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Chapter Text

Zandra Taitt thought of her morning tour of Deck Five as her “lab walk.” As much a way to touch base as to focus her mind on the various activities of her staff, the routine comforted her with structure and meant she saw the vast majority of her science officers on a regular basis. Some days, she would even spend most of her day in one of the labs herself, but most of the time she was on the bridge at the science station, organizing, referencing, and directing.

The Physical Sciences Lab was her first stop on the arc of Voyager’s fifth deck. 

“Good morning,” she said, passing through the door.

“Good morning, Lieutenant,” Crewman Celes said from the centre station, where she was working alongside Crewman Li-Paz from engineering and Crewman Copage. They were the only three still in the lab, and had likely been there throughout the night shift working.

“How are we doing?” Taitt asked.

“We’re on track.” Elliot Copage took the lead, as he often did. He tapped the display, bringing up a series of compounds on the master display. Copage, a grey haired man with deep brown skin, was someone Taitt had come to treasure his decades of service over the near two months since they’d arrived in the Delta Quadrant. Calm, patient, and methodical, he tended to ground the people he worked with—something she really appreciated when he worked with Celes especially, who had a tendency to lose her focus. “We’ve analyzed the compounds, and it looks like some of them should be suitable.”

“Fantastic,” Taitt said. “When you’ve got everything logged, send it to my station, would you?”

“Will do, Lieutenant.”

“Good job,” she said, meaning it. They’d topped up their power reserves during their time with the Numiri, but she was making it her personal mission to stay one step ahead of their next shortage, keeping a constant eye out for anything in Voyager’s path that might supplement their reserves.

She resisted the urge to remind Celes to double-check her results—Copage was there, he’d remind her—nodded to the three, and left them to it.

*

Planetary sciences was dark, but the lights were on in Life Sciences. She still felt a tiny frisson of discomfort every time she came stepped into the space—when the EPS conduits had failed all across the deck during their arrival in the Delta Quadrant she’d lost the entire life sciences staff as a  result. Taitt couldn’t decide if she wanted that feeling to pass, or if it was right for it to remain in some small way.

Today, Ensign Bronowski and two of the Ocampa, Cir and Gara, were present. The three were gathered around one of the two-tier stacked plant containers from hydroponics. Fresh green shoots sprouted from each of the openings along both racks, and the three had their heads together at the display.

“Something smells lovely,” she said.

They turned. Gara always had a wide, welcoming smile. She wore a lovely red tunic, with a matching scarf over her hair, and she smiled. “It’s the marob root,” she said. “The leaves are quite aromatic.”

They’d recently gotten the root from the Numiri. Taitt couldn’t quite remember, but she was almost certain it was going to be used to make tea.

Ensign Bronowski glanced at Taitt, then back at the display, clearly startled. “Is it that time already?”

“I’m a little early,” Taitt admitted. “But I take it you’ve all been burning the midnight oil?”

“I’m sorry?” Gara said.

“It’s a human expression,” Cir said, surprising Taitt. “It means working late.”

They all looked at him. The large Ocampa shrugged. “Something Captain Cavit said about ‘gift horses’ made me curious. I’ve been reading about linguistics. Humanity has an amazing variance of language for a single species.”

“We were thinking of trying to cross-breed the marob with ginger,” Bronowski said. “I didn’t realize how long we’d been at it.”

“We all tend to over-focus when we find a challenge,” Gara said, offering a similar smile to Bornowski.

Taitt watched a heated flush rise up Bronowski’s neck. Someone was developing a crush. She tried to imagine Doug Bronowski and Gara paired up and couldn’t quite do it: Bronowski was an efficient officer and a pleasant enough man, but he had no sense of humour and very little to say most of the time. Gara was a social woman.

Then again, opposites attract, and all that.

“How many racks do we have going in hydroponics now?” she said, putting herself back on track, and nodding at the tray they were working with.

“All of them should be full by the end of the week,” Bronowski said. “And I can’t take most of the credit. While I’ve been flying the ship, these two and Daggin have increased our yields by nearly half.”

“I like to grow,” Cir said with a little shrug.

“And Eru’s always asking for new flavours,” Gara said.

“Well, we all love you for it,” Taitt said, and she wasn’t overstating. Eru had more-or-less taken complete control over the kitchen in the Mess Hall, though Gara often spent some time there during the night shift. What Eru had managed to accomplish with the fruit and vegetables they were growing in their Airponics and Hydroponics gardens had started as a necessary way to avoid dipping into their food stores and replicator use, but now the crew looked forward to seeing what flavourful foods were on hand every day.

“I’m on the conn again for the next three days,” Bronowski said. “But I’ve set up a schedule for these two. No doubt I’ll come back to more than I asked for.”

Taitt nodded. “Thank you.” He might not have a sense of humour, but Doug Bronowski was definitely not one to take credit where it wasn’t due. “I’ll catch up with you two tomorrow then,” she said, and left them to their work.

*

By the time Taitt got to Stellar Cartography, she was humming a happy tune to herself. Sometimes, the morning lab walk left her feeling overwhelmed. When she’d been given the Senior Science Officer position, she’d been fully aware that Captain Janeway had a science background far superior to her own, and the Captain herself had told her during their initial discussions that she fully intended to be a mentor as well as her commanding officer.

Instead, Taitt lost many officers and found herself without that mentor at all.

But today? Today was a good day.

Stellar Cartography was one of the labs most often working around the clock. Given they would be in unexplored space while heading home, there were always long-range sensor scans to parse into star charts.

