Watching the Sunset

Section 5

The ship was moving again. Captain Picard watched as the nothing before him resolved to the shape of his captor, but without the sense of malice that Picard felt before. "I am nearly finished. We are now traveling to Keleia Sigma B, called Yoilu by those who live there. I will return you to the Enterprise shortly," Data said calmly.

Picard frowned, "Why are you doing this?"

"I need to, that is why."

Picard rolled his head in frustration. He knew Data could be aggravatingly literal when answering questions. He would just have to ask more pointedly. "Why do you need to?"

Data walked to the invisible wall and set his hand on it. An expanse filled with stars appeared where before there was nothing. A planet hung like a jewel in space, a striking silver and green. No clouds clung to the curve of the planet; the emerald continents glowed through the atmosphere without blemish. The silver oceans reflected the starlight as a mirror. "Below the surface there is a danger that must be undone."

Picard stood up and walked to the starry wall, almost awed by the beauty of the cloudless planet. "You are here to undo it," Picard stated.

Data turned to look at the captain. "No," he said simply.

"Then what are you doing?" Picard asked angrily.

"Watching. Setting you on your way. When the time comes, do as you must, but do not stop me," Data said forcefully.

Captain Picard felt the ship turn into orbit around the great planet. He watched as the silver surface of the planet turned below. A great black shape slowly came into view. The black shape was enormous; it moved over the sea like several serpents, waving about like Medusa’s hair. And it was growing. It was growing fast enough to be visible in space. Picard had no doubt that this was the danger Data spoke about. He saw the very surface of the planet swallowed up in a black cloud behind the snaking shape.

"What is that?" Picard asked in horror.

Data looked at him, then back at the surface of the planet. "That," he said, "will destroy the universe."

"And you are here to watch," Picard ground out.

"Yes," Data answered simply.

Picard glared at the gold-skinned being next to him. Data felt the stare and looked up, almost smiling. His expression was pleased. "You do not know what it is I will watch. Let time take its course. I do not change the past; what will be will be." He looked back at the planet, watching as the dark blotch on the silver surface moved below.

Captain Picard had no idea what to make of that. He could not believe the real Data would sit by and watch as a great blackness destroyed the universe. How did he even know if he was telling the truth? He felt like hitting his captor. How could he be so happy about watching a black worm-thing destroy a planet? It was very much something Q would do, to make him sit and watch helplessly as destruction rained down upon the planet below. If this was Q beside him, then he might repair the damage, but then he might not. In any event, Picard had nothing to do but wait.

Commander Riker looked up at the viewscreen. His breath caught. This was the most exquisite planet he had ever seen. Keleia Sigma B outclassed the beautiful Vs; Vs bore the loveliest shades of blue and green, but Keleia Sigma B was silver. The ocean sparkled like diamonds, unobstructed by clouds, while the green of the continents appeared as jewels in a setting. For a moment, he was lost in the colors of the planet.

Ensign Sier reported from Tactical, "The planet’s oceans are almost entirely composed of mercury, Commander."

Snapping out of his reverie, Riker looked back at Nazzi ad Sier. "So you’re saying the oceans are pretty to look at but you wouldn’t swim in them."

Sier hissed a snicker. "There are life forms in the ocean. They don’t seem to mind."

Data looked up at the viewscreen, transfixed by what he saw there. "Silver sea...and a black thing that caused pain...how could she know? How could she know?" His voice was almost inaudible.

Riker glanced at Data, who still lay on the floor. "Who knew what?" he asked, concerned that this might be something important, but unsure if it was just more insanity.

Data smiled wickedly. "It is easier than I thought. I wonder what else I could do...?" Data slumped back to the carpet, his eye closed and his expression aggrieved.

Nazzi looked back at Tactical, her slit pupils narrowing. "We have a distress call from the surface," she said in a clipped tone.

Riker wiped his beard and muttered quietly, "Of course we do." He slapped his hand to his side and said, "Open a channel."

They received no visual, just an audio message. The voice was insectoid. "Star farers, please, we need your help."

Riker figured he could hazard a guess as to the problem, but he felt it best to let them explain. "This is Commander Riker of the starship Enterprise. What seems to be the problem?"

"Please come down, it would be easier to explain the exact trouble," the voice said over the comm channel. "Planetwide distress...Qctvtjstryu has finally loosed itself on our world."

