The BLTS Archive - Tapestry Three
Snowfire
by Unzadi (unzadi@aol.com)

---

Disclaimer:  Paramount owns anything and everything even remotely
related to Star Trek.  I'm just playing around in their trash.  The
story and original characters therein are mine, mine, mine.

---

Sarah willed her hands to be steady as she pushed the tip of  the
blade into Riker's chest, wincing at the quiet popping sound when the
metal punctured the festering wound.  Discoloured fluid seeped
sluggishly from her newest incision. Not bothering to wipe away the
droplets that had flown onto her face, she lowered her head to suck.
The colour bothered her, but not as much as the smell. At least it
meant that Willie's body was fighting the venom's effects.  In that,
his size was a true godsend -- an invaluable asset.  For the same
amount of venom circulating through a smaller system, like her own, it
would already be too late.  *Small blessings...*

Sarah swore she could taste the sickening sweetness of his blood even
before she touched her lips to the wound.  Firmly, she pushed the
remembered taste out of her mind.  There was no time to allow her mind
to play games.  The present was what was important, and all that she
could concentrate on.  The past didn't matter.  She set herself to her
task, falling into the rhythm of sucking and spitting, checking her
progress each time.

She'd been so bloody sure that she'd gotten all of the venom out the
last time, but as she was discovering, she hadn't.  There had still
been enough in Willie to immobilise him.  With him as quiet and still
as he was, it was almost as though Sarah were alone.  The thought
terrified her.

"I didn't," she insisted between suckings, "come through all of this,"
she spat, "to lose you to a damned dunf!"  Was it only her imagination
or was his skin already getting cooler?  She didn't dare stop to take
a tricorder reading. *As if  the bloody thing would even give me
anything reliable,* she thought, spitting again.  *My luck, it would
start listing off the ingredients for plum pudding.*  Her stomach
rumbled at the thought of food, but the hunger passed as soon as she
detected blood mixing with her saliva.

The metallic taste made Sarah pull her mouth away in revulsion.  She
allowed herself a moment of triumph as she pressed down firmly on the
edges of the double-rowed fang marks, fully prepared to find another
hidden deposit of venom, but saw only rich, red blood coming up to
cover her fingers.

"Thank God," she breathed, closing her eyes for only a second.  Her
heart hammered wildly as she had a fleeting image of another bloody
glove on her hand, feeling the wrenching emptiness in her midsection.
*God, no!  Stephanie! It's too soon!  Not noooooooooow...*

*Shake it off, Cromwell.  No time for this.  Sufficient unto the day
is the evil thereof.  You can't help Stephanie, but you can help
Willie.*

Sarah turned her thoughts to a mental inventory of their medical
supplies.  The only bandages they had were already caked with dried
blood and venom, and the blankets in their pack couldn't be spared.
For the time being, they'd have to make do with what they had.  Sarah
applied more pressure to the wound until Riker's bleeding stopped, all
the while wondering how much of her own robe she might be able to rip
into something vaguely resembling a bandage.  The hood, maybe, or one
of the underscarves... surely she didn't need them *all.*

In the silence of the atmosphere tent, Sarah could hear the thundering
of her own heart, its wildly beating rhythm keeping time with the
raging storm outside.  The past several hours had done nothing to
lessen its intensity.  She only hoped that the tent would hold through
the worst of the ice.  With some rest, they could both continue on,
but without a decent bit of it... she didn't want to think about what
would happen then.  Willie's survival was a need, not an option, and
as she'd determined six months ago when the Romulan centurion had
grabbed her by the arm, so was her own.  She allowed herself a small
smile as she recalled her instinctive reaction.  The man had walked
differently for a full three days afterwards.

*Knee to groin, heel of the hand to the nose, fingers in the eyes,
spit in eyes... claw any exposed flesh.  Pull hair, pull ears.  Bite
anything.  Tear clothing; it matters in this cold... Hot food or
liquid can burn them.  Small finger controls the rest of the hand.  If
you can get a finger, pull it backward... snap, snap, then their howl
of pain... try not to like the sound of it; you'll be no better than
them.  Strike fast, be ready to defend.  Give no aid.  Give no aid.
Everything is an opportunity.  Duty, Cromwell, duty... you have to
hurt them.  You have to do it; it's an order.  Keep at it until you
see the green blood.  First blood wins...*

Wiping a stray strand of hair away from her face, Sarah knew she
should rest. If just thinking about the Romulans had brought her so
readily to her damage list, as she'd taken to calling it, she was too
exhausted to think.  Sleep was best if possible, but she didn't want
to risk not being awake in case Willie needed her.  *Fine. I'll look
at the bloody crystals again.  They might feel like talking now.*
Leaving Riker to his fitful sleep, Sarah returned to her study of the
crystals.  At first, she'd been only toying with them while she and
Willie had  talked,  just to have something to do with her hands.
They had only been pretty colours, some that Monet might have chosen,
or interesting light that reminded her of the Impressionists.  That
was until she had noticed the effect the rocks had on the tricorder.

She had placed the device on the ground next to her, wanting both
hands free for the crystals.  Done with the first crystal, she had
placed it next to the tricorder, and paid little attention to the
blips her action had elicited. There had been another reaction to the
next crystal, and yet another to the one after that.  Excited by her
discovery, Sarah had tried it all again, and again found the results
surprisingly consistent.

Bits and pieces of hushed, aborted conversations in Romulan came back
to her from the past six months, slamming into her ears again.  This
time, though, they were louder and clearer than they had originally
been.  This time, she was able to concentrate.

Sarah had convinced her captors that she didn't understand a single
word of their language, so that they'd spoken more freely than they
should have around her.  Far from being ignorant of the Romulan
tongue, Sarah had taught it to herself when she was seven years old,
merely to alleviate boredom with her course of studies.  What was the
risk, she could still hear the guard with the deviated septum argue,
in speaking in front of her?  They had taken her communicator, so
there was no way she'd have access to its universal translator.
Talking in front of the  human woman was no different from talking in
front of a zohre cat.

It had been difficult then not to smile at their ignorance, proving
true a favourite statement of her Uncle Stephen:  it was more
difficult to pretend ignorance of something one knew well than to
pretend knowledge of something unfamiliar.  Still, Sarah had risen to
the challenge.  Part of the job was to listen carefully to everything
they said in front of her:  every idle boast, every lewd comment, just
in case they got overconfident and let something more substantial
slip.

Sure enough, they had.  There hadn't been much that was specific --
that had likely been reserved for their many secretive meetings -- but
she had heard enough to make an educated guess.  Now that she was
seeing for herself what had only been alluded to, the reality of it
all chilled her.  A few more experiments would be prudent before she
formulated her hypothesis, but she'd done the best with what she had:
a few assorted crystals and  a tricorder that was madder that her Aunt
Beryl.

Her hand shaking, Sarah picked up the chunk of rose-coloured crystal
and stared at it in terrified wonder.  *We've got to get back*  She
was so stunned by the knowledge of why the Romulans were on Philemon
Three in the first place, and what that could mean for the Federation
that she almost didn't hear Riker move.

---

As the shimmer of the transporter beam dissipated on the
*Enterprise's* bridge, it revealed three bedraggled, white-robed
forms.  One of them threw off her hood, revealing the panicked face of
Beverly Crusher.  "Medical to bridge!" Her voice held equal measures
of elation and horror as she motioned frantically for assistance.  "I
need a sensor net!  Now!  It's okay, Geordi, we're on the bridge."

Geordi LaForge smiled in relief, even though all was the same
blackness he'd been in for hours.  Just knowing that the sensor net
was on its way eased some of the helplessness.  At least he'd have
some bearings.  "Thanks.  Brina?"

"Right here, sir," Sabrina Sinclair answered, blinking to make sure
she wasn't hallucinating the bridge and its occupants.  Biting the
inside of her cheek to make doubly certain, she finally decided this
was real.

Picard was next to his officers in a matter of seconds, helping Geordi
to his feet.  He gaped at the face of his chief engineer.  The other
man's eyes were as white as his face, hair and robe.  It was more than
a little unsettling. Putting a steadying hand  on Geordi's shoulder,
Picard asked, "What happened?"

Beverly ran to meet the medical team that had immediately reported to
the bridge, grabbing the medical tricorder out of Alyssa Ogawa's hand
so quickly that the  nurse sustained a light scrape from her action.
"Where's the net? Get it to Commander LaForge!"  Beverly barked her
order, keying in the diagnostic programme as she dashed back to
Geordi.  There were things to explain, all right; she knew without
looking  that Picard's eyes were fixed on her, demanding to know what
was going on.  Nobody was going to do anything until she was sure that
Geordi was unharmed.  Emergency medicine in the field wasn't the best
or the most accurate, and she wasn't taking any chances.

As soon as Alyssa had helped Geordi into the sensor net, Beverly took
her readings.  "No venom.  Thank God."  She sighed and sagged into
Picard's waiting arms, grateful to feel his comforting heartbeat
against her own.

After a moment of silently holding her, Picard gave Beverly a quick,
reassuring hug before releasing  her to her anxiously waiting son.
She went from Picard to Wesley like a rag doll being  passed between
two children.  Picard turned to Sinclair.  "Lieutenant Sinclair,
report!"

Brina Sinclair took a deep breath, pulling off her torn fur glove and
running a hand through her hair as she gathered her thoughts.
"Lieutenant Commander LaForge was attacked by dunfs, sir. We were
forced into a cave by an ice storm, and became separated from the
others.  I don't know what happened to them," she confessed, her voice
dropping into a troubled whisper.  She paused while Alyssa scanned her
and pronounced her uninjured.  "We also came across the body of
Lieutenant Cromwell's child."

Deanna sank back into her chair, a wave of grief rushing over her,
overpowering the other emotions that were assaulting her.  Anger,
fright, relief, disorientation...  She took a deep breath and closed
her eyes, choosing to concentrate on the relief of the others on the
bridge.  Wesley and Beverly's joy at seeing each other again was
especially calming, so she allowed herself a few seconds to indulge in
it.  Still, she couldn't shake the nagging fact that the others were
still down there.  Will Riker was still down there.

---

"Great, just great.  Back  to the stalactites, she says."

Rohit Sabu scowled at his companion.  "Cut it out, Jeff."

"We wouldn't be *here* if we'd kept going."

"You don't know that."

Jeffrey Taylor's eyes, artificially coloured pink, echoed the sulk of
his expression.  "Well, she didn't have to lead us smack into a bunch
of Romulans. The inside of a Romulan field prison is something I could
have definitely lived the rest of my life without seeing.  You have to
admit, leading us here," he paused to indicate their spartan
surroundings with an expansive gesture, "isn't the greatest command
strategy in the universe."

Sabu merely turned over on his stomach, deciding the hard pallets they
both lay on hadn't been built for comfort.  There wasn't much
difference between the pallets and the floor, truth be told. He'd
tried them both.  "We shouldn't be talking.  They might be listening."

Taylor shrugged.  "So?  What are they going to find out?  We're
ensigns. Nobody ever tells us anything.  You ever notice how the
senior officers stop talking when we're around?  I hate it when they
go to those codes they think we don't pick up on.  'That matter,' and
'what I told you' and all that stuff."

Sabu turned over again, wishing he had a pillow to put over his head.
Or over Taylor's head, for that matter.  "I wonder when they're going
to bring Eliva back."

"Probably after they've questioned her," Taylor speculated, his voice
free of sarcasm for once. "Or maybe they're going to keep her
separated from us."

At that, Sabu fell silent.  *So they can do to her what they did to
Lieutenant Cromwell?  Not if I can help it.*  He flipped onto his back
again and stared at the ceiling for only a second before getting up to
pace.  He seldom did that, but it seemed like a good idea at present.
After all, whenever Commander Riker started pacing, Sabu knew for a
fact that the entire ship's complement began to shake with fear.  He
was struck with the daunting possibility that Riker only paced because
he'd run out of anything else to do.

"Uh, Rohit?"

"What?"

"Who's in command if she doesn't come back?"

Sabu stopped pacing.  "One of us, I guess."

"Yeah, but which one?"

Sabu scrunched his eyes together, trying to figure out what Taylor was
getting at.  "Isn't that a pretty trivial question at a time like
this?"

Taylor shook his head, pale curls dancing.  "Asking whether the
landing party should beam down nude to a planet of nudists is a
trivial question.  The Roms obviously care who's in charge. Isn't that
why they took Eliva?"

Sabu had to think.  True, the Andorian med tech had been in command of
their small party ever since they'd become separated from the senior
officers back in the cave.  That was only because she'd received her
promotion two days before he and Taylor had.  "Probably," he allowed
slowly, stretching the word out.

Reality began to sink in.  Not only were they separated from the rest
of the landing party on Philemon Three, but they'd had the misfortune
to run into a Romulan patrol, who had marched them directly to the
underground compound. Their momentary confusion of stalac*tites* and
stalag*mites* hadn't helped things, but the strange tunnels distorted
sound at times.  Part of their mission *had* been to find the
compound, but not by getting captured.

The cell Sabu and Taylor were in was livable, but not much more than
that.  Two hard cots, attached to the east and west walls, a lavatory
on the south wall, and a door on the north were all they had to work
with.  They'd already examined the cell thoroughly, including a wobbly
inspection of the ceiling with Sabu riding atop Taylor's shoulders.
There wasn't even a  loose bolt they could pull from one of the cots.

"Weren't we lined up alphabetically?" Taylor asked from his cot.

"I think so."  Sabu heard Taylor's short, triumphant bark of laughter.
"What's so funny?"

Taylor allowed himself an outright hoot before answering.  "S comes
before T. You got the promotion first, so if the Roms want to know
which one of us is in charge, it's you."

Right then, Sabu didn't care.  Normally, he would have loved having
the authority to order Jeffrey Taylor to do anything.  Shutting up and
letting him think would be good, for a start.  "Give me a minute, will
you?"

"A minute?  Looks like we got all you want."

Sabu chose to ignore that.  "OK, we're being held by the enemy, so I
guess we should be considered prisoners of war."

"Uh, incoming subspace.  We're not *at* war."

"I know that.  Do *you*  want to be in command if they ask?"  He saw
Taylor shake his head.  "Didn't think so.  As I was saying, I think we
ought to be behaving as if we were prisoners of war, and abide by
those regulations." *Now, if I can only remember what they are...*
"Umm, all we tell them is name, rank and serial number, and only if
they ask."  What else?  Sabu tried to recall the novel he'd been
reading the week before, a historical fiction about a  United States
Naval officer held by the enemy during Earth's Vietnam conflict of the
20th century.  Al Whateverhisnamewas had had no problems remembering
how to behave during his ordeal.  "And we have to try to escape, every
chance we get."  *Why didn't Al take the milk?  There had to be a
reason...  Yeah, it was only for him, not his men*  "We can't accept
any special treatment, either.  We're prisoners, and we're not going
to give them anything  they want, no matter what they tell us."

Taylor sat up.  "You read *Leap To Freedom?*"

Sabu nodded, guiltily.

"Did you finish it?"

"Yes."

Taylor sighed, his chest heaving with visible relief.  "I only got to
chapter five.  Al gets out of the cage, right?"

"That," Sabu pointed out, with an exasperated huff, "was a novel.  We
can't do the same thing the same way.  Do *you* see any bamboo around
here?"

"I know, I know.  I was just asking.  I can ask, can't I, sir?  Or do
I have to..."  Taylor's sentence broke off as they both heard
bootsteps approaching.

Sabu cleared his throat, trying his frantic best to sound calm and
confident. "If there's only one or two of them, I think we should rush
them."

"Then what do we do?"

*What would Commander Riker do?  What did Al do?  Can we do it without
the bamboo and the cigarette filter?  Probably not.  OK, back to the
Commander Riker option.*   "Find a way out, of course.  If we got in,
we can get out, right?"

"You forget that we got *in* with a full Romulan escort.  I do not,
repeat, *not* want to get out the same way."

Sabu sighed.  "Yeah, whatever.  Come on, get in front of the door.
They're almost here, and surprise is going to be our only advantage."

---

Riker, finally able to move *something,* reached an unsteady hand out
for Sarah, instinctively seeking out the warmth of her skin.  The fact
that she was hard and cold when his fingers found her puzzled him.
She was alive, wasn't she?  She'd been alive the last time he'd
looked.  There hadn't been enough time for that to change, had there?
He wasn't sure.  She was cold as ice.

No, he amended at second touch, she *was*  ice.  She melted at the
heat from his scorching fingertips, turning from ice into water.  She
was rushing water now, slipping through his fingers, surging further
and further away from him as he grabbed for stones, grasses, anything
that might slow her progress. Somehow, she managed to pull him along
at the same time she eluded him.

The current shifted....

---

"Long ago, in this place, in this valley, with these mountains all
around, my mother's mother's mother was a girl.   Here she roamed and
here she grew. Here," Kalat's musical voice added, heavy with meaning,
"there was no one to tell her where the sky ended.  No one but Mykba."

The small collection of children about her nodded sagely, some of the
older ones, Data noted, mouthing the words along with her.  By now, on
the fourth such tale,  Data was confident that he could fabricate a
passable story, should one be requested of him.  All the children's
stores seemed to have a common theme:  moral tales extolling the
virtues of the nomadic life.  The children seemed well enough
entertained by the storytelling, and the adults, although tired-eyed,
were still alert enough to watch the wineskin that might be passed in
their direction.

To possess the wineskin, Data had learned, meant that one was called
upon to tell a story, or failing that, to sing one.  He would prefer
to speak, he decided, but judging from the way the stories were
getting shorter and the wineskin lighter, he judged that the time to
retire was approaching.  The procession had come to a halt two hours
before, Rald declaring that they would begin their night.  That had
been the signal for setting up the temporary camp.

Sleeping pads came form the most unlikely sources, small squares and
balls of pelt and cloth unfolding into beds that conformed to human
standards of comfort.  While women and children began setting up the
sleeping areas, men set about feeding and tending the dunfs.  Being
taken for a Tender of Dunfs, Data had been given a supervisory
position, from which he could watch the actions of most of the adults.
He had seen nothing secretive, nothing out of the ordinary so far this
evening, but that did not mean those in the procession were entirely
innocent. The true test would be when most were asleep.  Then, it
would be easier for any furtive activity to go unnoticed.

Next to Data, a young man took out a small, oddly shaped jar of powder
and removed its cork-like stopper.  That signaled the others to begin
preparing for sleep.  As the young man removed a small vial of liquid,
pouring a few drops into his hand  to mix with a pinch of the powder,
Data surmised that he was preparing to record this leg of Berrek
Klevv's journey.  The paint mixed, the Recorder then took  a brush
made from reeds, holding it by its dunf-bone handle.

Data watched with interest as the young man, whom he had heard Rald
refer to as Velk, carefully drew the brush through the mixture in his
palm.  Velk took a moment to survey the line of paintings before the
one he would add.  He was, Data knew, looking for any important
information their predecessors might have left.  Warnings about bad
water, lack of food or especially fierce storms could be useful for a
culture that carried no other form of communication.  Data edged
closer to Velk, peering at the markings on the wall over the other
man's shoulder.

"Dtaa, Tender of Dunfs," Velk greeted him, nodding in a friendly
manner without looking up from his work.  "You are interested in our
records already?"

"Velk, Recorder of the Procession," Data returned the Recorder's
greeting before attempting conversation.  "For the time being, I am
part of the procession, am I not?  I am also," he improvised, bending
to examine a row of dark-brown figures, "seeking news of the husband
of my sister."

After a moment of careful consideration, Velk made his first stroke on
the wall.  "If you do not find any, and Mykba is willing, your sister
and her husband may find news of you.  I am placing you with us," he
indicated with a tip of the brush, "here after the storm."

Data leaned in closer to examine the figure.  It did, he thought,
resemble him well enough that any of his crewmates would recognise
that he had been this way.  Velk looked at him expectantly. "A
remarkable likeness."

The young man's tattoo seemed to dance as his eyebrows lifted in
pleasure at Data's compliment.  "My thanks to you.  Over here," he
indicated a smattering of small dots diagonal to the Dtaa figure, "I
have your dunfs, in hope that you will find them again.  There," he
went on to say,  creating smaller Berrek figures with swift, sure
strokes, "are the children, growing sleepy at Kalat's stories."  He
laughed at that, casting a look over his shoulder at Kalat, who was
busily instructing everybody in everything.  "Do not repeat this, but
I believe Kalat is in love with the sound of her voice."

Data considered, watching Kalat, hands on her hips, barking
instructions to anything with ears. She did not appear to be
performing any of the tasks herself.  "I will not repeat your words,"
he promised, memorising each of Velk's brush strokes.  Although
Data's memory banks contained as much information as he had been able
to gather on Philemite cave paintings, that information had not
included a live demonstration.  He found it fascinating.

