Everything was the same: the sunny afternoon, the drowsy heat, the farmhouse. Even the horses were there, grazing peacefully in the green grass. Only the people were gone.

Khan led the way through their search area with a tricorder held before him. Kirk followed several steps behind with his phaser drawn, wary of both Khan the peaceful-looking farm. If Khan disliked this arrangement, he said nothing of it; the two men worked in tense silence.

After a fruitless examination of the barn, they emerged into blinding sunshine. Kirk raised his hand to shield his eyes and squinted at the horizon. It was just the right distance—not too close or too far, as so many planets' were—and almost perfectly flat. He felt a wave of homesickness for Iowa.

"It's marvelous, is it not?" Khan had plucked a blade of grass from the ground and was running it through his fingers. "It feels so real."

"I wonder how far it extends," Kirk said, without thinking. "If you started walking—" he broke off.

"Would you reach another farm, a road, a town?" Khan finished. "One wonders, indeed."

Kirk lowered his hand, angry with himself for being caught in a moment of camaraderie with Khan. "The others are waiting. There's nothing here for us to find."

They found the other four members of the away team in front of the farmhouse. One look at their faces told Kirk their search had been no more successful than his own.

"We found no trace of humanoid lifeforms anywhere on the array," Sh'athylnik said. "Wherever Chekov and Kati are, they're somewhere our tricorders can't sense them."

Khan turned his head sharply. Kirk heard it a moment later: soft, nearly obscured by Sh'athylnik's voice: the twang of a banjo. He followed Khan's gaze and saw the old man from the welcoming bee on a bench beneath the trees, strumming the instrument cradled in his lap.

Khan was already striding across the lawn. Kirk hurried after him, and the others trailed behind. The old man continued to pluck out a wistful tune as the approached, unconcerned or unaware of their presence. He looked up when Khan stopped in front of him.

"Why have you come back?" the old man said querulously. "You don't have what I need."

"I don't know what you need, and I don't care," Khan said coldly. "You will return the people you abducted from us and send us home immediately."

Kirk said, warningly, "Khan."

They locked eyes, and after a moment Khan stepped back. Kirk let out a sigh of relief.

"Well now," the old man chuckled, oblivious to their byplay. "Aren't you contentious for a minor bipedal species!"

This one was different, Kirk realized. The old man was more than just a hologram run by a sophisticated computer system. He was real, sentient. This was the entity that had transported them across halfway across the galaxy.

Kirk didn't bother to hide his anger. "We may be a 'minor bipedal species,' but we are sentient beings. That means we have rights—rights you have violated. Your actions have resulted in the deaths of several of our number, and you still hold two of us captive. "

The old man waved his hand dismissively. "It was necessary."

"Where are our people?"

They were surrounding him now: Sulu, Hendorff, and López behind arrayed behind him, Kirk, Khan, and Sh'athylnik looming in front. Except Khan, they were all armed, but the old man merely looked annoyed.

"They are no longer here!" he grumbled.

Sh'athylnik knelt on the grass and stared up into his face. It did not make her look like a petitioner begging; it made her look like a predator preparing to spring. "What have you done to them?" she demanded.

"You don't have what I need!" the old man repeated, agitated. "They might. No—you'll have to leave."

"We won't do that," she said flatly.

It was strange, Kirk reflected, that she should be so adamant in her defense of Kati and Chekov when, not so long ago, she had assisted Marcus in holding one hostage and stood by while he opened fire on the other. Or perhaps it was not so strange, after all. Andorians were known for their discipline and sense of honor. Perhaps she saw nothing inconsistent in following Marcus's orders even though she believed them to be wrong, and now following Kirk's orders even though they had recently been enemies.

He remembered his boast to Pike, what seemed like a lifetime ago, "You know how many crew members I've lost since I took command? Not one." And standing on the bridge of the Enterprise, pleading with Marcus: "My crew was just following orders. I take full responsibility… all I ask is that you spare them." He tried to put what he had felt, in that moment, into words this being could understand.

"We are their commanding officers, we are entrusted with their safety. They are our responsibility." He remembered, too, that however human this entity currently appeared, that appearance was nothing but an illusion disguising an alien reality. He finished bitterly, "Perhaps you can't understand that."

It wasn't until he saw Khan's sideways look that he realized he had spoken for them both. If the old man noticed Kirk's sudden discomfort, he gave no sign.

"Oh, no," he assured him earnestly. "I do understand. But I have no choice. There is just not enough time left!"

"Left for what?" Kirk demanded, frustrated.

"I must honor a debt that can never be repaid... but my search has not been going well."

There was an opening there, something they could use. Kirk glanced over to see what Spock's opinion was—but of course, Spock wasn't there. Instead, he found himself looking into Khan's dark eyes. Underneath the now-familiar cold anger was a speculative expression, and he gave Kirk a slight nod. Kirk opened his mouth to tell Khan he didn't need the approval of a murderer—and closed it again. They couldn't afford to show dissent now, and if Kirk didn't think Khan deserved some say in decisions that affected Kati, he should have left the augment in the brig.

Besides, he would have done it anyway.

"Tell us what you're looking for," he said to the old man. "Maybe we can help you find it."

"You?" the entity scoffed. "I've searched the galaxy with methods beyond your comprehension. No, there's nothing you can do."

"You've taken us seven thousand light years from our home," Kirk said. He was running out of arguments, and he didn't know what he would do when words failed to persuade. Attack a being that could move two starships across the galaxy? Give up? "We have no way back unless you send us, and we won't leave without our people."

"But sending you back is terribly complicated. Don't you understand?" the man demanded. "I don't have time! Not enough time!"

The old man flung out his arm. There was no time to react; before Kirk could move to attack or defend, a great upwelling of light washed over them. When it subsided, Kirk found himself and the others back on the bridge of Enterprise, Spock sitting in the center chair and McCoy leaning over his shoulder. There was a moment of stunned silence, then the bridge erupted into chaos. Spock demanded an explanation, McCoy shouted in alarm, Sulu hurried to reclaim his station, and the two security officers edged closer to Khan, their hands on their phasers.

Kirk ignored it all. His eyes were fixed on the viewscreen, which still showed the entity's array. Pulses of energy continued to shoot from its base, as steady as the pendulum on an old-fashioned clock.

Tick—tick—tick.

Not enough time.

Kirk knew where to look next.