To one side, clearly working on exactly those readings and crafting astrogation charts, Ensign Jenkins looked up long enough to offer a simple smile-and-nod to Taitt as she entered, which Taitt returned.

At the centre of the lab, however, three people sat around the main display—Ensign Hickman, Crewman Telfer, and Abol, the Ocampa who spent most of his time here since he’d discovered his love for the stars—and all three didn’t so much as glance her way.

Clearly, something interesting was happening. Usually she got something from them, and if she was being honest with herself (as she was, since this was a good day), not having Abol aim his handsome face in her direction was something of a letdown.

She could never admit that to anyone else, of course.

“Good morning,” she said, announcing herself with some amusement.

“Oh! Lieutenant,” Ensign Hickman said, rising. She’d done her hair back in a brighter shade of red again, and it made Taitt feel good to see it. She’d had her hair like that when they’d first met on the Bridge nearly two months ago, but hadn’t done so again after the explosion in this very lab since. It was nice to see.

“Good morning,” Abol said. There was that handsome face. She allowed herself exactly one second to bask.

“We found something interesting,” Crewman Telfer said. His voice was a little dry, and he cleared his throat, not looking up from the display.

“Were you here all night?” Taitt said, raising an eyebrow at the young man. It occurred to her he’d worked the day shift yesterday. He should have been gone hours ago. He looked up at her, and the dark smudges under his eyes said more than enough.

“I wanted to see it through?” he said, his voice rising on the last word and turning it into something of a question, like he knew full well he shouldn’t still be there.

“Bill,” she said. “We talked about this.” She eyed Hickman, too. The ensign should have sent him on his way, no matter how enthusiastic he’d been about whatever they’d discovered.

“We found signs of a potential spatial opening,” Telfer said.

Taitt turned back to their display, all thoughts of gentle rebuke gone. “Show me.”

Telfer worked he station, and above the table, a ringed planet appeared. A moment later, superimposed over the image, a series of readings appeared like drops of rain, mostly around the rings, though some further from the planet.

“At first we thought it might be a wormhole,” Hickman said. “But it’s not one spatial anomaly. It’s many. And they’re mostly concentrated in the larger asteroids among the rings of this planet, though sometimes they’re as much as a hundred thousand kilometres away from the planet itself.”

Taitt nodded, watching the readings as they appeared.

“We couldn’t locate a counter-signature,” Abol said. “So wherever these spatial openings lead to, it’s not within range of Voyager’s long-range sensors.”

Taitt watched the readings a few seconds more. “Vacuoles.”

“That’s what we think,” Telfer said.

Taitt smiled, straightening. “Good work.” She turned to Hickman. “Send me everything you’ve got on this. I’ll bring it to the Captain.”

The three beamed at her. She allowed herself another second to be on the receiving end of Abol’s dark brown eyes and his smile, then turned her attention back to Telfer.

“And Bill?”

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Go to bed.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

Taitt left them in the lab, humming again.

Definitely a good day.

Chapter Text

“Vacuoles?” Lieutenant Stadi’s voice was concerned, which Taitt understood. You didn’t want to hit a subspace vacuole at warp.

“Lots of vacuoles,” Taitt said, trying—and probably failing—to hide her excitement at the find. The senior staff were all gathered around the table in the briefing room, and she had the floor. She stepped over to the monitor and brought up the first of the displays. A planet with rings appeared, as did the space around it for a few hundred thousand kilometres. And like sparks of firefly light, the vacuoles they’d been reading all night appeared and disappeared.

“There’s something about the rings drawing the openings toward the planet,” Taitt said, pointing. “It could be this.” She tapped again, and an element appeared.

Ensign Lan frowned. “What is that?”

“We don’t know. It’s a new element,” Taitt said, and she could feel a frisson of excitement building in the room now from Lan and Honigsberg both. They exchanged a glance, excited. A new element, unknown to the Federation?

Taitt almost felt bad about letting them down. Almost. “It’s also, unfortunately, located on asteroids in the rings themselves, and while they’re Class-M, the appearance of the vacuoles is of a high enough rate I’d honestly rather not get that close.”

Captain Cavit leaned forward. “But there is something you would like to do?”

“A brief detour to get closer to the planet, but not close enough to be within the concentration of vacuoles,” Taitt said. “We’ve been monitoring them for nearly twenty hours now, and we’ve identified areas where the vacuoles open on the edge on a regular enough basis to distribute microprobes.”

Stadi’s dark eyes lit up, and Taitt knew the pilot understood. “You want to use the vacuoles to take a snapshot of whatever is on the other side.”

“Could this get another message home, like the micro-wormhole?” Lieutenant Rollins said.

“I’m afraid not,” Taitt smiled gently at him. “Vacuoles aren’t wormholes. There’s a greater chance of a dimensional variance, but the vast majority of these vacuoles, if they follow the usual models for subspace disturbances of their type, should be from within five thousand light-years of here.”

“Oh,” Rollins said, clearly embarrassed.

“I didn’t know what a subspace vacuole was either,” Doctor Fitzgerald said, and Rollins gave  him a small smile in return. 

“Don’t feel bad. They’re not usually this common, which is what I want to take advantage of them,” Taitt said. “It’s a chance to potentially get a look around at parts of the galaxy we won’t get to see, even on our way home.” She paused. “And, maybe even a glance ahead to see where we’re going.”

“It’d have to be a quick glimpse,” Honigsberg said. “Vacuoles don’t stay open long.”