People, he noticed, were depicted first, then dunfs, then events.
Objects, unless they were central to the recording, were added last.
At the beginning of a line, the leading players in this act of the
procession's drama were introduced.  In this case, they were Rald,
Kalat, and the newly-arrived Dtaa. He could notice no reference to any
covert activity in Velk's pictures, and so moved away from the young
man.

Finding a place for himself among the other unmarried men, Data
mimicked their motions as he began to set out his own pallet.  The
*Enterprise's* computer had replicated him a fine set of dunf furs
which he layered to create a bed, setting aside the average number of
pelts to use as blankets.  Some of the men used their packs as
pillows, some only their own arms.  Data placed his pack under his
head for protection rather than comfort.    The Klevv did not practice
thievery among themselves, but he was a stranger, and therefore the
object of curiosity.  Even as he lay down and closed his eyes, he knew
that Kalat had positioned the pallet she shared with Rald so that he
would be in her line of sight.

---

Little over an hour later, Data's eyes blinked open and he looked at
the sleeping forms around him.  Satisfied that they were all truly
sleeping, not feigning slumber to watch him, he rose quietly from his
pallet.  He crept slowly past the others, careful not to wake anyone.
Although the tricorder he'd brought with him had been rendered
ineffective by some power source on the planet, Data's own internal
recording devices were still functioning perfectly.

He had tested them while waiting for the others to sleep, by calling
up the images of Velk's painting in progress, now finished and drying.
Most of the paintings were what he expected to find:  a basic
recording of which clans of Klevv had passed that way, and what had
happened to them there.  Births, deaths, marriages, and business
transactions, illnesses, injuries, and menus were all recorded for
posterity.  Data's eyes rapidly scanned the multi-coloured figures on
the wall, seeing the whole of each line of painting, then each figure
individually.

Three lines down from Velk's addition, still-bright splashes and dabs
of brilliant orange, there was a smudge of dull orange peeking out
from beneath the red of the rest of the figures in the line.  A more
thorough examination of the red figures revealed them to be fresher
than any of the lines above them, except for Velk's.

Data reached out to scrape a red figure with his fingernail, when he
felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned his head slowly, expecting
Velk.  If the young man were offended by Data's touching his artwork,
Data would have lost a valuable source of information.  Facing the
owner of the hand, he greeted her. "Kalat."

"Dtaa."  The woman's smile was as cold as the air around them.  If
Data had possessed emotions, he would have said that her expression
made him uneasy. "You could not sleep, either," she stated.  "That is
good, for we have much to discuss between us."

Data blinked, slipping his hand, with a tiny scraping of red paint,
inside his robe.  "What matter, or matters, do you care to discuss?"

Kalat cast a glance at the sleeping forms of the children, near the
dunfs. "Our eldest daughter, Nuvel, has not ridden in a litter for
over twenty snows," she began, her shoulders lifting with pride as she
spoke.

"If Nuvel wishes to ride in a litter, I will be glad to carry her."
Maybe, Data reasoned, the brother Kalat had lost in the last storm had
been the one to carry Nuvel, and she wished a replacement. That was a
reasonable request.  "You need only show me the litter."

Kalat laughed, an incongruously light sound that echoed off the cave
walls. "Litters are for children who are young enough to stray.  She
walks now, like a woman.  She carries her own pack, and can prepare
the morning meal without aid. She even," Kalat leaned in closer to
Data, whispering this last in his ear, "brushes the coats of our dunfs
so their fur does not tangle."

"She is indeed most accomplished."

"I am honoured that her learning pleases you.  I am disappointed,
though, that you have not mentioned your own family.  We should have
passed you the wineskin.  New stories are always welcome.  Surely,
your procession has new ones."

Data accessed his short-term memory.  "No, I have not mentioned my
family.  Is that one of the matters you wished to discuss?"

"Yes."

"I do have a brother and a father, but no other living relatives."

Kalat's pink eyes narrowed as the corners of her mouth tilted upward.
"You are unwed?"

---

When Will Riker was four years old, his well-meaning Grandmother
Hanson had given him a present.  It had been a snow globe, with a
figure of a small boy and his sled on top of a mountain.  She'd said
the little boy was Will, and he'd had nightmares for weeks about being
trapped in the little glass ball.

Now, as an adult Will Riker gradually took hold of consciousness that
had first manifested itself as a branch on a riverbank, he wondered if
he hadn't woken up in his childhood nightmare.  As he concentrated on
the throbbing pain in his left shoulder, he decided that he hadn't.
He welcomed the pain.  It was fading gradually, but it was an anchor
to hold on to; something real to pull him off the wild ride his
thoughts had been taking.

Bits and pieces of the real world crept through the haze of his fever,
at odd intervals, and out of order.  He knew that much.  It didn't
matter.  *Get all the facts first and put them in order later.*  It
would do.

This wasn't that damned snow globe he was in, although the way the
snow swirled about the atmosphere tent, it looked like there wasn't
much difference.  At least there was no  sled, and he wasn't wearing a
reindeer scarf to match the one on the snow globe boy.  He remembered
that his father had gotten him one the day after Grandmother Hanson
had brought the present from Hell.  The real scarf, which Kyle had put
on his son despite Will's loudly-voiced protests, had convinced the
young boy that his family fully intended to imprison him in just such
a globe.

He was lying on a fur mat, not his childhood bed, and was swathed in
robes of the same material, which bore a slight but unpleasant musky
odour.  He knew he wasn't supposed to sit up, but couldn't recall why.
*Now be a good boy, Will, and go to sleep.  Don't get up again; your
father and I have to have grown-up talk.*

Riker shook off the image of his grandmother shaking the globe and
placing it on the nightstand next to his bed.  It wasn't important.
It  wasn't real. What was important was the real reason he wasn't
supposed to sit up.  He couldn't remember it.

What he did know was that he wasn't alone.  He could see, out of the
corner of one eye, a small figure wrapped in white fur similar to his
own garments.  The figure had its back to him, but from the size
alone, Riker thought it might be a child.

His first thought was that his father and grandmother had finally done
it: gotten him inside the damned globe, along with the child he had
once been.

*No,* he told himself.  *That's got to be the stupidest idea you've
had since you tried to convince Mrs Barker that your father had
recycled your homework.* The child, he knew was a different person,
not some former version of himself of the figure from the globe.

*What would a child be doing in the atmosphere tent?  Come on, Riker,
think. You didn't bring any kids into the tent with you.  Who was it?*

Following his own reasoning, (which gave new meaning to the term fuzzy
logic), he did know who the person was, but the name escaped him at
the moment.  Trying to get a coherent thought that wasn't somehow
related to his grandmother and her globe was like wading through deep
mud.  It was as if there were a layer of frost over everything Riker
tried to see.  Blinking lights cut through the murk.  He knew those
lights.  They were small pinpoints of neon red, accompanied by a
comforting hum.

*Tricycle?  No, tricorder.*  That was it.  It was a Starfleet
tricorder.  Good, that was something else to focus on, or try to.
*Whose tricorder?  Mine?*  He lay there, listening to the monotone
hum, watching the lights, waiting for the rest of his mind to
cooperate.

Riker tried to sit up.  The second time, he succeeded.  The other
person turned and directed the instrument at him.

"You're doing much better," a human female voice with a distinct
British accent informed him. "As far as I can tell, that is.  Try not
to do that again, will you?  It might be inconvenient during travel."

Riker's head was still swimming.  "Do what?"

The Englishwoman let out an exasperated sigh,.  "Faint.  I detest
official inquiries, and I don't care to testify at one regarding your
death."  She tried to make an adjustment to the tricorder, and swore
softly when the instrument made another adjustment of its own, her
barely audible "Bugger all" making him want to smile for reasons he
couldn't name.  "Do you know who I am?"

He was about to tell her no, but before he could gather the energy, he
realised that he did know her.  "Brit?"

"Much better.  Last time, you thought I was your grandmother."  She
tried the tricorder once more, and was rewarded by a high-pitched
whine.  "So much for reliable technology," she muttered, making a sour
face at the instrument. "Before that, it was someone named Miffie."

"Miffie?"  *Who was that?  Someone who had fish breath...*  He tried
to remember.  "Her... cat.  She broke the globe," he elaborated,
recalling his sheer delight when the high-strung Siamese had knocked
the thing off his dresser on Grandmother Hanson's next visit.  He'd
never liked the cat before then, but after that, they'd been buddies.

Sarah shook her head.  "Lovely.  That's one mystery solved, but
unfortunately, it's not one of the important ones.  Let's see if you
can try for another.  Do you know where we are?"

Riker managed a grin.  "Why?  Don't you?"

Sarah's bright violet eyes glowered at him.  "Of course I do.  I'm
just trying to see if you've had any brain damage, *sir.*"  She bit
down on her tongue, regretting her sharpness.  *Ought to be grateful
that the man's alive and lucid, Cromwell.  Never mind the teasing.
You wouldn't want him to be any other way, and you know it.  How many
times did you dream of this?*  She took a cleansing breath, allowing
Riker's grin to soften her impatience.  "Pardon, sir, that should be
*more* brain damage.  Either way, I should appreciate an answer."

Thinking brought back  the shooting pain, but he pushed past it.
"Risa?"

"You're joking.  Tell me you're joking."  Sarah fervently hoped that
was a statement instead of a question she'd just uttered.  They
couldn't afford for it not to be.  Dragging around a half-witted man
of Riker's size would be almost as bad as being left alone.

Riker grimaced as he gave his legs a tentative stretch.  He felt as
though all of his muscles had been stretched to their limits, then let
loose at the same time.  He wasn't up to standing just yet, but due to
the company, he didn't mind too much.  "I'm joking.  Really.  What
have I missed?"

"You still haven't answered my question."

"That's 'you still haven't answered my question, *sir.*'  If you're
going to pretend we're still on the *Hood,* at least be consistent.
I'm pretty easily confused right now.  Stay in the here and now, and I
promise I'll stay serious."  He blinked, then wiped his eyes with the
back of his hand. *Philemon Three. The atmosphere tent.*  "The biggest
iceberg in the known universe."

Sarah handed Riker the tricorder, which now wasn't doing anything at
all. "This still isn't working properly, but I do have some new
information for you. Sir," she added with a saucy smile that matched
Riker's own, before turning back to the pile of crystals she'd been
examining.  "Just a theory, really.  I can't do much without the
proper equipment -- ideally, I'd like a laboratory and maybe a
holodeck for theoretic re-creations -- but at least this is
something."

Riker leaned in to get a better look.  "What have you got?"

Sarah picked up the clear and mint green crystals in one hand, filling
her palm.  "Bring the tricorder over here."  When he brought the
instrument, she placed it on the ground, one crystal on either side of
the device.  "Watch."

Immediately, the device started to blink rapidly in an erratic rhythm.
After a second or two, a low hum accompanied the blinking.

"The clear crystal is responsible for the blinking," she said, "and
the green caused the hum.  Together, they could conceivably make a
primitive power source -- with a little bit of help, but they'd do."
She took a breath, the excitement in her voice controlled and quiet,
but still clear. "Now watch what happens when I put this on top of one
of the other crystals."  She reached under her pack and took out a
small rose-coloured crystal, placing it on top of the larger green
crystal.  All tricorder activity stopped.  She removed the rose
crystal, and it started again.  "That's what I've been up to for the
past few hours."

Riker ran a hand over his beard, blinking in momentary surprise at the
colour and length of the extensions.  *Because you're supposed to look
like a Philemite, you idiot.  You haven't turned into the Rip Van
Winkle of the twenty-fourth century.*  "That little pink thing negates
the other crystals." He ran his hand through his beard extension,
grateful for the extra seconds of thought.  "Are there a lot of them
around?"

Sarah's eyes pinned his.  "What would you say if I told you that half
the bloody mountains are made out of it?"

---

"Governor," Picard began, his patience with the man on his ready room
viewscreen quickly waning, "please understand that I am concerned with
the problem of you settlement's generator. Our engineering department
will be beaming a replacement power cell as soon as the weather
permits.  However," he continued, forcing an even tone into his voice
as he composed his own features into a mask of polite interest that he
was far from feeling, "there are still five officers under my command
who are unaccounted for, and their recovery has to be my primary
concern."

The image on his screen wavered and hissed, making Governor Anderson's
reply completely incomprehensible.  Picard couldn't help thinking that
was an improvement.  Whatever the man had to say, it was most likely
more of the same drivel Picard had been hearing for the past fifteen
minutes.  When the screen image cleared again, Anderson no longer
looked as though he were being turned inside out, but he was standing
with his arms folded across his chest, eyes looking directly into the
viewscreen.  Picard could only surmise that Anderson was awaiting the
answer to one of his innumerable requests or demands. There was little
difference between the two.

Picard was saved from having to fabricate some noncommittal response
by the sounding of the door chime.   "Excuse me.  Come."  He muted the
transmission and turned his chair to face the entrance.

The doors parted, admitting Worf.  By the looks of the security
chief's expression, this wasn't a social call.

"I apologise for disturbing you, Captain, but our sensor are picking
up transmissions from the surface.  In Romulan," the Klingon growled,
his eyes flickering as he spoke the name of the enemy race. "We are
uncertain of the exact content and location.  The transmission was
encoded, but we were able to trap the signal and are studying it.  The
signal was deflected from its original source..."

Picard raised his hand, cutting Worf off in mid-sentence.  He turned
again to the viewscreen.  "I'm terribly sorry, Governor, but my
security chief has brought up a matter of paramount importance.  We
will, of course, get back to you at the first possible opportunity.
Picard out." He waited less than a minute before directing Worf to
call up the trapped signal.

The Klingon's big weathered hand covered the touchpad.  A second
later, Romulan symbols marched across the viewscreen, accompanied by
what sounded to Picard like gibberish, although he could pick out some
sort of rudimentary pattern to the noise.

"How old is this transmission, Mr Worf?"

The Klingon's voice came from deep in his throat, his breath heavy.
"Less than twenty-four hours."

---

As the doors to their room slid open, Sabu and Taylor threw themselves
on the first figure to enter, hurling all three of them to the hard
stone floor.  Sabu didn't know how Taylor was doing, but he could feel
the skin on one knee scrape away from the muscle as an Andorian curse
split the air, the final 's' of the word seeming to hang on forever.

Eliva Riss shook off her companions and twitched her antennae.  "What
wasss that?"

Taylor and Sabu looked at each other sheepishly.  "Trying to rush the
guards," Sabu explained, rubbing his injured knee.  Then, noticing
that Eliva no longer wore her disguise, he blurted out, "You're blue."

"I have been blue," she stated crisply, "all of my life.  Our
hossstsss," she paused, "decided that pretenssse was unnecesssary."

"But *we* still have to stay like this?" Taylor scowled, examining his
colourless hand.  "That doesn't sound fair."

Eliva's antennae curled in on themselves, a sure sign of her
shortening patience.  "Would *you* like to see them?  That could," she
paused, "be easssily arranged."

Taylor didn't answer.

The Andorian looked at her human companions and shook her head,
setting her antennae bobbing. "Tell me what," she paused, "hasss been
happening here."

"Not much," Sabu confessed, rolling up his trouser leg to examine the
scrape. It was as he'd suspected, a minor abrasion.  Nothing worth
requesting aid. Eliva, of course, was watching every move, and had
likely come up with the same diagnosis.  Her expression remained
unchanged as she stood there, waiting for his report.  He rolled the
trouser leg back down and took a deep breath.

"They've left us alone since they took you.  We've been over every
centimetre of this room, but so far there is nothing useful to aid in
an escape attempt. We could," he added, "always use another set of
eyes, though, or antennae.  The real question is how are *you*?"

"I am unharmed," Eliva assured him, pointedly ignoring his scraped
knee.  It warranted no attention, and so would receive none.  "I gave
no information."

"What did they want?" Taylor probed, eyes scanning Eliva's inscrutable
features for some clue beyond her words.  "Are they going to want one
of us next?"  He could feel the blood draining from his face at the
mere thought of facing Romulan inquisitors.

"No.  I have convinced them that you... that we are... unimportant."

Taylor coughed, using his fist to hide a quick, nervous nibble of his
bottom lip.  "If we're so unimportant, why are they keeping us here?
Are they starting a Feddie collection or something? Starfleet
officers:  collect them all?"

"I have... theories," Eliva began, staying close to the walls as she
began a thorough survey of the room for herself.  "The most likely is
that the Romulans will contact the *Enterprise*," pause, "and use uss
to bargain," pause, "for what they want."

Taylor sat down heavily on one of the bunks.  "What do they want?"

"Information, technology. What else?  Your mother's recipe for Orion
spice pudding?  It doesn't matter," Sabu insisted, his eyes following
Eliva's slow, careful progress.  "Whatever they want, we probably
don't have it, but I bet the  Enterprise* does.  Or Lieutenant
Cromwell.  They kept her for six months."

"She's down here, too," Taylor said glumly, leaning back on his bunk
against the wall.  "Again. Out there.  They all are.  Commander Riker,
Doctor Crusher, Commander LaForge.  They've probably frozen to death
by now.  Or been eaten by dunfs.  Or both.  Or..."

"They're not dead, all right?" Sabu cut Taylor's litany of disaster
short with an impatient huff.

Taylor rolled onto his side and glared at Sabu.  "Come on, Rohit.  You
know what the weather's like out there.  They're not having a beach
party."

"I didn't say they were.  All I said was..."

Eliva cut in sharply, her S's coming out as hisses.  "You have sssaid
enough! There isss no time for you to argue!  If you decide to die
here," she paused, "you will.  I do not choossse that. Do not think,"
pause, "that I will not include thisss in my report."

Both men looked at their Andorian companion, her cheeks flushed bright
marine blue with indignation.  She was right.  Neither of them could
imagine Commander Riker and the other senior officers bickering like
children in this situation.

"Okay," Taylor began slowly, starting to collect himself.  "How are
they going to get word to the *Enterprise*?  Our communications are
useless.  The Roms had Lieutenant Cromwell for six whole months and
they never let any Federation ship know about it.  Maybe they couldn't
send messages."

Eliva nodded her head thoughtfully as she ran slim blue fingers over
the surface of the east wall. "That isss," she paused, "assuming that
they intended to ransom her.  If she possessed the information they
wanted," pause, "then there would be no need to attempt
communication."

"Sounds about right," Sabu agreed, fiddling with his hair extensions.
"Now that they don't have her, they have to look somewhere else to get
what they want.  The *Enterprise* would be the nearest source. We
can't tell them anything because we don't know anything, but we can be
used to bargain. Won't they be giving away their location, though?"

"Not," Eliva countered, "if it were deflected," pause, "from its
original source."

---

Riker and Sarah stared uncomprehendingly at the thin layer of snow
that covered their small stash of equipment.  Around their pack,
phasers, tricorder, and a few assorted crystals, the normally
invisible wall of the atmosphere tent glowed a bright orange-red,
hissing and popping like a hearth fire.

For a moment, both were silent.  Over the hiss and the wind, they
could hear the plaintive howl of a male dunf calling to his mate.
"He's close," Sarah said at last, running her tongue over her suddenly
dry lips.

Riker took in a deep breath of frigid air.  "How close?"

Sarah squinted into the snowy distance.  "Close enough to smell us
when the tent breaks down, I'm afraid."  She looked up at Riker
nervously, fighting back the panic that rose in her gut as she tried
to divorce his familiar features from the too-familiar tattoo that
wound across the stark white of his face.

"Which won't be long," Riker added, noting that the glow around the
opening had widened.  A fresh sprinkling of snow blew across his boot,
sending a chill down his spine.  "Can we shut it down now?"  It would,
he knew, allow the dunf to smell them sooner, but it would also avoid
or at least lessen, the explosion that would come with the tent's
destruction.

Sarah shook her head.  "Not safely.  The crystals..."  Her voice
trailed off, cut short by the lump in her throat as her eyes fell on
the pink crystals. *Pink crystals... pink eyes... always staring,
always watching, watching.  Even now, always watching.*  She felt
Riker's hand on her shoulder, and forced herself to meet one
particular set of pink eyes.  These, at least, she could tell herself,
weren't truly pink.

"Okay, we can't shut down the tent now.  What happens if we're still
inside when it breaks up?"

Sarah swallowed the lump, inhaling the crisp air.  "You'll be trading
that bloody trumpet of yours for a harp."

"Trombone," he corrected automatically.  *As if it matters now.*  She
could call it a kazoo for all he cared.  He took in another deep
breath, but it didn't clear his mind as well as he'd hoped it would.
"All right, how about phasering a bigger hole so we can have a door?
I don't like waiting."

