But you’re here now, aren’t you?thought Vale. And he’s still stuck back there.

  “All right,” said Troi, her face showing tiny creases as she turned it all over in her mind. “The Spires make the space folds and the folds have collapsed into each other to form this tesseract.”

  “Correct,” said Ra-Havreii.

  “And we’re inside the tesseract,” she said.

  “Also correct,” said the engineer.

  “And that is causing these ground quakes and the eruptions from the sky?”

  “Ah,” he said. “Not exactly.”

  Modan and Ra-Havreii gave each other a pregnant look, and Troi felt something like resignation wafting off them. They asked the two senior officers to join them at a breach in the wall where the sky showed through.

  Things had calmed somewhat now that the Spire network was stable, but there was still that unnatural tint and occasional clusters of what Modan claimed were tachyons flickering in and out of sight.

  “You see that?” said Ra-Havreii, gesturing toward the barely visible Eye of Erykon still floating, seemingly dozing now, just beyond the Veil field. “That is the planet Orisha.”

  “This is the planet Orisha,” said Vale.

  “Yes,” said Ra-Havreii. “And so is that. The tesseract effect is shunting the planet in and out of regular space-time at random intervals. When the network is stable, there is relative calm, as there is now. When the network destabilizes, Orisha tries to reenter regular space.”

  “Tries?” said Troi. “Tries and fails, you mean.”

  “Yes,” said Modan. “Whenever the planet Orisha tries to reenter normal space-time at a point in the past, something is there to block it.”

  “What?” said Vale.

  “The planet Orisha,” said Ra-Havreii. “You may not understand all of the math or physics, Commander, but you must know what happens when two objects attempt to occupy the same space at the same moment in time.”

  Indeed she did. Vale had seen a transporter malfunction once while attempting to beam down some machinery from a spacedock above Izar. Due to the fault in the reintegration matrix, a crate of microprocessors and another of copper filaments that had dematerialized on two separate pads, had tried to reintegrate on a single pad at the end of their trip.

  The result had been an explosion of shrapnel and energy that had left Vale hospitalized for two weeks while her pockmarks and burns were repaired. Now these two were saying Orisha was trying to do the same thing?

   Yes, she thought. Things can always get worse.

  “There’s more, Commander,” said Ra-Havreii. Of course there was. “While time moves as we expect inside the tesseract, outside it is completely random. It is my suspicion that each time the network destabilizes, we appear in the Orishan sky of the past and inspire the same effects or worse on the planet up there just as its proximity creates the same effects here. When the Veil fails completely, when the planet reenters normal space, both versions of Orisha will be destroyed.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Troi. “You said whenit fails.”

  “Yes,” said Ra-Havreii.

  “Not ‘if.’ ”

  “Correct,” said the engineer. “The network will fail eventually. That is guaranteed. It’s over a century old, and it’s been taking too much punishment from overuse.”

  “We can keep it stable for a little while,” said Modan. “But the Veil will fail. Soon.”

  “So we’re back to where we started,” said Vale. “Turn the damned thing off.”

  “There may be a way to implement a controlled step-down of the individual Spires,” said Ra-Havreii, suddenly thoughtful.

  “Yes!” said Modan, jumping on. It was odd watching her light up the way Jaza would have over concepts she wouldn’t have understood only days ago. “We remove the components and the tesserect just fades away. We should reenter normal space-time in Orisha’s present.”

  “With no previous version of itself blocking reentry, everything should be fine,” said Ra-Havreii.

  “ Shouldbe isn’t willbe,” said Vale. “Tampering with this could make things worse, couldn’t it?”

  “It’s the best we can do, I’m afraid, Commander,” he said. “It’s your decision, of course, but you had better make it quickly.”

  As if to punctuate Ra-Havreii’s words, the ground beneath them seized ever so slightly and there was a spark of the rainbow lightning in the distance.

  “All right,” said Vale. “What do you need to get this done?”

  Keru was up and looking like his old self when the three women returned to the shuttle. He had stripped off his torn garments and replaced them with the same gray and white undermesh that Modan wore.

  As the ensign rummaged for the tools Ra-Havreii had requested, Vale brought Keru up to speed.

  “So,” he said when she was done. “We’re in it. Again.”

  “Looks that way,” she said.

  “All right,” he said, sucking it up. “What are your orders, Commander?”

  “Just keep an eye on her for now,” said Vale, indicating A’yujae’Tak, still trapped in her corner of the hold. The Orishan was also up again, lucid and watching their every move. She had, apparently, only tested the force field once before settling back on her haunches to watch and wait.

  “No worries,” said the big Trill. “She’s been quiet the whole time.”

  “Good,” said Vale, moving toward their prisoner. “Maybe she’s calm enough to listen.”

  A’yujae’Tak shifted her position slightly when Vale drew near. Two of her arms extended to the floor while the higher ones flexed outward like some raptor bird testing its wings. It was easy to see that she meant to pounce on her captor the instant the shield went down. Ignoring the threatening pose, Vale dropped down to one knee to meet the alien’s gaze face-to-face.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’m sorry about all this. I can let you out of there if you promise not to attack any of us.”

  “You should have killed me,” said A’yujae’Tak.

  “We don’t do that,” said Vale. “Not unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

  “I will kill you,” said the prisoner. “For what you have done to us, I will murder you all.”

  “We’re trying to help you,” said Vale. “This Veil network of yours is the thing you want to kill.”

  “Do not touch the Veil!” yelled A’yujae’Tak, lunging at Vale so quickly she barely had time to register the movement. “You will leave us naked before Erykon! Do you mean to kill us all?”

  “As I said,” said Vale, rising. “We’re trying to help.”

  “I’m ready, Chris,” said Modan, emerging from one of the lockers with a small satchel full of the necessary tools.

   “Commander,”said Vale, sharply enough for Keru to raise an eyebrow. Troi looked about to intervene, but a look from Vale told her to save it for later. “Commander Vale, Ensign. Not Chris. My friends call me that. Understand?”

  “Yes, Commander,” said Modan stiffly. “I understand.”

  Just as Modan transported back to the surface, another quake rippled through the ground. From their vantage they could actually see the soil liquefying, spewing giant shards of the blue crystals into the air like missiles while conversely sucking vast tracts of the jungle down to oblivion.

  “It’s one of their cities,” Troi said to Vale. “The quake is causing a cave-in. They’re dying, Christine. Thousands of them.”

  “Murderers,” screamed A’yujae’Tak, lunging at the force field again and again. “This is your doing! Erykon will destroy us all!”

  “Not if I can bloody help it,” said Vale. “Shuttle to Ra-Havreii.”

   “Hands full right now, Commander,”said the engineer’s voice. “ What is it?”

  “Are you still all right there?” she said.

   “We’re fine,”he said, clearly through his obviously clenched teeth. “Stop talking to me and let us work.”

  She switched off and told Keru to join her on the flight deck. She had been feeling useless with all the technical mumbo jumbo. The destruction of the Orishan city was something she might actually be able to handle on her own.