“That’s right,” Taitt said. “But I think it’s worthwhile.”

“Agreed,” Cavit said, nodding. He watched the display. “You said the new element might be drawing the vacuoles to the planet?”

“It’s possible,” Taitt said, turning to glance back behind her. “Or it’s something to do with this odd energy reading that follows the vacuole openings in the rings.” She tapped the screen, and sure enough, the sensors described a kind of fading burst of… something after each appearance.

“How long would it take you to get micro-probes ready?” Commander Ro said.

Taitt eyed Honigsberg, who eyed her right back. “How many are we looking at?” he said.

“Ideally?” Taitt said. “Fifty. But we won’t end up using them all. Fifty is what covers the area I’d like to seed.” She tapped the screen again, and a pattern of probes arranged to form a solid sphere appeared. “It’s far enough away from the planet’s rings, but still an area of high activity.” In the simulation, vacuoles appeared, snatching away about a third of the probes over the course of a few hours.

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” Honigsberg said, turning to Lan. “Up for it?”

“Definitely,” the Trill said.

“How long until we get to this planet?” Cavit said.

“We can be there in five hours,” Stadi said, considering. “But we’ll want to approach at impulse, just to be safe.”

“She’s right,” Taitt said. “I’ve got the outer range of where the vacuoles we’ve seen so far have appeared, but there’s no reason not to double that distance, just to be cautious. Warp is a bad idea when vacuoles are involved.”

Stadi nodded at her, clearly appreciating the margin for error.

“Anything on long-range sensors we should worry about?” Ro said. “If we can’t go to warp, I’d rather not run into any unfriendly surprises.”

“The last Kazon signal we picked up was moving in the opposite direction,” Rollins said. “And the system with this planet is uninhabited. But I’ll make sure we keep an eye out.”

Ro nodded, then glanced at the Captain. “It sounds worthwhile to me.”

“It’ll be nice to do some exploring and science for a change, no?” Cavit said, with a little smile that lit his soft blue eyes. “Get to it.”

Everyone rose, and started to file out. Taitt waited, catching the eyes of Doctor Fitzgerald and raising one hand. He nodded, and waited, letting the other officers leave.

“Everything all right?” he said.

Taitt liked Doctor Fitzgerald a good deal. He had a calm, even way of speaking that settled nerves and put people at ease.

“I wanted to talk to you about Crewman Telfer,” Taitt said. “If you’ve got a moment?”

“Of course,” he said.

She might as well just come right out with it. “I’m worried about him.”

Fitzgerald tilted his head. “How so?”

“He’s been spending almost all his time in Stellar Cartography,” she said. “I had to order him to get some sleep when I caught him there a full shift after when she should have already finished for the day.” She waved a hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate his effort, but from what I read of his file, this isn’t the usual for him, and…” She blew out a breath. “He looks like he’s not sleeping.”

Fitzgerald frowned. “You know, on our shakedown, he was often in Sickbay. He had a tendency to over-react to minor symptoms, or gastrointestinal upset. But I haven’t seen him since he was cleared for duty after we arrived here.” He took a moment. “He was in the lab when the explosions happened, wasn’t he?”

Taitt nodded. “He and Hickman were the survivors.”

“I’ll come up with a reason to see him,” Fitzgerald said.

Taitt smiled. “Thank you, Doctor. It’s possible I’m over-reacting.”

“And if you are, no harm is done.” Fitzgerald’s voice did that calm thing again.

He really ought to bottle it.

*

In Sickbay, Fitzgerald took a moment on his way to his office when he saw Lieutenant Walter Baxter was sitting on one of the bio-beds, flanked by T’Prena and Kes.

“If this is another strain from over-exercise…” Fitzgerald said, with a completely false scowl and a low note of warning in his voice. In the first few weeks after their arrival in the Delta Quadrant, Walter Baxter had thrown himself into exercise, and overdone it multiple times.

“It’s not,” Baxter said, raising his hand, revealing a small cut across his palm. “This was clumsiness, pure and simple. I offered to help Gara cut some marob root, and it turns out marob root is really tough.”

Fitzgerald did a quick check-in glance with T’Prena, and she gave him the tiniest of nods. It was a shorthand they’d developed during Voyager’s shakedown, something most patients didn’t even notice. A quick passing of the torch, letting her know he trusted her to handle it.

“Kes,” T’Prena said. “Would you like to use the dermal regenerator?”

“Very much,” Kes replied, enthusiastic. “If that’s okay with you, Lieutenant?”

Baxter gave his permission rather quickly, and Fitzgerald imagined it had something to do with the pretty Ocampa.

He left them to it, stepping into his office and accessing the personnel files. He pulled up William Telfer’s records, and jogged his memory. An enlisted crewman with a primary focus on stellar cartography, Voyager was his first posting. During their initial shakedown year, Telfer had come to Sick Bay nearly two dozen times—at least monthly—which not-so-coincidentally had nearly always coincided with any off-ship activities or away duties. Most of the time, he’d complained of gastro-intestinal issues. Fitzgerald felt a small flash of guilt at allowing it to go on longer than he likely should, and re-read his own notes about considering a nudge toward some anxiety counselling once the shakedown was over and they had access to a counsellor.