"From the outside, maybe," Sarah considered, watching the opening's
growth. "When it gets large enough, I could crawl through and use a
wide beam on a low setting just long enough to make the opening large
enough for you."

Riker took a minute to think, running his hand down the full length of
the beard extensions. "How  safe will that be?"

"Honestly?" Sarah's lips quirked into an ironic smile.  "I don't have
the slightest idea, but it's better than being inside when the bloody
thing explodes.  The show we're going to have should make Guy Fawke's
Day seem positively restful."

"Guy Fawkes Day?"

"You know it," Sarah explained impatiently, her eyes sweeping the
confines of the tent.  So far, there was only one hole, but she
couldn't take the chance that things would stay that way.  "It's a
holiday. Traditionally celebrated with fireworks.  Like your Fourth of
July," she explained, a snap in her voice that she hadn't intended.
"Except it's in November."

Riker chuckled.  "That's no holiday.  You just want an excuse to light
more fires so you can get warm.  That house of yours is colder than
the entire state of Alaska."

"It is not," she protested.  "It's perfectly comfortable.  Nothing
like Alaska."

"How would you know?  You've never been there, unless I've missed
something."

There was still only one hole, but the rate of growth was getting
faster. "I've also never been invited."

The dunf howled again, and this time, there was an answering howl.
Riker squinted at the opening. "Is that wide enough?"

Sarah dropped to her knees, reaching for a phaser.

Riker's hand on her shoulder stayed her.  "Throw the pack through
first.  I want to take as few chances as possible.  If something
happens to it, we're waiting a while."  He took a good hard look at
the snow that blew like confetti in the frigid air as though they were
at some bizarre alien party.  They'd have to keep moving fast and
steady once they left the tent's shelter.  "We'll want to find a
procession as soon as possible," he thought aloud, eyes still on the
slowly widening opening.  "I don't think the clan matters much right
now.  Any procession will do."

Sarah nodded.  "We'll head down the mountain and..." she paused,
feeling a shiver entirely unrelated to the cold tripping down her
spine.  "Keep going. Let's just pray they feel like traveling with us.
Different clans don't have to take newcomers, you know.  Are we still
going to use the original plan?"

"That's probably best.  Anybody in the area is going to notice the
fireworks. We could pass that off as the shuttle crash if we need to.
I don't think the locals are up on the latest explosion specs."  He
fell silent as Sarah tossed the pack through the opening, into the
swirling white.  He couldn't see it anymore.  "Are you sure you're up
to this?  We could find a way to patch the tent. You've probably been
entertaining that option all along.  After the storm is over, we could
try to find the others and..."

"No."  The single word, crisp in its intonation, was filled with
resolve. "Willie, you were the one to teach me what duty is.  I can't
do anything other..."  She took a step backward and took in a deep
breath. "I have to go now."

Riker could feel every muscle in his body tense as he watched Sarah
disappear through the opening.  Although it was only a matter of
seconds before the phaser beam did its careful work on the opening, it
seemed like forever.  At the first sight of the beam, Riker let out
the breath he'd been holding and crouched, ready to slip through as
soon as the hole was large enough to accommodate his bulk.

Thankfully, he didn't have long to wait.  Sarah's hand was firm and
steady on the phaser as she worked with surgical precision, keeping
the beam as close as possible to the present hole without setting off
the inevitable explosion. Riker moved quickly when the time came,
propelling himself through the opening headfirst, coming out into the
drifting snow like a human plow.

Sarah touched him on the shoulder before he had a chance to get his
wits about him once more.  Understanding, he grasped Sarah's hand and
scrambled to his feet.  They both ran blindly, instinct, not sight,
telling them which way was down.  Riker stumbled over something unseen
beneath the snow, causing him to crash into Sarah, sending them both
tumbling down a steep incline.  They rolled together like children
playing, over and over, gathering snow and momentum as they went.  As
they finally came to a stop, Sarah's slight form on top of Riker's
sturdy one, the top of the mountain exploded in a fantastic display of
sparkling colours and deafening sounds.

---

Bright orange sparks rained down on them, hissing as the heat made
contact with the frigid snow that coated them both.  They stayed like
that while the fiery shower continued, neither one daring to breathe,
only able to lie there, heart beating against thundering heart.  When
it was all finished, the smell of singed dunf fur permeated the air,
the hot sparks replaced by the ever-present snow.

The dunf howled again.  This time, his mate answered.

Sarah rolled off Riker, after her fumbling fingers were satisfied by
finding the pulse in his neck.  If she hadn't found that pulse, she
knew she might well have never gotten up herself.  She could feel her
heart pounding double-time as she wobbled to her feet, guessing that
Riker's was doing the same as he gained his own balance.  She
recognised that look she'd seen in his eyes when she'd lain atop him;
there was no time or sense now in thinking about their pink colour.
She'd seen that look  once before, the first time she'd been chosen
for an away mission while taking her cadet cruise on the *Hood*.  She
could almost hear the other midshipman's question again.

* "Are we going to die, sir?"*

*"It's possible.  Now, do you have any important questions?  We've got
a job to do."*

*And he'd smiled.  Lord above, he'd smiled. *

She almost wanted to ask that question herself now, but this was still
Willie Riker she was with, and she knew his answer would be the same.
She felt his hand clap her on one shoulder, the strong, broad palm
warming her through the furs.

"Get moving, Lieutenant!"

She blinked, seeing only the rhythmic swirls of orange and Riker's
piercing pink eyes in the middle of the colour.  *Pink eyes staring,
boring into the bloody soul of a person until there's not a secret
left they haven't seen... or it seems that way.  Even worse....*
Snapping out of her thought, she distractedly shook off the thin layer
of snow that had already begun to cover her in the few seconds she'd
been still.  *Not all that different from Ralna Five.  Just snow
instead of sand...*  "Right," she muttered.  *At least the snow isn't
abrasive.*

The dunf howled.  His mate answered, this time closer.  The
observation set off a yellow alert in Riker's mind.  "Why aren't the
dunfs running  away from the explosion?  Can they still smell us?"
*Or smell us already?*

Sarah blinked again.  *Willie... snow... outside... Stepha...
dunfs...*  "It's likely," she admitted, chewing on her bottom lip.

Riker knew that habit of hers only too well.  He put both hands on her
shoulders so that she faced him, and looked her straight in the eye as
best as he could.  *That damned globe has nothing on this place.*
"Lieu... Brit."  He took a deep breath.  "You're going to keep it
together.  That's an order. Until we run into the rest of the team or
another procession, whatever the clan, we've only got each other.  I'm
not..."

The howling wind and snow took the rest of Riker's words away, but
Sarah understood.  She knew he was right.  "So, get moving," she
urged, knowing he wouldn't hear her over the wind. There was too much
snow, the winds whipping around  them on whims, to let them get any
sort of a bearing. The best course would be to keep a straight line.
That way, if they needed to retrace their steps, all they'd have to do
would be to turn around and go back the way they'd  come. It wouldn't
be a guarantee, but it would be easier.  Sarah pointed down, and
started to inch her way carefully along, testing each step with the
point of her toe before putting her full weight down.

A strong hand stopped her, grasping her upper arm.  For a moment, even
the traces of colour on Riker's face were lost in a swirl of frigid
white.  When she could see again, he gestured to the pack, which she
immediately handed over.

Riker rifled through the pack, which didn't take long.  There wasn't
much in it, he found as he began his search.  *Great, just great...*
In only a matter of seconds, he found what he was looking for.  He
extracted a length of rope, testing its strength by pulling a metre of
it between his clenched fists. Satisfied, he tossed one end to Sarah
and began tying the other end about his own waist.

Sarah nodded to let him know she understood.  With the storm, getting
separated would be devilishly easy, and just as deadly.

* "Cromwell to Hoyle.  We're not going to make it; bloody ice storm is
impassable.  I'm sending them up." *

Ensign Galiatsos had been first, she recalled, slipping the end of the
rope into a secure knot. Galiatsos was, or, she thought morbidly, *had
been* -- she didn't know if he'd actually made it or not, a small,
wiry man, slightly older than his fellows.  That, her crystal-clear
memory reminded her, was due to a love of dom-jot games that had
interfered with his studies on his own cadet cruise.  On both of them,
as a matter of fact.

* "You going to be all right here, ma'am?"  Send us in twos; we'd go
faster."*

*"Is  something wrong with your hearing, Mr Galiatsos?  I said you'll
transport first.  It's an order. Maybe when you're safe and sound in
your quarters, you'll consider taking some time to review protocol.
I'll expect a report on that first thing in the morning."*

*A shove to his back, and a slap of the comm badge.*

*"One to beam up."*

Sarah tightened the knot, unable to keep the events of six months ago
from replaying themselves in her mind.  Rela, she knew as clearly as
she had lived it, had been next.  Rela, the Caitian medic who hadn't
believed in anesthesia. She'd gone without comment, but her tail had
twitched ever so slightly that Sarah hadn't noticed.

One by one, they'd gone as she'd sent them up.  Seld, the Vulcan
engineer; Mohammed from security; C. Trazinski from cartography --
she'd refused to have married couples on the same team, in case
something happened to one of them, especially when there were children
to think of.  M. Trazinski, Graham Nesmith's choice for a second
security officer had been replaced by Sarah's own choice, Dellar, a
Betazoid man she'd only met once or twice.  At the time, his
personality hadn't mattered; she'd only looked at the service records.

With Dellar gone, she had been alone, telling herself, as she did now,
that things were only temporary.  There was a difference this time,
she drilled into her wildly spinning thoughts, securing the rope
around her waist.  This time, she had tangible proof that she wasn't
alone.  The rope sat in her hands, a rough but firm lifeline.  Pulling
at the slack between herself and Riker, she signaled her readiness,
pushing from her sight the image of Dellar's encouraging thumbs-up
signal as he dissolved in the transporter beam.

---

The cave lurched.  Data caught Kalat in his arms as she fell against
him, her pink eyes wide with terror.  All around them, the other
Berrek, jolted out of their slumber, scrambled to assemble the
procession.  Dunfs set up a series of short, strident barks, the yips
of the pups reaching ear splitting levels as the dominant males herded
their harems and young into the proper groups.  Each time a doubt
arose as to which male properly belonged with a particular female, or
whose pup was whose, a few growls and nips settled matters.  Even the
herder had other things to do.

Kalat's eyes closed, and Data noticed that the intricate orange swirls
of her tattoos covered her eyelids as well.  "Mykba," she moaned, the
sound coming from deep within her.  "Mykba is angry.  Nuvel!"  She
started to wail, repeating her daughter's name over and over, matching
the rhythm of her sobs as she rocked back and forth, lost in terror.

Data accessed his memory banks.   *Mykba... an ancient native
Philemite deity believed to rule and inhabit the mountains.  According
to legend, Mykba was the one who commanded the Berrek to continually
wander the wilds.  Mykba was also believed to be fond of demanding
payment for his broken laws, especially in the form of young virgins.*
"Nuvel will not be harmed," Data assured the frantic mother, pulling
her sagging hood back up over her disheveled hair.  "I will see to
it."

Kalat ceased her struggles.  "You are a priest as well as a herder?"

"No, I am not a priest, but I will not allow Nuvel to be left behind."

Data's words seemed to satisfy Kalat.  She kissed the android in the
center of his forehead, letting her gloved fingers linger over the
spot.  "Son!  Come and help load the dunfs."  She broke away from him
and ran quickly to Rald, who was wrapping their cooking supplies in a
large, soft fur.

Data took a moment to make sure that he had the paint sample safely
tucked away, then made his way to a group of men who were hurriedly
tying bundles onto frightened, wriggling dunfs.  Several adolescents
among the animals had been promoted from pup to adult in the space of
seconds, when the herder deemed it necessary.  Noting an old man
struggling with and oddly-shaped bundle, Data took it from him, with a
polite, "Allow me," and easily affixed it to the dunf's harness.  The
old man nodded his thanks, while still looking at Data warily.  He
opened his mouth to say something, but there was no time.

Data and those around him were spurred to quick movement by the
panicked shouts of the others, he frantic tugging on their robes from
small children, and most of all, the jarring motion of their
surroundings.  Data, much sooner than  any of the Berrek could, saw
minute cracks forming in the stone walls of the cave, sectioning the
elaborate designs of the wanderers' history.  Soon the cracks would
meet, and the wall would crumble.

A young boy cried out when he counted his family's dunfs and found one
missing. His mother stood where she was, torn between ushering her
family to safety, and wanting to make a quick, frantic search for the
much-needed animal.  Her husband tugged at the sleeve of her robe;
there would be other dunfs, he urged.

This one was soon to be mated, she argued; losing her would mean
losing any pups she might produce.  Who knew when they could acquire
another fertile female?

Through the noise, Data heard a frightened whimpering, and pushed off
the strong, aged hand that tried to restrain him.  Ducking through an
entrance that trembled with the faults that were now filling it, Data
spied the terrified animal cowering under an abandoned awning.  She
growled at him, baring both rows of brilliant white fangs as she
flattened her pointed ears along her head.

"I am not a threat to you," Data explained to the dunf, assuming that,
although she would not understand his words, the tone of his voice
would dilute her defensive hostility.  "I am going to pick you up now.
Do not struggle."  He tossed the awning aside, and in one swift
motion, picked up the animal, tossing her over his shoulders.  The
first chunk of stone flew out of the wall, rolling across the floor
before it was joined by another, then another after that.

The ground lurched again.  The dunf alternated between whimpering in
Data's ear, and licking it with a tentative pink tongue, begging for
reassurance.  By the time Data had cleared the chamber, the tunnel was
nearly empty of the procession, only the tail end ascending a gentle
upward slope that curved to the east.  The dunf ceased her whimpering
and let out a series of sharp barks, which, Data reflected, would have
been painfully loud to humanoid ears, as soon as she smelled the rest
of her pack.  He set her down, watching as she bounded into the middle
of the procession, following the familiar scent.  Despite their haste,
the Berrek made way for her.

The old man Data had helped with the pack looked at him and sighed
without slowing his pace. "You are either a good man, or an idiot."
He looked thoughtful.  "Or you have Mykba's favour."

---

The *Enterprise's* senior staff was once again assembled around the
conference table, and this time, the empty seats looked emptier than
they had the last time.  Picard himself was not seated, but rather
paced at the head of the long table, unable to settle his nerves.  The
recovery of part of the away team had been only a minor victory as far
as he was concerned.  He didn't like the reports they'd had for him,
after the immediate concerns were taken care of.  For all the time
they had spent on Philemon Three, there was precious little useful
information.

Beverly, who now sat at her normal place, gripping her padd with
white-knuckled fingers, had spent the last two hours in ceaseless
activity.  First, there was the matter of replacing Geordi's VISOR.
Replicating the damned thing had been easy enough, but the
calibrations had taken the better part of an hour, during which the
chief engineer had been dependent on a sensor net.  Compared to a
VISOR,  the net had been little better than a white cane.  Then, when
both of them had been able to give the mission their full attention,
there was the task of gleaning whatever bits of information they could
from their lone functioning tricorder. Functioning, Beverly had
decided, halfway through the seemingly futile process, was a term to
be used very loosely.

Geordi, who looked extremely pleased to have a VISOR again, had
proclaimed the instrument they'd ended up with, after pirating the
other ones, the ugliest piece of equipment he'd ever seen.  Ugly or
not, Picard had demanded every single bit of data it had.  Most of it
had been garbled nonsense, but there had been a few irrefutable facts.

One, that there was present on Philemon Three, combined human/Romulan
DNA, the human strands matching those of Lieutenant Sarah Cromwell,
and in sufficient amounts to confirm that it was the body of the child
in question.  Secondly, that the natural crystal formations that
seemed to make up half the blasted planet did serve as a natural power
source for a type of cloaking device.

Those findings, combined with the knowledge that there had been a
recent transmission, encoded in Romulan, cut through all of Governor
Anderson's vague protestations.  Picard was not merely tired of him
now; he no longer trusted him.  That thought caused Picard's scowl to
deepen.  At least before, he had counted Anderson as an ally.  Now...
caution  was the key.

Picard stopped his pacing, aware of his officers' eyes upon him.  "Ah,
continue, Doctor."

Beverly sighed, looking at Deanna for support before saying anything.
"*Worf* was speaking."

"Ah, Worf.  Of course."

Troi pulled her focus away from the captain.  His tense nerves,
combined with the Klingon's quickening desire for battle, were too
much.  She could focus on one or the other, but not both. Choosing the
Klingon, she closed her eyes to aid in concentration.

Worf's voice was gravelly and rough, his breath turning into barely
contained panting.  "We are still deciphering the Romulan code," he
admitted in a rumble. "We believe it to be intended for a source on
the planet."  Deanna noticed that Worf spoke quietly, like a predatory
animal not wanting to alert his quarry.  It was as though some inner
part of him had already begun to hunt.

"Can you tell what region?" Picard asked, standing now with his hands
clasped behind his back.

The Klingon's brows drew closer together, accentuating his ridged
forehead. "*Ghobe*," he ground out from between his clenched teeth.
Realising that he'd spoken in his native tongue, he translated, "No."

"It's the crystals," Geordi put in.  "From what Worf and O'Brien tell
me, it may be a while before we can tell where the message came from,
or where it was originally  intended for.  We'll probably know what it
says before we know who it was saying it to."

Picard grunted.  He hated having only bits of the whole picture.  "How
long is the current storm expected to..."  His communicator beeped.

"Bridge to Captain Picard."

"This had better be important," he snapped, his displeasure causing
Troi to flinch.

The modulated voice of the female Vulcan officer currently at Tactical
assured him that it was.  "Governor Anderson wishes to speak with you
immediately.  He has just received reports of another explosion, sir."

The Vulcan's words pricked everyone's interest.  *Another* explosion?
"Patch him through," Picard instructed, facing the wall viewscreen as
Anderson's image filled it.

Anderson blinked in momentary surprise when he saw not only Picard,
but Worf, Troi, Crusher and LaForge as well.  "I didn't know I was
interrupting anything," he began, his eyes darting about the new
faces.  "I had thought we were going to speak privately."

Picard tugged at the bottom of his tunic.  "Anything you have to say
to me, you can say in front of my staff.  *We*," he stated, stressing
the word, "have just been informed of *another* explosion on the
planet's surface."

"Your sensors might have a little trouble picking it up," Anderson
said, squinting at the unusual sight of a Klingon is a Starfleet
uniform.  The short huff he let out while his eyes lingered pointedly
on Worf said clearly that he wasn't terribly pleased with the idea.
"But I thought you might want to know."

Picard cleared his throat and drew himself up to his full height.
"How thoughtful."

"It's near enough to the original crash site that we thought it might
be connected.  Your people might want to take a look at it as soon as
the  weather permits.  Since the snow's turned to ice so quickly, you
might not have long to wait until the whole thing passes.  We'd send
someone ourselves, but..."

"It's in the mountains," Picard finished for him.  "Of course.  Do you
have any idea how close the second explosion was to the first?"

Anderson turned a small screen so that Picard and the others could see
it. "The original explosion, from the crashed shuttle, was here," he
pointed with a stubby, well-chewed fingernail. "The second one, which
was smaller, still made, heh, quite an impression."  He laughed lamely
at his own joke, frowning when the *Enterprise* crew didn't join in.
"It was right around here," he continued, drawing a lopsided circle
around a small grouping of mountains.  "We can't be more specific
about that until..."

"Until the storm passes," Picard finished for him.  "Yes, we know
that.  Do you have any theories as to what might have caused the
second explosion?  Another shuttle?"

Anderson shook his head.  For once, the white-haired man actually
looked as if he cared what was going on.  "No, I don't think so.  I
know it's nothing of ours.  That, I'm afraid, leaves our friends, the
Romulans."

"They are *not* our friends," Worf protested, quietly and politely for
a Klingon.  For anyone else, it was a harsh growl.

Picard considered Anderson's speculation, raising a hand to his chin
in unconscious imitation of his absent first officer.  "That is
certainly a possibility.  So is native involvement."  He nodded to his
chief of security. "Mr Worf, go to the bridge and see what's going on
here.  I want a complete rundown on all possible causes for the
explosion.  You'll share your findings with Governor Anderson's people
as soon as you have a workable theory."

Worf acknowledged the order and strode from the room in determined
silence.

"We'll be sending someone down to you as soon as the weather permits,"
Picard assured Anderson, "as well as additional away teams to
investigate this latest development.  You will, of course, keep
Lieutenant Worf appraised of any new findings you uncover."

The governor's worried frown eased a bit.  The screen flickered.
"Yes.  Of course.  Thank you. Anderson out."