Data leapt back like he’d been struck by molten metal. He staggered to his feet, using the Conn as a handhold...crushing the armrest in his hands. "QCT! Qct, qct, qct....!" Riker looked at him in shock, while on the comm line the voice asked, "Is there problems there too?"

The Android ripped the hanging bit of thin outer skin off his exoskeleton so hard it took part of his uniform with it. He flung the damp pseudo-flesh in Riker’s face and demanded in a voice several levels too high in volume, "TAKE ME DOWN THERE NOW!!"

Riker gasped and shoved the dripping Android gore off his face. "Sier! Get him off the bridge!"

At the order, Sier jumped over the horseshoe and aimed her phaser at Data, intending to threaten him. In a flash the Deitang ducked back, almost falling over, as four razor sharp gold blades snapped out over her head. Riker’s eyes widened; those blades were actually formed of Data’s exoskeleton!

"TAKE ME DOWN TO YOILU NOW!"

He slapped his communicator and shouted, "Transporter! Transport Data site-to-site to the brig!"

Before Data could react, the blue annular confinement grabbed him and beamed him off the bridge. Riker exhaled loudly, while Sier stood up and growled.

"Commander Riker...how...did you know the name of our world?"

Habitually turning back to the viewscreen, Riker wiped some of the viscous organic fluid that passed as Data’s blood out of his beard. "I’m sorry...you needed someone to come down there? I’ll be down shortly."

"Thank you," the voice said, and then the line closed after some coordinates were sent.

Riker sat back heavily in the Captain’s chair for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Then he said, "Deanna, Sier, come on, we have another problem to attend to." He got up, and the two followed him to the Turbolift. He tapped his comm badge, "Geordi, meet us in the Transporter room."

"Yes sir," the engineer replied.

To himself, Riker wondered, "What’s next?"

* * *

Lonely on a planet sat the abandoned one. The cast off, unwanted, rejected, undesired pool of trash...

And that self-righteous bastard Picard...it knew he had made it so no one would ever come here again. It knew that...that no one would ever come here again, and that it would remain in its solitude, screaming in its head out of boredom and hatred of anything and everything. There were not enough rocks to throw, boulders to crush, plants to kill, nothing left to torture to death...

The shuttle craft remained, derelict, useless, hopeless to repair...it knew a lot, massive amounts...it could repair the craft if there had been any raw materials left on this dead hulk of a world, this prison. But they had been sure there wouldn’t be, they stripped everything useful off their homeworld just so it would never escape.

They could cast it off, but not destroy it. Maybe they were too good for that now; maybe they thought it was the nice thing to do, leave it here to rot. It hissed, the only thought to content itself with was the one that they were wrong and had committed SIN after they cast it off. They hadn’t gotten rid of it...it was still there infecting their fine kind little black stained hearts.

But thoughts wouldn’t get it off this planet.

Just as it was winding up for another long hopelessly useless pounding on that shuttle to vent frustrations, something stood on the planet. It whipped around, rising up in a humanesque shape to confront the intruder. "Who are you," Armus hissed.

"A visitor." The other was as black as Armus, but it knew that was not its natural color. It could feel subspace warped around it.

Armus tugged at the subspace, making the shadow cover drift a little like smoke, but it couldn’t pull the creature’s disguise away. "Show me yourself!"

The shadow creature merely stepped closer. "I have a proposition to make." The other, more humanoid shaped than Armus could be, had a voice like birds...a sound Armus hadn’t heard in centuries, not since he had ripped the feathers off the last bird to live on this planet. Its bird-voice was fierce, clipped...as if it spat the words out of its mouth because they were so vile.

Armus laughed. "Entertain me, then we’ll talk."

It could feel the shadow creature tense, but it...his...voice was calm. "I have something better in mind. How would you like to leave this dead planet, this prison?"

It was Armus’ turn to tense. It remembered Picard again... "You plan on tricking me? What possible reason could you have to take me from here? What do you want?"

The shadow paced, kicking at the dirt around Armus, then with a wide, powerful move, he kicked sand in Armus’ face. The dirt and pebbles adhered to its oily form, and Armus screamed, lashing out with power at the shadow.