Telfer’s only truly necessary visit to Sick Bay had been when the Caretaker had pulled Voyager to the Delta Quadrant and the EPS conduits on deck five had failed. He’d been injured—plasma burns across his back and left leg, a broken nose as well as two broken fingers on his right hand, and a lot of bruising. The EMH had dealt with his burns, which had required a defter touch, and Fitzgerald and T’Prena had handled the breaks. Luckily, for whatever reason, Telfer had been just stepping out of the lab when the explosion had occurred. The blast had sent him off the opposing wall in the corridor—his nose and right hand taking most of the impact before he’d been knocked out. When Hickman had stumbled out of the burning Stellar Cartography lab, she’d quite literally fallen over him.

Fitzgerald scrolled down, and found the follow-up visit where Telfer had gotten the all-clear for his bones and his skin, and after that, there was nothing since. Nearly two months without so much as a visit to deal with gastrointestinal distress, which was very unusual for Telfer.

Fitzgerald took a moment to check the crew shifts for Telfer. Given what Taitt had said about his last shift, he logged a request for Telfer to come to sick-bay at the end of his next shift, flagging it as a routine check-up. He considered using the comms, but Taitt had said she’d sent him to get some sleep, and he decided he didn’t want to wake the crewman if he was still asleep.

When he was finished, he looked up in time to see Baxter leaving sick-bay, the man thanking the two women as he left. With no immediate appointments at hand, Fitzgerald went back to his ongoing research project, bringing up everything he’d managed to find about the symbiont pools on Trill.

At some point in the not-so-distant future, they needed something like them for the two symbionts Ensign Sahreen Lan’s symbiont was currently growing.

*

After a full shift spent monitoring the long-range sensors for non-existent tactical threats while the whole bridge had been excitedly preparing to beam out dozens of micro-probes, Rollins had considered going straight back to his quarters after his shift ended and taking a nap. Instead, he’d passed the baton to Crewman Cing’ta, who was an absolute genius at long-range sensor interpretation, and headed to the Mess Hall.

“Hello Scott,” Eru said, as he approached the serving window. One of the Ocampa, Eru had more-or-less taken complete control of the Mess Hall kitchen, recruiting people as she needed help, and the whole ship was the better for it. A slim and slight woman with blond hair she kept mostly short and swept back over her folded, pointed ears, she always seemed to have a warm smile and just the right suggestion for something to eat after a draining shift.

“Hi, Eru. What’s good today?” Rollins said.

“Everything’s good,” she said, with that little twinkle in her eye. “But Crewman Emmanuel suggested I explore Cajun culture”—she said the word carefully—“and I have to say, if you like spicy food, I think the Jambalaya“—another careful enunciation—“has an intriguing series of flavours to it.”

“I’ve never tried Jambalaya,” Rollins admitted. “But you’ve never steered me wrong yet.” He glanced over his shoulder, checking to see who else was in the Mess Hall. It was date night, but as far as he could see, the other half of his date wasn’t here.

“I can put together two bowls to go, if you’d like,” Eru said.

He was probably blushing, but he turned back to her and nodded. “If you don’t mind.”

“I haven’t seen much of Pete lately,” Eru said, ladeling some of the stew into two bowls, then sealing them with covers.

“He’s been working hard on the Aeroshuttle every chance he gets,” Rollins said, knowing full well that’s was most likely where his boyfriend was at this very moment.

Eru handed him the bowls, and then two spoons. “Well, tell him to take a break.”

“That’s what these are for,” Rollins said, raising the bowls.

He took the turbolift down to deck nine and crossed to the Aeroshuttle launch bay. The room itself was spare, and the way the Aeroshuttle slotted directly into Voyager’s hull made it appear like the ship itself was sinking into the floor of the large bay. The various latches holding the winged shuttle in place were the largest objects in the room, with narrow pathways between them leading to the Aeroshuttle’s entrance. Carrying he bowls, Rollins made his way over and keyed the entrance sequence, waited for the Aeroshuttle’s door to lift, and then stepped down into the shuttle.

“Rollins to Durst,” he said, tapping his commbadge awkwardly with one hand.

“Go ahead,” Durst’s voice came a moment later.

“Since date night seemed to be a no-show, I’ve got a dinner delivery,” Rollins said dryly. “Where are you hiding this time?”

“Warp core,” Durst said. At least he had the grace to sound bashful about it.

Sure enough, Rollins found Durst in the small engineering section of the Aeroshuttle, where the man had about a third of the panels open, and tools spread out on the floor. He’d shucked his uniform jacket, wearing only the deep purple turtleneck that went underneath, and both sleeves were pushed up past his elbows.

“Hi,” he said, with the perfect level of contriteness to completely diffuse the annoyance Rollins should have felt at him.

“So, you’ll meet me in the Mess Hall, eh?” Rollins said, trying to at least make an attempt at being put out.

“I don’t suppose we can skip to the part where you forgive me and we eat?” Durst said, biting his bottom lip and letting one eyebrow creep up. “Because I’m starved and even with those lids on that smells amazing.”

“It’s Jambalaya,” Rollins said, looking around for a surface. “Can I at least convince you to join me in the crew area?”

“You can,” Durst said, putting down his spanner.

Located at the rear of the Aeroshuttle, the so-called “crew area” was a combination of lounge and mess hall both, with a replicator on one wall, and the rest of the space taken up by seating and a table. A single large window would give the view of space behind the shuttle, but right now just showed the docking clamps. They sat at the table, and Rollins unsealed the bowls. The warm, spicy smell filled the space in moments.

“Thank you,” Durst said, leaning over and kissing Rollins.

