots?

I want to see if we need alert the captain or not. I want to know how important this data is and whether it's worth my sanity. There was the subtle sarcasm she had grown used to hearing, blended seamlessly back into his professional exterior. Only the minute quiver running through his body betrayed any different.

How do we get the nanobots out, or read what's there? I can decrypt the information once it's out and in my translator, but before that . . . I mean, I can't read your hair.

Leave that to me, he said.

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Hoshi dressed quickly, and the two of them ventured out into the low-lit morning shift hours for the second time that night. Hoshi's heart clamped to a stony knot as they set foot outside her door, waiting to see if he would naturally shoulder the lead before she could allow it to beat again. She was anxious for any sign of his old self returning, gathering up mentally the indications she was given; his quiet sensibility, check; his distant and dutiful exterior, check; and now his lead-the-way mentality, check. Now all she needed was for him to make a joke so subtle she almost missed it, and she could breathe easily again.

She followed where he led, trusting to his motives this time, and entirely uncertain where it was they were headed; he proceeded as if he knew, and all she could do was trust that he was right.

She seemed to be taking so much on faith tonight. And she could not help but wonder, still, if she was doing the right thing. He had sworn they would tell the captain once they knew what they were dealing with—but that, she feared, was one thing she couldn't quite believe.

He stopped, at last, outside sickbay. Its doors were closed, and all in the corridor where they stood was dim and sleeping. Phlox would no doubt be in his quarters, sickbay empty and the doors sealed.

How do you propose we get in? she asked, already suspecting he knew the answer.

He turned those pale eyes on her, brilliant in the downtime gloom, and smiled, lazily. So much of his expression, she was beginning to realize, occurred in his eyes. So subtle she almost missed it.

Welcome back, Malcolm, she thought.

I'm chief of security, remember? My clearance level's more than high enough to open this door.

And sure enough, it was.

Reed ordered her to keep watch and alert him if anyone came by, and then left her at the doorway, ducking into the dark confines of sickbay with no further word. She waited for the lights to come on, but time passed, and the interior remained in darkness. But there were the faint sounds of equipment being moved and used, a clink or a hum here and there, too faint to identify but loud enough to note, and no evidence of either accidents or stumbling in the black inside.

Can you see all right in there? she hissed, eventually.

Yes, why? He sounded surprised at the question.

Hoshi did not follow up on it. It seemed pointless, even cruel, to tell him that only a cat could have possibly seen his way in such total absence of adequate light.

He emerged only a few minutes later, a padd in his hand, and a triumphant smirk on his face.

Got it, he said.

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They decided, in the end, to return to Hoshi's quarters while she worked. She asserted that she had the necessary equipment already set up there and that she worked best in her own environment, and he accepted her suggestion with his usual, stoic wryness; but she was not fool enough, green as she may be, to be completely blind to what lie beneath it this time. The dutiful propriety was there, but the impetuous spark and boyish curiosity had vanished again as elusively as they had surfaced. He did not want to go back to his quarters while there remained any chance of those bizarre occurrences happening again, and Hoshi had provided him with the perfect excuse.

He could do nothing while she worked; this was her sphere, and his skills did not extend to decrypting experimental nanobots. Hoshi doubted hers did either, but she was only too well aware that if she didn't try, no one would. It would have cost him to come to her like this, and most of all to reveal weakness of any kind. If she refused him or failed him, then she knew, without a doubt, that he would not go to a second for aid.

She wondered, almost arbitrarily, if it had merely been the chance of her witnessing his sleepwalk that made him come to her, or whether it was her ability as a linguist and communicator, or that he trusted her as a friend; but whichever it was, she doubted, very much, that she would be up to the challenge.

She was very careful, in the end, not to tell him that.

Why don't you get some sleep? she prompted, making careful eye contact with him. You look like a raccoon.

I'll be all right. I've gone longer than this without sleep before.

I just thought . . . well, the voices seem to come when you're asleep, don't they? I know it's pretty scary, but . . . we might learn something.

I don't know that I can sleep on demand, Ensign, he teased, obliquely.



He nodded, and sat on the edge of her bed to pull off his boots. Do you think you'll be able to break the encryption, Hoshi? he asked. That earlier look of frozen fear had collapsed into a harrowed, hollow tranquility, his haunted eyes like black holes sucking the life and peace from the room.

She opened her mouth to assure him, bluntly, that she would come through for him, but that look, so pained, so empty, and somehow piercing flesh from bone, had taken the wind from her sails.

Nobody would try harder, she said, finally. Unwilling, in the end, to promise what she was not at all sure she could deliver.

I understand.

Hoshi tilted her head to one side, not breaking the stare but shifting its focus, and took in the overall slump of his shoulders. Still hearing things?

Not at the moment. Maybe I should take the hint and get some sleep. Will you be all right?

I don't think you could do anything, she said, frankly. I can't aim straight at a live target and you can't read encrypted data. That's why the captain needs both of us on this ship.

He smiled at that, releasing a brief infusion of warmth into his chilling expression that was all too swiftly cut off. Thanks, Hoshi. She knew he did not mean her willingness to do this for him, nor her agreement to keep it between them, but her willingness to trust him. You'll wake me if you find anything?

Promise. And if you feel like sleepwalking again, my robe's on the chair over there.

Reed uttered a short, sharp bark of laughter at that, climbed into Hoshi's crumpled bunk, and fell asleep almost as his head touched the pillow.

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The hush had two profound effects on her progress, the one distinctly helpful, the other unsettling. She had always worked well in peace and quiet, able to hear each nuance of a recorded dialect and concentrate on every variant of the written. But this quiet, although near unbroken, was not completely devoid of sound. She could hear Reed breathing, not the soft, measured ease of a man asleep and dreamless, but the tortured rasp of one trapped in a nightmare. For the second time that night, his lips moved rapidly, muttering broken syllables she could make nothing of, and he twisted restlessly in her bed, tugging her quilt into a sweaty tangle.

She waited as long as her nerves could stand, hoping the symptoms would abate on their own and let him rest. An hour passed, and there was no change; so, flinching and uncertain, she left her desk and approached her bed, one hand reaching hesitantly to wake him.

She never completed the gesture. Whatever was troubling him behind the pained creases in his forehead and the biting clench of his fists and jaw, he needed to see it through.

They needed to know, in the end, what they were dealing with.

So she let him sleep. And let him dream.