The Savant Project: A Crossover Episode

by Haiza Tyri

Jarod discovers a wormhole to the universe of the Federation and crosses over to the Enterprise for an unusual Pretend. Rated T for intensive psychological situations.

2. Act 1

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Trek: The Next Generation and The Pretender. I write these stories for my own amusement and make no profit from them.

Act I

Scene 1

"I don't know what it is," Broots said. "But it's incredible."

Miss Parker seized him by the collar. "Find out," she said between her teeth. She gave the strange machinery a kick and stalked over to where Sydney was working. "What do you have on those star charts?"

The gentle-faced psychiatrist leaned back in his chair. "Nothing. Stars. I can't figure out what Jarod is trying to tell us. I wondered if he had discovered astrology, but he doesn't know his birth date. Why has he got a telescope pointed at the star they call 40 Eridani A? His need for astrophysics has come to an end with his exposure of the professor who was sexually abusing his female students. Usually by now he would have put that area of study behind him and gone on to something else, but instead he continues staring at stars and building mysterious machines."

"And sending us to Lunatic Central," Miss Parker grumbled.

"Hey, that science fiction convention was great!" Broots called. "Did you see the guy dressed as a Breen? The detail on that suit was…" His voice died away as he caught Miss Parker's glare. "Science fiction's good for the imagination, you know," he mumbled.

"Oh? And who do you imagine yourself as? The Creature from the Black Lagoon?"

"No, that's Mr. Raines," he muttered.

Caught off guard, Miss Parker actually laughed, startling them all. Broots grinned his somewhat cautious grin and ran his hand over his mostly bald head. No, when he put his imagination to science fiction, he was Captain P—

"Broots!"

He jumped and applied himself to the mysterious machine.

Looking at the red book left behind at the university, Sydney chuckled.

"What?" Miss Parker demanded, leaning her svelte self against his desk and lighting a cigarette.

"Jarod Hawking. It's always interesting to see what name he chooses for himself. You would think sometimes people would notice how obvious they are, but they don't. Or else he has a good explanation. What did that professor say?" He looked through notes. "He said, 'Jarod said he wasn't related to Stephen Hawking, but sharing a name was an inspiration. It must have worked, because he was the most brilliant astrophysicist I have ever worked with.'"

Miss Parker made a face, almost a shudder. "Now there's a man who reminds me of Mr. Raines."

"Stephen Hawking?" Broots exclaimed, outraged. "Stephen Hawking is brilliant, Miss Parker! He's not evil incarnate. You know how his theory of everything—"

"The only theory I want is yours on that machine!"

Scene 2

Commander Jarod Westmore looked like a Vulcan, Deanna Troi decided. Tall, slender, and dark, he looked as if he hid as much strength in his elegant body as a Vulcan, and he even had the haircut and oddly calm demeanor. Perhaps he had studied on Vulcan. She had often noticed that some people who spent a considerable time on Vulcan retained an unearthly sort of calm. But his strong-boned, rectangular face was far too alive for a Vulcan. When he smiled his eyes lighted with interest and mischief; when he did not smile he had an air of being lost in sadness and memory; and occasionally she caught a glimpse of strange darkness behind his eyes. And he did not feel like a Vulcan. Even to as strong an empath as herself, Vulcans were hard to read. The emotions were there, but they truly were contained under a layer of thick ice, difficult to penetrate. This man, this Commander Westmore, was like no one she had ever felt before. She had never met someone with so much complexity writhing so closely beneath the surface. She had to put up several shields between herself and him before she could concentrate on what he was actually saying.

He had brought up several pictures on the viewscreen in the briefing room, all children. A Human, a Vulcan, a Trill, a Klingon, a Talaxian…

"These children have all disappeared from their respective homeworlds over the last year. Normally they would each be a case for their local authorities. Children often disappear for a variety of reasons and are usually found by their parents or their local police in short order. But these children are different. Quite by accident I have discovered an unusual number of similarities between their cases. Each of these children has an abnormally high intelligence. Most were born to parents in professions that require a great deal of talent. All live on Federation worlds, and their parents occupy some minor sort of Federation position. Each child displays an unusual aptitude in one way or another which their teachers have been at a loss to develop. Possibly most significantly telling is that their parents report that each of them was seen by a Betazoid counselor within a year before their kidnapping."

Unconsciously everyone looked at Deanna. "Do you mean," she said, "that someone has been telepathically assessing their talents and kidnapping them for a specific purpose?"

"That is exactly what I mean, Lieutenant-Commander Troi." His deep voice was even, but she caught a startling rage beneath it. "As no doubt you know, children have incredible potential, particularly those we might term prodigies or savants, and they are incredibly malleable. Remove a number of extraordinary children from their home situation, where they might have a normal development, and place them in an intensive situation where you can force them to use their talents far beyond the range that normal life usually allows, and you have an unparalleled source of intellect, ideas, solutions…power."

Beverly Crusher leaned forward. "But surely—in order to develop a child's mind so intensively, you would have to neglect the rest of his development. Every waking moment would have to be spent in training. What would that do to a child's emotional, social, and spiritual development?"

Their guest's eyes had narrowed into dark lines, making his long face look alarmingly ominous. "It would be stunted. In some it would wither away. The children's well-being is not these people's object. Power is their object. The children are seen as commodities, Dr. Crusher. They are machines to be used. They are owned. They have only one purpose: to serve the—their captors."

The doctor shuddered. The commander's eyes on her suddenly went soft, understanding. "You are thinking of your own extraordinary son, Doctor Crusher, what it might be like if he had been taken from you and subjected to this life. Instead he has known love. He has known his mother. This is a blessing greater than any other."

She blinked at him, and Deanna realized that this strange man had nearly brought Beverly to tears.

Riker broke in. "Commander, with your credentials we have no trouble believing everything you've told us. But what does this have to do with the Enterprise? Shouldn't you be tracking leads on one of these children's homeworlds?"

Jarod Westmore turned the full force of his dark-rimmed eyes on him. "My task, Commander Riker, is not to find out what has been done but to project what will be done. I have a particular talent, and that is to inhabit the mind of a person I am tracking, find out how he thinks and feels and what he will do. We have learned that this shadow organization has planted people on starships to evaluate the children aboard them. The crewmembers aboard Federation starships have proven themselves to be intelligent, capable, talented people and are likely to have intelligent children. If this organization can identify one prodigy or savant out of ten starships, they will consider it well worth the time spent."

"Our children?" Dr. Crusher gasped. "There are people aboard this ship evaluating our children to kidnap them?"

"It is likely to be only one person, most likely someone working as a teacher, childcare provider, counselor, or doctor, someone in frequent contact with the children on this vessel. My job is to blend in with the crew. I am here as a guest astrophysicist to study the star cluster your ship is on its way to investigate. I am also known as a foremost children's teacher in primary astrophysics, and Captain Picard will give me opportunities to speak in classes and conduct introductions into the job of an astrophysicist aboard a starship."

"Can you really do that?" Riker asked.

"Yes, sir. I have taught astrophysics at university on my world and have also been a children's school teacher. I will become my role completely. While I am interacting with the children, I will interact with those around them. I know the kind of person I am tracking. When I interact with him or her, I will know it. Then I will set a trap that will allow the person to betray himself. Once we have one member of the organization, we will be able to track backward to the source of the whole thing."

"A trap?" Lieutenant Worf growled.

Deanna watched the man's whole stance change as he turned toward the security chief. His body opened, seemed to become larger and taller as his hands went to his hips. He was becoming a Klingon. "Yes, Lieutenant Worf. I trust I may have your assistance, as Captain Picard permits?"

"Of course," Worf answered.

"choquvmoH."

Worf stared. Even in these more enlightened times, there weren't many Humans who took the time to learn Klingon.

Captain Picard rose. "Thank you, Commander Westmore. Ladies and gentlemen, I cannot stress enough the top-secrecy of this operation. The commander's mission is so secret that I received no word of it myself until he was actually here. Starfleet Security believes this shadow organization may be working within Starfleet itself, illegally but sanctioned by certain Starfleet officials." A murmur arose. He quelled it with a movement of his hand. "This means that any and all lines of communication may be monitored. Thanks to the commander, we have a state-of-the-art jamming device running during this conversation. It must be present for any conversation on this subject, and no such conversations will take place without my permission or Commander Westmore's. This operation regards our most precious cargo on this ship, our futures as our respective races, and our future as a Federation the galaxy can trust. Remember that. You are all dismissed."

Scene 3

"Counselor Troi, come into my ready room."

Deanna followed the captain in and took her accustomed seat against the wall. Picard sat next to her. They had left Commander Westmore in conversation with Data about adjustments to the ship's sensors for the new star system they were to study. It would be hard to say who seemed the more fascinated with the other.

"First impressions, Counselor?" Picard asked quietly.

Deanna let out an explosive breath. "I don't even know where to begin, Captain."

"What do you mean?"

"Well—let's begin with you. How do you see this Jarod Westmore?"

Picard said slowly, "I can see that he is one of the most intelligent beings I have ever encountered, and that takes into account a number of Vulcans. I see that he instantly observes and comprehends everything around him in a way that would rival even Data's favorite Sherlock Holmes. He has a calm demeanor, but it is easy to see that he is a man of great depths."

"That is exactly correct, Captain. How can I describe it to you? Have you ever known a person well and then discovered he felt deeply about something you had never even considered?"

Picard smiled. "Yes."

"We often discover this in certain areas about our friends, like stumbling into a hole in what we thought was a flat and explored landscape. Jarod Westmore's whole character is like that. Everything about him is deep, unexplored, unexpected—and violent."

"Violent, Deanna?"

"Don't misunderstand me, Captain. I mean his feelings are violent. All of them—they affect him violently, intensely. They rage and surge inside him. Captain, I feel from him some of the deepest pain I have ever felt from anyone. I feel anger, helplessness, confusion, blankness, searching, longing, loss, hatred, far too many tears. He is feeling this constantly, sir, not as a dull hum in the background as many of us do but as the major thread of his life. He is such a mass of confusion even I can't sort out all the emotions. There are people he hates with every fiber of his being. There are people he loves as much as he hates, people he trusts involuntarily even while he doesn't trust them. There are people he loves desperately and clings to psychologically even as he searches for them. He feels nothing half-way—every emotion is intense and full. And yet, Captain, he is a man of peace. His passion is justice, and he wants nothing more than to live at peace. He can find no lasting peace, but he does find temporary relief in bringing peace and justice to others. He—" She broke into a soft laugh, feeling inside her what she had felt when he first looked at Data. "He loves life, Captain. He is incessantly fascinated by all the new experiences it brings him. If I didn't know better, I would say he is like a child experiencing the world for the first time. Even all his pain cannot dampen his child-like joy at learning and experiencing something new. If I am correct, he will love this new star system as if it were his only object in being here."