Picard blinked once, somewhat surprised that Anderson had actually
ended the conversation and not launched into a grocery list of petty
complaints.  *Small blessings are still blessings,* his maman's voice
echoed.  *Oui, Maman,* he thought, and put that concern behind him as
he turned his attention back to his crew.  "Comments?"

Beverly tapped a finger against her lips.  "I wonder," she mused
aloud, "if this explosion might have something to do with the encoded
Romulan message."

"Yeah," Geordi agreed, placing both fists on the table as he often did
when seizing on an idea he especially liked.  "It could have been
something planned ahead of time, a signal to set off the explosion.
Or maybe not.  Maybe," he went on, his voice building with excitement,
"maybe this is part of what they wanted Lieutenant Cromwell for.
Anything they're building down there, which is probably based on the
crystals, has to be strictly experimental."

"It seems to be a pretty good experiment so far," Beverly put in.
"But you're right.  Things could be breaking down.  The temperature,
the weather..."

"And now that they don't have Lieutenant Cromwell anymore, there's no
chance that they can get the information they want," Geordi finished
for her.  "They must have thought that she'd talk eventually, or they
wouldn't have kept her alive.  Now that she's gone, they're completely
on their own."

Picard nodded, looking to Troi, who had been silent for the entire
meeting. "What emotions were you sensing from Governor Anderson?"

Troi took a centering breath.  With Worf out of the room, the level of
tension had lessened significantly, but an air of suspicion still
lingered.  "The governor is being honest with us.  Whatever he knows
about the current situation, things have progressed beyond that point.
I would say that he is a little frightened, but also ready to
cooperate."  A small smile quirked the left side of her mouth.  "He
doesn't like sharing the authority, but he knows he will have to."

"Excellent," Picard  pronounced.  "As soon as the storm passes, I will
beam down to his office." He paused, looking as they all did, to
Riker's empty chair, mentally hearing the automatic objection from his
first officer.  *Soon, Will.*  "Geordi, you'll assist Mr Worf."

"*After* he gets some good, solid sleep," Beverly qualified, stifling
a yawn of her own.

Picard wagged a finger in her direction.  "I expect you to join him,
Doctor," he admonished, not realising how his order sounded until both
Beverly and Deanna were staring at him, wide-eyed. He coughed into his
fist.  "Ah, each in your own quarters, of course," he clarified,
feeling the colour creep into his face.

Geordi flashed a brilliant grin, his teeth white against his ebony
skin.  "Gee, and I thought this was going to be a very interesting
evening."

"No offence, Geordi," Beverly paused to yawn behind her hand, "But
you're not exactly my type."

"Hey, a man can dream, can't he?  Things are just about as interesting
as I can handle for a while anyway."  He looked at the captain.  "Much
as I'm going to need this little nap, I'd like to know if anything
significant happens."

Picard agreed with a curt nod.  "You'll both be kept current.
Dismissed."

Geordi and Beverly filed out of the room, each looking forward to
their well-deserved but definitely too-brief rests.  Deanna remained
seated, her dark eyes staring across the table, focusing on something
not there.

---

"Is there a problem, Counselor?" Picard's voice intruded gently into
her thoughts.

She blinked.  "Problem?  No, sir.  I'm just tired."

Picard placed a hand on the back of her chair.  "You know, you could
probably benefit from some sleep yourself."

"Is that an invitation?" She watched as Picard shook his head,  a
self-mocking smile taking years off his features.  "If so, I'll have
to respectfully decline."

"No, no.  Please don't remind me."  In the moment of silence that
followed, their eyes both focused on the same empty chair.  "If I know
Will Riker, he'll be back sooner than we think. With Data and the rest
of the team.  Were you thinking about the explosion..."

Deanna sighed.  "Will and I had words before he left.  It was more
than just words.  He was angry with me."

"Are you sure his anger was directed at you?" Picard asked, all
fatherly concern.  "This has been a trying mission for him."

"It concerned Lieutenant Cromwell."

Picard raised an eyebrow with interest, taking the seat next to
Deanna.  "Did it have something to do with the mission?"

"No, it was personal."  She paused, unsure of how much she wanted to
reveal. Picard's concern for her was genuine, she could tell, and she
did feel comfortable with him.  Still, she would much rather have
talked to Beverly. Delicate emotional problems required a woman's
touch.  "I'll be fine, really," she assured him,  although she wasn't
altogether certain about that herself.

Picard cleared his throat, wishing he hadn't dismissed Beverly so
quickly.  His first instinct was to take Deanna's hand, but he didn't
think such action would be appropriate.  He was, after all, her
commanding officer, and such action might be construed as improper.
Especially since they were alone. He scooted his chair a little away
from her, just for good measure.  "I'm sure you will."

She smiled uneasily.  "Thank you, sir.  I'm probably just tired.  Most
of the senior staff is..." *Missing.*  "Highly concerned about this
mission," she finished.

Thinking back to the way Riker and Deanna had looked at each other, or
rather, *not* looked at each other during the previous meeting, Picard
had a better grasp of the situation.  All things considered, this was
a fairly minor problem.  He wondered what the counselor thought of the
relief he felt. Surely, she could sense it.  "If there's one thing I
know about Will Riker, it's that he is a rational man.  Whatever the
problem is," *or whoever,* he thought, although he had a fairly
reliable idea who that was, "I'm sure it's not much between good
friends."

Troi murmured her agreement, then mentioned that she wanted to check
on Brina Sinclair before getting some sleep herself.  As soon as
Picard excused her, she found herself headed in the opposite direction
from her quarters, needing to be alone more than she needed to occupy
herself with busywork.

Will had described Sarah Cromwell as an old friend, but there had to
be more to it than that.  She'd thought back to the last conversation
they'd had, although a conversation was a rather soft term to describe
their heated exchange.  The emotions between them had been sharp and
prickly, not rational at all.  *Does it bother you that I care for
Sarah Cromwell?*

Deanna took a centering breath.  It didn't work.  Did Will's caring
for this woman bother her?  Maybe.  *Why?*  Was it jealousy?  The
answer came to her immediately:  no.  There weren't any romantic
feelings left between her and Will.  She was surprisingly comfortable
with that.  *So, what is it?*

She kept walking until she came to a suitably empty alcove.  Leaning
against the smooth wall so she could feel the reassuring pulse of the
ship, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the feelings from the
last few encounters with Will.  Grief and sorrow had been predominant
during the time in Lieutenant Cromwell's quarters.  Most of that had
been from Cromwell herself, who had just begun to accept the loss of
both her parent and her child, but the same feeling had been echoed in
Will.  His grief had been as deep and heart rending as Sarah
Cromwell's own, yet an entity in itself rather than merely a
sympathetic extension.

That, in itself, was a mystery.  Will grief was focused on the child,
something she would have expected from a parent, not just a friend of
the family.  To Will, the possibility of sharing a child with Sarah
had been something real, a thought that had a place in his mind before
he'd even heard of Philemon Three. He hadn't said anything, but didn't
need to.  With what Deanna and Will had once been to each other, she
knew what the signals of his deep distress were, and this was the
worst she had seen.  She'd seen many different things in those
fathomless blue eyes of his, but never a sorrow like this that tore at
the core of him.

Without Riker saying a word about it, Deanna knew what emotions were
storming within him.  He wanted to kill.  He wanted to heal.  He
wanted to take someone else inside himself and protect her by the mere
fact of his presence.  It reminded Deanna of the way Will had held her
as they'd stood together to watch Tasha Yar's posthumous message to
her crewmates.  Only this time, the emotions were deeper, more
intense, and directed at Sarah Cromwell.  If there was any jealousy,
Deanna told herself, that was where it lay.  An observant counselor,
one who was focused on her patient rather than herself, would have
noticed that right away.

Deanna thumped her head gently against the wall before stepping away.
Where, she asked herself, were these observations six months ago?
Something had been off in the way he'd told her everything was fine
then, that  he'd only gotten some news that was rough to accept.  A
friend had gone missing, he'd said, and she hadn't pressed any
further.  It had been easier, more pleasant to accept his words at
face value, and go right into dinner, then the poker game.

She had to wonder now if she hadn't failed him back then.  She'd
suspected as much when she found him in Sarah Cromwell's quarters, the
two of them holding on to each other like logs floating in a stormy
sea.  Whether she hadn't seen the relationship between them, or had
chosen to ignore it didn't matter. Putting a name to it was, at the
moment, impossible.  She sighed and pressed a hand to her temple,
where a rhythmic throbbing had just started.  There was only one thing
she could do at this moment and still live with herself.  "I need
fudge," she declared aloud, earning a curious glance from a passing
ensign.

---

Riker felt the rope around his waist jerk abruptly as Sarah's movement
behind him stopped.  He turned about  in time to see her crumple to
the ground, a limp rag doll.  In a second, he was down beside her, his
gloved hand darting into the folds of her robe to check her pulse.
Riker breathed a sigh of relief as she found Sarah's pulse strong and
steady, saw the puffs of white as her warm breath made contact with
the frigid air.

"Brit."  He shook her gently, but got no more than a quiet moan in
response. She'd either fainted from overexertion or exhaustion, he
reasoned, although he wasn't entirely sure what the difference was at
the moment.  Scooping her unresisting form off the ground, he slung
her across his shoulders in a firefighter's carry.  Although the ice
storm seemed to be tapering off, he didn't much care for the idea of
staying still for too long.

For the last half hour or so, the ground had seemed to become more
regular, a straight path easier to tread.  Level ground in a place
like this, the home of nomads, meant that it was likely some sort of
trail, leading to food or shelter.  Maybe both.  For the millionth
time that day, he wished they had a functioning tricorder.  Nearly an
hour ago, they'd agreed that they'd settle for one of the antiquated
versions from their parents' generation.  Now, he decided that he'd be
thankful for an ancient metal compass.  Moss on the side of a tree.
If there were any trees, and if anything could grow in this cold.  A
set of tracks. Anything.

He hadn't heard the dunfs' howls for a while, and the lack of the
sound make him  feel suddenly and uncomfortably alone.  The dunfs had
probably found each other.  *How nice for them.*  He hadn't had the
luxury of thinking about the others for a long time, not since the
tent collapsed, but now there wasn't anything to stop him.  Geordi,
Beverly, Data... he couldn't recall the names of the other three.  Had
there been three?  No, four.  Sinclair; that's what the other one's
name was.  Sabrina Sinclair.  The redhead in Security.  The one Geordi
kept talking about.  Earlier in the week, he'd asked Riker if Sinclair
had a boyfriend.

That was like Geordi, Riker thought, as he walked straight into
something big and solid.  Keeping one hand on the unconscious bundle
across his shoulders, he stretched the other hand out across the cold,
icy stone.  Left, right, up.  It was higher than his head, and he
could swear he'd felt some small amount of heat through his glove.
*This is it,* some inner voice told him.  *If there's heat, there's
other Berrek.*  With his hand still on the wall, he inched along. As
soon as they found an entrance, he'd have to start thinking like a
Berrek himself, and look for a procession.  When they found that, it
wouldn't be long before they found out exactly where the Romulans
were.

Sarah stirred, one arm dropping across Riker's chest.  *Don't think
about Sarah,* he warned himself, already preparing to take on the
Berrek role. *Don't think about Brit.  She's just the human.  She's
your captive.  Returning her might be worth something.  Food, maybe
furs.  Maybe a few head of dunfs. That's all she can be.*

---

"Well?"

Sabu looked up, annoyed.  "Well, what?"

Eliva's antennae twitched, her eyes blinking once, the inner eyelid
remaining visible for a few seconds.  "Our conversssationsss," she
explained with exaggerated patience, "are likely monitored."

Taylor shrugged his hunched shoulders, then stretched out again on his
bunk, one knee propped up.  "So, they won't care if we just make small
talk."

"*Anything* we say might be useful," Sabu admonished, rolling his dark
eyes in Eliva's direction.  The Andorian woman sat cross-legged in the
middle of the floor, her eyes focused on the single door.  As ranking
officer, she had insisted on taking the first watch while he and
Taylor slept.  He wasn't sure about Taylor, but even though he
couldn't remember being more exhausted, Sabu couldn't sleep.

"You should be resssting," Eliva said, her tone neutral.  "Not
arguing."

"I'm not arguing," Taylor protested, winding an extension around his
hand, then unwinding it again.  "We'd have to be talking about
something to be arguing." He let out an exasperated huff as he worked
at a knot he'd just made in the extension.  "What are we supposed to
do?  Stay quiet forever?  Don't you guys think the Roms are going to
think something's up if we don't say *anything* for a long time?"

Eliva looked as though she were considering Taylor's idea, but Sabu
knew her better.  She'd been tuning him out.  Her antennae angled
towards the door, dipped then returned to their usual position.  "The
guard has passed again," she stated, unfolding her long legs from
beneath her and rising gracefully. "You, Ensssign Taylor," she paused,
her blue lips settling into a smile.  "May relieve me ssso that you
are occupied.  Count fifty passsesss of the guard.  If there is any
other  activity, you will wake usss."

Taylor complied, snorting as Eliva practically glided over to his
 bunk.  "Fine. Fine.  I wasn't tired anyway.  Excuse me for seeming
 stupid, but what exactly am I watching for again?"

"You are," Eliva explained as she settled into the bunk Taylor had
reluctantly vacated, "to wake usss if there is unusssual activity.
Pay attention to normal activity, and you will know what that iss."
Having spoken, she closed her eyes, her breathing immediately changing
rhythm.

Taylor afforded her one baleful look before starting to pace between
the two bunks.   "How can she do that?"

"Don't ask me," Sabu shrugged.  "Must be some sort of Andorian thing."

"Yeah, right.  Wish *I* could just go to sleep whenever I want."

Sabu flopped over onto his side, facing the wall.  "I wish you could,
too.  Try to stay awake for your watch, okay?"

"Okay."  *No problem,* Taylor thought, keeping his eyes on the door.
*Who could sleep in this cold, anyway?*

---

The Romulan commander smiled coldly as she regarded the three
Starfleet captives through her viewscreen.  It would have been better,
far better, if those imbeciles she'd been calling guards hadn't
allowed  the original captive to escape, but these would have their
uses as well.  Not as effective, to be sure, but Starfleet did have
the annoying habit of valuing even its most insignificant members.
These would be worth something.  Still, it bothered her that they'd
have to do so much backtracking.  She was convinced that the Starfleet
woman would have eventually realised there was no escape.

But there had been.  The Romulan pounded her fist on the surface of
her makeshift desk.  Never, *never* again would she allow herself to
underestimate human strength.  *Too much blood loss, too much shock,*
the idiot medic had assured her.  If that had been true, they why had
the captive found enough strength to render one guard unconscious,
another immobile, and steal a shuttlecraft while she was at it?  The
only setback to her escape had been that she hadn't been able to get
to the weapons locker.

No, the commander decided, the human woman, as she always referred to
her -- using her name was too... uncomfortable -- must have had some
co-operation. Pity that the suspected collaborators were no longer
living.  Perhaps she'd been too hasty in dealing with them.

Disgusted, she picked up the tumbler of Romulan ale at her right hand
and downed it in one swallow, allowing the hot bite of liquid fire to
fuel her growing rage.  Fools, they were!  Soft fools, to be taken in
by a lovely human face.  Just like her father.  Dealing with them had
been easy; it had even given her a perverse sense of justice.  But the
Project was another matter.

Too much depended on its success.  The Romulan Empire in general, and
she in particular, would benefit greatly from her work.  Advancement
could come quickly if she exceeded her superiors' expectations, and
she had every expectation of doing just that.

She leaned in closer to the viewscreen.  The Andorian woman had just
lain down on the bunk the bulkier man had vacated.  It looked like
they were taking watches, exactly what she should have expected
Starfleet officers to do. Although what they were watching for, she
wasn't sure.  At any rate, they should probably be fed soon, she
thought offhandedly.  Healthy captives lasted longer. Besides, their
bickering could be entertaining, when she was in the mood.  Pity that
Andorian woman had decided they should remain quiet.  They wouldn't
stay that way for long, the commander knew.  Even the human woman
talked to herself.

Tearing herself away from the entertainment on the screen, she
depressed a button in console on the desktop.  "Send the message."
She sat back with an expectant grin.

---

After several twists and turns in the darkness of the rumbling
tunnels, Data was surprised to find that the procession was heading
down instead of up. There was, however, a marked decrease in the
shaking of  their surroundings the farther they descended.

They had walked steadily for over an hour, their pace slowing from a
run to a quick stride as soon as they had passed the worst of the
quake.  In that time, Data had advanced from the rear of the
procession to rejoin Rald, Kalat, and family.  More than once, Kalat
had nudged Nuvel closer to Data, and the girl had attempted to engage
him in halting conversation.  Such conversation had invariably been
guided by Kalat, obviously pursuing the match between her daughter and
the newcomer, though it was never stated outright.  She was waiting,
he knew from recorded Philemite custom, for him to offer first.

"When we reach Mykba's basket, Nuvel, you will prepare our meal,"
Kalat said for Data's benefit.

*Mykba's basket.*  Data accessed his memory banks on Philemite
mythology.  *The Berrek term for subterranean oases, the only source
of plant life on the planet.*

"Yes, Mother."  The young Berrek maiden cast shy pink eyes up at her
family's new companion.  He was so different from the others that she
thought  there might be some truth in he mother's speculations. The
thought of this man's having anything to do with whatever the adults
were whispering about sent a forbidden thrill up her spine.  Her
brother had said Dtaa was only someone lost from another procession,
but Nuvel rarely trusted boys.  She looked at Dtaa again, as he
offered to carry a bundle for an old woman in front of them.  "Maybe
there will be ripe terlans," she mused. "If the waters are clear, I
could find some for you."

"I am sure that is possible," Data affirmed.  *Terlans.  An ovoid
purple fruit grown underwater in shallow ponds.  Widely considered a
delicacy, since they spoil only minutes after harvesting.*  "I do not
recall having eaten terlan recently."

Kalat's tattoo spread across her face as she smiled widely.  "Nuvel is
very good at finding terlans.  She will give you many," she added, her
gaze dropping below Data's waist.

Data started to form a reply, but detected a movement in the passage
ahead of them.  It was too large to be a dunf, moving quickly but
carefully from the opposite direction.  Pushing his way to the front
of the procession, Data focused his sensors.  *Two lifeforms.  Human.
Less than a kilometer to the north.*

---

The opening Riker found was only a cut-out in the cave wall, with just
enough room for Sarah and himself to crouch, if she stayed between his
knees.  It was cramped, but comfort was not the highest priority.
There was still a functioning torch in the pack, and Riker took the
opportunity of the small shelter to check what areas of skin he could,
on both of them, for  frostbite. He didn't know about Sarah, but
although his mind registered that it was cold, very cold, he had
ceased to feel it.  When sensation stopped, frostbite was a definite
danger.

Checking Sarah's face and hands first, he was relieved to find that
the small areas that weren't bruised, cut, or scraped seemed to be a
healthy shade of pink.  *Good, Brit, keep it that way.* He wished he
could get a verbal assurance that she felt his touch, but Sarah's
instinctive winces when he pressed her bruised cheek convinced him
that she was all right for the moment.

For himself, it was harder.  He didn't dare expose too much flesh to
the arctic air, and could examine his own face only by touch.  It
wouldn't be as thorough an examination as if  Sarah were able to do it
for him, or if he even had a reflective surface, but it would have to
do.  With one gloved hand, he began a slow, careful examination of his
cheeks and forehead.  He found a cut over his left eye, already
crusted over with dried blood, and a few bruises along his cheekbones,
but no frostbite.  Wiggling his toes inside his boots, he counted each
one he could feel, coming up with a very satisfying ten.  *So you're
not going to freeze to death.  Yet.*

Sarah stirred, making a frustrated whimpering sound in the back of her
throat. Her lips curled back from her teeth in a silent scream as she
pushed both legs out with surprising strength.  One small, balled fist
shot out, aiming at some assailant who existed now only in her mind.
She barely missed Riker's jaw in the cramped space, but instead
connected with an uneven hollow in the rock wall behind his head.

With a scraping creak, the section of wall behind them, which Riker
now saw was decorated with more of the distinctive Berrek cave
paintings, slid open, revealing a passage.  Riker would have bet his
next two shore leaves that the passage wasn't natural.