Rollins accepted the kiss, then took another, tugging on the back of Durst’s neck to press their foreheads together. “I love spending time with you, but it would be great to occasionally spend time with you somewhere other than this Aeroshuttle.”

“Acknowledged,” Durst said, doing his little bottom-lip bite thing again. “Though I don’t recall you complaining when we made sure the bunks were installed correctly.”

Rollins shook his head, but he couldn’t stay mad. He just couldn’t.

They ate, and Rollins caught him up on the progress with the microprobes, which hadn’t involved Durst at all. In fact, this mission, which didn’t have anything to do with Voyager’s warp engines at all really, had almost been like a break for the assistant engineer. He’d spent his shift working on some maintenance and diagnostic cycles while Voyager had crossed the last of the distance at impulse.

“When are they launching the probes?” Durst said.

“They should be almost done by now,” Rollins said. “I almost stayed on the bridge to watch, but honestly, staring down the long-range sensor readouts was putting me to sleep.”

“I think nearly ten hours is enough of that,” Durst said. “But powering up a warp-core? That’s exciting, right?”

Rollins blinked. It took him a second to realize what Durst was saying. “Wait. You’re ready?”

“I am.” Durst practically beamed.

“I thought you said you couldn’t be ready for another week at least,” Rollins said.

“I am a propulsion wizard.”

“Uh-huh,” Rollins said. “So it isn’t because of the whole ‘Can I borrow all your replicator rations, Scotty?’ thing, then?”

“Every wizard has a plucky, handsome apprentice,” Durst said, then leaned in for a long, lingering kiss.

Oh man. Rollins already knew he was in trouble, but when Durst laid on the charm like that? Totally doomed. He sank into the kiss, closing his eyes.

“Thank you for your replicator rations,” Durst said, once they came up for air.

“Did you warn Ops?” Rollins said.

“Not yet.”

Rollins gestured, and Durst grinned, tapping his commbadge. “Durst to Ops.”

“Go ahead.” Ensign Lan was, apparently, still at it on the bridge, even though her official shift had ended an hour ago.

“Just a head’s up that I’m going to be powering up the Aeroshuttle’s warp core. Just a test and then powering it down again.”

“Look at you, being all efficient and ahead of schedule,” Lan said, with a cheerful—if tired—tone. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“How’s the probe launch going?” Durst said.

“They’re nearly all launched, and then I am going to take a long nap.”

“I’ll let you get to it,” Durst said, closing the channel. He reached out and took Rollins’s hand, interlacing his fingers. “Shall we?”

Rollins took a second to re-seal the bowls and stack them with the spoons so he wouldn’t forget to return them to the Mess Hall, then nodded.

Back in the engineering section, Durst handed Rollins a tricorder. “Can you watch the intermix ratio? It should be fine, but some of the injector assembly came from the Li Nalas.” Durst’s scorn whenever he’d worked with Cardassian parts had hardly been unclear over the last two months.

“Got it,” Rollins said. Durst reached finished reaching up to seal the core chamber, closing the casing and giving a final once-over to assembly. It pulled the undershirt tight over his shoulder-blades, a reminder of just how pleasantly built the man was.

Rollins enjoyed the view for a few moments, then swallowed and went back to the tricorder.

“Here we go,” Durst said, and with a few taps on the wall-panel, the Aeroshuttle’s warp core began to light up, a faint blue light that grew brighter moment by moment.

“Intermix is steady,” Rollins said.

“She has a heartbeat,” Durst said. “One quarter output…” He turned back to the display, watching. “Half power. Three quarters.” He grinned, looking back and forth. “It’s stable.”

“Well, you are the propulsion wizard,” Rollins said. “It’s hardly—”

A crackle of white light sparked at the opposite end of the room, and they both turned.

“What’s that?” Durst said.

Rollins raised his tricorder, scanning. “A vacuole is opening.”

“I thought we pulled far enough away from the planet?”

“It doesn’t seem to matter,” Rollins said. “Move back.” They pressed themselves against the far wall.

“I need to shut down the core,” Rollins said, reaching past him to do just that. “If the vacuole is big enough to cross the whole room…” He didn’t need to finish the sentence.

At the other end of the room, the vacuole opened, a bright flare of light in the small space. Rollins blinked, watching his tricorder through the glare, and then exhaled. “It’s closing.”

The light flared once more.

“Warp core is powered down,” Durst said.

“Pete,” Rollins said, staring where the vacuole had been.

An incredibly thin man lay there now, curled up and naked.

“Bridge to Durst.” It was Commander Ro. “What just happened down there?”

“A vacuole opened when I powered up the warp engine,” Durst said. “And it left behind a guest.”

“A guest?”

Rollins moved to the man, scanning him with his tricorder. “An alien man, he’s not moving or breathing.... There’s still some electrical activity in the brain!” he said. “But not much.” He tapped his commbadge, then removed it. “Rollins to Sick Bay. Lock on to my commbadge and beam directly to Sick Bay. Medical emergency, they’ll need to resuscitate.”

The badge, and the alien, vanished in a shimmer of blue light.

Rollins eyed Durst. “I’d better get to the bridge.”

Durst nodded.

So much for date night.

Chapter Text

Cavit entered Sick Bay, and caught Fitzgerald’s eye. The doctor was standing with the EMH and Nurse T’Prena, just outside the surgical bay. Fitzgerald waved him over.

“What can you tell me?” Cavit said. He glanced through at the surgical bio-bed and saw their guest—a rail-thin alien with greying hair and fluted cranial ridges that reminded him a bit of a Napean. The man’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing.