They were both silent a moment. Picard had not expected such a thorough description of the man's character. "And in essence, Counselor?"

"In essence, Captain, you can trust him. If I needed to, I would place my life in his hands, step back, close my eyes, and let him do what he needed to do. He has a stronger drive for justice and goodness than anyone I have known. He is…he is not unlike James T. Kirk in that, Captain."

Picard smiled again. "And as history tells us, that is what drove Kirk as well. Thank you, Counselor. As always, your insights are valuable."

"Thank you, sir." She rose to go, then stopped. "Captain, there is something else. There is something he is not telling us. I don't know whether it has anything to do with this mission or whether it is a personal matter of no importance to the mission. But he is definitely withholding something."

"And yet I can trust him."

"And yet you can trust him."

Scene 4

"Broots, I've brought someone to help you."

Broots turned to see Sydney ushering in Angelo. The older man had his hand against Angelo's back, and once again it occurred to Broots to wonder how a man who cared as much for his subjects of study as Sydney did could use them as subjects of study. But then, Broots wasn't sure about the morality of his own involvement in the Centre, either, and he tried not to think about it much. He pulled his sweater close around him, as if it could protect him from Angelo's strange abilities. "Oh—OK. Um, Angelo, there's this machine, and these other pieces of technology that seem to belong to it, and this little badge Jarod left us—oh, and these videotapes we found in his apartment. But they're all just science fiction. Oh, and this great uniform—he was really getting into the sci-fi convention thing. I wish I had his resources and time. Boy, that would be fun!"

He stopped. Angelo was grimacing at him, that expression of lips curled back from teeth that seemed to pass for a smile. He wondered if Angelo had conscious thoughts, or if he was all a mass of emotions and impressions. "Uh, well, uh, I guess I'll let you get at it then."

He stood aside with Sydney and watched. Angelo stood stock-still, his eyes darting rapidly under his heavy eyelids, his pocked face intense. He pawed among the items Broots had pointed out, ran his hands over the red and black uniform, sniffed at it.

"Uh—can he pick up emotions through smelling?" Broots whispered.

"Well, emotions are caused by hormones, which cause certain excretions in the body," the psychiatrist answered. "That would be an intriguing area of study, the effect of scent on an empath. Thank you, Broots."

"Sydney, can I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"Why doesn't Miss Parker like Angelo?"

Sydney gave a soft laugh. "Miss Parker doesn't like anyone, Broots."

"I know, but she's always meanest to Angelo. She has her nicer moments with us, you know."

"Yes, I know. Well, Broots, I would say it is because she can't control him. You are scared of her, so she can control you, which gives her freedom to unbend a little. She thinks she knows me well enough to know what I might do in any situation—and she may be right. Or she may be wrong. But it still offers her control. But Angelo? He is a cipher. She does not understand him. She cannot comprehend an empath. She has no control. And she must also protect herself from pitying him. What Mr. Raines did to him—and the fact that her mother died trying to rescue him and Jarod—she must protect herself, or she will have no control."

"Who will have no control?" a cold voice jerked into their ears.

Broots jumped guiltily. Sydney turned around. "We were speaking of an injured animal Broots' daughter brought home. He wondered why it attacks when it is shown kindness."

"Right," Miss Parker snorted. "What is the one-man freak show doing?"

Angelo had pulled on the jacket of the red and black uniform. He stood up straight, looking oddly like a man rather than the strange, furtive being he was. His shoulders took on a military bearing.

"Jarod has put himself into the role this costume indicates," Sydney said. "It has been more than a toy to him."

"Wait—wait—wait!" Broots exclaimed. "Oh, I'm having a brainstorm. I'm a genius. What if he was on one of these episodes?"

"An actor?" Sydney said softly. "The Pretender playing the role of an actor playing a role? That could be significant, Broots."

"He's been everything from roach exterminator to gigolo," Miss Parker snapped. "Why shouldn't he be an actor?"

"We never found any evidence that he ever fully fulfilled the job description of a gigolo," Sydney reminded her.

"Oh, come on, Sydney. He's male."

"His employer told us of his reluctance, Miss Parker. You know that originally gigolos were merely professional dance partners."

"I don't need the whole history of male prostitution, Sydney!"

"I wonder what he felt in that role," Sydney mused, ignoring her.

Miss Parker didn't need to answer. Her grin said everything.

"What I mean is, did he experience all the feelings of exploitation and loss of value that often accompany such a job? He must have done. He is too familiar with those emotions not to recognize them in that situation."

"Look, I don't care about Jarod's finer emotional sensations! I just want to find him! Can you stick to the matter at hand? Is he in Los Angeles or wherever they film these things?"

"No," Broots said. "Wouldn't work. They film these things like a year ahead. These ones were taped off TV just recently." He sounded disappointed.

Now Angelo had the uniform off, and he was popping a tape into the VCR. He seemed to know what he was looking for, fast-forwarding, stopping to chuckle at something, pausing and staring for a long moment at a beautiful woman with dark curly hair in a blue and black uniform. Finally he stopped and looked at them.

"What?" Miss Parker demanded.

Angelo got up and wandered away. Broots, Sydney, and Miss Parker peered closely at the television screen. The tape was paused at a crowded scene, uniformed people milling around at some kind of official function.

"Look," Broots said. "There he is."

There was Jarod, in red and black uniform with insignia that marked him as a Commander, blended nicely into the background of the scene, looking every inch an officer. Only he was turned and smiling directly into the camera, his face alight with mischief and that silly grin that turned him from a strikingly handsome man into a little boy. Broots' age, Miss Parker thought sourly, glancing at the short, slender man who was probably her own age as well as Jarod's.

"He's not really there," Broots said. "He's inserted electronically into the scene. Maybe he studied post-production, because it's really well done."

"What does it mean?" Miss Parker snapped.

"He's living out a fantasy," Sydney answered. "The fantasy of every boy his age, to be there, either on that ship or on that set."

Broots sighed. "Yeah."

"Only he never had that fantasy, did he?" Miss Parker demanded. "Because he knew nothing about these stupid TV shows as a child. So he's living out your fantasy for you, Broots. Too bad you'll never get to."

"Yeah," he sighed again.

Scene 5

Jarod relaxed in his quarters, staring at nothing in thought for a while. This was the most unusual Pretend he had ever done or ever would do. Not only did he have to infiltrate a new situation and act—no, be the part in a new job, but he had to infiltrate a new century, a new world, a new…universe. This one had taken more careful preparation than any other. He had given himself a full month in San Francisco, in this San Francisco, to prepare himself for things like molecular transportation, replicators, and the current mode of speech. Being an officer, an astrophysicist, or a teacher was the easy part. Being in a different universe entirely and not betraying any unfamiliarity with it was the hard part.

It had started back at the astrophysics lab in the university he had been a professor at for so short a time. He couldn't believe no one had picked up on the odd readings on some of their instruments. Oh, it had taken some intensive study into the newest theories of quantum mechanics, but he had already known what it was. Sydney had had to train him thoroughly in the art of going through each step to a conclusion, rather than just jumping straight into it with no evidence to show how he had got there.

Yes, it was what science fiction called a wormhole, and yes, it did connect to an alternate universe. Amazing how easy it was, just like in the science fiction shows. And he wasn't even an astrophysicist.

He built a machine that picked up transmissions from the other side. He had planned to find out a little and then leave it to the real physicists, but what he found out first delighted him and then threw him into turmoil.

A fictional world was real. At first it only seemed vaguely familiar. He hadn't watched much science fiction, but a face had caught him, an accent, a phrase. Blessing his photographic memory, he searched out the source of his memories and discovered the fascinations of science fiction. It would have been fun on a normal day, but discovering its reality even as he discovered its fictionality boggled his mind as few things ever had. It had been delightful, worthy of following up on, and yet he still intended to pass it over to his physicist friends.

But then he discovered the Savant Project. He had tapped into a top-secret transmission, and what he learned plunged him into flashback-like memories. The new memories that had surfaced during the child-kidnapping case he had solved so recently blazed out at him, uncontrollably, like a tidal wave, just as they had as he hunted down the kidnapper of that little boy. Darkness. Terror. The sudden knowledge that Mom and Dad weren't able to help him. The empty horror of their absence. The fear of the men and the strange places they took him. And then the blackness of memory. "Where are my mom and dad?" had become "Who am I?" "Who am I?" had become "Doesn't anyone love me?"

It was happening again. In a foreign place, a strange fantasy world, his nightmare was happening to other children. They would grow up like him, imprisoned, alone, unloved, valued for a single ability, treated like an object to be used. "A slave," he murmured. "Will there be strange, alien wars because of what they are forced to think up? Will presidents of vast, interplanetary alliances die because of them? Will innocent people die as 'collateral damage' because of them? Like they did because of me?" As he had a thousand times before, he buried his head in his hands. "Sydney, why did you do this to me? Sydney, why am I psychologically attached to you? Will this happen to these alien children? Will they come to crave the love of their captors, their studiers, their teachers in the art of how to lose themselves? Will their Pavlovs be benign in character, like you? Or will they be Dr. Mengeles, like Mr. Raines?"

He hadn't even had to stop to consider whether he should or even could do something about it. He never did. Each new situation called out to him with its own voice, making itself known. This one screamed in the voices of a dozen kidnapped children, Angelo's voice, his own voice. So he had made the machine. He had made the unsettling, instantaneous voyage to the San Francisco of a strange new world. He had learned all about this Federation, this Starfleet. He had discovered wonderful, fascinating things, marveled at a vision of a possible future. But he had learned about unsettling undercurrents that threatened to one day tear it apart. Alien wars and rumors of wars. Maquis. Section 31.

Section 31, that top-secret organization within Starfleet Intelligence. It was just like the Triumverate, the head of the Centre. Where power and secrecy were combined was unlimited potential for corruption and exploitation. It was the Federation's responsibility to deal with its own underworld, he knew. If it refused, it was not worth preserving. But it was his responsibility to protect and avenge the innocent. He had spent thirty years thinking up ways for the Centre to injure the powerless. Now he had the rest of his life to spend helping them. How ever long that was.

Scene 6

Jarod squared his shoulders and pushed open the doors into Ten Forward. Quite a few people looked up as he entered the crew lounge. By now most people had heard about the distinguished guest sent from Headquarters. Their first glimpse of him did not disappoint. His red uniform suited him, and many women had told him how handsome he was in the last two years. In the Centre, what he looked like had never mattered. Outside the Centre, all that mattered was that he fit into his role, physically as well as mentally.