He looked at Sarah again.  Her teeth were clenched, her eyes squeezed
tightly shut, but she didn't look as though she were about to throw
any more punches. Riker shook his head as he prepared to lift her
again.  *As soon as I get her back to the Enterprise, I'm signing her
up for boxing.*

*Sarah yawned, stretched, and rolled herself into a sitting position.
Another day.*

*This day would be just like the one before it, she knew, shaking off
the last vestiges of sleep.  Sending up a fervent prayer, she devoutly
hoped that the day after this one would be nothing like the days,
week, and months before. The next day, she promised herself, would be
the day of escape.*

*Instinctively, she settled her hand over the mound of her belly, over
the spot where Stephanie was kicking.  "I hope you appreciate
everything I'm doing for you, lovedy."  Her voice was hoarse, and
necessarily quiet.  Sarah's captors would know she was awake soon
enough; she didn't need to hasten their visits.*

*She hopped off the table and carefully made her way to the toilet.
Lifting the bowl's covering, she grimaced as she used a slender shard
of metal, probed beneath the shallow chemical pool that was used to
process waste.  Her breath caught as she found the object she sought.
There was, thank God, finally enough of a deposit.  She replaced the
cover and returned to the table, this time leaning against it.  It was
only then that she cursed herself for not using the facility first.
There wouldn't be a chance now.*

*Bloody prudish for such a race of inquisitors, she reflected, casting
a wistful glance at the bowl. They never came until she had already
used the small and rather primitive facility.  Or when they thought
she had.  That was better, far better.  Having any sort of advantage
helped, but surprise was best.  When the guard with the broken nose
came to remove the waste containment unit, he often found himself
surprised.*

*Today would have been no different.  She'd rigged something special
for him. The difference lay in the severity of the surprise.  Stroking
a hand over the place where Stephanie kicked like a football champion,
she kept her eyes on the door.  Broken Nose hadn't been one of the
interrogators, couldn't possibly be Stephanie's father, but neither
had he been a friend.*

*He had not, she reflected, been much of anything.  He had only been
Romulan. That, however, was enough for him to earn his fate.  "Don't
look, lovedy," Sarah instructed her daughter as the door slid open.
At the same time, she sent up another prayer, this time one of thanks,
that the child, nestled safely in her womb, had no choice.  Stephanie
would be spared the sight of Broken Nose discovering his last
surprise.  Sarah wasn't going to be so lucky.  Swallowing the bile
that rose to her throat, she braced herself for the few seconds' grace
she'd be allowed.*

When she felt the hand beneath her shoulder, Sarah's eyes came open.
She blinked once, inhaling deeply of the cold air, watching the white
puffs of her breath.  "Willie."  His name came out as a sigh of
relief.

"None other," he assured her, helping her into a crouch.  "Are you all
right? What happened?"

Sarah pressed a hand to her temple and tried to concentrate.  "I think
I fell asleep," she confessed, feeling her cheeks flush with
embarrassment.  "It's been a bit of a day, hasn't it?"

"Asleep?  Only you."  He took in a cold breath and glanced into the
passageway, activating the torch.  He'd ask her about her dream, or
flashback, or whatever she wanted to call it, later. "What do you make
of this?"

Following the direction of Riker's nod, Sarah crab-walked to the
opening of the passage. "Berrek didn't do this," she observed in a
whisper.  "Give me the torch."  As she took it from Riker, she
motioned for him to come closer.  "See here?" With the beam of light
she indicated an almost-concealed panel of circuitry.

There were a few markings on a metal plate below the panel, scratched
in most places, and completely shaved off in others, indicating
frequent use of the door.  Although there weren't any complete symbols
clear enough to be read, Riker could still identify the language.
"Romulan."

---

"Idiots!"  The Romulan commander's hand cracked sharply against the
cheek of the man whose face she couldn't see through the red haze of
her fury.  "Do you know what you've cost us?"

Still stinging from both the verbal and physical assaults, the other
Romulan tried to salvage the situation.  "Commander, I only attempted
to..."

"You only attempted to *what*?"  She sneered, her ice-blue eyes
narrowing to slits.  "Gods!  I could have you executed for this.  I
should."  She shook her head, her heavy blonde bangs swishing out of
their precise line for only a second.  "I should," she repeated, her
voice soft with the threat, "but there may not be time.  When did this
*test* occur?"

"Two hours past, Commander."

The commander's exotic features softened, a luxury she rarely allowed
herself, but only for the briefest of moments.  "That may not be
*entirely* beyond salvage," she mused thoughtfully.  "What was your
name again?"

The man stiffened.  "Centurion Pirnak, Commander."

"Well, Centurion," she purred, "there may be an opportunity for you to
distinguish yourself in service to the Empire.  I thank you for
reporting this most grievous error by our communications personnel the
moment you noticed it." She paused, arching a blonde brow, copying the
expression she'd watched her father use, to great effect, many times.
"You did come to me *immediately* on noticing that the message had
been sent early, didn't you?"  She had her suspicions that he hadn't,
but the questioning always provided... interesting results.

Pirnak could hear his own blood hammering in his ears.  There had been
a negligible delay; minutes only, not even a quarter of an hour
between his first notice of the error and reporting it to the
commander.  It shouldn't matter. After all, even as a test, the
message had been scrambled and would have been deflected from its
original source.  It had been only  a slip of the fingers on the
outdated touchpad that had sent it.  Nothing had been intentional.

"Centurion?"

"Yes, Commander," he answered as quickly as possible.  Pirnak had had
an excellent view of what the commander had done with the guards who
had allowed the Terran woman to escape.  The thought of spending
eternity beneath the snow and ice was not a pleasant one, nor a
thought any of them, who still longed for the warmth and humidity of
their homeworld, cared to entertain at all.

"Good."  With her fingers trailing along the edge of the desk, the
commander stepped back behind it and settled into her chair.
Centurion Pirnak, whom she did recognise, but only vaguely, remained
standing at attention, though he probably wanted to turn and race from
the room.  She liked having  that  effect on her subordinates,
especially those several years her senior.  "Under normal
circumstances, I would be very interested in learning how a test
signal was accidentally sent without my permission.  There are so many
ways it could have happened that I can't waste my time on it.  Or on
exactly who is at fault, much as our little demonstration the other
day did for morale."  She waved her hand in dismissal.  "But we have
more pressing matters at hand.  Depending on how good whoever received
our signal is at decoding, we should be having the opportunity to have
a little chat with our friends from Starfleet rather soon.

"For reasons I can't discuss, Centurion, you are going to be my
liaison to the *Enterprise*."  She pushed a scruffed-up padd across
the desk towards him. "Memorise this exactly as I've written it, and
send in our friend the physician."

"Are you ill, Commander?"

"No.  But someone else may be, and soon.  Now, go."  She flicked her
hand toward the door as her eyes returned to the viewscreen.

---

"Worf to Captain Picard."

Picard sat up in the darkness, only minutes after he'd fallen into a
fitful sleep.  Fumbling for his comm badge on the bedside table,
knocking his chronometer to the floor in the process, he responded.
"Report."

The Klingon's voice was more of a rough pant than regular speech.  "We
have decoded the message."

Picard was instantly fully awake.  "Excellent."  He could feel his own
heartbeat quicken with excitement.  It seemed Worf's mood was becoming
contagious.  "I'm on my way.  Picard out." He leapt from the bed with
the energy of an athlete and headed for the door before his brain
registered the feel of the soft carpet beneath his bare feet.
Embarrassed, he ran a hand over his smooth head and turned toward his
closet.  No matter how respected a captain he was, appearing on the
bridge in his pajamas didn't inspire confidence.  Especially if said
captain would be speaking with a Romulan representative.

---

Riker took in a deep breath of warmer air than he'd expected to find
anywhere on Philemon Three.  The farther he and Sarah had come down
the passage they'd entered, the warmer they'd felt.  He recalled some
mention in the records of underground oases with fresh water and
vegetation.  Mykba's basket, the natives called these places, since
they were the source of all drinkable water and edible plants.
Without a doubt, there would be Berrek there.

"Listen," Sarah urged, placing a small but firm hand on Riker's arm to
still his movement.  "Did you hear that?"  It had been several minutes
since they'd been able to hear the pounding of the ice on the rock
walls.  Now that they'd descended beneath the surface, the faint
sounds had to be coming from some other source.  Something else.
Somebody else.

Riker stood perfectly still and concentrated on the noise.  "I'd say
we're about to be somebody's company."

Sarah nodded and bit her lower lip as her fingers contracted, digging
into the fur of Riker's sleeve. "It's show time, then?"

"Afraid so."  Riker didn't like the idea at all, now that it had
become a reality, but he didn't have a better one to take its place.
*She's not up to this.  Hell, I'm not up to this.*  He took another
deep breath, buying him only a second before the inevitable.  "Ready?"

"I'll have to be."  Her fingers gave his sleeve a last caress, then
busily started to untie the rope from her waist.  "We should make this
look good," she explained, extending her arms toward Riker, her wrists
together.

He was about to ask what she was doing, but it was all too clear.  He
liked this part of it even less. "Good idea," he agreed, reluctantly,
untying the rope from his own waist.  As he began to coil the rough
rope around her wrists, binding them together, he paused.  "I hate
this."

Sarah gifted him with a small half-smile.  "I'm not exactly keen on
all this myself, sir."

"Cut the sir business, Lieutenant.  That's an order."  He grinned back
at her as he tested the security of the rope.  It was holding
perfectly, as a real knot would, but he was still able to slip a
finger between the rope and Sarah's wrist.  "Is that too tight?"

 "It's fine," she assured him, clasping her fingers together for
 better effect. "Just perfect, in fact.  Best I've had in months.
 Next time I'm bound, you might like to pop by and show them how to do
 it properly."

*Brit.*  "Didn't think you were that kind of girl," he joked, shaking
his head. "That does it, then.  After we get out of this mess, we're
both quitting Starfleet and staking out a patch of land on some nice,
safe, warm little farming colony somewhere and raising..."  His voice
broke off as the sharp yip of a dunf puppy at play echoed off the
cave walls.  "Let's go."

---

With a final tug on his tunic, Picard stepped out of the turbolift
onto the bridge, and strode purposefully over to Worf's tactical
station.  "Report."

"The message was difficult to uncode," the Klingon rasped, his eyes
catching those of his captain.  "But as we suspected, it did originate
from a source below the planet's surface."

Picard nodded thoughtfully as he regarded the visual map shown on
Worf's screen.  A flashing red  circle ringed the area from which the
message had been sent.  Somewhere in the mountains near the original
crash site, the Romulans had clearly realised their bird had flown.
"Do we have the message itself?"

"The audio transmission was lost in the process of decoding.  We have
only a transcription."

"Fine.  Fine.  Call it up."  Picard could feel his entire body
tensing.  Maybe Worf's eagerness for battle *was* contagious.  *It
might help,* Picard thought as Worf keyed up the  transcription,
banishing the map from the viewscreen.

*We have failed.  The subject is lost.*  There was nothing else, no
name to put to the "we," although several came immediately to Picard's
mind.  Tomalek, for one.  Tomalek certainly had no love for the
Federation, but he was also more seasoned than whoever had sent the
amateurishsly cryptic message.  Picard crossed his arms in front of
him and exhaled.

"And this was in Romulan?"

"It was."

Picard could hear the almost constant growl from Worf, present not
only in his speech but his silence as well.  He had half a mind to
send the Klingon to Governor Anderson's office and let *him* deal with
the petty bureaucrat.  "That could be taken to mean that they have at
least some of the away team," Picard mused aloud.  "Keep monitoring
for any additional transmissions from that source or the immediate
vicinity.  Would it be possible to send a reply?"

Worf took a second to calm himself enough to answer.  The battle-lust
had begun to overtake him.  "We could send a signal on a wide
dispersion to cover the general area.  It would be picked up on
general monitoring sweeps, the same way we received this."

"Make it so," Picard ordered, turning to walk down past the tactical
horseshoe to the command centre.  He settled into his chair and stared
at the pale blue planet on the viewscreen in front of him.  If the
Romulans wanted to say anything else, he would be right there to give
them their answer.

Nearly half an hour passed in relative silence, with nothing spoken
among the bridge crew.  Only the sounds of the computer consoles doing
their various jobs and the quiet beeps of keypads being depressed
broke the odd vacuum.  The Benzite ensign at conn coughed once when he
missed a breath from his inhaler, then returned to his work.  Worf's
occasional rough sounds punctuated his routines.

Normally, such silence wouldn't have remained for so long, but the
general mood, dictated by the captain, allowed for it.  Normally, the
Deltan science officer would have asked his question of the Vulcan at
OPS verbally, but it seemed more harmonious to do so telepathically
in this instance.  It seemed that the captain's thoughts would benefit
from the silence.  In her seat next to Picard, Deanna Troi fidgeted as
the tension overtook her.

Picard studied Philemon Three on the main viewscreen, taking in its
polar caps, clearly visible, even on an entirely arctic planet.  He
tried to translate the map Worf had shown him to the actual planet,
but found that it was impossible. There were several mountainous
regions, but he couldn't see which one was near the Federation mining
settlement.

"Incoming message."  Worf's words cut into Picard's thoughts.  He
immediately rose, tugging down on his tunic.

"On main viewer."

Instantly, the view of the planet blinked away, replaced by the image
of a Romulan centurion against a slate grey rock wall decorated with
multicolored swirls and slashes.  "Greetings, *Enterprise.*  I am
Centurion Pirnak.  We have business to discuss."

Picard took two steps closer to the screen.  "Yes, Centurion, we most
certainly do."

---

Gureb looked up from the bowl he was filling with an edible moss he
scraped from the cave walls. A shadow crossed over the opening in the
wall only a few paces away.  With his hand, full of moss, halfway to
his mouth, he glanced back to the shallow pool where his sister,
Nuvel, fished for terlans among the low-growing weeds.  Their mother
was there, along with the newest member of the procession, the man
called Dtaa.  They didn't seem to have noticed the shadow or heard the
determined footsteps echoing off the rock floor.

He set his scraping tool atop the moss in the bowl, and gulped down
the moss in his hand as he edged closer to the opening so he could
peer in.  Maybe this was part of Dtaa's procession.  Maybe the one
Dtaa had called Wez'li would be coming.  Wez'li was a strange name,
meaning dunf paw, but the boy sounded like he might be interesting to
know.  Certainly he'd be more interesting than Gureb's own family
conversations at present.  All his mother cared to talk about was
Nuvel, Nuvel's many fine accomplishments, and what a good mate Nuvel
would make someday.  Even Nuvel's prospects of fertility had come into
mention, and Mother didn't seem to be running out of topics, even
though nobody else was getting a chance to say anything.

He'd wanted to help his father and the other men dig among the roots
to gather the small crustaceans that gathered there.  It would have
been a fine change from dried dunf meat.  Gureb hated eating dunf, but
it was often necessary. Besides he needed a new scraper, and the claws
were always most pliable when fresh.  Even though Gureb was good at
finding the small creatures, knowing instinctively where their nesting
spots were, it was men's work.  Gureb, as he'd been told often enough,
was still a boy.  Next year, he would be grown.

Well, they'd see how milk-child he still was if he were the one to
reunite Mother's precious Dtaa with the rest of his procession.  With
one last glance back at his family by the pond, Gureb slipped into the
opening and skittered up the easy slope, without spilling any moss
from his bowl.  "Here," he called out, his voice cracking as it echoed
off the walls.  "Mykba's basket is over here!  There is enough for
all!"

He heard a small scuffle, then knew a moment of heart-swelling
satisfaction as two figures emerged from the narrow passage.  The man
was tall and broad-shouldered like his own father, the colour of the
tattoo crossing his face designating him as Berrek.  The cut and
condition of his robes told Gureb that the man was Klevv, like them.
Like, he thought, an eager smile animating his features, like Dtaa.

When Gureb saw the woman, however, his smile faded.  She was also
dressed in Klevv robes, but bore no tattoo, though by the shape of her
body, she was definitely an adult.  She was smaller than any adult
woman Gureb had ever seen, not coming even to the man's shoulder. Her
face, hair, and eyes were strangely coloured.  He couldn't be sure in
the dim passage, but he thought her eyes might be purple.  His breath
caught in his throat.  Purple, as his mother had told him innumerable
times in her night-time stories, was Mykba's colour.

Had this one been sent by Mykba to fetch him to wander the skies?  Was
she forming a procession for Mykba?  Some of his grandfather's friends
had told tales of odd-looking ones like this who took people away,
never to return.  He wanted to cry out for his parents, but could only
stare.  The woman's hands were bound.

Gureb gulped, his bravado vanishing.  If such a man could subdue
Mykba's handmaiden, there was no telling what he could do to a lone
boy.  With the hand that still held the bowl, he gestured back down
the passageway, half the moss tilting out to plop on his foot.
"Mykba's basket is this way, comm... compan... companion," he
stuttered.  "Are there any more of you?"

"No," the man responded.  "Only myself."  He gave a tug on the ropes
that bound the woman's wrists, causing her to take a stumbling step
forward.  "And this one."

---

"Oh, look," Taylor drawled, his eyes on the covered tray that had just
been placed inside their door.  "Din-din.  Are we allowed to eat
anything, *ma'am*, or would that be considered collaboration?"

Eliva's antennae dipped in an Andorian version of a sigh.  "We were
not," she paused, her slender blue fingers picking the cover off the
tray, "offered any ssspecial favours," pause, "if we eat this."  Her
perpetually arched white brows knit as she looked at and smelled the
pulpy greenish-grey substance that made of most of their meal.  A
small pile of thin brown wafers sat next to the stuff in the bowl,
seeming to be both food and utensil.  The Romulans had likely learned
it was their safest option, after Lieutenant Cromwell.

Sabu peered over her shoulder.  "What *is* that?"  He took a tentative
sniff of the stuff in the bowl and made a face.  "No, on second
thought, I don't want to know.  Is it safe?"

Eliva picked up a wafer and broke it in half, revealing a still-soft
interior. "It is fresh," she allowed before concentrating her sense of
smell on it. "Some sort of bread."  She dipped one half of the wafer
into the pulp in the bowl and took a tentative nibble.  "Eat."  She
pushed the tray toward her companions.

Taylor regarded the food warily.  "Are you positive it's dead yet?"

"This is of vegetable and grain origin," Eliva explained around a
mouthful of pulp-covered wafer. "And its taste is palatable."

A grimace crossed Taylor's face as he gingerly took a wafer and dipped
a corner of it into the pulp. "This, coming from a lady who thinks
bugs are yummy."

"Insects," Eliva informed him, "are a ssstaple of the Andorian diet,"
pause, and a sssource of protein.  You would eat them if you were
hungry enough."

Taylor grumbled, but bit into the wafer, still avoiding  the pulp.
"Well, that's heartening.  I'm sure the information will come in
handy..."

"Would you just shut up?" Sabu, exasperated, glared at Taylor.  "Would
you just please shut up? You know, not talk for a few minutes?  I've
heard a wild rumour that it *is* possible."  He paused to take a
breath, but it didn't calm him. He glanced at Eliva, who merely took
another wafer, dipping it in the greyish-green mush.  "Look, we're all
scared, okay?  None of us knows exactly what's going on, but that
doesn't mean you have to be jerk about it."  He took another pause,
noticing that Eliva was now calmly nibbling on a wafer and goo
sandwich, her antennae angled in his direction.  A self-conscious
smile stole across his lips.  "Right now, Eliva is our commanding
officer, and I think she deserves a little respect. She's managed to
keep the Romulans from killing us, for pity's sake!"

"We haven't established that this isn't poison," Taylor said.

Sabu rolled his eyes.  "Take a bigger bite, and we can find out.  I
can't believe you!  If you talked to Commander Riker this way, he'd
have your rear for breakfast.  *What* is your problem?  Are you
claustrophobic or something?"

Taylor didn't get a chance to answer.  The door slid open, revealing
two Romulan guards.  They didn't appear to have weapons, which all
three ensigns thought was strange, but as Taylor had often been told
in his security training, weapons weren't always visible.

"Remain where you are and be still," the taller of the two guards
ordered, while the shorter one stood with his back against the door.
Taking a small device from the pocket of his coat, the tall guard
aimed it at Eliva first, then moved on toward Sabu and Taylor.

As the guard approached Eliva, she recognised the device he held as a
non-Federation holocam, which required both of his hands to operate.
She touched her antennae's saucers together twice, a signal for Sabu
and Taylor to obey without question.  They were safe for the moment.

"Your captain," the guard with the holocam explained, making a
complete circle of Sabu, "wishes to be certain that you are alive and
not mistreated."  He moved on to Taylor, repeating the same movement,
then turned to the shorter guard.  Gesturing to his companion, he
stood aside as the other guard withdrew three objects from the folds
of a small black bag.  All the while the holocam stayed trained on the
ensigns.

"Hold these," the short guard instructed.

---

Picard sat back down in his command chair, not knowing quite what to
do next. He was reasonably sure, thanks to Centurion Pirnak's kind
recording, that Ensigns Riss, Sabu and Taylor were still living and in
good health.  The Romulan had gone out of his way to show Picard that
the three of them were well, providing him with images of his officers
holding chronometers, eating, drinking, exercising to show that they
sustained no injuries.  Unclothed images could be made available for
Picard's inspection, should he require further proof.  He had assured
the Centurion that such images were not necessary.