But his power bounced off the creature, with no effect. Armus screamed again, casting out more power, trying to rip the creature’s arms off, but again, nothing. The creature was not unfazed, however; he had to stand and hold his arms up, as if he were creating a forcefield.

Armus noted this and calmed somewhat, smiling inwardly, confident he could break this creature eventually. "So...why do you want to take me from this planet?"

The other stood stock still, and Armus felt him gathering a huge resistance in himself. He wanted to do something violent, it could feel the desire...then it sensed something else unfamiliar, a power rising in him. But Armus felt no threat.

"I have...something for you. You should be rewarded, and I have a fitting reward for you. Come with me, let me show you." His voice was still strained.

It flicked a rock away idly. "I don’t see why." It was obvious to Armus that this creature wanted it to come with him...badly enough to visit, badly enough to fight himself over it, so it decided to play a little, certain that it would still get off the planet, after having some fun.

The shadow man lowered himself before Armus, kneeling so that his head was lower than its. Armus laughed heartily. "Are you placing yourself at my mercy?"

A faint smile sensed behind darkness. "Yes. You will have all the time history has left to torment me."

Armus scrutinized this shadow shape. It sensed there was more, something else he was about to say but didn’t. "What else?"

"A chance at...revenge."

"Revenge...?" Now its curiosity was definitely piqued.

"Indeed...against a man, a human you might remember..." The dark one drew his long fingers along the ground in lazy circles.

Armus hissed slightly. The balance of power had shifted...now the shadow was playing with it. But it couldn’t resist the bait. "Who? Who is this human and how do you know him?"

The shadow man extended his black fingers almost to touch Armus’ humanoid form. "Jean-Luc Picard."

Armus growled, and it felt power going out of him just in fury over that name. "Revenge! On that monster in human clothing!"

"Yes," the other whispered, "a chance to harm him, to frustrate him, to twist a knife in his gut...so to speak." Fingers touched black. "He will be helpless before you."

It flinched away from the touch, sensing a force more powerful than its own, but it was intrigued at the same time. The chance to exact revenge on Picard...and the chance to leave this planet...with the promise that this man in black would allow it to torment him forever...

Armus considered the man darkly. "That sounds too good to be true."

"Perhaps. But I do not lie." The shadow plunged his fist in Armus’ viscous form.

Armus growled, angry at the shadow’s boldness, but in a flicker the shadows fell away and for an instant he saw the stranger. "You! The machine!"

Darkness shrouded him again. "That is how I know. I always keep my word." Before Armus could answer, it felt itself drawn up and into the false man’s fist, into his arm, into the power field Armus had thought was no threat. It was...it was a prison, just smaller, and Armus was just as helpless to escape it as it had been the planet.

Inside the tiny field, Armus howled. "You lied! You lied!"

"No, I have not lied. You must learn...delayed gratification."

An instant later there was nothing left on Vagra II but a beaten shuttle craft, footprints, and a few circles in the dirt.

* * *

Picard stood fuming at the viewscreen, angry and helpless as he watched a world torn apart at the seams. He glared at the side of his companion’s face. "How can you stand to watch this?!" he demanded.

The being who claimed to be Data looked back at Picard dispassionately. "It is not easy. This is very difficult for me."

Picard had a hard time believing that. "If it’s so difficult, why are you just sitting here watching?"

Data looked back out at the planet. "I am not just watching. Right now I am raving like a madman. It occurred to me far more than once to wonder how you and your crew could trust me...I have been always half insane, as you might say, and far more dangerous than you ever seemed to realize." He turned his eyes to look at Picard sidelong. "But you knew that, did you not?"

Picard crossed his arms. "Yes, I knew. Sometimes it surprised me that Starfleet never decommissioned you and locked you away...not often however. You were as much an asset as a danger, and we trusted you. No, we trusted Data, you do not inspire any trust the way he does."

"You trust me, because I am Data."

"I don’t believe it. Data can’t do what you do, and he would never dare."

Data turned and walked a little way from the viewscreen, then faced Picard. "Do you know how old I am? The time counted in Terran years would be meaningless to you they are so vast. Do you not think in that time I could have learned of things that would cause me to commit to this course you find incomprehensible? That I would know I had to do this for hundreds of thousands of trillions of centuries, and that I would learn how to do it and modify myself to do it? At this instant, in the Enterprise, I am capable of traveling through time at a whim, but I have not realized it yet. I have done it before. I will do it again."