Behind the bar was a woman, a dark woman with a broad, luminous face. Not beautiful, but he ached for the peace in her eyes. Guinan. He had hoped she would be here. He went toward the bar.

"What can I get for you, Commander?" Her voice was just as it had been on his television, calm and smiling.

"Well, Guinan, I've heard about you and this place, but I've never been in here, so it's all quite new to me. What would you suggest?"

"Guinan, give him a Sumerian Sunset."

He turned to see Deanna Troi in civilian clothes smiling at him. "A Sumerian Sunset," he repeated. "That sounds intriguing."

Guinan was pulling out bottles. "And where are you from, Commander Westmore, that you have never had a Sumerian Sunset?"

"Oh," he smiled, "just a little planet of no consequence but to those fortunate enough to have lived in it." Or unfortunate.

"Pride and Prejudice," Deanna smiled back. "You don't find many men who can quote Austen, Commander."

"Then the majority of men are sadly under-educated, Counselor. Or should I call you Commander?"

"You may call me Deanna."

"In that case, please call me Jarod. It sits better with me than the formalities of titles."

"Jarod, then. Now watch."

Guinan poured the last ingredient into the tall glass before him and then, her eyes on him, gave the glass a tap with her dark finger. The clear liquid immediately flushed gold, orange, rose, a sunset in the glass.

Jarod broke into a laugh. "That is wonderful!" His eyes were bright, his face delighted.

Deanna grinned. "I thought you would like it."

He gave her a quick look. How much could a Betazoid empath find out about him? Her talents seemed to him far different than Angelo's.

"Commander?" Geordi LaForge was standing behind him. "Would you like to come join Data and me?"

"I would. Thank you, Guinan, for the beautiful sunset."

She smiled after him. "Come again, Commander."

"I will."

He took his seat at one of the lighted tables across from Data, Geordi and Deanna on either side. Data was one of the things that most interested him in this entire world he'd found himself in. In a way he and the android were alike. They were strangers to the world of humanity, trying to discover their place in it, trying to learn to be human.

"So, Commander," Geordi said, "how are you finding the Enterprise?"

His smile broke out. "She is wonderful! I have never seen anything quite like her."

Geordi grinned back. "Well, she is the flagship of the fleet. A chance to work aboard her is quite an honor for all of us."

"I believe it. Commander Data, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?"

"I have no feelings to be affronted in any way by a personal question, Commander Westmore," the gold-skinned android answered. "I will answer any question you have for me."

"Is it also an honor for you to work aboard the Enterprise, and if so, how do you evaluate it?"

"It is true that I still find it difficult to comprehend the Human attachment to what is essentially a tool. If I could feel the emotion, I could comprehend it better. But I also recognize the importance of this vessel to the Federation and the exceedingly high caliber of her crew and officers. I recognize the honor, even if I cannot feel it."

Jarod tried to put himself in Data's place. No feeling. Only thinking. Perhaps if he could have been like that as a child, as Sydney obviously wanted him to be, he could have been spared much pain. Much searching. But Data still searched. And perhaps the absence of emotion was itself a kind of pain. He smiled the tight-lipped smile of his own pain. "Thank you, Commander."

"Commander Westmore, I have a question of my own for you," Geordi said.

"First, please call me Jarod."

Geordi's eyebrows went up over his VISOR, but he nodded. "If you don't mind my asking, that is. You may not want to answer."

Jarod understood and pulled a small device from his pocket, fiddling with it seemingly absently. It was the jamming device he had picked up back on Earth. "Oh, don't worry. I'll follow Commander Data's lead and answer whatever you want. Within reason." He grinned.

"Well, then, why Command?"

"Command?"

"The red uniform. As an astrophysicist, wouldn't you normally be wearing Sciences blue? Or, as a Security and Intelligence officer, gold?"

"Oh, that. Well, the red uniform looked better on me than gold."

They all chuckled, except Data, of course, who looked puzzled as to why a man would choose his career path based on the color of its uniform. The laughs of the others alerted him that it was a joke, a gentle irony. But it wasn't far off from the truth. Jarod had been attracted to the red uniform. Perhaps it was because on this particular Pretend, he felt he needed more control and command of his own. He could so easily get swept up in the emotions of this case so like his own. He needed to exert control over it. He chose red. Command.

And he reminded himself that it no longer stood for the expendable crewman who always died. Red's destiny and meaning had been changed. These children's destinies would be different than his.

"To tell the truth," he made himself say before Deanna could look at him oddly, "I am not an astrophysicist—not primarily. I am a Command officer first whose abilities have drawn him into all this. I did not intend to be here, to be working for Starfleet Intelligence. My life originally was on a far different course. Well, now that this has happened, I can't go back to what might have been. I can only do my job with all my heart and strength. I always do."

"I believe it," Deanna said. "And that includes learning Klingon?"

Jarod relaxed and chuckled again. "I have a chance to work with the only Klingon in Starfleet, the only Klingon I have ever met. The least I could do was learn a little Klingon."

"A little? He told me your accent and grammar are impeccable. When did you begin to learn it?"

"A little less than a month ago. I have an ear for languages. But not, apparently, for Betazoid." It had disturbed him, his inability to comprehend the language.

"That's because Betazoid is as much about telepathy as it is about talking, Jarod. Unless you're telepathic as well as brilliant, you just won't get it."

"Well, I have been accused of it. But I'm not." And glad for it, mostly. He comprehended what went on in others' brains too well as it was.

Geordi stood up. "Well, folks, I've got to get back to work."

"May I accompany you? I have some questions about the newest transporter technology I would like to ask you."

"Certainly Comman—Jarod."

They nodded goodbyes to Deanna and Data and left Ten Forward, deep in conversation. The counselor and the android were left looking at each other over their drinks.

"Data, what do you think of him?"

"An excellent officer, and a very intelligent man, for a Human. He spoke with me for thirty-six minutes about my positronic network, and by the end of our conversation he had come up with a solution to a minor problem that even Geordi had not thought through. He could be an engineering officer, if he chose. What do you think of him, Counselor?"

"He is…a mystery," she said slowly. "And his greatest mystery is that he is a mystery to himself."

Scene 7

"Children, this is Commander Jarod," Counselor Troi announced. "He is here to teach you about the new stars we are approaching."

"Good morning, class." Jarod smiled at all the six-year olds. They smiled back. Children liked him. They trusted him. Maybe it was because he had only recently learned to be a child himself. He and they could approach the world on the same level. "How many of you are interested in stars?"

Over half the class raised their hands. They were the children of Starfleet crewmembers, after all.

"Well, by the end of my time with you, I hope you'll all be interested and have learned some very interesting things. Shall I tell you why I like stars?"

Deanna watched as the Starfleet officer who could turn himself into a Klingon and talk positronic networks with an android became the sort of teacher a child would remember all her life. As far as she could tell, he inhabited the mind of a child to the extent that he knew instinctively how they needed to be communicated with. His emotions as he interacted with them intrigued her. He felt the way they did. Something inside him had never had a chance to grow up, and there was always a child looking out of his eyes. What could have happened to this strong, intelligent man to leave him still a child inside, still identifying so intensely with the hopes and fears and needs of childhood?

To the children, he was instantly and instinctively a place of safety. She could have seen it even if she had not felt their emotions. Children gravitated to him as if he were a shelter. The most non-empathic of them felt his warmth and care. Deanna felt his yearning for them—to be them, safe and happy, to protect them and keep them safe and happy. She knew that if his mission failed, it would crush him.

Scene 8

Angelo enjoyed watching them fail to work out the machine. He knew what it was for. And he knew why Jarod had left it for them to find. Angelo used his mind far more than they thought he did, the mind Mr. Raines had given him, when he took Timmy's away.

Late one night he slithered into the lab. By now no locked room was locked to him. The Centre was well provided with ventilation shafts and other passageways. He crept up to the machine, glanced around, then took the remote device and activated it. Something glowed. Light swirled around him. Angelo giggled.

Scene 9

"Now that you have met all the teachers and doctors aboard who have been here three years or less, do you have any initial impressions?" Deanna asked Jarod.

Jarod put his elbow on the arm of his chair and considered her. He had never yet explained to someone just how he put himself into the mind of another person. He had developed his gift with Sydney, the psychiatrist training him in it as much as he discovered himself. If he had ever felt like thanking Sydney for his work, it would have been for that. But he had never worked so closely with someone from the beginning of a Pretend as he was working with Deanna. There was very little he could keep from her. Bare facts that would put him in the brig if known, yes. But none of the emotions that he felt for himself and for others. He could not hide from her his ability to feel what his prey was feeling.

He steepled his fingers in a way, though he did not know it, that made him look more like a Vulcan than ever. "You think I'm an empath. Well, I'm not. Not like you. Not like—" He'd almost said Angelo. "Not like a telepath. I must use my imagination. I imagine how it must have been, and from that I deduce how it was. My talent is in that I am nearly always right."

"Sherlock Holmes," she murmured with a grin.

"Sherlock—Holmes? An intriguing name."

"You know Austen, but you don't know Sherlock Holmes?"

"My reading has been…sporadic."

"Data is our Holmes expert, Jarod. If you find yourself with spare time, you must ask him to introduce you."

"Introduce me. To…Sherlock Holmes?"

"On the holodeck."

"Oh, the holodeck. I look forward to that. But to answer your question, I have received some interesting impressions from certain of the teachers and doctors. I can see things in their interactions that give me reason to ponder why I would act in this or that way if I were they. Now tell me, Counselor: knowing what you now know, how do you interpret the emotions you feel from the people under my surveillance?"

"It can be difficult," she admitted. "Each emotion from each person is different, and I cannot always interpret their meanings. The same level of anger from two different people may mean two entirely different things. It may also mean two entirely different things within a single person at different moments or even at the same time."

"I know," he said quietly and accepted the sudden glance she gave him.

"I have to be careful not to let what I presume about a person influence how I interpret his feelings. I must not presume that just because a person is hiding something it must mean he is dangerous, a traitor, or a liar. We all hide things. I often learn things that have no bearing on the task at hand, and it is not at that time my task to uncover them. I am sure it must be the same with your work."

He felt a sudden rush of gratitude to her that he knew he could not hide from her. "It is."

"In addition, there are also a very few people I cannot feel, or cannot feel clearly."

Jarod slowly sat up straight. "There are?"

"Certainly. Certain races, usually the telepathic ones, have some ability to mask their emotions, like Vulcans. Others, like the Qinar, simply have such incompatible brainwave patterns that I do not sense them at all, as if we are in two different dimensions."

