“This place is…Shedai.”

Frowning, Jetanien shook his head. “I’m afraid I do not understand, Your Excellency. This place is taboo? Quarantined? Forbidden?”

“ From long ago,”Sesrene said, “ our people avoided this place. It is said the unspeakable occurred here. Of all places, this is where we are not to be.”

Lugok released a hearty laugh, one Jetanien recognized as derisive. “Folk tales,” he said. “Stories to frighten the meek and mewling. These Tholians truly are cowards.”

Jetanien, however, found himself listening with intent to Sesrene’s words. Could this supposed fable have a foundation in ancient fact? Might the ambassador’s seemingly ingrained fear of the Taurus Reach possess roots to a danger so dreadful and frightening as to leave an impression lasting millennia?

What if they fear whatever it is we’re looking for? What if the very builders of the artifacts— the originators of the meta-genome— have struck millennia of terror in the Tholian people?All of this is connected. It simply has to be.

It has to be.

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For Michi and Michelle—this is what

we were doing all that time.

Really.

Watch ye therefore, for ye know not when

the master of the house cometh.

—The Gospel According to Mark,13:35

The Taurus Reach

2265

1

Commander Hirskene found that, try as he might, he could not stop pacing.

Lost in thought, he was oblivious of the ever-present sounds enveloping the command deck of the Tholian battle cruiser Aen’q Tholis,and all but ignored the activities of the subordinates working around him. The only thing he heard was the staccato echo of his six feet against the metal deck plating. He had been at this long enough that he now allowed the sounds to guide him back and forth across the command deck, counting off the steps before he reached either the forward or the rear bulkhead and was required to reverse his direction.

His unease refused to release him from its unyielding grasp, and he felt as though it might fracture him at any moment. The sensation had plagued him for the past several cycles, starting when he received his first orders from the Ruling Conclave on Tholia and intensifying as his ship made its way toward the destination specified by those orders.

The Shedai Sector, or as the Federation had taken to calling it, the Taurus Reach.

We have crossed the territorial boundary, Commander. The report, offered by his second, Yeskene, pushed across the SubLink and broke into Hirskene’s troubled reverie. Accelerating his movements across the deck plating, the younger officer almost was scampering in order to stay in step with his superior, while the sapphire hues that had warmed the local thoughtspace deepened as the subordinate made his report. I never would have believed that I might visit this place.

Indeed,Hirskene replied. Like his second and the rest of the ship’s complement, he too was traveling into the Shedai Sector for the first time. For as long as he could remember, this area of space was a place to be avoided. The reasons had been lost to the ages, of course, having fallen into a vast chasm of mystery that lay somewhere between truth and legend. All that remained were the stories, and Hirskene had lost count of how many times he had heard them throughout his life.

He did not doubt them now.

This anxiety he nursed was not his alone, of course. Hirskene could sense it in every member of the ship’s complement, even without having to commune through the Lattice. Still, were he to make use of the vast telepathic network which linked all his people, he surely would perceive the same trepidation being mirrored by every Tholian in the Ruling Conclave.

“Status report,” Hirskene said aloud, amber hues coursing through the SubLink as he moved toward the center of the command deck. “Are there any indications of other vessel activity?”

There was a momentary pause before the subordinate manning the sensor display console replied. “Negative, Commander. We are alone here.”

To its credit, Hirskene’s crew appeared to be allowing neither their own feelings nor the actions of their superior to distract them from their duties. All around the command deck, members of the lower echelons—menials who served as conscripted crew aboard Tholian military vessels—kept their attention on their consoles and monitored the current status of every shipboard system as well as the area of space through which the Aen’q Tholiscurrently traveled. While his position as commander and a member of the Leadership Conclave saw to it that he never would carry out such proletarian and yet necessary work, Hirskene was in fact envious of the subordinates in his charge.

At least they have something with which to occupy their time, and their thoughts.

He had known for many cycles that this day would come. Once the Ruling Conclave had begun reporting incursions into the Shedai Sector by forces of the Klingon Empire and the Federation, Hirskene had realized it would be only a matter of time before Tholian vessels were diverted from their regular missions to deal with this rapidly unfolding situation. What he had found disconcerting was that it had taken so long for the supreme leaders of the Political Castemoot to act.