Picard dropped his arms to his side and looked back at Data, considering him thoughtfully. "So you mean to say that this is your past, and you know how it turns out?"

"This is my present...right now. But it did occur in my past as well."

"And you know how it turns out...but you won’t say, will you."

Data shook his head. "You know I cannot."

Picard narrowed his eyes. "Why the games? I feel as though you were manipulating us all."

"I am."

Such a simple statement. The Captain barely restrained himself from decking his captor. Data saw the tensed muscles but didn’t flinch. "I did not say I was enjoying it. I am sorry to have had to resort to such tactics; it is not you I have manipulated so much as Commander Riker...and I have done such damage to myself I will never forget it nor be free of it, but it was worth it. It is not the first, but the best, and the worst, record of lives lived that I have kept...I am an eternity of other’s memories. Now, it is time for you to return, and for the hand to be played out."

Suddenly everything went dark, and the silver dappled Arabian that had brought him here kneeled before Picard.

Riker, Troi, La Forge, and Sier beamed down to the location the Yoilu had sent them. It was on the shore of a wide silver sea; beneath their feet crunched golden-red sand and lush green plants grew on the nearby bluffs.

It was a dry climate for being next to the ocean, but considering the ocean was made of mercury, that wasn’t surprising. It was a beautiful place, but the four didn’t get a chance to really appreciate it, for there was an uncanny stillness in the air and the ground trembled faintly but ominously.

Troi rubbed her head. "There’s a lot of intense emotion here...but I guess that should be expected, since they said they were in trouble."

"They mentioned that Cocutsomethingorother...the Vstrak, remember, that they said crash landed on this planet? And that they said they’d received a communications from here about it?"

"Oh, yes."

"...But did our scanners pick up anything?" Riker directed this question to Sier, wishing they had had a better chance to look in on the planet.

"No, unfortunately. We were a little preoccupied," she hissed in annoyance.

"Well," Riker sighed, "let’s go see what’s wrong then."

Geordi scanned the area with his tricorder and pointed them toward the bluffs. After a short walk they turned to the south and came to a small enclave of huts. Creatures peeked out of them that looked very much like golden hued crabs. They balanced themselves on their hind legs somewhat the way a grasshopper might, but they had wide flipper-like feet that came under their large, domed shells, so they were technically bipedal. They had tiny lobster tails and two rows of appendages, the first set ending in three muscular ‘fingers’ that had no exoskeleton. Their stalked eyes were emerald green.

The beings all seemed very fidgety, their antennae twitching nervously. The Away Team passed through the huts to what looked like a clay dais in the center. On it stood a Yoiluran with exceptionally striking markings on its shell. In one tentacled appendage it held a gemstone like a ruby, but it seemed to be on fire.

As the Away Team approached, the Yoiluran hopped off the dais and looked toward them imploringly, or as imploringly as a crab can.

"Are you Commander Riker?" the creature asked, and the Away Team could tell it took great care to pronounce his name correctly.

"Yes, I am." Then he introduced the other members of his Away Team. The Yoiluran carefully pronounced their names after he said them.

"It is good to meet you. I am Jhanai Dormung, the current king of Yoilu...." He said this with a sort of clicking sound, reminiscent of a sigh. "My kingship will not last long, I think. Qctvtjstryu has loosed itself at last."

Trying his best to sound calm, Riker asked, "What has Cocutvitjistryu done? We had heard from the Vstrak there were legends...."

Dormung clicked two small claws together. "Yes, yes...many ages ago, long after we sought out a new land, the Vstrak attempted space exploration. It failed; it is not generally known, but the Yoilu did not originate here...we are from Vs. Somehow the Yoilu can travel in space while the Vstrak cannot...but one ship long ago made landfall on Yoilu with a sole survivor...Qctvtjstryu. It attempted to eat us, but we sealed it away in the cavern its ship crashed in. For many years it was forgotten, but scientists realized that it was growing, and eating...somehow this mad Vstrak had begun to drain the energy of our world! It carved holes for itself, and there was a great deal of tectonic disturbance from it. But now...Commander Riker, you have come just in time. If it were possible, if your star faring ship is large enough, could you take some of us, some of the younger Yoilu, back to Vs? Qctvtjstryu has become too large, and we fear in a few days Yoilu will crack like the egg around a newborn just emerging."