"You mention Vulcans and Qinar specifically. There is a Vulcan teacher, Sirok, and a Qinar nurse, Onatah."

"There is also a teacher, Thato, a Spoun, another race I cannot feel. What is it, Jarod?"

"If you were going to place a secret operative aboard a starship with a Betazoid empath, wouldn't it be logical to choose an operative that Betazoid cannot read?"

"Yes, it would," she slowly answered.

"In addition, those three are among the crewmembers I have decided to observe more closely."

Deanna made a grimace. "This means I can't help you."

Jarod smiled. "You already have, Deanna. It is unusual for me to have such help. I usually work alone in the beginning."

"You do not need to work alone here, Jarod. You have support."

His smile had pain in it. "I appreciate it."

Scene 10

Jarod opened up the silver case and slid a small, round disc into its slot. On the case's screen in black and white was his young self, about ten years old, the young man Sydney, and the words JAROD. FOR CENTRE USE ONLY. He had recently finished a simulation dealing with Irish terrorists and was debriefing with his handler. As usual, he was posing as many questions as answers. Hadn't it ever occurred to Sydney that it wasn't right to make a child solve the problems of terrorists?

"Is there a God, Sydney?"

Sydney, as normal, managed to look unsurprised by the question. "Why do you ask, Jarod?"

"Because of all those Irish people, Protestants and Catholics, killing each other, in part over their beliefs about God. But their beliefs are so similar. Is there a God?"

"I don't know, Jarod. What do you think?"

"I don't know either. So many people think there is. All those people killing each other in the simulation think there is. So many people have something inside them that needs to think there is. What does it mean?"

"That is a question no psychiatrist or philosopher has ever been able to answer, Jarod."

"If people need a God, there should be a God. Isn't that logical? And if there is a God, he shouldn't let people kill each other. Or die in plane crashes like my parents."

Jarod snapped off the DSA recording. "Or be kidnapped from their parents and raised in captivity. Why do these things happen? Why? Isn't there anything out there that cares?"

Scene 11

"Where's Cousin It?" Miss Parker said instead of "Good morning." The day she gave a commonplace, civilized greeting was the day Broots would have a heart attack.

"Angelo seems to be in hiding today," Sydney answered.

"Yeah," Broots chuckled. "Mr. Raines is in a fury that they can't find him. He has some sort of special project." He stopped with a gulp. Mr. Raines' 'special projects' were never a laughing matter, as Angelo himself was a testimony.

Miss Parker's lips compressed. As much as she reserved her own right to push Angelo around and call him names like "Jello-Brains," she, too, had felt all the horror of what Mr. Raines had done to him. Broots was still scared to death of her, but he had had enough peeks inside her carefully constructed shell to know that her bark and her bite were often mere show. Still, she did bite.

"Anyway," he said, "I don't think there's any more Angelo can tell us."

She put her face down close to his ear. "That means," she answered in her soft, silky voice, the one that meant she was about to shout at him, "that we are only waiting for you. I am sick and tired of constantly being a step behind Jarod! I am beginning to suspect that you want Jarod to escape!"

"No—no—" he stuttered, even while a tiny part of his brain considered that as a viable option. A very tiny part. "He's a genius, Miss Parker. He's outwitted us a hundred times. Hey, what's the possibility that this machine is a red herring?"

"It's not," Sydney said. "Jarod's red herrings are never really red herrings. They always mean something. Even if they send us astray, they are always a means of reaching out to us. Jarod needs us."

"Needs us, Syd?" Miss Parker snapped. "We are chasing him. He knows full well that I am going to shoot him someday."

"Until he finds his family, we are the only family he has. You, me, Broots, Angelo. He has always reached out to us, even when we pushed him away—or threatened to kill him."

As it did at very unexpected times, Miss Parker's face softened as she looked at him. She didn't say what was there for her to say, that she knew Sydney regretted pushing Jarod away. Instead she said, "Then it's a pity he hates us as much as he needs us. As long as he hates us, it will take me shooting him to bring him in." Jerking out a cigarette, she stalked away.

Scene 12

"Captain! Intruder alert!" Worf called out. "Jeffries tube 42—no—wait. Captain, I seem to be having instrument malfunctions."

"Which is it, Mr. Worf?"

He scowled at his instruments. "I am not sure, sir. I thought I read a transporter signal in the Jeffries tube, but it instantly faded, and there is no sign of any intruder."

"Dispatch a security team there and give your instruments a complete diagnostic."

"Yes, Captain."

"Captain," Data said, "it is possible that our proximity to the new star system may affect our instruments."

"Thank you, Mr. Data. Do whatever you can to correct for it. Inform all sections as to any possible malfunctions."

"Yes, Captain. We will be within sensor range of the star system in five-point-two minutes, sir."

"Inform Commander Westmore and invite him to the bridge."

"Yes, sir."

Jarod seemed to have spent as much time playing as he did working. With the children he was a great favorite, and he spent time with them even when he was not teaching. He had taken part in a short Sherlock Holmes holodeck program with Data, where he had solved the mystery almost as quickly as Data did, and thereafter he was observed researching smoking pipes and taking up the violin. When he wasn't researching the new star system with the science officers or teaching the children about it, he was in Engineering studying transport or holodeck technology with Geordi, learning Klingon sparring techniques from Worf, investigating various uses of the medical technology in Sickbay with Dr. Crusher, or having a Sumerian Sunset in Ten Forward with Guinan. It was as if, people thought, his whole life was about learning and absorbing everything about him.

Now he bounded up to the bridge with a light of expectation in his eyes.

"Commander Westmore, the stars you ordered," Picard said with something of a quirk at the corners of his mouth.

Jarod stood at the rail near Worf's station and watched the distant glimmer of light in the viewscreen. When the star system was close enough to identify, he was smiling with wide eyes, his expression one of someone who has never seen such a thing before.

"Commander Westmore?"

"I'm sorry, Captain. It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is, Commander. You may take your position at Science Station 2. Technical information will come to you there, and then you may decide what you want to do with it. We do seem to be having some instrument malfunctions as a result of our proximity to the stars."

"Understood, Captain."

"Captain," Worf broke in, "security reports no intruder detected."

"Intruder?" Jarod said sharply.

"Most likely technical malfunctions, Commander," the Klingon told him, "and not an actual intruder, but we're checking it out anyway."

"Oh, I see." He applied himself to his readouts. Data came to join him, and they conferred quietly.

"Counselor, is anything the matter?" Picard asked. Jarod's head came up, and he turned to gaze down over the edge of Worf's console at them.

"I am not certain, Captain," Deanna answered. "I am sensing something odd—I can't tell what it is. A presence, perhaps? Not quite; more like a disturbance in the landscape of emotion aboard the ship."

It did not occur to Data to wonder why Jarod's hand clutched the edge of the console for a moment.

Riker turned to look at Worf. "It seems a little coincidental that the internal sensors should pick up an intruder that isn't there and that Counselor Troi should sense something that isn't quite a presence."

"It does indeed," the chief of security agreed. "I am running internal sweeps of the ship. Thus far it is not picking anything up. I am getting interference from the stars."

"Commander Data," Picard said, "back the ship away until we get to the bottom of this. I'm sorry, Commander Westmore. Your project will have to be put on hold for a short time, just until we understand what is going on. As soon as we identify precisely what technical problems we may expect from our proximity to this system, we will know whether our peculiar readings have anything to do with it."

"I understand, Captain. I'll take what information we have received and prepare an initial lesson for the children. Perhaps one of the teachers would like to help me."

"They have been ordered to give you every assistance you may need."

"Thank you, Captain."

As Jarod left the bridge, Picard began giving orders for special sensor sweeps for cloaked ships. They found nothing. Deanna examined herself and decided—perhaps—she had been imagining things.

Scene 13

Instead of going to the school area, Jarod went to his quarters. Turning on only one small light, he took out his jamming device, activated it, and set it on a table. He glanced around the darkened room. A shadow detached itself from a corner and moved toward him.

Jarod wheeled around toward it. "Angelo?" He reached out and grabbed two shoulders, pulled them forward. "Angelo!" He gathered the faintly grinning empath up into a strong hug and felt himself being hugged back. It felt good. So good.

"So you got here," he smiled when he and his friend and ally released each other. "I thought you would figure out my machine, because you can figure out me. I've been expecting you for a long time. I wonder why I decided to leave it set for the Enterprise instead of San Francisco. It's a little more dangerous. Well, at least this ship will be somewhat familiar. No lack of places to hide, just like at the Centre. Jeffries tubes, accessways… I can't imagine you had much trouble finding me."

Angelo chuckled.

"Now, listen to me, Angelo. You have to stay hidden. Don't let anyone see you. I made a built-in sensor cloak in the machine that will keep you invisible to the ship's sensors for some time, but you won't be invisible to eyes. And there's also Deanna." He frowned. "I don't want to deceive her. But if they find you before I'm done, they could find out everything, and that would be disaster. This captain and his first officer will not take kindly to someone masquerading as an officer on their ship and in their Starfleet. However, Deanna didn't seem to understand what she was feeling when she felt you. Listen, Angelo. Stay near people, but hidden. Find out about them. Feel them; take on their persona. She might not detect you then." He put out his hand to Angelo's arm. "Angelo, find happy people. There are plenty of happy people on this ship. Learn what it's like to feel true, unalloyed happiness. I have felt it once or twice. There is nothing like it in existence."

Angelo touched Jarod's hand. "Jarod…happy here."

"Yes, yes, I am, Angelo. This is a good place. These people care for each other. They are interested in their work, and they are interested in what is good. We've known very little of that, haven't we, Angelo? People who care for each other."

Angelo made an effort. "Angelo…care."

Jarod's eyes went bright with spontaneous tears. "Oh, Angelo. I know you do. You give me such a gift."

"Sydney…care."

Something went flat. "Does he? Sometimes I feel that he does, Angelo, but when I look at my past, I see that he doesn't. What kind of a man keeps a child locked up and studies him and runs him through simulations? Is he really discovering a conscience, now that I'm gone? I want to know why he didn't help me and whether he cares now about what they did to me! Or am I still his subject? Does he care, or is he fascinated?" He jerked up, paced.

"Jarod…sad here."

He slumped back into his seat. "You can feel the residue of my dreams, can't you? Recently, Angelo, I rescued a little boy from his kidnapper. That was good, and it felt good, but I kept—I kept remembering. Things I have never remembered. My entire memory has been the Centre, but suddenly I was remembering…home. Lying in bed, safe. And then terror. Sheer terror. I was trying to help that little boy, and these floods of terror kept immobilizing me." He was shaking. Angelo was shaking with him, feeling his terror, remembering his memories. "I remember my own kidnapping, Angelo! And now here I am again. Once again racing against time to give the children back the life I never had, and I can't sleep at night. I dream about them, and they're me."