“He was dead when he arrived,” Fitzgerald said. “But only for about a minute. Luckily, he responded to traditional resuscitation techniques.”

“He’s a standard, class-5 humanoid in most ways,” the EMH added. Cavit wondered if the hologram had been the one to do the procedure. He didn’t know how much manual dexterity was involved.

“He’d also suffered a major traumatic injury,” Fitzgerald said.

“From traveling through the vacuole?” Cavit said.

“No, I’d estimate his trauma happened about a month ago. Impact to some of his vertebrae, and damage to his liver and kidneys and an organ more-or-less equivalent to a spleen. He’s been living with considerable pain and precarious health.” Fitzgerald nodded to the hologram. “The EMH repaired most of the damage, or at least what we could do without more time monitoring his specific biology.”

“Do we know where he came from?” Cavit said.

“No,” Fitzgerald said. “And I don’t want to wake him yet. He’s still recovering. But there are three things of real interest. T’Prena?”

Nurse T’Prena tapped the controls on the biobed, and the readings appeared on the display. 

“He has a slight quantum flux in his cellular RNA.” T’Prena said.

Cavit eyed the highlighted sections on multiple readings of the man. He remembered an event, during his early days as a junior lieutenant on the USS Monitor, where the ship had been sent to study a rogue comet, and another, apparently nearly identical rogue comet had appeared on sensors, out of nowhere. It turned out the second comet had passed through a quantum fissure and was from a parallel universe.

“So he’s from another dimension?” Cavit said.

“Or timeline,” Fitzgerald said.

“Let’s just hope we’re not dealing with time travel,” Cavit said. “And the second thing?”

“That new element Taitt spotted in the planet’s rings?” Fitzgerald said. “He secretes it. Or had begun to, barely. It stopped when we stabilized him. At a guess, it looks like it’s a part of his species’ decomposition process.”

“It also suggests there are many more deceased on the asteroids around the planet,” T’Prena said.

Cavit blinked. He supposed that was, indeed, a logical assumption. “I feel like we’re missing a piece here. How did a dead man pass through a vacuole?”

“That’d be the third thing,” Fitzgerald said.

“This man didn’t take the trip under his own power. He was poisoned prior to his journey,” the EMH said.

Cavit locked eyes with Fitzgerald, who nodded. “The EMH is right. He was injected with a effective neurotoxin. We flushed it out of his system during his resuscitation.”

“He was killed,” Cavit said, shaking his head.

“Logic would suggest he was euthanized,” T’Prena said.

Euthanized. Cavit took a second with that. “Doctor?”

Both Fitzgerald and the EMH replied, Fitzgerald saying “Could be,” and the EMH saying “It’s possible.” Then the two stared at each other.

“I know,” the EMH said, raising a hand. “You’re going to tell me I need a name.”

Cavit tried to wipe a small smile off his face, and looked down at the sleeping man again. He seemed very delicate to Cavit, borderline fragile. Fitzgerald said he’d been living with constant pain. Cavit took a breath. He wondered if they’d have any way of sending this man home again, now they’d helped him recover. “Okay. Let me know when he wakes up.”

“Will do.”

“Good job, everyone,” he said, and left them there.

*

“The vacuole was attracted to the warp core on the Aeroshuttle?” Ensign Murphy tended to grin when he encountered something he thought was fascinating, and right now, Taitt was glad of it, because she was hoping his positive attitude would help her come up with a solution to the problem they’d just discovered.

Certainly, beside Murphy, Lan and Honigsberg didn’t look anywhere near as delighted. Clearly, they saw the immediate worry, too.

“That’s my working theory,” Taitt said, calling up the internal sensor readings on the Stellar Cartography main display. The curving lines around the snapshot of the vacuole’s formation—and the arrival of their guest—were pretty clear, and appeared to be almost a perfect inversion of the warp signature in the newly activated warp core in the Aeroshuttle.

“So there’s a good chance this could happen with Voyager’s warp core as well,” Honigsberg said. He rubbed his goatee, frowning slightly.

“If one of the vacuoles opened inside the core…” Lan said, letting her words trail off. No one needed her to spell it out.

“A dampening field should make that impossible,” Honigsberg said. “But it wouldn’t stop vacuoles from opening elsewhere on board, if they’re drawn close enough.”

Taitt nodded. “More distance from the planet should reduce the risk, but I haven’t come up with a way to guarantee the effect won’t happen again.”

“Why the Aeroshuttle’s core, and not Voyager’s?” Murphy said.

The three turned to him, and he pointed at the screen. “It’s clearly drawn to the Aeroshuttle’s warp core. The inversion of the signature here is almost exact.” He turned. His grin was back. “You said Rollins and Durst had just powered it up?” 

“That’s right,” Lan said.

“Then it was a new field,” Murphy said. “That must have had something to do with it. Voyager’s warp core puts out more energy, even when we’re not at warp.”

“That’s right,” Taitt said, following his train of thought. “If it was the creation of the warp signature that pulled the vacuole toward Voyager, it’s even less likely to occur again at this distance. The vacuoles are mostly drawn to the rings around the planet.”

“We’ll get the dampening field online,” Honigsberg said. “I’ll tell Commander Ro. It shouldn’t take us long.” He nodded at Lan. “Up for it?”

“Of course.”

The two turned and left.

“Good thinking,” Taitt said.

