On the command deck, Dylan and the others watched as the Nietzschean fighters jumped to slipstream. Beka said, "You must trust us if you're letting your escort go."

"Of course," Olma said with a smile. "After all, you're not all Nietzscheans."

Harper smiled. "I'm starting to like her."

"Funny, Harper," Rommie said, "I thought you liked them younger."

Harper scowled at his favorite android. "You're gross, you know that?"

"Harper!" Trance said. "I'm older than Olma, and you've never had a problem with me." She smiled and lines appeared on her face; in seconds she looked like an old crone with a hooked nose. "Don't you still love me?"

"Sheesh," Harper groaned.

"Yes, um," Dylan said, "we can…discuss this another time." He paused. "Trance?"

"Huh?" Trance said.

Dylan arched his eyebrows.

"What? Oh." Trance's face returned to its normal young and beautiful appearance.

"Thank you," Dylan said. (Olma smiled.) Dylan turned to the old matriarch. "Olma, the floor is yours."

"Thank you, Dylan. I presume you all know about Bajor's Orb of Ages?"

"Yeah," Harper said, sounding less than excited. "Fell through the Bajoran wormhole a gazillion years ago. Weighs as much as three galaxies, can not be moved from where it's floating, probably made by the same race that made the wormhole for God knows what reason because you can slipstream between the ends quicker, and maybe-" Harper broke off, then he continued slower: "But some scholars think it's connected to the Route of Ages."

"Mmm-hmmm," Olma said.

"But it doesn't do anything!" Beka said. "I took Harper to Bajor after he signed on, back when some Nightsiders tried to make it and the wormhole into a tourist attraction. The orb looks and feels like a lump of rock. Just one floating three feet off the ground; anyone with a couple of AG generators can fake that, and most people thought that's what it was, wormhole or no wormhole. Not surprisingly, that Nightsider operation went belly up a few months later."

"The Collectors began to periodically study the orb," Olma said, "and found it about as interesting. Until a month ago. Then it began putting out radio signals. I'm sure you will recognize them." She tabbed a console, and Data appeared on one of the big main screens.

Rommie said, "That's the data from the medical nanobots that were injected into my crew, including Tyr. The time stamp…Dylan, this data was received after we went through the route of ages."

"The signal periodically repeats itself," Olma explained. "It's believed it's a leaked signal that got caught in some sort of loop. The collectors just started analyzing that when another signal started repeating itself." Another tab of the console. One of the screen images split itself between images of Dylan and Tyr.

"The map is all I want," Tyr started.

"I remember this conversation," Dylan said. "There's nothing new here."

"And it could have been recorded by a drone at the time," Rhade said.

"Yeah," Beka said, "what's the news here?"

"Wait for it," Olma said.

"Not angry," Tyr said on the screen. Then his side blanked. Andromeda took his place as she informed Dylan the *Maru* had gone out of control. Then he left the room and his window blanked.

Then Andromeda looked around. "Who's there?" she said. "Who's listening to this? I am the Commonwealth starship *Andromeda Ascendant* under the command of Captain Dylan Hunt. Identify yourself." She waited. "Signal lost. Source: Route of Ages. Lovely. I have *got* to get dry dock time when all this is over. And some place nice, not one run by Harper's 'buds.'" She left the screen.

"Rommie?" Dylan said. "Did that last part happen?"

"Yeah!" Harper protested. "I thought you liked the docks I got you into."

Dylan scowled at him, then turned back to android. "What did you pick up?" he asked.

"I thought someone was hailing me on my internal wireless network frequency," she said, "but the message was too garbled to make any sense of it. All I could pick out was reference to something called the United Federation of Planets. And I also thought…I thought I could feel a computer system based on multi-tronic technology."

"Multi-tronics?" Harper said. "That's a technological dead end! They couldn't get that crap to work in the Old Commonwealth."

"Not in our universe," Trance said, "but in another it might have worked."

"I didn't mention it at the time because I didn't think it was relevant to the crisis," Rommie said. "Subsequent events lead me to file it and forget it. So if the orb is emitting a signal with my transmission on it, it's genuine."

"And related to something thousands of lights years from here," Dylan mused.

"Those things alone convinced Pish it deserved further investigation," Olma explained, "and I was able to persuade him that having you investigate a low priority matter might help him gain confidence in your abilities, regardless of whether Tyr was rescued. So it was agreed I would…find a way to contact you. Then, an hour before you showed up, a courier arrived with news of new developments. First, this started happening today." She tabbed a console and an image of an ebony sphere appeared on the screen, floating a meter above some rocks inside a tent. But what got there attention was what seemed to be floating inside it: The nested cubes of the Route of Ages.

"Ok," Dylan said. "What was the other thing?"

"A new set of signals," Olma said, "the transmissions of Tyr's High Guard medical nanobots. The signals appear to be getting stronger, as if he's getting closer."

"You mean he's alive and well?" Harper said. "Oh, damn, and the day was going so well."

"Looks like we still have business with Mr. Anasazi," Dylan said. "Beka?"

Beka started programming the flight controls; the slipstream backrest came up behind her. "Bajor, here we come."

"Yeah," Harper said. "And Rommie? What was that about my buds? I thought you liked Tye's shipyard."

Rommie opened her mouth, then rethought what to say: "We'll talk about it later."

"Damn straight we will," Harper harrumphed.

Rommie cast a sideways pleading look at Beka.

Beka grinned. "Sorry, girlfriend, but you are on your own on that one." And she jumped the *Andromeda* into slipstream.