He and Deanna had viewed the images several times, stopping each
movement and examining the still image, magnifying it in case there
were any details they had missed.  Other than the fact that the young
officers were somewhat agitated, which was to be expected, Deanna had
been unable to detect any emotions from the recording.  She had,
though, found in her files that Geoffrey Taylor had been diagnosed
with claustrophobia when he entered the Academy.

Hoping it would help, Picard had called Pala Drekar, and Andorian
civilian speech pathologist who normally worked with the
*Enterprise's* children, to view the images.  If Ensign Riss was
communicating any messages with the position of her antennae or the
inner eyelid, he wanted to know about it.  The Andorian race had long
made use of a sort of sign language, difficult for non-Andorians to
read. The amount of inner eyelid visible, the tilt of a saucer, the
dip of an antenna could all speak volumes.  In this case, Pala told
Picard and Deanna, Eliva was telling them that they were, in fact,
receiving treatment well within the boundaries of the Solaris
Convention, the position of her antennae indicating "truth."

On the other hand, or eyelid, as Pala had deduced from the yellowish
membrane that came just to Eliva's deep sapphire pupils, the young
woman was concerned for one of her fellow officers.  That, Deanna
guessed, would be Taylor.  "He's been under medication for his
phobia," she said, keeping her eyes trained on Taylor's holoimage.
"Without it, the claustrophobia may begin to cloud his judgment."

"Which the Romulans will use for their benefit," Worf added, pausing
only a second before new information on his screen caused him to
switch topics. "Sensors show that the ice storm has ceased. Transport
to the surface is now possible."

Picard grunted.  "Thank you, Mr Worf.  Trace the signal as close to
its original source as you can, then assemble an away team."  He
remained seated for the moment, thinking.  "And tell Governor Anderson
I'll be with him in half an hour.  No need for any special
preparations."  He rose again from the chair and started for the
bridge turbolift, tapping his comm badge.  "Sorry to wake you,
Beverly, but..."  His words were cut off by the closing of the
turbolift doors.

As Worf set about following his latest orders, he allowed his lips to
curve back in a feral smile.  *Soon, Centurion.*

---

Riker, pulling his 'captive' behind him, stepped out of the dark stone
passageway and into a dazzling oasis.  Giant crystal stalactites hung
from the roof like  an alien chandelier, with stalagmites rising to
meet them. Flowering, fruit-bearing vines twined around both, as
though decorating the cave for a festival.  The walls were covered,
not with the cave paintings he had been led to expect, but rather with
an assortment of mosses similar to what the boy had dropped from his
bowl.  Steaming pool gave life to numerous varieties of reeds,
grasses, and other plants, which Berrek of all ages and descriptions
were happily picking and eating.

In the warmth of the oasis, many had shed their voluminous outer
robes, revealing lighter versions, some dyed the bright colours of the
mosses and flowers.  Riker had to blink to make sure he was seeing
correctly.  After the bleak whiteness of the surface, the explosion of
colour and life didn't seem to fit.

At the nearest pool, a woman of middle years, her outer robe parted to
show a swirling pattern of red, orange and blue that echoed the lines
of her tattoo, looked up from her labours.  "Ahh! Welcome!  Is not
Mykba's basket bountiful this day?"  She selected a small purple fruit
from a mat beside the pool and extended it to Riker.  "I am Kalat,
wife of Rald, Chooser of the Path.  How are you known?"

"Rek, Protector of the Infirm.  I was... separated from my procession
in the storm.

Kalat let out a small squeal that seemed at odds with her mature
demeanour. She tapped the shoulder of a man overseeing a teenage girl.
"Dtaa, is this man known to you?"

*Dtaa?*  Riker thought it was about time things took a turn for the
better.  He didn't think there was much chance Dtaa was that common a
Philemite name, but after the events of the past couple of days, he
wasn't going to rule out anything.  "I know a Dtaa," he allowed.  "A
Herder."

The man by the pool looked up.  "It is good to see you, my friend."

"And you," Riker answered, before remembering it was expected that he
and Data would kiss each other's foreheads upon greeting.  *It could
be worse,* he thought as they exchanged the customary Berrek greeting
for close acquaintances.  Stepping back from Data, he glanced at the
fruit in his hand. It seemed to be highly prized, from the expectant
way Kalat was looking at him. He bit into the fruit, the bright
purplish blue of the juice running into his white-tinted beard.
"Excellent," pronounced with satisfaction.

Data motioned toward Sarah.  "Where did you find that?"

Riker looked at her as though she were something he had just noticed.
"I don't recall."  He took a moment to eat another bite of terlan, and
wiped the juice away with the back of his hand, transferring the
colour to his glove, before he handed the pit back to Kalat.  "My
thanks.  May it grow.  Is there somewhere I can put her?"  He raised
the hand that held the other end of the rope binding Sarah's wrists.
"Dtaa and I must talk.  We may be able to determine the path of our
procession."

"Of course."  Kalat took the rope from Riker.  "Must we have these
bonds?"  The woman, if that was indeed what this strange-looking
person was, didn't look especially dangerous.  Still, Kalat admitted
to herself with a measure of reluctance, there were things not for
mere mortal to know. The woman's colouring was extremely odd, and
there were the legends...

"We must," Riker confirmed, in a voice that brooked no disobedience.
"She likes to run.  See that she doesn't.  I don't have time to play
games, but I do have uses for her.  *I* have uses," he repeated for
the benefit of the curious males who had come to see the newcomers.
"You may feed her if Mykba is feeling especially bountiful today.  Or
not," he added over his shoulder as he turned away.  "She ate
yesterday.  That should be enough."  With that, he clapped Data on the
shoulder, leading the android behind a large ice-blue stalactite wound
with pink blossoms;  it would afford them as much privacy as they were
going to get. "Have you seen any of the others?"

"I have not," Data admitted.  "I encountered this procession some
hours ago, but none of the landing party."

Riker cursed under his breath.  That wasn't what he wanted to hear.
"What about the Romulans?"  A somewhat studied shake of the android's
head wasn't encouraging, either.  "Fine.  We'll go with what we have.
What can you tell me about this procession?"

Data shooed away a small dunf puppy that had come to investigate their
movements and was now teething on the bottom of his robe.  "I have
stayed mainly with the family of Kalat, whom you have met. Her
husband, Rald, is a chooser of the path, and so may be considered to
be highly placed in their government.  It may be wise to curry his
favour.  I have already gained the trust of Kalat," he added, pausing.
There was no need to explain why.

He took advantage of their relative privacy to take a good look at
Riker. Dried blood crusted the commander's torn robes, scratches
interrupting the lines of the tattoo.  A laceration over the left eye,
and bruises blossoming beneath the white of his skin caused Data to
ask.  "Do you require medical attention? Your injuries seem to
indicate..."

"I'm fine."  From what Riker remembered of the little he'd learned of
Berrek medical practices, he'd just as soon not experience any of them
firsthand.  The arctic equivalent of a witch doctor's assistant
intern's apprentice had nothing on the *Enterprise's* sickbay.  "Just
a little run-in with a dunf. Nothing serious.  We won.  Cromwell's a
little weak, but she'll be getting some rest, if things go well.  Do
you how soon we'll be moving?"

"I do not.  However, there is some interesting information I wish to
share with you."  Data reached into the front fold oh his outer robe
and withdrew the paint sample he'd taken before the quake.  "In my
examination of the cave paintings, I found that they have most likely
been altered."

Riker's brows shot up in surprise.  "Altered?  How?"

" I cannot be certain," Data began, lowering his voice as a group of
children raced past, an exasperated adolescent girl close on their
heels, vowing to toss them outside if they didn't come back to their
pallets.  When they had been successfully reined in, Data continued.
"My tricorder has been functioning erratically, although my internal
sensors are unaffected.  With limited equipment, I can do little more
than hypothesise."

"That's fine.  Cromwell and I have been experiencing the same thing.
It's connected to the pink crystals.  Since neither one of us has
internal sensors, you're one up on us."

Data nodded and returned the paint sample to its hiding place.
Analysis would have to wait a while longer.  "While the others slept,
I studied the cave paintings, and found that the records were out of
order."

Riker put up a hand, stopping Data from saying anything else.  "How
out of order?"

"This is not the first time Rald and Kalat's procession has been this
way.  I found a previous record of the procession, obscured with a
new, false record. It was red."

Red.  Riker tried to remember what clan that colour belonged to.
Unable to recall the exact name, he filed the information away in case
he had a chance to ask later.  Over Data's shoulder, he could see
Kalat and a man, likely Rald, approaching with a full wineskin.  There
wasn't much private time left.  "We're going ahead with the original
plan as much as possible.  We'll only improvise if it's absolutely
necessary. Lieutenant Cromwell is my 'captive,' and we're going to try
and sell her back to the Romulans,  just as soon as..."

Kalat's too-bright voice cut Riker off.  "Rald, this is Rek, Dtaa's
fellow wanderer.  He has brought," she paused, looking around as if
gauging whether it was safe to continue speaking.  "The one we spoke
of."

Rald's serious pink eyes looked Riker up and down, assessing him with
a manner of seasoned command.  The man, a stranger to Rald, looked to
be in general good health, well fed and rested, though a bit
disheveled from the storm.  "Is this true?"

"It is," Riker confirmed, with a curt nod.  Apparently, he wasn't yet
deemed high enough for forehead kissing.  "You have seen her, have you
not, or does your woman hide things from you?"

"Kalat, I believe Nuvel has found an especially succulent terlan for
Dtaa."  At the thinly veiled prompt, the Berrek woman took Data by the
arm, guiding him away from the other man.  Crossing his arms across
his broad chest, Rald met Riker's eyes.  "I have seen her.  With the
dunfs," he clarified, jerking his head in the animals' direction.
"But I have not seen you before, fellow wanderer."

Riker stiffened at what would have been an insult to another Berrek.
"Mykba has bid us wander, and so we do.  Have you seen all Mykba's
children?  *I* have never seen *you* before this day, either."

Rald's tense features relaxed.  "Your pardon, wanderer. Or should I
call you Protector?  Kalat tells me you are Protector for your
procession.  It is no secret to you, I am certain, that there are
those who, sadly, do not agree with us.  In times such as these, one
must be cautious."

"Of course," Riker nodded in agreement.  "But it is also a time for
trusting each other, is it not?  If we do not stand together, we may
not stand at all."

"Yes, yes."  Rald cast a worried glance at the captive woman seated
amongst the dunfs.  "Did she injure you?  I heard that she took
weapons when she fled."

Riker looked down at the dried stains on his robe, and fingered the
irregularly-shaped splotches.  "No.  She had no weapons when I found
her," he answered truthfully.  "Only a..."  *What would a Klevv call a
shuttlecraft?* "Only the strangest cart I have ever seen.  There was
no struggle. We did meet a dunf, though."

"And I see who was victorious."  Rald smiled widely.  "That is good.
I would hate to have one such as you fall to the beasts.  Not when we
are so close to our goal."  He placed a hand on Riker's arm, strong
fingers gripping into the other man's muscle.  "Our friends," he
revealed, his voice low and secretive, "will be meeting after the
sleeping  hours have begun.  Were it easier to get away, I would tell
them now of your captive.  You will be richly rewarded for her return.
How would your procession like a breeding dunf?  I have our friends'
assurance that your captive will not be allowed another escape."

Riker felt a cold heaviness in his stomach at the ominous tone of
Rald's voice.  *Not if I have anything to do with it.*

---

Sabu, Taylor and Eliva had said nothing for the past quarter hour,
only standing in the center of the room, staring at each other.  The
remains of their dinner still sat on the floor, looking less appealing
by the second. Once in a while, Eliva's antennae would twitch in the
direction of the door, her lips begin to form words, but each time,
she changed her mind.  It was better to say nothing than to instill
false hope.

"Boo!"

At the unexpected sound, Taylor and Eliva both jumped.  Sabu grinned.
"I couldn't take it any longer," he explained, with a slight shrug.
"Romulan jail on a frozen planet is creepy enough without a statue
competition."

Eliva's antennae twitched with annoyance, the rims of her inner
eyelids barely visible.  "There are other waysss," pause, "to ceassse
a sssilence."

"Yeah," Taylor put in, not wanting the others to know Sabu's prank had
nearly caused him to lose bladder control.  "Everything should be okay
now, right? The Romulans let Captain Picard know we're alive, and bing
bang boom they... do something, and we're safe on the *Enterprise.*

"There will be a wait," Eliva pronounced.  "There must be
negotiationsss. Besssides, *I* would not be sssatisssfied... with a
mere holo.   They can be sssimulated, or the prisssonersss could be
under duresss."  She pretended to be examining the closed door so the
men couldn't see her heightened colour.  Her S's were becoming more
sibilant, a sure sign that she was agitated.  That would not be
acceptable.  To be in command, she must project a calm demeanour.
Commander Riker would not be losing control of *his* tongue, were he
in her place.

Not looking where she was stepping, Eliva took a pace backward, her
heel landing on the edge of the food tray, flipping it over.  The
clatter, reverberating in her ears and antennae, gave her a new idea.
The rush of hope it brought caused her second eyelid to show fully,
and her lips to curl upward, giving her what Taylor had long ago
dubbed the "bug look."  She turned to face them.

"If you gentlemen are finissshed with our sssuper, I have another
ussse for it."

---

The Romulan commander made another turn as she paced off the confines
of her makeshift office.  "He wants to *negotiate*?"

"Y-yes, Commander," Centurion Pirnak stammered.  "Not here, though.
He wishes for you... that is, for the senior officer..."

"Picard believes that *you* are the senior Romulan officer, doesn't
he?"  The commander's voice dripped with threat, but lost none of its
shrillness.

Pirnak nodded once.  "Of course he does.  I identified myself as such,
exactly as you told me.  Such an insignificant outpost needs nothing
more than a Centurion.  The Empire is merely curious," he parroted.
As the commander's posture relaxed, so did Pirnak's, though to a
lesser extent, which wasn't much, all told.  "Picard wishes for the
negotiations to take place in the settlement governor's office.  He
wants an impartial third party to mediate."

"Impartial?  Ha!"  The commander scoffed at the idea, her face
flushing green with anger.  "Anderson is not impartial.  He is weak.
He will agree with whoever he is most afraid of at the time.  There's
a difference."  She crossed her gloved hands on the arms of her
military tunic.  "Don't just stand there. What did you tell him?"

"I said we would consider his request, Commander."

She allowed one corner of her mouth to lift.  "Good."  Returning to
her desk, she picked up the same padd she'd used before, fingering the
touchscreen. "You're doing very well, Centurion.  Very well," she
restated, without looking up.  "So well, in fact, that I'm going to
authorise the  supply center to give you the proper costume for your
role.  We want you to make a good impression on your audience, after
all."  She savoured the chill of delight that coiled around her
stomach.  Finishing her new entries, she thrust the padd at Pirnak
with such force that he had to take a step back. "Contact Picard and
tell him you'll agree to the negotiations.  Whatever terms he wants."

"Commander?"

"Did you hear what I said?"

Pirnak didn't dare blink.  "Yes, Commander."

"Then there shouldn't be any problem, should there?  I know what I'm
doing."

Of that, Pirnak had no doubt.

---

From where she sat, Sarah could see Riker talking with the man called
Rald. She couldn't make out any of their words, but would stake her
next promotion, which she had bloody well better get after having to
go through all of this aggravation, that they were talking about her.
*Fine time for second thoughts, Cromwell,* she chided herself.
*Should've taken the Ralnan ambassador up on his offer when you had
the chance.  Probably have your own palace by now if you did, complete
with a staff of servants to do everything but take your baths for you.
Of course, you'd probably also have a string of children with his
bulbous nose,* she thought, swallowing the last bit of fruit she'd
been given, and spitting out the pit, watching as a dunf pup began to
play with it.  The pit bore a distinct resemblance, as she remembered,
to the ambassador's nose. The pup let out  a sharp yip of joy,
mock-growling as one of his littermates decided to investigate the new
plaything.

*At least somebody's enjoying this.*  Sarah sat back on her heels,
loosening the bonds.  Since they were purely for show, it didn't
matter how tight they were.  She didn't like playing captive, but it
was better than being the real thing.  So why was it that she felt she
might soon be reminded of that?  She made a low, growling sound in the
back of her throat as she tried to find a comfortable position, a feat
that seemed nearly impossible.  Her aching muscles were reminding her,
yet again, that they'd prefer the ease of her quarters on the
*Enterprise,* especially the hot bath and soft bed with as many
blankets as the replicator would give her, to crouching on the cold
ground in the midst of a herd of smelly canines.  On top of it all,
there was the damned emptiness where Stephanie should have been, so
there wasn't even anybody to talk to. *A child's a child,* Mum had
always said.  Only now did Sarah understand.

Whatever the Romulans were up to concerning the bloody crystals was
bad enough; dragging the natives into it was worse.  Kidnapping and
torturing a Starfleet officer didn't help, but they'd ended
Stephanie's life when it had barely started, and that was the worst.
Sarah's eyes narrowed to slits as resolve displaced discomfort.  There
wasn't any time for wallowing in emotion.  That was a luxury for
civilians who didn't have jobs to do.  She had details to remember,
faces to watch for, unforgettable voices she'd likely hear again if
she were alert for them.

A mother dunf flopped down next to Sarah, the babies following with a
skitter of claws on the hard ground,  The mother dunf's hot breath
caused Sarah to turn her head away as the scent caused her bile to
rise.  *Could have stayed at home with the spaniels if I wanted dog
breath.*

What Sarah noticed next shouldn't have come as a surprise.  It wasn't
odd at all, which was what made it stand out from the rest of the
everyday activities around her.  Berrek were always making cave
paintings.  Any time a procession encountered Mykba's basket, it was
time to gather the fruits and mosses for the pigments to make their
paintings, but that was all they should have been doing there.
Mykba's basket was not a place to make paintings, only a place to make
*paint.* She looked again to be sure.

The woman had her back to Sarah, but she was definitely applying
pigment to the rock wall. Riker had told Sarah that this procession's
Recorder was a man, so this struck her as doubly odd.  Each procession
had only one Recorder at a time, for consistency's sake.  This woman
seemed to be too old to be an apprentice; as the current Recorder was
too young to need a successor.  Whoever the woman was, there was no
reason why she should be marking anything at all. The moss she had so
carefully scraped off would grow completely back in a matter of days.
Nobody would see it, unless they knew to look for it. Everything she
ever studied about the Klevv had told Sarah that Mykba's basket was
the one place when a procession could pass unrecorded.  There had to
be some reason to mark *this* procession's passing.  Somebody was
expected to know, and beyond that, to care.

The mother dunf settled her body around the curve of  Sarah's hip as
the pups began to suckle.  The sucking sounds of the pups, combined
with the mother's soft sounds of encouragement and contentment were
rhythmic and soothing. Although Sarah was physically exhausted, she
strained to see the symbols the woman who was not the procession's
Recorder painted on the bare patch of stone.

The shapes were too high to see clearly from her vantage point, and
the woman stood in front of most of them, but one thing soon became
apparent.  There were no mentions of births, deaths, or marriages in
this record.  The symbols were Romulan.

---

"Governor."  Picard nodded at the two other men in the small office,
watching the white puffs of their breath.  In other circumstances,
he'd want to know why it was so blasted cold inside a Federation-run
building.  If there was a climate control, Anderson didn't seem to
want to be bothered with the trouble of learning to operate the thing.
It might take valuable time away from him. On the other hand, Picard
wagered that the Romulan was even more uncomfortable than he was, so
it might not be a bad thing after all.  "Centurion Pirnak."

"Captain Picard."  The Romulan spoke first, extending a hand in the
human gesture of welcome.  "It is good of you to meet with me.  With
us," he amended, indicating Governor Anderson.  "I believe we can
reach a mutually acceptable agreement."

Picard looked the Romulan straight in the eyes.  "The only acceptable
agreement is the return of my officers, unharmed.  When I see them for
myself, alive, well, and *in person,* then we'll talk about your
requests."

With a nervous laugh, Anderson gestured to two chairs near his desk.
Like the rest of the furniture in the office, the chairs and desk
should have been retired years ago, but they, like Anderson himself,
still served.  "Gentlemen. Please, sit.  Is there anything I can get
for you? Food?  Drink?  There's a native tea that's quite good for
warming the body; we practically live on the stuff here.  It grows
mainly in the underground oases, but the Merb have developed a most
delicious hothouse version."  He paused to laugh at his unintentional
pun.