“Thank you,” Murphy said. He continued to stare at the readings. “These vacuoles are so strange. So many of them, and the way they’re concentrated around the rings. It’s really fascinating stuff.”

She nodded, in complete agreement. “I know.”

“When are we expecting the probes to get snapped up?” Murphy said.

“If the pattern we’ve seen more-or-less repeats, it should be within the hour.” Taitt tapped the monitor. The sphere of micro-probes appeared on the display, all online and holding their relative positions. “The vacuole activity we’ve seen recur here is every six and a half hours or so, rather than every two hours, like in the rings.”

Murphy nodded, then turned to look around the otherwise empty lab. “I’m surprised Abol isn’t here yet.”

“I made them all get some sleep,” Taitt said.

“Did you sleep?” Murphy said.

“Some.” She imagined her little smile made it clear how much “some” was.

“Have you tried the marob root tea yet?” Murphy said. “It’s got a decent kick. I mean, it’s no raktajino, but it’s good. I could go grab us some while we wait.”

It was a kind offer, and she was about to turn him down, but she realized they truly didn’t have anything to do but wait, and a hot cup of anything sounded blissful. “That would be great,” she said.

Murphy gave her an amused little salute, and then headed off to the Mess Hall.

He’d barely been gone a moment when the doors opened again. She turned, wondering if Murphy had forgotten something, but saw it was Abol instead. The Ocampa smiled, looking well-rested and refreshed and just as handsome as ever. The man’s dark eyes truly were a beautiful thing. He’d changed into a pair of black trousers and a deep blue shirt she couldn’t help but noticed matched the blue of her science division uniform.

She also noticed the short sleeves, which left his lean forearms and biceps on full display. Abol wasn’t a tall man, but he was just wide enough to offset his height and escape being small.

“How can you be this refreshed already?” she said, when she realized she’d more or less just stared at the man for a full minute.

“It’s hard to explain,” Abol said, with a smile that turned her temperature up a notch. “But when I’m wrapped up in something, I seem to need less sleep.” He smiled. “I didn’t want to miss the vacuoles capturing the probes.”

“Well, I’ll bet Hickman and Telfer won’t be far behind you,” Taitt said.

Abol smiled. “Ensign Hickman has been explaining quantum filaments to me, and Billy—Crewman Telfer, I mean—has taught me a lot about the effects of subspace topology on astrogation.” He walked over to the display, like he hadn’t just casually dropped his immersion into two difficult scientific concepts, and eyed the sphere of probes. “Do you think there’ll be a dimensional shift to any of the probes?”

“Any result will be fantastic,” Taitt said. “But I’m honestly hoping we mostly stick to our own universe. Ideally, I want to see what’s ahead of us.”

“I suppose that would be the most useful,” Abol said. Then he turned to her. “But just one or two from another dimension would be interesting to study, no?”

She laughed. “Abol, you are a born scientist.”

He beamed. “Thank you, Zandra.”

Oh, she loved how he said her name. She turned her gaze back to the monitor, trying to focus. Because truth be told, it was possible she was loving how he said her name just a little too much.

*

Ro tapped the Ready Room door chime and waited.

“Come.”

Cavit was sitting behind the desk, and glanced up as she came in. “Commander.” He tapped his desktop monitor, blanking the screen.   

“Honigsberg and Lan have erected a dampening field around the warp core,” she said, taking a seat across from him. “And Durst has powered down the core on the Aeroshuttle. No further vacuoles have opened near the ship. Taitt suggested we put more distance between us and the planet, to lower the chances of us drawing more our way.”

“Seems wise,” Cavit said, leaning back. “Have we had any luck with the micro-probes yet?”

“Not yet, but the next flurry of vacuoles isn’t due for another half-hour or so.”

“Here’s hoping it’s successful,” Cavit said.

“You sound nervous,” Ro said.

Cavit blew out a breath. “Between you and me? It’s the quantum flux in our guest.”

“You’re worried we won’t be able to help him get home?” she said.

“That,” Cavit said. “And I’m worried about where he came from. Or when.”

Ro’s rare smile made an appearance. “Agreed. My two brushes with time travel were enough to last a lifetime, frankly.”

“Two?” Cavit tilted his head. “The quantum singularity, and..?”

“On the Enterprise, three years ago,” Ro said. “I lost half a month, and another ship, the Bozeman? They lost ninety years.” She let out a small breath. “I promised myself if I bumped into any more temporal disturbances, I’d run the other way.”

“Me too,” Cavit said. “And yet, here we are.”

She tilted her head. She was about to say something else, but they were interrupted by a comm request.

“Sickbay to Cavit.” Fitzgerald’s voice was, as usual, calm and even.

“Go ahead.”

“I think our guest is about to wake up.”

“On my way.” He rose, then eyed Ro. “Did you want to come with me?”

She nodded. “I’ll give Stadi the bridge.”

*

By the time they got to Sick Bay, the alien had indeed woken. His blinked his pale, watery grey eyes, clearly still drowsy, and he still lay prone on the bio-bed. Fitzgerald nodded to Cavit and Ro as they stepped into the surgical bay. Kes and T’Prena were nearby, Cavit noted, watching but not hovering.

“Didn’t think I’d be tired. I’m so tired…” The man said. At least the universal translator was up to the challenge. “But I feel different.” This he followed with a tiny laugh. “Honestly… Wasn’t sure I believed.” He took another deep breath, then turned his head, catching a glimpse of Ro and Cavit. The peaceful look on his face shifted into something more hesitant.

“Who are you?” he said.

