He had found a place in Titan’s wreckage where he could build a comfortable and mostly hidden shelter. The Orishans had already begun to refer to it as the Shattered Place because of its obviously destroyed nature and the random arcs of electricity that continued, from time to time, to erupt from a few of the components. Most of them gave the area wide latitude, a tendency he meant to cultivate.

  They stood on the ground just inside the shuttle’s stealth field, saying the final good-bye. She couldn’t really comprehend his decision. Too much of it was based upon an esoteric understanding of reality that she had not been designed to process.

  She told him that this experience was significant enough for her to share it with the other Seleneans at the next confluence and even with her Pod Mother. Perhaps future Y’liras would be capable of understanding faith in the way that he did.

  “You understand it well enough, I think,” he said. Then he told her the final reason for her being the one who had to go back. She was a failsafe. “I need you to link with me the way you did before.”

  “Why?”

  “In case the computers fail or get scrambled in transit,” he said. “The information in my head can still be passed on through you.”

  She saw the wisdom in that and came close to him, letting him hold her as he would a lover as her linking spines undulated around her head.

  “What I take I can’t keep long,” she said. “A day or two at most.”

  “Let’s hope it won’t be needed at all,” he said. Her spines attached to his skin and her mind burrowed into his, lifting out those bits he wanted her to take as well as a few more that couldn’t be avoided.

  Sometime during the exchange he asked her for the last kiss he would ever have.

  She gave it to him.

  Modan couldn’t see the tesseract as Jaza could, not even with the memory of its image temporarily stored inside her, but she felt it when the shuttle crossed its event horizon.

  Reality seemed to flicker and bend around the Ellingtonas it navigated the unseen contours of the immense four-dimensional object. There was no real sense of acceleration or of time passing, only the initial jolt, the bizarre light show, and then suddenly she was back in normal space in low orbit over Orisha.

  The computer lit up immediately with the locator signals of three of the combadges of the missing away teammates, and she was elated. She wondered at the missing member of the team, whether he or she had been lost or if the absent signal was only the result of a damaged combadge.

  She didn’t wonder long. As soon as the ship detected their signals, the emergency protocols initialized and beamed them all back to the hold.

  Vale, Troi, Keru, and the largest Orishan she had seen yet materialized before her within seconds of her emerging from the tesseract.

Chapter Twelve

   The three of them came away from the link as if hit with a mild electric shock. The entire exchange took only a second or two but Vale gasped and stumbled back from Modan when the latter released her linking spines.

  “You just left him there!” said Vale, after regaining some composure. “Alone!”

  “It was his wish, Commander,” said Modan.

  “We’ll discuss this later, Ensign,” said Vale archly. She was only barely containing her anger over Jaza’s loss. She knew it wasn’t rational or professional but she couldn’t help it. She also knew that this wasn’t the time. “Right now you need to get down to the planet and do what you can to help Commander Ra-Havreii.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Modan. “Right away.”

  Ra-Havreii was back at work on the alien system when the three women materialized. Keru had been lucid enough to be left awake in the shuttle’s healing bed with his phaser trained on the still-subdued A’yujae’Tak. He was unhappy about being left behind, but someone had to ensure that the big insectoid stay out of trouble.

  “Status, Doctor,” said Vale when the transport effect faded. She was immediately rocked into a nearby wall by another of the ground tremors. This one was at least as violent as the first.

  “I’m having difficulty,” he said as another jolt forced him to leave off his ministrations in favor of holding on for dear life. “I believe I know what this Veil device is, but I’m having trouble with the Orishan symbols and idioms.”

  “Modan,” said Troi. “See if you can help him translate.”

  The golden woman half slid, half jumped her way to join the engineer by the control console. Once there she began to translate any Orishan symbol that she could.

  Much to Ra-Havreii’s surprise, she also began to help him manipulate the controls themselves, many of which had to be activated four or eight at a time.

  “I must say,” he said, during the lull in their activities that was forced on them by yet another temblor. “Your knowledge of esoteric computer systems is impressive. Especially for a linguist.”

  “It’s not me, Ra-Havreii,” she said, getting back to work as soon as the shaking subsided enough. “It’s Jaza.”

  “Is it now?” he said, falling back in beside her. “You will have to explain to me how that is possible, Ensign. Provided any of us survive this.”

  “What the hell is that thing?” said Vale, still very much smarting from the loss of Jaza and having nothing to do but stand and watch the others work.

  “A tremendously dangerous piece of technology,” said Ra-Havreii, not bothering to turn. His and Modan’s hands moved in a quartet of blurs over the console. “I doubt they have any idea what they’re playing with.”

  “Do you?” said Vale.

  “I-” another violent tremor shook the entire structure, forcing the Efrosian into an unnatural stammer. “I believe it’s a massive fold device. A network of them actually.”

  “So you’re, what,” said Vale, also struggling for balance, “shutting it down?”

  “No, ma’am,” said Modan through clenched teeth. The current quake was not only failing to dwindle in severity but was actually growing worse. Huge chunks of the Spire’s upper floors began to crack and fall, forcing Troi and Vale to dive for cover more than once. “We’re stabilizing the network.”

  “Stabilizing it?” said Troi, shouting to be heard over the din. “Shouldn’t you be shutting it down?”

  “No,” yelled Ra-Havreii. Then, all at once, the shaking and the noise both stopped. “Not unless we want to crack this planet into much smaller bits.”

  Vale took a moment to enjoy the quiet and the unshaking ground. She fancied she could hear a very low, very steady hum emanating from the walls around her. As they were not dead and the planet seemed to be intact, she felt it reasonable to assume that, for the moment, things were in fact stable.

  “All right,” she said. “Slowly. What is that thing, exactly, and why can’t you just turn it off?”

Chapter Thirteen

   “What do you call this again, sir?” said Dakal, more nervous now that he was actually strapped into the TOV than he had been when Roakn had suggested him and not Pel or Hsuuri for the duty.

  “Riffing, Cadet,” said the captain, standing over the Benzites as they made the final adjustment to the probe. Merlik nodded to his counterpart, who gave Riker the thumbs-up. They were ready. “It’s simple.”

   I’m glad it is to someone, thought Dakal. Because it makes nonazzing sense to me. It was strange enough having the captain in the sensor pod for more than the time of a quick inspection, but to have him not only here but actually rolling up his sleeves to pitch in with the work? Well, it was unsettling.

  “Our enemy is only a few hundred kilometers away,” said Riker as the Benzites slid the probe into the dock. “They’re safe in a vessel that is not only protected from the conditions that are hitting Titanby being partially out of phase but which is actually able to use those conditions to their benefit.”