"Me—me—" Angelo shuddered.

"Yes, they're you, too. Together, Angelo, we'll keep this from happening again." He put his arm around Angelo, and they huddled together.

Scene 14

"Doctor Crusher, I have a question for you."

Beverly smiled. "Well, I'm not busy right now, Jarod. Come in and have a seat."

Jarod sat across her desk from her, smiling back. Beverly Crusher had a gentle air that made you like her and an ability to command that made you respect her. It was not often those qualities were combined so well.

"I have a friend who has not had access to the kind of medical facilities the Federation offers. His world is fairly primitive, compared to Federation worlds, and his condition is not such that he can travel easily to get what he needs. I'm looking into research that will let me help him."

"Well, Jarod, it would be best if you could get him to one of our facilities. Not just anyone can administer medical assistance."

"I know, and I'm working on that. But I do have medical experience."

"Jarod, is there anything you don't do?"

Jarod grinned. "I'm trying to work my way through all the professions. But I'd like to know if you could help me get started in the right direction for my research."

"I would have to see records of his condition before I can tell you that."

With something like a smirk, he handed her the scans he had taken of Angelo's brain the night before with a medical tricorder lifted from—and returned to—her own Sickbay.

"Oh," she gasped, looking through them. "Dear merciful stars. How long has he been like this?"

"Since he was a small child, perhaps seven, perhaps younger."

"He's Human, Jarod. You didn't tell me that."

"Is he? He used to be. Can you change the very structure of the brain without changing the essence of what being Human means?"

"His DNA is the same. Jarod, this isn't a natural degeneration, is it? This was done to him."

Jarod's eyes glittered darkly between narrowed eyelids. "Yes, it was done to him."

"By whom? Why? Where is he from?"

"A small planet very far from here. I can't tell you where, Beverly. It is classified. He exists under a regime that views other people as objects to be exploited. Child or adult, it doesn't matter. They are the physical and intellectual property of the regime." He said it with so much bitterness that Beverly leaned forward and watched him intently. "In his case, they wanted to expand his intellectual capabilities. Just as an experiment. He was a very intelligent little boy. And so scared." He saw Timmy again in his mind, scolded by Mr. Raines, terrified of going back wherever Mr. Raines would take him. He had been Timmy then, right up until— He jerked his head to dispel the images. Sometimes he couldn't remember if they were memories or images from the Digital Simulation Archive discs he had stolen from the Centre. "It was some kind of botched neurological experiment. It went horribly wrong, changed him. They hadn't expected it, but it proved useful to them. They erased who he was and made him an empath."

"An empath?"

"Not like Deanna Troi. He absorbs the personalities of others and brings out information about them. He has very little of his own—he is quite empty inside—and what he does have he hides from most people. For fear they will take that as well."

Beverly muttered something under her breath. "I can't believe this happens. But not within—"

"The Federation? No, my friend does not live on a Federation world. I believe the Federation's mission and goals have prevented such a thing from happening…until now."

"Until now," she said with a sigh and a frown. "And it's really happening here. Jarod, is this friend of yours the reason you're doing all this?"

"Partly." He couldn't keep his jaw from clenching as too many memories flooded him. "I can't let what happened to—to him happen to others, Beverly! I care about the innocent lives that no one else seems to care for. They need justice, and I have seen too many instances where power is used to deprive them of justice. The powerful rule, and the innocent suffer for it. I can't let it happen here! I can't!"

"Jarod—" Beverly said gently.

Jarod got a strong grip on himself. "I'm sorry, Beverly. I didn't mean to shout at you. But I love this Federation and this Enterprise. They are founded on everything that drives me. Discovery, learning, mercy, justice. To allow that to be perverted from the inside—it makes me sick."

Beverly picked up the brain scans. "I'll start looking into these. I'll do whatever I can. It makes me sick, too."

He slid into her place in his mind. "Having a child of your own must drastically change the way you see the circumstances around you."

"It does, Jarod, and as you have noticed, I keep seeing him as one of these children, or as your friend. He is one of the gifted ones. He grew up on these ships; he could have been one of the ones under secret surveillance."

Jarod leaned forward with a reassuring smile. "I understand Wesley is doing very well at the Academy."

She smiled back at him. "Yes, he is."

He was glad she wasn't Deanna, able to feel his slight dismay at what was coming for Wesley at Starfleet Academy. He had seen the episode… "He will always do his best to make you proud. I know it."

"How do you know?"

"I have put myself in his place. I know him, though I have never met him. He may do foolish things, like any young man, but he wants to make you proud of him. He knows you love him."

"I do." A puzzled look came over Beverly's face, and Jarod knew his own face was betraying his longing. He deflected it.

"Thank you for helping me."

"Jarod—" She broke off whatever she was going to say. "Jarod, I will try my hardest. But I can't promise anything yet. Primitive experiments can still ruin a brain past the ability of advanced technology to heal. To begin with, I need more specialized scans of your friend's brain. Once I look these over thoroughly, I'll be able to tell you precisely what kind. Can you get them?"

"I don't know, but I will try."

"And Jarod, please remember I'm not a neurologist."

A smile crossed his face. "No. You're the chief medical officer aboard a Federation starship. That means you have experience with solving the most complex and obscure problems that this strange, wonderful world throws at you. I believe in you, Beverly, and so would my friend, if he could."

As he was going out of the door, she said, "Jarod, what is his name?"

He paused. "Timmy. His name is Timmy."

Scene 15

"Miss Parker! Miss Parker!"

Miss Parker looked up with a glare from her conversation with Sydney as Broots screeched to a stop in her office. "What, Broots?"

"I've got it! The machine!"

"You know what it's for?"

"No. But I know how to turn it on."

She put her forehead down in her hands with a groan. "Oh, good. At this rate we'll catch up with Jarod when your daughter is ninety." Nonetheless she and Sydney both went to join him.

The little man looked proud of himself. Maybe it was something to be proud of, if your ego was the size of a pea. The machine looked…alien. Like most things Miss Parker did not want to believe, she shrugged that thought off. Too much time at that stupid science fiction convention. "Well?"

"Well, see, there are no switches or buttons—"

"I don't want the whole blueprints! Just turn it on and see what it is."

With a gulp, Broots picked up one of the other things Jarod had left with the machine. "It's a remote," he said with a nervous chuckle. "So easy."

"That does not look like a remote."

"No. But watch."

He brushed his fingers down the square thing in his hand. Something glowed.

The world disappeared.

Scene 16

"Where are we?" Miss Parker spat.

They were in a very cramped, very dark space. Either Broots was sitting on her lap, or she was sitting on Sydney's lap, neither of which was cause for any great joy.

"Just stay calm," Sydney said. "Everybody try to get up, slowly."

"I don't need survival tips from you, Sydney. Broots, get off of me!"

"I'm trying."

"Well, try harder!"

Presently they were disentangled. Miss Parker ran her hands over the walls. They were in a mostly square room, barely large enough for the three of them to stand far closer together than Miss Parker ever wanted to be to either of them, unless she was intimidating them.

"Is this a door? It feels like a door." She pushed and pulled, but it didn't open. She found something that felt like a flat-panel keypad and pushed things. It made a melodious beep but did not open.

"Wait, Miss Parker," Sydney said. "Before we get out we should find out where we are."

"Thank you, Zen master."

"Hey, look what I found!" Broots said brightly. A sharp blue light shone in her eyes.

"Get that out of my eyes! Give me that! Where did you get it?"

"It's a little flashlight I keep on my keychain."

"Why? So you don't fall over things in the dark when you get up to have some milk?"

"No, it's in case I find myself locked in a closet with Miss Parker and Sydney." He flinched back as she loomed down on him, strangely lit in the blue light, no less beautiful and no less intimidating than usual.

"Well, do you have anything else in those pocket protectors of yours that will get us out of here?"

"No. What wouldn't I give for a sonic screwdriver right now, eh?" He grinned feebly.

"A what? No—I don't want to know."

"Well, whenever the Doctor's locked up somewhere—and I don't mean the EMH, I mean The Doctor—different franchise, you know—British—"

"I said I don't want to know!"

"Miss Parker." Sydney was inhumanly calm, as always, and sounded amused as well.

"What?"

"Look up."

She directed the flashlight upward. Their little room extended far above their heads, and metal rungs were set in the walls.

"Shafted," Broots murmured.

"Shut up, Broots. It's an access shaft. Can anyone explain how we got in an access shaft? Broots?"

"Don't look at me."

She shone the light in his eyes. "Whatever it was, you did it. Now climb."

"You know what?" Broots panted as he climbed. "This place seems familiar."

"Familiar how? You spend much time in access shafts, Bat-Boy?"

"Other than in the Centre, no. It's not the Centre. We're definitely not there. It feels different."

"Feels different?"

"Yeah. A gut feeling, I guess you'd call it."

"Broots, I would not willingly give a human title to any feeling you might have."

Broots was quiet. She wondered if she'd hurt his feelings. She told herself she didn't care.

Scene 17

"Captain, another ghost intruder alert! This time in Jeffries tube 47. Just like the other: it came and went, more like a circuit overload than anything."

Picard sighed. The stars had been playing merry havoc with their instruments. Data and Geordi had been able to cross-circuit things to compensate, but the captain still didn't like it. It was like being colorblind. Meanwhile, the data collection Starfleet wanted was going forward, and Commander Westmore had laid out his suspicions about certain crewmembers and was working with Worf on a very creative trap for them and other members of their organization. Riker didn't like it, but then, he didn't seem to like Westmore very well. Something about the man, he said, rubbed him the wrong way. Something faintly wrong. And yet Deanna had detected nothing to alter her belief that he was trustworthy.

Deanna had been jumpy for days. She said she felt as though the crew's emotions had been amplified somehow, as if she were sensing an echo bouncing back onto them. She and Dr. Crusher had been trying to figure out if the new star system might have anything to do with it.

Picard sighed again. He would be glad when this was all over, when Starfleet Intelligence operatives were no longer running all over his ship and performing secret experiments, when ghost echoes were no longer making his security officers run all over the ship…

"Send a security team, Mr. Worf," he ordered.

"Yes, sir." Worf didn't roll his eyes, but he felt like it.

Scene 18

A trapdoor opened with a very smooth sound, giving access to a lowly-lit, cramped tunnel, thankfully horizontal this time. Broots collapsed on the floor, Sydney leaned against a wall, breathing hard, and Miss Parker tried to look as though she climbed miles of ladders in high heels and tight skirts all the time.