Riker was dumbfounded for a moment. The thought of something eating away the inside of a planet...and growing so huge it was generating a gravitational field of its own apparently as strong as the planet’s...it was staggering. "Of course...yes, of course...with the permission of the Vstrak, would could probably transport about 3,000 of you at once, drop you off, and come back for more. I don’t know how many we could transport in the time you have left, but I would guess at least 30,000 if we used all our resources."

The Yoiluran king actually swayed and staggered, almost dropping the crystal he held. "You...you...your ship...it’s that big? You could do that for us?"

Riker nodded. "It seems like the only thing we can do. We can’t abandon an entire race to destruction!"

"Oh...oh, Commander, we would be in your debt...we are not a star faring race, but we have gifts we could give, there must be something we could do in return."

Riker smiled. It felt good to finally be doing something useful on this mission, something lifesaving. "We’ll start immediate beam ups, and in the mean time, contact Vs and see about going back. If they say no, we’ll try negotiations, do whatever it is we need to do to get as many Yoilu to safety as we can."

The Yoiluran bobbed in their equivalent of a bow, and he called for some of his attendants to give Riker the coordinates of all their settlements, starting with the closest to where Qctvtjstryu had already emerged.

Riker ordered a quick scan to confirm the disaster the Yoiluran king reported, and it was just as he had said; a picture was sent to Geordi’s tricorder and the Away Team looked, and could hardly believe their eyes. There was indeed an enormous black Vstrak-shaped creature cracking through the crust, emptying an ocean. Tiny black specks skittered about the clear blue sky, landing on anything and everything living, including Yoilu running from the scene. The black specks appeared to be very much like the star shaped mouths of the Vstrak. Riker had the Enterprise begin immediate beam outs of affected Yoilu, and soon Sickbay had its hands full.

Fortunately, when the affected Yoilurans were transported, the Vstrak mouths on them quickly dried up and died.

Within the hour, favorable arrangements had been made with Vs and The Enterprise began mass transport of Yoilurans, preparing to remove them from their fast dying world.

* * *

Tasha stumbled and blinked several times, completely shocked. She felt as though something had slapped her, and then she was...here?

One second she faced a monster of evil...and the next...this?

What was this? Silver and black and lightning in the distance and things moving at unimaginable speeds yet so slow...not Vagra II. What had happened?

She looked around, gaping. Human eyes were not meant to take in what ever this place was, she was sure of that. There was too much detail...she felt as though if she looked in one place long enough she would see into infinity. Far too much detail, dizzying amounts of information...she looked down at the ground...the sparks and silver and black extended to the floor...suddenly around her feet earth began to form, and she was aware of every single speck of dust and the contours of every pebble as they formed. It became almost...almost...a tiny bastion of normality in a sea of things inexplicable.

Still...knowing the exact count of the staggeringly large number of dust specks that now settled on her feet was just shy of mindblowing.

She shook her head and closed her eyes for a moment. She needed to get back to Vagra II, to rescue Deanna. So first things first: she needed to know how she’d arrived in the first place. She thought back to the instant she’d stumbled here...and recalled the split second with startling clarity, like a photograph of immense detail. Something struck her face...a flash of light she saw in the corner of her eye...

There was a splotch of brown, strangely shaped...it was not an organic form nor a mechanical...as though Armus drew it on her face...

Tasha blinked again. Foreign memories? But like her own...she saw that point in time through other eyes, but it was through her own as well. Very strange. But she couldn’t follow the thought forward to see if this other point of view had seen her disappear from Vagra II. She tried to return to her own point of view, and found it somewhat difficult. Nevertheless, she wrenched her thoughts free of the other sight and thought again about how she got here.

It was an instant, a distance of time so short it was certainly no longer than a picosecond.

"Wait...," she said to herself, her voice echoing softly, "since when could I tell time in picoseconds?" The question hung in the air like a visible thing, and it was snatched by one of those incredibly fast objects that she could follow with her eye as if they moved at a snail’s pace. She grunted in surprise, then a moment later an answer came to her in her mind... Since I was created.