Normally, Picard would have refused the offer, but at the moment, he
was firmly convinced that if he were to spit, it would freeze.  As it
was, the floor by his chair looked as though someone had already
tested out that theory, and proven it correct.  "That would be fine."

Pirnak nodded his acceptance as well, and Anderson spoke into the
small comm panel on his desk.  "Velsa, bring in a jar of tea and three
vials, please." Turning to his guests, he elaborated, "Drinking out of
vials is sort of a local tradition, to honour the scientists who
developed the hothouse version." Before he could offer standard cups,
a tall, slender woman, dressed in the modern clothing of a Merb, her
pale white face bisected by vivid swirls and dashes of primary yellow,
glided into the room, balancing the requested items on a lacquered
tray.  "That's my assistant, Velsa," he explained unnecessarily after
the woman had poured the tea and left as quietly as she'd come.  "I
don't know what I'd ever do without her."

Picard's nose wrinkled at the smell of the tea, but he was immensely
grateful for its warmth. The Romulan didn't seem to have any problem
with the bitter drink, gulping down half of it at once.  Picard cast a
wary glance at the door where Velsa had departed.  "How long has she
been working with you?"

"She was here when I got here," Anderson offered, taking a deep drink
of the tea.  "Velsa helped organise the settlement, getting all the
miners settled into their quarters and all.  She's valuable in
relations with the natives, you know."  He took another drink,
grimacing slightly at the taste, but relishing the warmth.  "In case
you're wondering if she knows anything about our little problem, the
answer is no.  She's kept much too busy here to go consorting with
Romulans.  Besides, she and her husband are both Merb. They *want* us
here, you know."

"Of course."  Picard had thought as much, but it never hurt to explore
every possibility.  He gave up on drinking the noxious brew and
clamped his hands as tightly around the vessel as he could, warming
his fingers more than anything else.  "Centurion, I'd like to get
right to the heart of the matter.  What exactly do you want in return
for my officers?"

Pirnak knew that the human captain's question didn't mean that he was
going to get what the commander had told him to ask for, merely that
the human was curious.  The Merb woman's interruption had unsettled
him; it didn't affect the outcome of things at all, but it hadn't been
in the script.  Improvisation wasn't one of Pirnak's strong suits.  He
leaned back in the chair, taking a satisfying sip of the tea.  It
reminded him of a treat his mother used to make back on Romulus, the
highlight of every holiday.  Maybe this could be considered a good
portent.

"Why, Captain," he drawled, "don't you know?  Or am I overestimating
the intelligence of your Federation?"

Picard's mouth set into a grim line.  "The crystals."

"We have the crystals," Pirnak countered, with a shake of his head.

Anderson cleared his throat.  "Centurion, the Federation does have
official mining rights to all crystal deposits on Philemon Three.  I
could have Velsa call up the documents for you, if you require proof.
You'll find our records to be quite complete."

Both Picard and Pirnak glared at the governor.  Was it possible that
the man was that stupid?  Picard thought that, all things considered,
it just might be. "I'm sure there's no need for all that work," Picard
demurred, casting a glance at Pirnak.  "My esteemed colleague and I
are well versed in the legalities."

"And rather inconsequential ones at that, aren't they?  The Romulan
smirked. "After all," he elaborated, pretending great interest in
pouring himself another vial full of tea, "we're here.  All mining
operations of consequence are under Romulan control.  Of course, they
don't know that yet, but isn't covert operation one of the best
tactics?"

Anderson's face reddened with impotent fury.  He was certain that the
Romulan was speaking the truth, and just as certain that he could do
nothing about it. "Captain?"

Picard thought for a moment.  "Gentlemen, we could sit here all day
long and quibble, but that won't help any of us.  I have several of my
officers on this planet, out of communications range, and I am
satisfied that at least three of them are in Romulan custody.  My
first concern is getting them back on board the  *Enterprise.*"

Although he looked a bit sullen, Pirnak nodded, a slight gesture, as
though he were reluctant to agree to Picard's agenda.  "Our needs are
quite few," he began plainly, steepling his fingers in front of him, a
gesture he'd seen his commander use to great effect countless times.
"We have access to all the crystals we could ever want, and have the
technology to replicate them. However, there are certain...
accouterments that would be of immeasurable help."

Picard bristled, fingers clenching white-knuckled around the vial of
tea. "Surely, you don't expect the Federation to help the Romulan
Empire build their technology."

Pirnak's angular features arranged themselves to look almost hurt.
"Captain, Captain, I am shocked that you would even suggest such a
thing.  No, I understand your Federation code of ethics.  Your
Lieutenant Cromwell made it abundantly clear that Starfleet won't give
us even a scrap from your bountiful table of knowledge.  All I want is
sharing, nothing more.  Your people will be equally free to learn from
us as we are from you."

"And if we don't choose to share, I won't see my officers again,"
Picard finished with a frown.

Pirnak merely shrugged.  The commander would be proud of him.

---

"You're crazy, right?  Tell me you're crazy."  Taylor looked
skeptically at Eliva as she tilted the food tray over the decidedly
unfriendly commode in their cell.

Methodically, the Andorian used a sizable piece of the bread-utensil
to scrape every bit of the slimy goo into the receptacle.  Her
antennae twitched with pride.  This was something Commander Riker
would think of, she was certain. With a dramatic gesture, she raised
the empty bowl over her head, unable to suppress a little hop of
delight as the bowl shattered into dozens of jagged little pieces on
the floor. Bending to retrieve the pieces, she began to put them into
the commode as well.

"Yep," Taylor surmised, getting his hand tangled in his hair
extensions as he scratched the back of his head, "she's crazy.  I know
jail can do this to people, but doesn't it usually take more than a
few hours?"

Sabu caught on before Eliva had to say anything.  "Don't you get it?
If we jam the throne, the Roms will want to see what's going on.
We'll be waiting for them.  When they come, we rush them and get out
of here."

"Oh, reeeeeeal original," Taylor drawled, finally extricating his
hand.  "Why not just say one of us is sick?"

Sabu and Eliva stopped gathering bowl pieces long enough to glare at
him. "Nobody *ever* believed that," Eliva said, her antennae
momentarily drooping. "You will help usss now.  It isss an order."

Taylor didn't have any comebacks to that.  An order was an order.
Besides, there was a distinct possibility that Eliva's plan would
work, and if so, that meant getting back to the *Enterprise,* where it
was warm.  He shrugged and picked up the bluntest shard he could find.

"Besssidesss," she continued, a hint of  mischievous pleasure creeping
into her voice, " we are not going to jam thisss toilet.  We are going
to explode it."

"Explode?"  All motion stopped as Taylor and Sabu stared at Eliva.

"Yesss.  Explode.  Asss in blow up.  Boom," she added, before going
back to her work, angling her antennae so that she could better see
under the commode's rim.  Granted, the specifics of the design would
likely be a bit different from what she was accustomed, but in the
end, a toilet meant for humanoids was a toilet meant for humanoids.
Had their captors been Gorn or Tholian, there would have been little
Eliva could do with the tools at hand.  In this, they were as
fortunate as a dartfly under a summer's moon.  All the important
functions would be the same.  "Our captorsss would be expecting a
childish prank like overflowing the toilet."

Taylor and Sabu exchanged a silent glance.  Maybe Eliva was crazy, but
she was the one in charge.  They continued to work.

"What's that going to do?"  Taylor wasn't entirely sure he wanted to
know. "Besides make a giant mess, I mean."  He wrinkled his nose.
Cleaning up the after-effects of Eliva's plan if it didn't work wasn't
a prospect he relished. "Isn't one of the goals here *not* to tick off
the guys with the phasers?"

"They won't hurt us," Sabu countered with a firm shake of his head.
"Captain Picard already knows we're alive and healthy,  so the Roms
will want to keep us that way."  He  paused, sitting back on his
heels.  "We do have to keep trying to escape every chance we get.
This is a chance.  We have to do it, whether you're behind the idea or
not.  When the guards hear the explosion, they'll come to see what's
going on.  They'll want to make sure we weren't hurt, because Captain
Picard might think they're the ones who did it to us, and then..." he
shrugged.  "There would be a big problem.  They're not going to expect
an escape attempt."  He looked to Eliva for confirmation.

"Essspecially since they will believe we are injured," she said, her
fingernails scraping against a metal surface.  She threw a small plate
with Romulan markings away.

"Ow!"  Taylor put the backs of his fingers to his cheek where the
metal had grazed it.  "I like my blood on the *inside* of my body, if
that's all right."

There was a sharp click from Eliva, followed by a hissed, "That
ssshould be, 'if that is all right, *ma'am.*'"

"Yeah," Sabu agreed, "you've had worse shaving cuts."

"Fine, fine.  Whatever.  Anyway what's with the injured schtick?  I
thought you said nobody would believe us, *ma'am.*"

Eliva chose to ignore the sarcasm and rising panic in Taylor's voice.
There was no time for any of that.  "I sssaid that nobody would
believe one of usss wasss sssick."

He wasn't satisfied.  "Then how come saying we're injured is going to
work?"

"It worked for Lieutenant Cromwell, didn't it?" Sabu asked, obsidian
eyes boring into Taylor like a laser drill.  "Come on, Jeff.  There's
no room for an attitude problem here, okay?  Room's too small for
that.  There's enough for the three of us without inviting your ego."
It was then that Sabu noticed that Eliva was using some kind of tool
to tinker with the circuitry, allowing her access to the delicate
controls beneath the shallow chemical pool, all the while keeping her
hands away from harm.  "What are you using?" he asked, edging closer.
"The Romulans took our packs."

Eliva popped out from her cramped workspace in a split second, one
blue hand hold a crimped piece of once-white wire.  "Hairpin," she
explained with a broad bug-like smile before returning to work.

The men looked at each other.  "*Hairpin?*"

---

It wasn't long after the dunfs had settled around Sarah, that the rest
of the procession began their bedding down for the night.  She
remained where she was for a while, listening to the universal sounds
of night-time:  the husky whispers of amorous spouses, the giggles of
children trying to stay up a bit longer, the stories told by the old
ones to get those children to settle down. There were only few minor
arguments among the unmarried men over who would sleep where, but
those were soon settled.

Sarah was grateful to see that Riker and Data had been allowed to make
their beds near her.  Apparently, her value among the Berrek wasn't
firm.  Already, three other men had approached Riker about buying her.
The intentions of the youngest man, who had been licking his lips,
were clear, but the other two had been more mysterious.  At any rate,
she was valuable enough to be of use to the Romulans, likely with a
promised reward for her return, but not valuable enough among the
procession to sleep like a Philemite.

*At least they fed me,* she thought, stretching sleepily.  The mother
dunf made a muffled sound of protest at Sarah's movement, but seeing
that the human wasn't a threat to her pups, soon settled down.  Sarah
glanced in Riker and Data's direction.  They were pretending to sleep.
Yawning behind her bound hands, Sarah thought that it wouldn't
necessarily pretending for her if she didn't find something to keep
her alert soon.  Ever since she'd eaten the fruit, she'd been feeling
especially tired.

*Cromwell, you blooming idiot!*  Sarah felt like smacking herself on
the forehead.  Searching for the fruit pit, she snaked her arms under
a couple of dunf puppies who decided she was trying to play with them.
Shaking off the mock-growling pups, her efforts were soon rewarded.
Gauging the proper trajectory, she lobbed the pit at Riker's huddled
form.  *See?  There was a reason for that volleyball class after all,*
she congratulated herself as she watched the pit strike him in the
temple.

Riker sat up abruptly, checking to see if they were being watched
before nudging Data.  Silently, they crept over to Sarah's resting
place among the dunfs, careful not to disturb any of the adult
animals.  They had enough trouble with the young ones, who seemed to
think every movement was an invitation to play.  Riker carefully
disengaged a flop-eared pup from the hem of his outer robe and
returned it to its mother, who was beginning to growl at him.  The
last thing anyone needed at the moment was a dunf stampede.

"Have you found anything?"

Sarah jerked her head toward the pile of furs Riker had emerged from.
"I think I've been drugged. I haven't seen any familiar faces, but
someone may have recognised me."  She tried to suppress a yawn, and
failed.

Riker nodded.  "That would fit right in with what I've heard.  Rald
said we're going to meet his *friends* after everyone is asleep.  I
think Rald's friends are going to be dropping by soon, by the looks of
things."  He gave Sarah's shoulders a gentle shake when he saw her
eyelids beginning to droop.  "Can you tell me anything else?"

*Stay awake, Cromwell.  You are not going to be brought down by a
piece of drugged fruit.  That's an order.  You got through the Roms,
and you can get through this.*  "I  saw  a woman marking the walls,
over there."  She indicated the direction with a wobbly nod.  It was
enough to upset her balance and send her bumping into Riker's chest.
There was a dunf growl as he helped her right herself into a sitting
position.  "Klevv don't mark in Mykba's basket," she continued, her
voice growing slow and thick.  "Data told me this procession's
Recorder is male, and if that's not enough, they certainly don't mark
in Romulan."

Riker looked in the direction Sarah had indicated.  Already, there was
a thin layer of pale blue moss dusting the Romulan symbols, but there
was no mistaking them.  "Data, go  take a look at that wall.  See if
there are any hidden doors or panels."

Data had only gone a few steps when purposely tripped over a sleeping
man. Near the marked wall, a few people were beginning to stir, Rald
and Kalat among them.

Catching Data's warning, Riker slipped a hand behind Sarah's head.
After whispering a quick but sincere apology, he began to kiss her
soundly, giving the appearance of roughness.  Cupping her head in one
hand, he slipped the other beneath her outer robe to simulate groping.
He could feel her muscles tense at his touch, but found no resistance.
Sarah understood.  It would look suspicious if they were found
talking, but if her captor decided to have a bit of sport with her, it
wouldn't be seen as unusual.  A little callous, if anyone knew about
the miscarriage, which she doubted highly, but not unusual.

By now, Sarah had little control over her own movements, the alien
drug making her sluggish and sloppy.  Although her hand-to-eye
coordination wasn't worth a half-credit at present, her hearing was
still clear and didn't seem to be fading.  That was interesting, she
noted, chancing a glance over Riker's head at the milling Klevv.   The
shapes and colours were still clear.  That could only mean that they
wanted her immobile, but not unconscious.  *Just like the table
room...*

Riker felt a hand on his back, strong but still.

"There's no time for that," Rald's gritty voice whispered.  "Take her
up and follow me."  With a motion of his gloved hand toward the marked
wall, Rald skirted his way through the soundly sleeping members of the
procession.  He looked at the captive as Riker lifted her up into his
arms.  Her strangely coloured eyes were mere slits, barely open, her
unmarked face expressionless. *Excellent.*  "You will be greatly
rewarded, my friend," he assured Riker, seeing a flicker of concern
cross the tall stranger's face.  "We all will."

Riker didn't think so, but held his tongue.  Next to the marked
section of wall, a stalactite vanished silently, revealing a man-made
passage into the rock.  *Holograms, thanks to our friends the
Romulans.*  He wondered exactly how much of the cave of Mykba's basket
was real. "Where are we going?"  There was a skeptical tone in Riker's
voice, although he had a pretty good idea where the passage would
ultimately take them.  Before setting off,  he nodded at Data, who
brought his phaser to ready position under his robe.

Rald's expression reminded Riker of a lizard just about to advance on
a nice, juicy fly.  All the Berrek man needed was the forked tongue.
"To reclaim our freedom, wanderer."

---

In Transporter Room Two, Miles O'Brien checked the co-ordinates, then
looked at the six figures on the platform.  Unlike the last group he'd
beamed down to that giant iceberg, this landing party did not need to
look like the natives. Instead, they were clad in arctic gear and
loaded with enough weapons to blow up half the bloody planet several
times over, or maybe the whole thing at once. At least that's what
O'Brien's cursory examination told him.  If, of course, the Romulans
didn't beat them to it.  O'Brien hadn't dismissed that possibility.

The Romulan commander who was meeting with Picard hadn't extended a
formal invitation for a landing party to visit the compound, so things
had come to this.  From all the speculations they'd made, combined
with the sensor scans they'd been able to complete during this freak
non-storm, which looked to O'Brien like the eye of a frozen hurricane,
he had been able to get a rough fix on the area of the compound.  It
was better than nothing, but still too much of a guess for his liking.
Time, however, wasn't a consideration.  They didn't have any.  "Ready,
sir?"

"We are ready," Worf affirmed, sounding like a predatory animal
annoyed at the interruption of his stalking.  "You may energise."

"Aye, sir."  O'Brien double-checked his calculations.  Deciding he was
as satisfied as he was going to get, he energised the transporter.
The six bodies disappeared into the silvery shimmering light and hum
of the transporter beam that he knew as well as his own heartbeat. He
shifted his attention to the control panel, making sure that each
member of the away team had completed transport.

Worf, positive.  Crusher, positive.  LaForge, positive.  Sinclair...
Sinclair...  A light flashed indicating that the storm activity was
resuming. There were occasional holes in the storms; the full fury
would take a while to develop, like a baby gearing up for an ear
splitting howl.  Still, it wasn't anything to leave to chance.

O'Brien's fingers flew over the keypad with frantic speed.  *Sweet
Mother of God...*  Sinclair, positive.  He couldn't allow himself the
luxury of relaxing a single muscle, couldn't blink, couldn't look away
for a moment.  A second light came on, letting him know the degree of
the storm.  Contrary to forecasts,  this one was coming on full force
almost immediately.  Without more than a second to deliberate, O'Brien
terminated transport on the last two officers.  A moment later, the
transporter padd played host to extremely confused ensigns Harden and
Schaeffer.

"Sorry, boys," O'Brien apologised, his broad Celtic features deflating
even as he flushed red.  "I couldn't get you through."

Schaeffer, a tall blond man with the beginnings of a thick mustache,
spoke up. "What about the others?"

"They made it," O'Brien assured him, turning his eyes back to the
readouts that surged across his viewscreen.  "I can try you again as
soon as the weather permits, sir."

Schaeffer nodded.  "How soon will that be?"

O'Brien sucked in a breath and stared hard at the screen, watching
great swirls of white devour the red and amber indicators that
symbolised the rest of the team.  "Can't say, sir."

---

"Then keep at it until he gives you *something*!  I don't have time to
wet-nurse you through a simple hostage negotiation.  Get back in there
and try to act like an officer, if that's even possible!"  The Romulan
commander slammed her data padd onto the desk, springing up from her
primitively uncomfortable chair like a military jack-in-the-box.
Once, as a child, her father had brought her the Earth toy, likely in
an attempt to rekindle her human mother's interest.  She hadn't liked
the toy, nor had her mother, and she disliked comparing herself to it
now.  She could feel her father's heart pounding in her chest; her
father's *Romulan* heart, strong and cunning.  She smiled from ear to
ear, savouring the moment.  Not only had they gotten their former
guest back, but she'd brought two new players to their little game.

Riker, the big one was called, and the other was Data.  She knew those
names from the stories her mother had told her in the afternoons,
before dinner.  The information Pirnak had given about them only
sweetened things.  Picard's first and second officers.  She wondered
if it weren't her birthday after all, with all the lovely presents
this little venture was getting her.  If only Pirnak could keep Picard
busy a little while longer... The centurion might be of some use after
all.

She brushed imaginary frost from her uniform and activated the
viewscreen so she could watch the next act of the drama being played
out in the tunnels. Pouring another tankard of Romulan ale, she
positioned herself, still standing, but close enough so that her
breath almost fogged the screen.  She didn't want to miss anything.
Even though it was imperative that she stay hidden and anonymous to
these Starfleeters, she might pay Cromwell a visit once they had her
safely ensconced in her old room.  What was triumph, after all,
without the chance to revel in it?  Her hand clenched into a fist, and
her breathing quickened as a rush of adrenaline surged through her.

On the screen, a miniature opening in the rock wall appeared, and two
dunf-robed figures stepped through.  One male, one female.  Rald, she
recalled, and his wife was called what? Kalat?  Yes, Kalat. They were
perfect puppets. Perfect.  They actually thought the Romulan Empire
gave a damn about their nomad ways.  What did it matter, what did
anything matter, as long as they got the crystals?

Despite Pirnak's best efforts, which the commander deemed feeble at
best, Picard wasn't bending.  She had expected as much.  Picard was
another one of her mother's stories, which were proving extremely
useful.  At least her mother had made one important contribution to
her career in Romulan service.  It almost made up for her human
failings.  Almost.  Still, like any good commander, she had more than
one plan for any given battle.  If Picard wouldn't help them, they
could make sure he couldn't help his own side, either.  Endless
bureaucratic prattle was an excellent delaying tactic.