"Boy, this place looks familiar," Broots wheezed.

"Here's a sign," Miss Parker said. "GNDN. What does that mean?"

Broots' brow wrinkled. "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing?" he murmured.

"Oh, funny." She pulled open the panel the tiny notice was on. "What in the—Broots! Hey, Broots! Get your carcass over here. What is this?"

Broots crawled over (there was no standing in the tunnel). When he saw the complicated maze of tubing behind the panel, he gasped and recoiled. With trembling hands, he shoved the panel back into place.

"Broots, what is wrong with you?"

"Nothing—nothing—nothing. I'm fine. It's just something…very advanced, or something." No, I'm not having a nervous breakdown. I'm not having a nervous breakdown. He didn't notice that he was murmuring it under his breath.

"Broots," Sydney said, "try to calm yourself. We're in some kind of strange situation, and anyone would be scared. But you'll be fine."

Miss Parker gave him The Look. "Oh, please. Can you save the therapy session for later? There's a door here. Broots, open it."

"Open the door, Broots," he muttered. "Break into Mr. Raines' office, Broots. Hack into classified files, Broots."

"What are you muttering about?"

"Nothing." He poked randomly at the flat-panel keypad by the door. To his immense surprise, it unlocked. Shoving him aside, Miss Parker pushed it open. He got a glimpse of the huge room beyond as she got one long leg out, and with a strength he didn't know he had, he grabbed her, hauled her back in, and slid the door closed.

Sydney gave him a raised eyebrow of surprise. Miss Parker gave him a lot more than that.

"What do you think you're doing?" she ground out into his face, thumping him up against the wall with each enunciation.

But his brain was already exploding anyway, and even when Sydney hauled Miss Parker away from him, he could hardly talk. "Uh—uh—there's—there's something horribly wrong," he managed, hid voice a squeak.

"What?"

"Um—Sydney—you've got to help me here, because I think I've gone insane."

"Take a few deep breaths, Broots. Long and slow."

"When you're quite done with your Lamaze class, maybe you'll tell me what is going on?" Miss Parker shouted. "Why do I have to be stuck in this place with you and no cigarettes? They would be better company!"

"OK," Broots said. "Fine. Uh—we're on the Enterprise, OK?"

They both looked at him, and he knew he was right. He really had gone insane. Even Sydney thought so.

"The shuttle?" the psychiatrist said slowly.

"No! The starship! Uh—I'm not sure which one. D, E—"

Miss Parker let out a breath. "Broots…"

"This is a Jeffries tube, Miss Parker! And that out there is Engineering! It's got a big, fat, blue warp core in the middle of it! And this is a Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing sign!"

After a long silence, Miss Parker said, "Certifiable." She turned back toward the door. Broots grabbed her shoulder.

"Listen to me! I saw it! You saw it too! The room. The big blue thing. And don't tell me we've somehow wandered from Delaware to the TV studio in Los Angeles. On the set of a TV show, things look fake, OK? Things don't really beep and pulse and glow! People in Starfleet uniforms don't wander around without a cameraman in their face! Things like this don't work!" He pulled the GNDN panel off again. "This thing, whatever it is, is working, whatever it does. I know a piece of viable technology when I see it."

Miss Parker stared at the panel in Broots' shaking hand. "Did you just use the word 'viable' in a sentence, techno-boy?"

He stared at her, for once not flinching, part of him marveling at her ability to disbelieve anything she didn't want to accept.

"Miss Parker," Sydney said quietly, "I really don't know what to think. I didn't see out there. You did. But for once maybe we ought to listen to Broots."

"Listen to him? He's gone stark, raving mad!"

"I'm trying to keep an open mind, Miss Parker. Maybe you should, too."

"Open minds are what got us into all this in the first place. Specifically Jarod's open little mind." She sat back on her heels. "Fine. What now, Captain Kirk?"

Broots gave a faint grin. "This is definitely the wrong ship for that. Miss Parker, I don't know what's going on. If this is something Jarod did, it's way beyond even his usual. But—but—hey! All the clues he left us. The convention. The uniform. The videotapes."

"His work in astrophysics," Sydney said slowly. "The telescope pointed at the stars. 40 Eridani A. Do you know anything about that, Broots?"

Broots racked his brain. "40 Eridani A. is that—wait. Oh, my stars. I think—I think that's the star Vulcan is supposed to orbit."

"Vulcan?"

"You know, Spock's planet."

"Spock. Oh, my stars," Miss Parker mocked him viciously. "Don't tell me you believe this, Sydney."

"There is more in heaven and on earth, Miss Parker, than is dreamt of in your philosophy."

"Don't quote Hamlet at me, Syd, unless you want to be playing his father's ghost in your next life."

"Why don't you just take another look out that door?" Broots suggested. "Uh—don't let anyone see you, but get a good look and tell me if you still think we're back at the Centre—or on Earth at all. Sydney, you too."

Sydney, amused that Broots was taking the lead, crawled over beside Miss Parker and peered out of the door as she slid it open a crack. Broots edged in over their shoulders.

And there it was, the long room, beige in color, with consoles down the center and back-lighted panels along the walls, and at the end the darker section with the tall, glowing, pulsing blue warp core. Broots' heart beat hard at it. It beat harder when he saw a very familiar dark face, eyes obscured by the silver VISOR, and harder yet when a tall figure in black and yellow with a metal baldric from shoulder to hip strode in.

"Commander LaForge," boomed a very deep voice, "Commander Westmore has asked me to go over the final preparations with you."

Broots saw Miss Parker's hand go automatically to the gun in the back waistband of her skirt. With a gasp he pulled her and Sydney both back and slammed the door closed.

"What are you doing, you little—"

"Miss Parker, you can't go out there waving a gun! That—that was Worf! Even you wouldn't stand a chance against a Klingon! It would be like being run over by a truck! A semi-truck! Anyway, certainly not with something so primitive as a projectile weapon—"

"Primitive? Broots, if you touch me one more time, you're the one who will be run over by a semi. What is going on?"

"Let's get out of here first. Up, away from Engineering and all their devices."

Without waiting for a response, he started up the next ladder. Sydney chuckled as he and Miss Parker followed.

"What, Syd?"

"Broots is certainly acclimating well to this strange twist of events."

"Better than me. I don't like not knowing what's going on, and I don't like depending on Geek-Boy for all the answers."

"You should have paid more attention at the science fiction convention."

"Yeah, right. What about you, Syd? You seem to be taking this in stride."

"Well, I am convinced that I am back at home sound asleep, my dreams influenced by Jarod's clues and too much time and energy spent chasing him."

"That's a better explanation that that a spaceship from a TV show came down and abducted us. I never did get into the whole X-Files craze."

"Wrong TV show," he grunted as they came to the top of the ladder. Miss Parker and Broots both extended hands and helped him through the trap door. He collapsed on the floor, gasping for air.

"Syd?"

"I'm—alright—Miss Parker. I'm just not used to this. I'm a psychiatrist, not a mountain climber."

They were in a small room that seemed to be a meeting place for several of the access ways. Sydney finally pulled himself up and leaned against the wall, while Broots looked around worriedly and Miss Parker checked the clip in her gun.

"Alright, Broots. Spill."

"Well—I don't know what's going on, Miss Parker. I can tell you anything you want about this ship and her crew, but how we got here? Huh-uh. Of course, if this were science fiction, it would be easy. Alternate universe."

"Alternate universe?"

"You know, the place where historical events took a different turn than intended and split off a new reality, operating concurrently—What?"

Miss Parker didn't even bother to answer him.

He sighed. "Have you ever seen 'The Wizard of Oz'? Miss Parker, I don't think we're in Delaware anymore." He offered a feeble smile and caught what might have been a faint glimmer of humor in her eyes. "This seems to be the Enterprise. It's a spaceship with a thousand crewmembers and their families."

"Families?" Sydney interrupted. "They bring children along?"

"Yes, they do. This ship is their home. The captain is Jean-Luc Picard, and he's not someone even you want to tangle with, Miss Parker."

"Why? Is he another one of those rhinoceros-headed monstrosities?"

"They call them turtle-heads in the makeup department, I think. No, he's not a Klingon. He's a French archaeologist."

"A French archaeologist?"

"Miss Parker, he's taken on Q and won. Q is an omnipotent being."

"And he's here."

Broots jumped. "Oh, I hope not." He glanced around as if expecting to see Q's face staring out of the bulkhead at him. "This ship travels around the galaxy and discovers new planets. It belongs to Starfleet, which belongs to the United Federation of Planets. Oh, and the year is something like 2367. Late 2360s, at least, judging by the uniforms."

"Twenty-three sixties?" Sydney said with a soft laugh. "We're in the future. I can only imagine what they've done in the fields of medicine and psychology."

Broots grinned back. "It's pretty amazing alright. Oh, and Sydney, they have an empath."

"An empath? Like Angelo?" Sydney's eyes grew wide with interest. He looked like everyone's favorite uncle.

"Nothing like Angelo. She's part of a telepathic race, but she's half Human, and her telepathy isn't so good. What she does is feel what people around her feel. She can stand right next to you and feel what you're feeling, just as you feel it."

"Oh, I see. That could be very useful in dangerous situations. Miss Parker?"

Miss Parker had covered her face. "Please tell me I'm dreaming," she was muttering. "Please tell me I'm dreaming."

"I don't think you are, Miss Parker," Broots said humbly.

"But what are we doing on a spaceship named after a poor excuse for a car rental dealership? How did we get here? Why?"

"Jarod's machine," he whispered. "It was a transporter. It transported us here. Takes your molecules part, beams them somewhere, and puts them back together."

"I think I'm going to be sick. He sent that machine so you would figure it out so he could trap us all here— It's worse than being in jail in that one-horse hick town. I need a cigarette."

Broots said slowly, "Maybe he didn't intend for us to come at all." He bent swiftly and picked up something from the floor. "Look!"

"Popcorn? You expect me to care about popcorn?"

"Not popcorn, Miss Parker. Cracker Jack."

Miss Parker sat up straight and looked at him. "Angelo. The human amoeba is here."

"I see," Sydney said. "Jarod has brought Angelo here because he thinks they can cure him."

Miss Parker scrambled up. "That means Jarod's here, too." Her gun was in her hand again.

Broots got between her and the door, careful not to touch her. "Wait, Miss Parker! This isn't Earth! The instant you set foot out there, they will be all over you, and we'll be in the brig! We're not Starfleet! We don't belong on this ship, and anyone can see it. You can't just go waving your gun around at people here! First they'll lock us up, and then they'll ask us questions, and then they'll send us back to Earth to stand trial as terrorists or something! Maquis, maybe."