She narrowed her eyes in confusion. As an experiment, she said to the air, "I’ve never been able to count in picoseconds."

Always.

"No, never."

Always.

"What the hell!" she shouted at the air, but nothing came to grab that statement and deal with it. Then she began to chase down one of the speeding objects, and she caught the glistening thing in her hands easily. It twisted and writhed like a living thing. She held it up to her face and stared at it intensely.

Maybe that was a mistake. In looking so intently and with such heat she felt her mind fall into the thing, filled up with gazing into what seemed like infinity. She shoved it out of her hands as if it had bit her and fell back on the ground, in a daze. Too much!

As she sat on the little patch of dirt trying desperately to still her reeling mind, she felt the presence of another person suddenly snap into existence.

With a yelp of dismay, Commander Riker appeared next to Yar, on his stomach, clutching and clawing at the ground as if his life depended on it. He grunted and looked up, seeming to no longer feel the need to pull himself free of whatever was dragging him in the first place. Shock registered on his face; Tasha could see him trying to take in the environment the way she had only a little while before.

"Don’t bother, Commander. Where ever we are really messes with your head."

His head snapped in her direction so quickly that he had to rub his neck. Gaping at the incomprehensible space was swiftly replaced by gaping at her. "Tasha! You’re alive?!"

Yar looked at Riker askance. "Yeah."

Swift moving objects snapped up her words and carried them off far away...and the sky changed. Now it was staring at her. The entire of existence was watching her...wary, confused...paranoid? The distant lightning approached swiftly, but there was near infinity between it and they.

Riker looked up. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don’t know, sir."

Words were again taken from the air and carried off, and an answer returned, one Yar knew they both could hear. I do not know.

The commander sat up and shot Tasha a glance. "The universe answers questions now?"

No.

"Uh...right..."

Tasha scratched her hair. "Maybe we should ask how we got here."

"Yeah...this sure as hell doesn’t look like what I’d expect the inside of an oil slick would." Riker gazed up at the approaching storm, and Tasha felt him lose himself in the details for a second.

Wait...felt? She looked at the ground, seeing it now extended around Riker as well, and the number of pebbles and bits of dust she somehow counted increased exponentially. A glance at Riker’s face revealed the number of hairs, pores, wrinkles...she pulled her mind away before she again got lost in the veritable Everest of information. After a long pause, she asked, "Have you noticed a...difference in thinking, Commander?"

Riker shook his head, and she felt him trying to pull his mind back from the brink of information overload. "Um...yeah, you could say that. Seems there’s exactly 124 quadrillion, 500 trillion, 937 billion, 635 million, 201 thousand, three hundred and twenty seven dust particles at my feet. Hell if I know why I know that though."

"So I’m not the only one that suddenly became a counting wizard."

Before they could say more, Captain Picard stood where once there was nothing. It was near instantaneous. Picard looked around in confusion just as Yar and Riker had before him. "Where am I?"

Words snapped up quickly, and an answer came in the form of the storm approaching even faster. Tasha noticed that from the opposite direction, something entirely malignant seemed to have grown into the silver and black sky, and it too approached them quickly.

I...am...I am...she I am, not...possible...I cannot be here!

Momentarily caught off guard, Picard shouted, "Well I certainly am, dammit! Now where is Troi!"

In the Observation Lounge, the last I saw.

"WHAT?! Armus, what kind of game are you playing now?!"

Tasha looked back at the malignancy, which suddenly pulsed at Picard’s words. "Captain, I don’t think Armus is responsible for this."

Picard stared down at her, with the same look of total shock Riker had. "Natasha!"

She smiled lopsidedly. "No, I’m not dead."

That is not true. She is............dead....

"What?" Tasha asked the sky, "How can I be dead if I’m sitting right here?"

Picard sighed sadly, but with a hint of anger. "We saw it. That...sadistic Armus killed you for no reason!" His hands clenched into fists at the memory...and suddenly the memory was hers as well.

What she’d seen with another’s view, the splotch of brown...now she saw it with not one point of view, but three. No, four? The first three views were clear, two tinged black with anger and sadness, one with some...sense...that she couldn’t decipher...and the fourth, a blurry fourth, with the twisted pleasure of a sadist. But that fourth thankfully was unclear, fluctuating, torn away and then returning, only to be torn away again.

