Whatever Jean-Luc had expected to hear, this was not it.

"Reed disappeared over two hundred years ago!" Riker's tone was incredulous.

"Two hundred and fifteen years, one month and eleven days, sir," Data corrected a little apologetically. "Ensign Sato resigned her commission shortly after his disappearance and then herself disappeared. It was never established what had become of either of them."

"Until now, it seems!" The captain's hands were clasped on the desk in front of him; he stared at them in perplexity as he worked to recall the details of what he'd read of that old scandal. There had been something – yes, he remembered now: some mystery about an accident to two officers in a shuttlepod. One had been declared dead, the other had been returning to Earth to face the Board of Inquiry when he had apparently been abducted – or (it was alleged in some quarters) allowed to escape. Extensive inquiries had failed to discover him, and Starfleet had been rocked to its core by the scandal that resulted; the media believed (or at least found it convenient to pretend they believed) that Reed had been got rid of because his evidence would have been too explosive. To begin with, Starfleet had been 'unable' to provide either of the grieving families with a detailed account of exactly what had taken place in the shuttlepod, pleading the necessity of withholding information pending judicial proceedings. A formal arraignment followed by an Article 32 hearing and a Court Martial for Lieutenant Reed should have taken place, but could not until his recapture; Starfleet's criminal investigation arm carried out an investigation, but their findings were – from a legal point of view, quite properly – kept confidential. And then, just when the clamour was showing the first faint signs of starting to die down, a third Enterprise officer, Ensign Sato, had also vanished, leaving a third family to reignite all the previous uproar. To be fair, Starfleet's protestations of innocence over Sato's disappearance had rung fairly true, but their handling of the earlier events had been so inept that the then captain of the NX-01, Jonathan Archer, had only just hung on to his commission, and the whole affair had led to countless accusations of cover-ups and concealment of evidence, if not worse. The affair had even been brought up in the UE Parliament, but even then nothing concrete had ever been revealed – leading inevitably to accusations that even ministers had become mired in Starfleet's corruption. The damage to the organisation had been acute and long-lasting. Possibly only the NX-01's heroic performance in the subsequent Romulan War had redeemed Archer's reputation, though the stain of that incident was never completely wiped away from it, and the missing officers' parents had continued till their deaths to campaign for the justice they were to be denied.

"But over two hundred years!" Will repeated. "Reed was, what? Thirty, thirty-one when he disappeared? Optimum survival expectation in primitive conditions, with skill and a heck of a lot of luck, maybe another thirty years, forty max. Sato was maybe ten, twelve years younger–"

"Twenty-two years and ten months old at the time of her last recorded appearance," Data supplied helpfully.

"–So that allows her about another twenty fertile years, if she survived that long. They disappeared in 2151–"

"Lieutenant Reed on 12 November 2151, Ensign Sato on 4 March 2152."

"Therefore," Riker continued, undaunted, "any child of theirs would presumably be born prior to, say, 2172. Which would make that guy in Sickbay, if he is their child, at least a hundred and ninety-four years old."

"Is that humanly possible?" Jean-Luc pondered. Certainly the man was old, but the privations of the life he must have led would have prematurely aged anyone forced to endure it. He must be extremely tough to have survived to the age he appeared to be – somewhere between sixty and seventy, perhaps. "Data, could there be any confusion – could he be not their son, but their grandson? Their great-grandson, even?" That would still be stretching the bounds of possibility, but at least not quite so unbelievably far. It was an ugly and tragic idea, but not an impossible one, that children produced by the stranded officers would have formed intimate relationships between themselves, particularly given the fact that their mental facilities (and presumably, by that time, their parents' as well) would have been corrupted by whatever psychotropic it was that was permeated this world's atmosphere. Void of ordinary civilising conditioning, they would have been driven by their physical and emotional needs to mate with the only available members of their own species.

But Data shook his head. "It is possible, sir, but I believe not. I have had the science lab analyse–"

"Sickbay to Captain Picard."

"Picard here." He was on his feet almost before the words were out, but the tone of the doctor's voice had already told him that there was no crisis afoot.

"I think you should come down here, Captain. We have an interesting development."

It occurred to Jean-Luc as he left the Ready Room that he might as well set up a desk in Sickbay, but he said nothing as he headed once more for the turbo-lift, leaving Data in charge of the Bridge. If there was cheerful news in a situation that had seemed to be growing grimmer and grimmer by the moment, he was more than ready to hear it.

Sickbay was quiet when he and Riker arrived; there was no indication of alarm within.

The doors hissed back to reveal a scene of calm. The only thing that had changed was that botanist Keiko Ishikawa was sitting in a chair, and that 'Reed-Sato' was on all fours on the floor opposite her, watching her with an expression of anxious yearning. As the door opened, he flinched away, but did not immediately retreat to his den.

Doctor Pulaski was close by, and the security guard had a phaser in one hand, clearly ready to use it if necessary, but neither of them evinced any sign of real anxiety.

To advance into the room might change the fledgling dynamics of whatever had been happening, and whatever the cause it was undoubtedly a step forward. Both of the new arrivals halted just inside the door, intrigued.

Keiko herself seemed bewildered but unharmed. She turned her eyes to the captain as though asking for reassurance, and he gave her a heartening nod; whatever happened, he would not allow any harm to come to her. "I don't believe he means you any harm, Miss Ichikawa. Talk to him gently."

She nodded, and looked back at the man in front of her. "Hi," she said quietly, smiling as she would to a child. "I'm pleased to meet you. My name's Keiko. What's yours?"

The grey eyes strained at her face, as though he were struggling to understand.

"Keiko." She put a hand to her chest, and then pointed to him, raising her brows questioningly.

Comprehension dawned.

His face twisted. He looked downwards, and they saw the effort with which he fought to summon speech into a mouth that for perhaps much of his life had formed nothing but animal sounds.

His jaws opened and worked. After a long minute of intense concentration, "S– Ssson..." The swallow was audible and painful, and he raised his head with a look of pleading and shame; it was the best he could do.

"Son," whispered Riker. "His mother was Japanese. You don't think...?"

Jean-Luc shook his head; he could see where Will was going with this, and it was certainly a plausible theory, but they had far too little to go on yet.

"Here." Moving slowly, Katherine passed her a glass of water. "He needs to drink. See if he knows how to use this."

"This is for you," Keiko said encouragingly, leaning forward and holding it out to him. "Are you thirsty?"

It seemed that Son was – or at least that he wanted to prolong the contact. A little nervously, he leaned forward and smelled the glass, and then tried to lap from it.

"No." She spoke gently, but shook her head and pointed to his hands. "Can you hold it? – Like this?"

Whatever his linguistic abilities, he was quick on the uptake. Almost at once he raised both hands and clasped the glass as she moved her fingers to the base of it; it was noticeable that he pressed inwards with the palms rather than trying to bend his fingers around it, but after a moment his right thumb crept out and fumbled into the correct position.

Once again he lowered his head to lap, but hesitated. With an uncertain look at his silent audience, he clumsily raised the glass slightly and brought it to his lips.

How long had it been since he drank like a human being? Long enough for him to struggle to form his mouth into the correct shape and co-ordinate the tilt of the vessel he held, but he managed it, though water ran down his fingers and into his ragged beard.

When it was all gone, he passed back the glass. He nodded awkwardly as he did so, as though the abbreviated movement was foreign to him, and uttered a softly growled sound. The movement brought him closer to her, and he stared up into her face, turning his head slightly to one side. Then, another word, formed at still greater cost, but no other could have been more significant.

"Mh...Mhrrthuh..."