He shuddered as the silver nose of the gun came considerably closer than he was comfortable with. "Well, what do you suggest we do, fanboy?"

Tentatively he glanced up.

"You expect me to pull an Angelo all over this ship while Jarod is walking the halls free?"

He shrugged helplessly.

With a glare that was practically feral, she holstered the gun and swung up the ladder. "Keep your eyes on the rungs and off my legs, or you'll get my heel in your hand."

Broots believed her well enough that he obeyed, despite the excellence of her legs. Behind him, Sydney panted, "Broots, this empath of yours—how strong is her sensitivity?"

"I don't know. What do you mean?"

"How close does she have to be to someone to feel him?"

"Oh! Uh—pretty far, actually. She can feel people on other ships."

"That's not good. Then she could probably feel Miss Parker in another solar system."

"You mean she could know we're here? By feeling us?"

"I don't know, but from what you've said it seems likely."

"That's not good."

Scene 19

Angelo had been very useful. Not only had his unsettling presence distracted Deanna from looking too closely into what she felt from Jarod, but he had also been able to help Jarod identify the two crewmembers Jarod wanted. Late at night Jarod snuck him into the school rooms and Sickbay and watched him perform his magic, prowling the desks and the scanning beds, identifying the unreasoning fear of one small, intelligent child and the inhuman interest of one of the teachers and one of the medical personnel. Jarod had already identified them, but it was good to have Angelo's second opinion.

He had also managed to take some of the scans Dr. Crusher wanted, though not all. Some would leave a definite signature of the machine used to take the scan, and he couldn't risk Angelo being discovered. Not yet. At their last meeting, Beverly had seemed close to a breakthrough.

Angelo loved the Enterprise. There were even more hidden passageways than at the Centre, more interesting people to watch, more fascinating things to take (Jarod made him take them all back), and, best of all, there were replicators. At first he seemed determined to replicate nothing but boxes and boxes of Cracker Jacks, once Jarod figured out how to program it to copy the box Angelo had brought with him, but Jarod had convinced him to try something else. The Cracker Jacks Angelo had had in the Centre as a child had been Jarod's first taste of the wonders of processed food, but he couldn't fill his quarters on the Enterprise with them. He had gotten Angelo interested in chocolate sundaes and, of all things, Vulcan plomeek soup. Even Jarod had been unable to stomach bright purple soup, though he was very fond of a good, strong Klingon raktajino. Angelo loved the purple stuff. Jarod had convinced him to only eat it in the quarters they were now somewhat sharing; plomeek soup dribbled through all the Jeffries tubes was not a good idea.

"Angelo, listen."

Angelo was eating a nauseating combination of the soup and Cracker Jacks, and Jarod was about to go on duty on the bridge.

"Angelo, when all this is over, I'm going back to our world. I still have to find my family, as much as I would like to stay in this place. But I brought you here to stay. Do you understand? This is a good, safe place for you. No more Mr. Raines and the Centre. When it's time, I'll introduce you to Dr. Crusher. She's been looking for a way to help you, Angelo, a way to bring back Timmy."

Angelo looked up vaguely from dropping bits of popcorn into his soup. "Timmy…gone."

"Maybe, Angelo. They can do wonders in this world. They will take care of you and be kind to you. I'll miss you and all the help you've been to me, but I want you to have a better life. I want to be able to do something for you."

He knelt down by Angelo's chair and looked up at him. Angelo grimaced his twisted grin at him. "Help…Angelo."

"Yes, Angelo. I will help you."

Angelo chuckled. But when Jarod had left, his grin faded. "No—no. Protect…Jarod." His head came up sharply. "Miss Parker…coming. Protect…Jarod!" he shouted.

Scene 20

Deanna Troi was having bad dreams. The odd thing was that they were not of things that would ordinarily have bothered her. Scenes from her own life played over in her dreams, innocuous scenes, accompanied by the same emotions that had accompanied the events, only intensified, almost unbearable in strength.

Then she dreamed she woke and knew there was another presence in her quarters, scarcely more than a dark shadow of being. A presence was there, and yet she could not feel it, only herself, as if she had stepped out of herself. In her dream she lay still in her bed, afraid to turn on a light, for fear she would see herself standing there, reflected back at her as in a mirror.

What are you? she tried to ask it. Her own memories came reflected back. The latest memories were there, like a flood. The Starfleet Intelligence operative, his horrifying news, his covert mission, and the storm of emotion that accompanied him. How lost the man was! How like a lost child, desperately seeking the security and warmth of home. How confused about his past, about the people he knew, how frightened and angry and longing.

Deanna Troi…cares for Jarod. Was it a whisper in her ears, a thought in her mind, or a feeling in her heart? Or all at once? Care for Jarod. Protect…Jarod!

With a gasp, she woke up, sitting straight in bed. Protect…Jarod! Protect Jarod! pounded in her temples. What in the galaxy was going on? She didn't know.

Scene 21

Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots spent an uncomfortable night in another horizontal accessway, Miss Parker cursing Broots for not letting them occupy some empty crew quarters they had found. When the Enterprise had settled into its pseudo-nighttime, it startled them all, even Broots, but it had proven advantageous. Locating empty quarters, they used them briefly, Miss Parker occupying the bathroom while Sydney investigated the replicators and Broots found ship layouts on the computer. He also made a valuable discovery.

"I found Jarod's quarters. Information on him, too. Commander Jarod Westmore, Starfleet Science Division, assigned to the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D on special assignment to investigate a new star system and…teach astrophysics to children!"

"That man does get around," Miss Parker said grumpily. "An alternate universe and he's already a commander on their precious ship?"

"Special assignment, huh?" Broots mused. "That explains why no one thinks it's strange they suddenly got a new officer. Westmore…Westmore. Why is that familiar?"

"You recognize it?" Sydney asked.

"Yeah. Something to do with this series, but I can't remember what. Say, Miss Parker!"

"What, Broots?"

"Did you happen to bring that communicator Jarod left us?"

"Does it look like I packed for this trip, Broots?"

"I just mean that little metal badge that was in the box."

"No, I don't have it. It was on the table with the other stuff. What is it?"

"A communication device. You tap it and speak to whoever you want."

Miss Parker heaved a sigh. "Broots, logically it had to have been a fake from that convention, unless you think he made one of those things before he left, too."

His face fell. "Oh, yeah. Well, if we could find one we could probably contact him—"

"And let him know we're here? We have the element of surprise this way, Broots."

Sydney came away from the replicator with food. "We really ought to find out what he's doing here and possibly allow him to finish it before we bring him back."

Miss Parker snatched a plate from him. "Finish? Why should we do that?"

"Logic, Miss Parker. He is more likely to come back with us if he feels his mission is accomplished. We are still dependent upon him to get back. Even if you have a gun in his back, he is in control of the situation."

In frustrated silence, Miss Parker tore into the food. "What is this?"

"I don't know. It just came out."

Broots was eating something violently purple. "This is good! I think it's that Vulcan soup. Want to try it?"

Miss Parker gave him a withering look. "Will that thing make cigarettes?"

Broots almost choked. "You can't smoke here, Miss Parker! They'll think something's on fire. They don't smoke in this century."

"Barbarians," she snarled.

"Look, maybe I can do something." He applied himself to the computer, and in a moment he gave the replicator some instructions. "Here you go."

She glanced at the small glass suspiciously. "What is it?"

"I think it'll work like a nicotine patch. Except you drink it."

"You think?"

He shrugged. "I'm a computer tech, not a doctor."

She sighed and drank it. In a few moments, she sighed again. "Thank you, Broots." She gave him a sudden glance. "I underestimate you."

"Uh—uh—you're welcome, Miss Parker."

Now, with a mental picture of the access tunnels, they were in an obscure one Broots had chosen and trying, unsuccessfully, to make themselves comfortable on the floor.

"This is so weird," Broots said, mostly to himself.

"What is?" Miss Parker demanded.

"We're on the Enterprise hiding out from the crewmembers. I'm only afraid I'll wake up and it'll all be a dream."

"Don't I wish. What's so great about it, anyway? This is a stupid, fake world, and we've done nothing but climb these ladders and crawl around in tunnels since you brought us here. Why are you so excited about this?"

Broots sighed. "Miss Parker, I work for the Centre. For a zombie named Raines and with an empath who shouldn't really exist. I'm tracking a bad guy who technically isn't the bad guy…which I suppose makes me the bad guy. This is the best thing that's happened to me in ages."

After a moment's silence, she said, "Why don't you leave the Centre?"

"You don't ever really leave the Centre. You know that, Miss Parker. What would become of my little girl if something happened to me? Thank goodness she's at a sleepover tonight. Can you imagine her coming home from school to find me missing? Our neighbor is always glad to have her over whenever I'm gone, but it would still be frightening for her."

"Well, you'd better hope we get back before her little party is over. If we ever can."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you didn't bring that remote, did you?"

"No. I dropped it when we started transporting. You don't think Jarod has got us stuck here permanently, do you?"

"Jarod wouldn't do that to you, Broots," Sydney said. "Jail for a day or two, perhaps, but he knows your daughter needs you. He knows how to get back. He always has an escape planned."

"How do you know this isn't his escape?" Miss Parker asked wearily, turning over, trying to get comfortable. It was not a comfortable Jeffries tube.

"He has no chance of finding his family here. He cares about that more than keeping us off his trail. Otherwise he would have disappeared without a trace long ago."

She shifted again. "Thank goodness for meaningless obsessions."

"Meaningless? Not at all. Not any more than your search for answers is meaningless."

"Leave me out of it!" She flopped angrily again.

"Miss Parker, I have a shoulder if you'd like."

"Oh, thank you, Syd, for your blatant surrogate-father-figure approach. It's worked really well with Jarod, hasn't it?"

Sydney's voice was weary. "I have never attempted to be a surrogate father to Jarod. If anything, he was the one who sought me. Rather a reversal of roles, in a way."

"It's too bad you didn't. Maybe he would never have run away."

"I couldn't have manipulated him that way."

"You manipulated him in every other way. Why not that one?"

Sydney didn't answer. After a few moments, Broots heard Miss Parker whisper something that almost sounded like, "Sorry, Syd."

Silence fell. Broots went to sleep. When he woke, stiff and cramped, he saw that Miss Parker's head rested on Sydney's flung-out arm, the rest of her body angled away from him. He admired her ability to maintain her aloofness even while accepting a certain amount of intimacy. He almost wished he'd been the one to offer.

Scene 22

Beverly couldn't sleep. Tomorrow was the day Jarod had set for his entrapment of two Starfleet officers, and though Beverly had nothing to do with the trap itself, she felt as nervous as if she were the one waiting for it to spring.