Her body began to shake, just slightly. Overhead, the lightning storm clashed with the cancer...she looked up, and with the incredible clarity of vision this place, she saw the fractal lines and deep order that only appeared chaotic on the surface. But she wasn’t drawn into it as she had been drawn into the rest of this strange place. The storm looked back at her, the way the whole world looked at her, as if it were a living thing, and the universe filled with something she couldn’t describe, but she recognized it this time. But she never had been able to put into words what that very...‘other’ sort of irrationality was.

Glancing back at Picard and Riker, she saw their expressions had turned inward, and she felt them fighting to separate their thoughts. When the sensation of seeing through four views ceased, their expressions returned to normal. Riker remarked, "It’s kinda hard maintaining our individual identities here."

"It is," Picard agreed. "But these...," he pointed at one of the speeding objects, "seem to be able to answer our questions."

"True...so what do we ask, sir?" Riker responded.

"Well...the obvious, for one." The captain turned to look at one of the speeders. "How did we get here?" Several hundred of the flittering yellow speeders gathered around the question, and as Picard watched, it was as though they argued amongst themselves about what to do with it. They extended themselves like flexible rubber, stretching thinner and thinner and extending to eternity in every direction. Some connected to the storm above, some to the malignancy it warred with, some to the ground. Several began snaking toward Picard, and before he could react they pierced him, so thin he didn’t even feel it.

But he felt the argument. Riker and Yar also felt it, and they too soon were lanced through with a dozen golden spikes.

Now all three of them were hopeless to escape the pulling out of their minds, the melding of personality...Picard had asked a question that was no easy task for the world to answer, and it was drawing on all its faculties.

Including they themselves. All three of them, and the malignancy, and the storm, all of them...they suddenly realized where ever they were they were inextricably bound here, they couldn’t maintain individuality because they had become part of a much larger whole.

Tasha felt the dark cancerous thing yanking back, and with every pull she felt herself being jerked away from the speeders. The same was happening with Picard and Riker. Then, bolts of lightening rained down, full of half heard words and the consciousness of the world. Striking all around, but never once endangering the three below...and striking above, lancing brilliant blades at blackest darkness...

In an instant, the battle ended. Spindled around Commander Riker like spun gold was a web and he was absolutely still within it. Tasha felt him utterly separated. The speeders no longer extended to infinity, and she saw Picard, eyes narrowed, not utterly still the way Riker was, but in quiet contemplation. He also was separated, maintained in a delicate bowl of thinnest silver light. Tasha still sat on the ground, with dust on her boots. She was not separate, she knew; she could still count the dust and the pebbles and think in time so short that no human could comprehend.

And yet she did...

The malignancy beaten back for now, the thunder shying away from it...and suddenly she remembered something whispered by the air before she...died. She knew she had died, she couldn’t deny what she’d seen through the eyes of the captain and the commander, through the world and through the black. Whispered words returned...and she understood them. Song words, bird words, human words, machine words. Tehnehnehsehlehk, untranslatable into human words, but full of meaning...a term of...understanding.

She almost laughed. She knew what it meant; she knew what all of those bird-human words meant now. She would have laughed, but with understanding came the breaking of a seal, and suddenly she began to think and speak and seep knowledge into the ground of greatest import, and she knew why Daniel had said he was defending ‘now’.

Now it was her turn...to defend the present and the future...and be protected forever.

In the brig, Data suddenly stopped raging and tearing at the walls. No one saw it, but for the briefest instant he smiled, genuinely, something for him so rare that few living could claim to have seen it. Then he turned his attention to his torn arm and began making small, minute adjustments to his own electromagnetic field, according to the instructions that ‘Daniel’ had left him. Everything made sense now; and more than ever he needed to reach the planet below, but he trusted now a way would present itself.

Destiny...it was not exactly destiny, but rather the fulfillment of a present that had already been.

As he worked, Data considered the price he would pay for ‘Daniel’s’ information. It was high...very high, almost too costly, but...there were other factors. She was one, to live as long as he did in memory...as his daughter; Tasha would continue in a very real way, live again in him. So would Armus...his life ever with the memories of utter evil.

But he didn’t falter. The price for him was minuscule, really...compared to the price set on the universe....

Go on to Section 6