Chapter One

ANDREAS NIKOLAS HAD RUN into his share of alien species. He had attended the Academy with them, worked alongside them on starships, eaten with them, slept with them, laughed with them, and risked his life with them.

But he had never encountered anyone like the personage who towered before him in an otherwise empty corridor of the Yridian cargo hauler Iktoj'ni.

This alien was taller than Nikolas by half a meter and remarkably thick-chested beneath his coarse, dark tunic, giving the impression of enormous strength—though he was quite clearly padded elsewhere with a surfeit of flaccid flesh. His oblong head was bald except for a long, lank circlet of dark hair, and his mouth was little more than a gash in his face.

But his most distinctive feature by far was his eyes. They glowed a dazzling silver beneath the overhanging ledge of his brow, fixing Nikolas where he stood.

"I am glad you are awake," said the behemoth, his voice a hair-raising jangle of stones.

It echoed off the cone-shaped mineral deposits that hung from the ceiling and rose from the floor—because it wasn't quite true that Nikolas and the alien were alone in the duranium-sheathed passageway. There weren't any other sentients there, but there was an abundant collection of orange- and blue-veined stalagmites and stalactites—the kind that seemed to belong in an underground cavern, not in the corridor of an Yridian cargo hauler.

And if that weren't disconcerting enough, the projections were growing before Nikolas's eyes, lengthening and adding girth with the help of the mineral-bearing water streaming down their sides.

Where was the water coming from? He didn't know. The Iktoj'ni wasn't supposed to have any water supply. Its crew washed with the help of sonic emitters and got their drinking water from replicators, the same as their food.

So why were there crystalline threads descending the smooth, shiny surface of the stalactites? And how could mineral deposits have gotten so robust in the short time Nikolas had been stretched out on a lower deck?

Awake, the alien had said. But was he awake?

He had lost consciousness sometime during the attack on the Iktoj'ni. And though he appeared to have woken up, bruised and limping and lacerated but alive, it was tempting to believe he was still asleep—because otherwise, how could he explain the madness to which he had woken?

Several days earlier, Starfleet had warned the cargo hauler about a wave of unidentified aggressors boasting formidable weaponry. But it hadn't said anything about ship's corridors turning into subterranean caves.

"After all," the behemoth continued, in the same discordant voice, "you are going to be a big help to me." He smiled, exposing a rampart of thick, blunt teeth as his mouth stretched from one side of his face to the other. "A big help."

Nikolas didn't like the sound of the remark. "What do you mean?" he asked, his voice sounding strange even to his own ears.

It gave him a moment's pause. Had he suffered some damage in the attack after all, beyond the cut over his eye and the painful stiffness in his limbs?

The alien didn't answer Nikolas's unspoken question—not out loud, anyway. But as the silver orbs in his eye sockets glowed brighter, Nikolas heard something in his brain.

My doing, said the monster, in a small, harsh whisper. All my doing.

A telepath…? Nikolas thought.

And the alien's smile spread even wider, though the human wouldn't have believed it possible. He seemed to be taking pleasure in Nikolas's discomfort.

But it's not enough, the colossus breathed in Nikolas's mind. I need more.

Suddenly, the human felt a shiver rise from the depths of his being and take hold of his entire body—a shiver of shock and helplessness, because the alien wasn't just speaking inside his head anymore. He was dredging up memories.

The death-scream of a thousand finger-sized quadrupeds on Mercker V. The bitter stench of tortured metal after a grisly shuttlecraft crash. The glint of sunlight off an old woman's hair on a fertile moon of Samito III…

The alien wasn't gentle about it, either. He stalked about Nikolas's mind without conscience or compunction, probing and prodding, not caring what he damaged in the process.

Semi-sentient life-forms slithering under the surface of an inland sea. The feel of scales on the naked thigh of his Heiren lover. The bite of homemade ouzo on his tongue, setting fire to his throat and then his brain…

The intruder thrust himself into every fold and crevice of the human's experience, sampling and rejecting, violating privacies great and small. Nothing stopped him, nothing was off-limits.

Nikolas couldn't stand the feeling of invasion. It filled him with such revulsion, such self-loathing, that he wanted to escape his own skin. Concentrating with all his might, he tried to expel the alien from his brain.

But he couldn't. It was like trying to wrestle an enraged mugato. And just as Nikolas realized how powerless he was against the invasion, how utterly overmatched, the alien began to thrust even deeper into his consciousness.

Nikolas could have given in to it. He could have allowed his captor to run roughshod and saved himself even greater discomfort. But he didn't. He continued to struggle.

It was a futile gesture. The alien was simply too strong, too determined. So Nikolas wasn't surprised when he felt himself submerged in a raving, synapse-shattering wave of pain… or when he felt his consciousness slip away again into the depths of a slow, black sea…

Jean-Luc Picard gazed across his desk at the strapping, blue-skinned officer who had come to see him. He knew exactly what his visitor wanted.

Still, he allowed Vigo to broach the matter his own way, in his own time. The Pandrilite had earned that privilege with his valor, his dedication, and his unswerving loyalty.

"You'll recall what I told you about Pandril," said Vigo. "What Ejanix told me before he died."

"I do," said the captain.

Ejanix had been Vigo's mentor and close friend. Prior to his untimely death, he had insisted that their homeworld—a supposed utopia in which all classes of society were supposed to thrive—was riddled with tyranny and injustice. Vigo hadn't believed it possible—not at first. But the more he had considered the matter, the more he felt it was his duty to determine the truth.

Of course, Ejanix had become a revolutionary over the years, someone who had come to tolerate the use of force in the name of social change. Vigo didn't condone that approach—he had already said as much. But it didn't mean that he could dismiss Ejanix and his compatriots out of hand.

If it turned out that they had a point, Vigo wanted those in the upper caste to be made aware of the problem. And as a member of the upper caste himself, he felt he was uniquely suited to the work of informing them.

Picard sat back in his chair. "You wish to take advantage of that leave we spoke of?"

"Yes," said Vigo. "For the reasons we discussed."

The captain nodded. "I understand. And I will not stand in your way. If you feel you must go, I will make the necessary arrangements immediately."

Vigo looked grateful. "Thank you, sir."

Picard dismissed the need for gratitude with a wave of his hand. Vigo was a mainstay of his crew. The captain just wished he could do more for him.

"Dismissed," he told Vigo. "And good luck."

The lieutenant nodded, then got up and left. As he exited the room, Picard took a good look at his weapons officer, knowing he might never see him again.

It wasn't that he thought Vigo would prefer to remain on his homeworld. He believed that, in time, the Pandrilite would want to return to Starfleet, and to the Stargazer in particular.

Picard just wasn't certain that he would still be commanding the Stargazer when Vigo came back.

He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the screen of his computer monitor—that of a fellow with prominent cheekbones, a strong, cleft chin, and inquisitive brown eyes. A young man, to be sure. And yet, he was already developing worry lines above the bridge of his nose.

But then, he had more worries than most men his age.

Copyright © 2004 by Paramount Pictures