Children! The main victims of this crime were children, the ones who would be used like machines, like slaves, because of their intellectual capabilities. Within the Federation itself! It infuriated her on many levels, as a dedicated officer of the Federation, as a doctor who strove to give people life and meaning, and as a mother of an extraordinary son who couldn't imagine the horror of having him torn from her to be raised as a commodity in an environment without love and a mother's touch.

What might Wesley have been like if his life had been so sterile? If his capacity for play had been stifled, his knowledge of himself as a lovable human being erased, his emotional life ignored, his mind hyper-developed far too early? His questions about his origins unanswered, his affectionate heart starved. In many ways his sense of self would have atrophied. He would not know who he was as a Human, would be adrift in a confusing world. She could see him exploring a world entirely new to him, fascinated yet sensing his own lack, seeing children with parents and feeling his own void, angry at the ones who had made him that way, longing for what he could not understand. In short, he would be like—

She pulled up sharply. Surely not. Absurd! Not Commander Jarod Westmore of Starfleet Intelligence. He was a man of formidable intelligence with a self-confident air, a man who trusted himself and his mind and instincts. And yet… A child looked out of his eyes, a child who had been suppressed and never allowed to grow up. No wonder she felt a powerful maternalness toward him, in a way she had never felt toward anyone but her own son.

But how? And who, and where? You're missing something, Beverly, she told herself. Timmy! Could he have been another Timmy, living under the same regime, escaped, perhaps, and fled to the sanctuary of the Federation, now devoting himself to righting that same injustice—?

It's all pure speculation, Beverly. Scientists should not make wild guesses. But there was everything that had shone in his eyes when he told her about his friend, when he talked about his mission. Wild emotions that choked him. She was not Deanna, but she could see them.

Decisively she spoke to the computer. "Computer, where is Commander Westmore?"

"Commander Westmore is in Holodeck 2," the computer answered.

She should have known he would be working instead of sleeping. She touched her communicator. "Dr. Crusher to Commander Westmore."

"Jarod here, Beverly." Was it only her suddenly overactive imagination, or did he sound exhausted?

"Jarod, when you have a moment, would you see me in my quarters? It's about Timmy."

His voice was suddenly alert. "I'll be there immediately."

She hadn't intended to tell him about the possible solution she had found until after the sting operation, not wanting to distract him, but maybe he needed to hear it now. As he stood in her doorway, he looked like he needed good news. She knew when she looked at him that she was right about him. This case was taking a toll on him, slumping his shoulders, darkening his eyes, and drawing weariness on his face. When she had first seen him, she had been struck by his air of bright interest in the world around him. Now his air was veritably saturnine.

"Jarod, have you been sleeping at all?"

A smile briefly lighted his face. "This is quite a case. What have you got to tell me, Beverly?"

"I thought you should see the possible treatment I have come up with. I can't promise anything with it quite yet, but it's a start in the right direction."

It was the right news. The smile reached his eyes this time. "Please let me see."

Beverly pulled up the computer files she had been working with earlier. "I want to run some computer simulations and do some more research, but I've discovered a serotonin isotope that could have the possibility of reversing your friend's condition."

Jarod leaned forward, reading intently. After a moment he nodded. "I see. Beverly, this is good news, some I have needed."

"I know." She dismissed the information. "Jarod, do you want me to prescribe something to help you sleep?"

"Oh, no. Thank you."

"This case comes too close to home for you, doesn't it? Have you been having flashbacks or dreams or both?"

He sat very still and watched her.

"Jarod, I'm a doctor and a scientist and a mother. When I imagine my son in this situation, I see you."

Jarod's whole body slumped, the pain coming out fully in the compressed mouth and hollow eyes. "I don't know who I am. I was taken from my parents when I was a small child, and I have never known them. I was these children. They are me. I can't bear for them to grow up not knowing their parents as I did."

Beverly acted on pure instinct. Jarod Westmore couldn't have been more than ten years her junior, but her son was looking out at her though his eyes, and she knew that he was in essence a little boy who had never known the comfort of a mother's arms. Her arms went around his shoulders. He, with the instinct of a child to match her instinct of a mother, put his face down on her shoulder, and she held him as she had once held her son Wesley when he was small and heartbroken over the loss of his father. He clung to her as Wesley had clung, temporarily lost in the mother's warmth he could not remember.

Scene 23

"I don't know what's wrong with me, Captain," Deanna said, sitting in Picard's ready room with him and Riker. "Suddenly I can't trust anything I'm feeling. It's like being able to see but knowing that what you're seeing isn't right."

"And Doctor Crusher has not been able to find out any reason for it? No connection to this star system?"

"Not that she can find, which doesn't mean there is no connection. I think it would take a Betazoid telepath to really get to the bottom of it. It did only start after we arrived here."

"After Commander Westmore came," Riker said.

"No, will, it was specifically when we arrived here. He had been aboard for nearly a week at that point."

"Convenient, though. Sensors unreliable, your personal sensors unreliable—"

"Are you meaning to say that Jarod has something to do with it? Will, if you think that he's in any way connected with the organization he's trying to expose, you're wrong. I can say that much at least."

Picard held up his hand. "Counselor, explain to me what you are feeling."

She took a deep breath, concentrated. "The whole crew, all at once. That's normal. But it's as though echoes of them are bouncing around the ship. Suddenly an emotion one person is feeling will come raging out at me, overpowering in its abruptness and intensity. Not necessarily unpleasant emotions—it's been joy as well as sorrow. But when I ask, the person tells me that while he did experience such an emotion, it was not with any particular intensity. And then I seem to feel more people than are actually here—"

"More people?" Riker interrupted.

"More echoes. Ghosts. I can hardly concentrate because of everything else. I've also been feeling myself."

They gave her odd looks. "Isn't that normal?" Will queried.

"No! Not like this! I feel myself as though I were outside of myself, as if I were another person. An echo."

"We seem to be getting a great many echoes," mused Picard. "Or, as you say, ghosts."

"And you're sure Westmore isn't one of your ghosts?" Riker asked sardonically.

"Will, Jarod is the most real thing in all of this. Sometimes his inner turmoil is the only steady thing happening to me."

"And you don't consider that significant?"

Deanna looked at her hands. "Perhaps it is. Perhaps it's significant in ways other than you think it's significant. Perhaps it's not. I can't tell you."

Picard said gently, "Counselor, I want you to get some rest. Deal with yourself as you would deal with a patient under similar emotional strain."

She gave him a tired smile. "Yes, Captain."

When she had gone, the captain turned to his first officer. "You don't think she's interpreting this correctly, Number One."

Will frowned. "It's presumptuous of me to question Deanna on her area of expertise. But I can't help wondering if she has allowed herself to get emotionally involved with Westmore and is allowing that to influence her conclusions about him. I'm not an empath, but I feel something peculiar about the man. A sort of gut feeling."

"So you have said." Picard didn't tell him he had thought it might be some slight stirrings of jealousy. He was a captain, not a counselor. "Well, Will, I trust Deanna's instincts, but I trust yours as well. Do some investigating. Carefully, Will. We're in the middle of an explosive situation, and it wouldn't do to alert the wrong people about Commander Westmore's presence or purpose. For all we know, Westmore is merely dealing with personal issues that have nothing to do with his mission. That is what Deanna thought."

"Yes, Captain. I'll keep that in mind. I trust her instincts, too."

"Good. Dismissed."

Scene 24

Under the watchful gaze of the pale-haired Vulcan teacher, Jarod taught the six-year olds their simple lesson in astrophysics. It mainly involved how stars produced light and how the stars he was studying were different, in very simplistic language. One of the children, though, a small Ktarian named Krantregk, posed sharp questions of much greater depth than any of the others. It required ingenuity to come up with answers that would satisfy him without boring the other children. When they had been set to work making their own models of the stars, he took Krantregk aside for the sort of lesson they had both been wanting. Why wasn't this child in a much more advanced class? Was he easier to study this way? Jarod was well aware of the presence of the tall Vulcan named Sirok always nearby.

He thought perhaps if he could comprehend this Vulcan, he could comprehend Sydney better. How could such a logical being violate the logic of ethics so completely as to contemplate the kidnapping of children as part of the greater good? The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one, or the few? That was how they would see it. But how could they not see that violating the rights and needs of the one was ultimately a violation of what it meant for all to be self-determinant, sentient beings? If one child could be expendable, all children could be. I defy your belief that you have the right to call me expendable, Jarod thought fiercely, briefly meeting the eyes of the tall Vulcan.

Vulcans. They dichotomized their lives and atrophied their connection to the rest of the universe. Sydney was like a Vulcan, calm, studious, intelligent, intense. He was like a Vulcan in that he kept his own nature in two separate boxes. There was his work, his study, the business of his life, the examination of the human mind that enthralled his own mind. The Centre provided that for him as no other organization could. It provided him with an arena for pure research where other considerations such as ethics did not enter in. He could see a child not as a creature that required love and warmth to thrive but as an abstraction, a theoretical construct to investigate. Even all his great psychological knowledge was no more than a list of ideas to apply to a situation. There was no right or wrong in this box.

But in the other box there was a man. That man was warm and cared about people. Jarod had always been able to see it. That was the man he had always reached out to, only to encounter the calm, cold wall of the scientist Sydney. Jarod had never been able to put up that wall between mind and heart, and he had spent years trying to wear down Sydney's. Had he ever succeeded? Didn't you ever love me, Sydney?

He walked slowly down an empty corridor on his way to the bridge after the lesson, lost in his never ending questions. His whole identity was questions. Sometimes, as much as he sought the answers with his whole being, he wondered if he would cease to exist once he found them. Would there be life when the searching was over? Would the searching ever be over?

"Jarod!"

For a moment the shout was a product of his own brain, a snippet of memory that stopped him in his tracks. Then with a familiar horrified chill, he knew he had heard it with his ears. He turned around slowly.

Miss Parker stood in the middle of the corridor, beautiful and dangerous in dark grey and pale blue, that far-too-familiar gun pointing straight at him. Her short skirt and blouse were wrinkled, her hair not so perfect as usual, but the expression of grim determination on her sharp face had not changed. She looked entirely out of place in the Enterprise corridor.

Behind her one of the Jeffries tube doors was open, and Broots was hauling Sydney out of it. In the middle of the suffocating weight of capture, Jarod grinned. It was like a parade. Where one Stooge went, the other two followed.

"Miss Parker, I said it wasn't time—" Sydney began.

As Miss Parker began to glare down at him, Jarod did what came naturally. He ran.

"Jarod!"