The action on the screen captured the commander's attention.  Rald and
Kalat were followed by others.  One of them, a male taller and broader
of shoulder than the rest of them, possessed of a magnificent flowing
beard, carried Cromwell's small, limp form.  The other face that was
new to her must be the one called Data.  The android.  It really was a
pity that they wouldn't have time to tinker with his insides, but time
was at a premium.  Maybe afterward, when she had the luxury of
exploration.

She pressed a button on the communication panel next to the
viewscreen.  "Get your instruments ready.  They're bringing her in
now.  No matter what else you can accomplish, I want the probe
removed."  The commander steepled her fingers in front of the thin
line of her mouth.  Blood raced through her  veins at warp speed,
nearly aphrodisiac in feeling.

It wasn't really all that bad that Cromwell had spent a bit of time on
the *Enterprise*.  All of that time, she had been taking in new
information, which would be an unexpected bonus.  Since Picard hadn't
asked Pirnak about the probe, it was safe to assume there could be
more intelligence stored in its microunits than days worth of torture
could get out of the woman.  As challenging as torture was, the
probe's information would come much more easily.

*This,* she decided, *is going to be good.*

---

Picard was certain that he'd heard wrong.  "Ensign, repeat that."

The transmission crackled over the antiquated circuits of Governor
Anderson's communication console.  They were lucky, the governor had
interrupted twice to tell Picard, to have this clear an audio
transmission; visual communication under these circumstances really
was too much to hope for.  The storms were just a matter of fact on
Philemon Three.  Nothing to get upset about, just something to be
dealt with.

A weak, raspy voice, which was probably perfectly fine on the
*Enterprise* end of things, popped and whined.  "We're detecting
subspace transmissions, sir. In Romulan, but they're not meant for
us."

"Elaborate."  Picard and Anderson glared at Pirnak, who was just
returning from the governor's restroom.  "Who *are* they meant for?"

There was a high-pitched, ear splitting whine.  "We can't tell, sir,
but the compound would be the most logical target.  The only possible
source is off-planet; probably a cloaked vessel."  There was a sizzle
and pop of circuits, then silence.

"Is it?"  Picard asked Pirnak shortly, before the man even had a
chance to react to the transmission. "At least you have the grace to
looked surprised," he observed, glaring at the Romulan.

Pirnak took a step backward, as though Picard's words had actual
physical force.  "You think I know anything about this?"

"Yes, I do.  I think you know exactly what's going on, and I would
greatly appreciate your telling me what the Romulan vessel is doing
here, and why it is cloaked."

Gathering what little courage he had, Pirnak managed to look wounded,
his eyes widening with an expression of shock.  "Captain, whatever
would give you the impression that the Romulan Empire means any harm?
If, and I do mean if, there is a cloaked Romulan vessel in the
vicinity, maybe they just don't care to be shot at by the Federation's
flagship.  We don't like dying any more than you do."

Picard merely arched an eyebrow in response.

Anderson coughed and fussed with his cup as his eyes darted from
Picard to Pirnak.  Admitting that his tongue seemed to have deserted
him for the time being, he looked to Picard imploringly.

With a determined glint in his eyes, Picard rose from the chair.
"Centurion Pirnak, if you have any knowledge at all of what a cloaked
Romulan vessel is doing orbiting Philemon Three, now would be an
excellent time to share that knowledge."  When there was no reaction,
he continued.  "We have other ways of learning this and recovering our
officers.  Co-operation on your part can only help you, but it's not
necessary for us.  At this moment, I  have a security team beamed to
the surface, advancing on your compound.  Commanding officer to
commanding officer, I ask you to think of the lives that could be
saved by the sharing of information."

Anderson looked on as though the two bristling men dueling words in
front of him were characters in a holo-movie.

Pirnak swallowed, feeling the prickles of nerves climb up and down his
neck. The commander hadn't prepared him for something like this.  They
were supposed to have the upper hand; Romulans always did in such
matters, but it looked as though it might not be so in this particular
case.  "If that is the truth," he forced himself to say evenly, "then
tell my why you agreed to this meeting.  If you already knew where
your officers were, and how to get them out, what did you need from
me?  Why not just  invade the compound and take them?"

A slow, satisfied smile creased Picard's face as he chuckled and
raised his vial in salute.  "Commander, can you tell me *you* have
been completely honest?"  He drained the vial and set it back on the
table, fighting the urge to make a face at the bitterness of the hot
liquid.  He could see the Romulan's change of expression.  Although
the centurion was trying to appear calm, Picard could tell he'd hit on
something.

Millions of thoughts warred in Pirnak's head.  On the one hand, the
human captain could by lying.  It was possible he knew nothing, that
the new of the ship's arrival was as new to Picard as it was to
Pirnak. On the other hand, it was also possible that Picard knew what
was going on.  There was every reason that he could have bought time
during this meeting, just  as Pirnak had been doing.  In that respect,
all commanding officers, or those pretending to be, were alike.

There was no time to consult with the commander herself now, no chance
of gaining any more information that might be useful.  Pirnak was on
his own.  It both excited and terrified him, though shame at his own
terror threatened to overtake the other emotions.

---

"I have it," Eliva announced triumphantly, crawling backward from the
remains of the toilet.  Delicate trickles of perspiration moistened
her face and hands and dripped from the saucers of her antennae.  She
tried to calm herself with thoughts of her Andorian jungle home,
trying to call to mind the beautifully soothing sounds of beetles that
lived in the walls of her childhood bedroom. She could remember how
their clicking would sing her to sleep, of how delicious they were
when she and her siblings managed to catch one scurrying across the
floor at sunrise, but the rest of the memory seemed to be beyond her.
She couldn't call to mind the feeling of cracking their shells between
her back teeth, or the sound it made.  The present was too strong.  "I
think."

"You *think*?" Jeffrey Taylor couldn't believe what he'd just heard.
"What do you mean, you *think*?"

Eliva reshaped the wire she'd adapted back into its original form and
stuck it haphazardly into her tumbled white hair.  "I mean," she
stated crisply, an insect-like hiss creeping into her voice, "that I
have done the best I can do in attempting to assimilate Federation
techniques to non-Federation technology to achieve the desssired
resssult."  All of her words came out in one steady stream, without a
single pause. "Would *you* like to take a look at it?"

Taylor shook his head.

Sabu eyed the makeshift explosive sceptically, then looked at Eliva.
She looked calm.  She looked confident.  She looked beautiful.  She
looked like a bug.  *The bug look is always good. At least it means
she knows what she's doing.  Somebody should.*  "What do we do now?"

"Now," she decided, giving the toilet one final look, "we get as far
away from it as possible.  Due to the combination of chemicals which I
have ssset in motion," pause, "it will explode in less than one
minute."  *More or less...* She glided to the door, the melodious
sounds of her beetles at last clicking in her ears, taking her mind
off the frantic beating of her heart and the fact that she was
responsible for the lives of the two men who were her closest friends.
"We need to get clossse to the door."

Sabu and Taylor followed her mutely, not daring to look at the
chemical reaction that was already progressing with sinister speed.
Small bubbles rose from the container, a crackling sound teasing at
the outer limits of the humans' hearing.

---

Riker noticed that the scenery had changed abruptly, as though
construction workers had walked off in the middle of a job.  After
following Rald and Kalat around only one corner, Riker saw that the
artificial tunnels no longer simulated the natural rock.  Walls of
metal rose smoothly from the constructed floor to a ceiling only
centimetres above Riker's head.  He took perverse comfort in knowing
the Romulans were as cramped as he was.

The air itself was close, confined, and stale.  Romulan air, perfectly
fine for them, but unpleasant for a human.  He knew that all too well,
and Sarah even more so.  He could feel her instinctively tighten those
muscles she had any measure of control over at the change in
atmosphere, her heart beginning to race.  Kalat, walking in front of
them, seemed to be at home in the Romulan environment that was either
suited to Philemites or adapted so that it would be comfortable.
Riker's money was on the adaptation.  Romulan and Philemite climates
were too dissimilar to make things easy.  Kalat's stance, movements,
and attitude conveyed that this wasn't her first time traveling in
these hallways.  The same went for Rald, who was beginning to add a
bit of a swagger to his steps.

As if the Berrek man had read Riker's thoughts, he spoke softly, but
with the passion of true dedication to his cause.  "There is no need
for concern.  We are tethered to Mykba.  We have been here before,
Kalat and I.  Here," he gestured to the expanse of the corridor, "we
have friends:  helpful friends who know of our need.  The Others."

"The Others?" Riker's voice echoed throughout the sterile corridor.

Without breaking his stride, Rald looked back over his shoulder at
Riker.  "The Others.  Those whom Mykba had given to wander the stars.
Odd though it may seem at first, it is possible.  You have not seen
them yourself, I am sure."

"They are not so strange to look on," Kalat added, turning to smile at
Data as her pace slowed. "They are much like this one."  She gestured
toward Sarah with a flip of a hand.  "They are unmarked, and their
colours are different, as though they dwell always in Mykba's basket.
Mykba marks us all in different ways, it would seem."

"So it would," Data agreed.  As he walked, the android busily scanned
the construction and composition of the walls, searching for hidden
doorways or control panels.  To the best of his knowledge, the
facilities were only temporary.  He could think of seven stronger
materials the Romulans could have chosen to build their underground
shelter from, two of them native materials commonly produced by the
Merb.  The only logical conclusion he could draw was that they did not
wish the city-dwelling Philemites to know of their involvement with
the Others.  "Have we much father to go?" he asked, looking back over
his shoulder for effect.  "It would seem odd to the rest of the
procession were they to wake and find us missing."

Rald waved a hand in dismissal.  "Our absences will be explained by
loyal companions if it is necessary to do so.  Depending on our
friends, it may not matter.  Your arrival in our procession has
brought us more than what we had..."  He stopped short as the dim
overhead lighting flickered.  After only a second, he resumed his
pace, but this time more hurried.  "These things are of no account."

Sarah, draped limply over Riker's shoulder, could only watch.  They
were headed, most likely, for a room she was uncomfortably familiar
with.  The bloody table room.  She could still feel the ghosts of the
disruptors piercing through her body at her stony silence in response
to her captors' questions. The hands, in memory, were again groping,
pinching, tearing at her clothes, exposing her tender and abraded
flesh to the punishingly cold air.  They slapped and scraped against
her skin, probed her body with surgical precision and cold efficiency.

As always, the voices echoed in her ears.  *Devil.  Freak.  Are you
hungry, Lieutenant?  Would you like some food?  We have fresh meat,
you know.  No maggots; not a one, I checked it myself, since I do so
hate those little wriggly worms.  What purpose does the Federation
have for the mining settlement?  Now, what's in the carafe, I wonder?
Fresh milk?  Some of that sweet juice I had this morning?  It's like
nectar, absolute nectar.  When will the equipment arrive?  What
weapons do they possess?  How many people will be stationed there?
How many officers?  Did I spill some of that on your robe?  I'm sorry.
Let me take it for you.  You don't want to be wearing a soiled robe,
now, do you?"*

*Raise the setting.  That was the lowest one, Lieutenant.  It was
mild, compared to the next one.  Who is in command of the
installation?  There are many, many ways we can persuade you to help
us.  Just tell me what equipment will arrive.  What ship will be
bringing it.  You're shivering.  It must be cold in here without a
robe.  Wouldn't you like a blanket? I believe my friend by the door
there has an extra robe in his quarters.  I could send him for it, if
you'd like.  It's not good for the child to be cold, you know.  What
kind of mother allows her child to be cold, when she has warmth right
within her reach?  Just tell us... just tell us... just tell us.
Justtellusjusttellusjusttellus...*

The lights flickered again, and Sarah felt a slight change in the real
temperature, although the table room in her memory was still as frigid
as hell. The heat of the corridor, if she could term it that, went up,
then down again, as though someone had been fiddling with the climate
controls.  She didn't recall anything like that from her previous
experience in the compound, but she had her theories.  The shifts were
irregular, but there might be a pattern in anything.  All she'd have
to do is watch for it.  *Good thing that.  It's all there is to do.*

Sarah bounced as Riker stumbled over an irregular bend in the
flooring.  Now she knew exactly where they were; she'd tripped over
that warp in the floor countless times herself, and instinctively
cringed from the blow to the back of her head that had always
accompanied her stumble.  It didn't come.  She focused her attention
on the corridor.  One, two, th ee more sections of flooring until the
panel.

Rald placed a firm hand on  section of wall that was marked with both
Romulan and Philemite characters.  As his hand touched the smooth
metal, a section of floor slid away, revealing a downward ramp.
Green-yellow lights, each no bigger than a stylus point, lined the
ramp, disappearing down into the darkness.  Rald allowed Kalat to
enter first, resting his hand on the small of her back as she
descended.

The intimate gesture surprised Riker, although he didn't know why.
He'd seen that the Berrek had spouses and children, just like anybody
else.  There wasn't any room for sympathies, not when these particular
Berrek were still under suspicion.  He cleared his throat.  "What is
this place?"  Riker was sure that if Sarah were able to speak, she'd
also be able to tell him.  He was equally sure that he didn't want to
know.

Next to him, Data was analysing each new bit of information.  Rald and
Kalat obviously had some sort of security clearance in order to have
access to such a restricted area.  A knowledge of some rudimentary
Romulan would be necessary, since there were no more Philemite
markings on any of  the screens lining the walls at the end of the
ramp.  Romulan characters flashed across the dark screens, giving the
locations and prospects of several of the Federation mining sites.

If Data possessed what humans terms a gut, it would have told him
there was something amiss in the emptiness of the room.  It was not
like Romulans to leave such important information unguarded.  Besides
that, the air itself was too still, like the last moment in the eye of
a storm.

"Where are we?" Riker repeated, not bothering to mask his annoyance.
If the gloves had to come off a little early, he didn't have a problem
with it.  He wasn't going to be swayed just because the bad guy was
nice to his wife once in a while.  "Does it belong to the..." he had
the word *Romulans* on the tip of his tongue, but swallowed it,
replacing it with, "Others?"

Kalat smiled, her mouth a thin, satisfied line of bloodless white.
"Yes.  It is not new to *you *, Dtaa, is it?"

"I have seen such things before," Data admitted, moving to one of the
screens in order to scan the information there.  Rald stepped in front
of him.

"We have an appointment first, my friend.  Rek, I thank you for your
help.  One day, when you and your children and their children wander
beyond the mountains with your vast herds of dunfs, you will remember
this moment, and know that this moment has brought that moment to be."
Rald held out his strong muscled arms, indicating that Riker should
pass Sarah to him.

---

When the hum of the transporter faded from his hearing, Worf took a
quick count of his companions, coming up two short.  He slammed his
hand  into his communicator.  "Worf to Enterprise!"  There was only a
garbled, whining beep in response.  A Klingon curse split the sound of
the wind and bounced off the distant mountains as Worf roared his
anger.

Beverly Crusher felt a lump rise in her throat as she noticed
Schaeffer and Harden weren't with them.  "It must be the storm," she
rationalised, blinking away the silt-fine flakes of snow that blew
into her eyes.  Geordi was there, and Worf, and Sinclair.  She would
have preferred the two extra security officers, and no doubt Worf was
thinking the same thing from that... sound he made.  It reminded her
of the  Klingon death roar.  While the officers' death was certainly a
possibility, she preferred to entertain others.  "O'Brien probably had
to bring them back."

Worf nodded.  "We cannot wait," he told her firmly, the growl of his
 blood lust fighting for dominance with his words.  Taking the
 modified tricorder Geordi had given him, he stared at it intently,
 sweeping the general area.  "There." The Klingon pointed off into the
 distance, at one of the innumerable drifts that covered the planet's
 surface.  He turned to Sinclair.  "Does the area seem familiar to
 you?"

"I feel like I'm inside a bowl of sugar," she confessed, squinting
into the blowing snow.  "I am picking up traces of the crystal."

"That's good," Geordi assured her.  "I don't think the Berrek set out
to be nomads; they just got lost."

Sinclair laughed at that, earning a disapproving look from Worf.  She
knew the seriousness of the situation, but Geordi's jest had taken her
mind off what might have happened to Harden and Schaeffer.  No matter
what Doctor Crusher said, there were lots of reasons why a transport
didn't complete.  She didn't care to think about any of them.  There
were too many people missing, and under too harsh conditions to expect
that everyone would be recovered unharmed.  That had been one of the
first things that had stuck in her mind in Security training. Still,
she could hope.  She chewed on the inside of her lower lip, turning
her attention back to the tricorder.  "Commander LaForge, sir?"

Geordi stamped through a knee-high drift to reach her.  "What's up?"

"I forgot how to compensate for the..." Sinclair's words broke off as
Worf glared at her.  She felt a little less nervous when she noticed
the doctor place her hand on the Klingon's arm and look at Geordi
hopefully.

"No problem," Geordi said, taking the device from Sinclair.  "All we
have to do is make sure we're looking at the right thing.  Since the
crystals act like natural cloaking device, finding them is almost
impossible.  We'll forget about them.  What we're going to look for
instead is the waste produced by the modifications the Romulans make
to the crystals.  That way, when we find the crystals, we find the
Romulans."  He made a few minor adjustments and handed the instrument
back to Sinclair. "See?  You were ninety-nine percent of the way to
compensating without my help.  You're doing just fine."

Sinclair smiled gratefully, her pleasant, freckled features
registering genuine relief.  "Thanks."  She took a deep breath of
arctic air.  It was seeming more unreal by the minute, but maybe
thinking of things that way might be the best way to get through what
would come.  Lieutenant Worf's orders were to use whatever force
necessary to reclaim any Starfleet officers they found inside the
compound.  The Romulans hadn't given much help, of course, saying
they'd happily return captive officers after they got what they wanted
from the *Enterprise*.  Exactly what they wanted must be something
classified, since nobody on this team, with the possible exception of
Worf, who wasn't talking, had any idea what it was.

*Just play like it's a training exercise, Brina,* Sinclair told
herself, pushing forward.  *Better yet, it's a game on the holodeck.
You like games. Fifty points for every Romulan disabled, one hundred
for every officer removed. Bonus round if you neutralise any
hostilities...*

Prompted by the brush-up session he'd given Sinclair, Geordi went over
the tricorder modifications with the others.  The Romulans had found a
treasure trove in  those crystals.  The things made damn fine cloaking
devices all by themselves, just sitting there.  With a few nudges from
modern technology, though, you could hide your head from the rest of
your body and never find it.  Geordi privately referred to the
technological nudges as "crystal poop."

*That* stuff was a different story.  Microscopic, to be sure, but
definitely detectable if you knew where to look.  "Kills their whole
party," he finished his explanation with a triumphant grin.  Worf
looked as though he liked that idea a lot.

Beverly checked her medpack one last time.  She wasn't about to go
through another medical improvisation like she had with Geordi's dunf
attack, and Worf had told her to prepare for the worst.  The Romulans
would be ready to do anything to keep what and who they had, and they
weren't likely to play nice. *Play nice.  What a thing to think of.
Play nice with the other kids, Wes... share... don't hit...*  She
shook her head to clear it.  Maybe little kids and grown-ups weren't
all that different.  Turning her attention back to the task at hand,
she weighed the medpack that hung from her shoulder and mentally
counted the supplies.  There were enough bandages to make a dozen
mummies, an assortment of hypos with mini- pharmacies for both humans
and Andorians, not to mention the Klingon necessities in case anything
happened to Worf.  All the tools for field surgery were in place,
including a portable sterile field, although she figured she wouldn't
have a chance to set it up.  Clicking the pack closed, she nodded her
readiness to Worf.

The huge Klingon's eyes, narrowed to slits, were focused on the drift
dead in front of them, at the end of their vision.  It was if he could
see through the mound of heaped snow, through the cloak, and into the
bowels of the Romulan compound if he just stared hard enough.  His
shoulders heaved with the force of his breathing under the thick
parka.  A low animal groan accompanied each breath.  Still, when he
spoke, his voice was even and clear, the result of Klingon warrior
spirit tempered by Starfleet training.

"Our objective is to liberate any Starfleet officers we may
encounter."  As he spoke, Worf checked his weapons.  "By the
transmission sent from the compound, there are three that we know of.
There may be more.  Since it is uncertain when additional security
will follow us, we will assume we are the only team planetside."  He
took a deep breath of the arctic air, his nostrils flaring at the
faint scent of Romulan blood carried by the whipping wind.  He refused
to consider that he might be sensing his desire for blood rather than
the real thing.  "Are there any questions?"

He was met with a round of no's.

"Good."

Without warning, the pristine mountain of snow at the edge of their
vision exploded into a bright ball of orange fire.

---

TO BE CONCLUDED IN TAPESTRY FOUR: SNOWSHADOWS!