“I’m Captain Aaron Cavit,” Cavit said, pitching his voice as gently as he could. “And you’re on board the Federation Starship Voyager.”

“Starship?” The man’s watery eyes blinked again. “Where are my people? My family? My father and my grandfather?” He shook his head. “I… I don’t understand. Do you bring them to me? My name is Hatil Garan.”

Cavit laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, but you’re the first person of your species we’ve ever met.”

The man—Hatil—struggled to rise. Fitzgerald placed a hand between his shoulder blades to help him sit up. He turned to the doctor. “My back… My back feels better.”

“We repaired most of the damage,” Fitzgerald said, “when we resuscitated you.”

“I’m not dead. This isn’t the Next Emanation.” He shook his head. “I… How did I get here?”

“You came through an opening in space, something we call a subspace vacuole.” 

“A spectral rupture.” Hatil Garan shook his head. “I was supposed to go to the Next Emanation.” Then he took a deep breath, pressing his hand to the centre of his narrow chest. “I haven’t felt like this months. I can breathe. I don’t hurt.” He looked at them again, a single tear escaping his left eye. “I’m sorry… I don’t understand any of this. It’s not where I thought I’d be, but I should… I should thank you.”

“You said the Next Emanation,” Ro said. “What is that?”

“It’s our afterlife.” Hatil paused, as though he knew he wouldn’t like the answer to what he was about to ask. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“I’m sorry,” Cavit said. “But I promise we’ll try to help you get back to where you came from.” He shared a brief glance with Ro, who nodded. “Is there any chance you can tell us about your home world? Do your people have faster-than-light travel?”

“Faster-than-light?” Hatil frowned. “No. We have explored some of the other planets in our system, though.”

Hatil’s people were pre-warp. They’d broken first contact regulations, albeit by accident. Cavit nodded, smiling lightly, trying not to project what he was feeling. “That’s a good place to start.”

“Taitt to Cavit.” Lieutenant Taitt’s voice came through the comm system. Hatil Garan blinked.

“Go ahead, Lieutenant,” Cavit said.

“Captain, a vacuole took a micro-probe, but the readings aren’t making a whole lot of sense.”

“I’m on my way,” Cavit said.

He turned back to Hatil, squeezing the man’s shoulder. “If you’re up to it, anything you can tell us about your home world and the other planets in your system would be helpful.”

The man nodded. “I’ll try.”

“Ro?” Cavit said.

She nodded and followed him.

*

Taitt turned to face Cavit and Ro as soon as they entered Stellar Cartography. Cavit noticed the rest of her Stellar Cartography team were all present, as well as one of the Ocampa, Abol.

“What have you got?” Ro said, getting right to he point as usual.

“The first microprobe came back from the other side of a vacuole,” Taitt said. She tapped the display, and readings from the microprobe appeared on the screen. Cavit frowned at what appeared, because it looked more or less like the inside of a small, rounded box.

“I’m not sure what I’m looking at,” Cavit said.

“The microprobe ended up inside a small metal capsule of some time, about two point three metres long and one point five metres wide,” Taitt said. “It’s lined with equipment that seems designed to deliver some sort of chemical and energy through a series of retractable rods.” She pointed. “The casing of the chamber limited the probe’s sensor range, but it did manage to get readings beyond the chamber.” Taitt tapped her readings, and the capsule zoomed away as the readings from beyond appeared: first a room, then a building, then an entire city, and finally, a significant portion of a planet’s surface.

“I thought the greater geostructure was familiar,” Abol said.

“Familiar how?” Ro said, not following. Cavit didn’t follow either.

“Captain, it’s the ringed planet. Only on the other side of the vacuole, it’s not Class D. It’s Class M.”

Chapter Text

Taitt stared at the display, willing it to form a pattern.

It didn’t work.

“Zandra?”

She blinked, shaking her head, and turning. Behind her, Ensign Sahreen Lan stood, one eyebrow raised, an expression somewhere between amused and worried in place. Taitt hadn’t noticed how much her spots accentuated her eyebrows before—it really added to the effect.

“Sorry,” Taitt said. Then she saw Lan had two mugs with her, both steaming. She handed one to Taitt, and Taitt lifted it to her nose, taking a sniff.

Marob root tea. It had something else mixed in, too, something vaguely spicy.

“Okay, this smells delightful.”

“You were really gone there for a second,” Lan said. “You sure you’re not pregnant?”

Taitt blinked, then realized the joke. Lan cracked a smile. Since her symbiont had started producing two offspring, she’d been having very vivid memories—a side-effect of her symbiont more-or-less teaching its future children to speak.

“Very sure,” Taitt said. She took a sip of the tea. “Did you add ginger to this?”

“Eru did,” Lan said, taking a swallow of her own mug. “I don’t know what we did to deserve that woman, but it wasn’t enough.”

“Agreed.” Taitt remembered the other Ocampa saying they were going to try and cross-breed the marob root with ginger. Now she could see why.

“So, you were looking at your readings like you wanted them to suffer. Do you want to tell me about it?” Lan nodded at the main display in Stellar Cartography.

Taitt had sent the others to bed, even Abol, after a long evening of work trying to reconcile Hatil Garan’s best (if less than scientific) description of his homeworld and solar system with the reality around them. There was zero doubt. Between the probe results from inside the capsule on the other side of the vacuole and everything Garan had said? The Class-D planetoid was his home. Or had been. Or would be. Or perhaps, in a parallel dimension? Any of the above. But since they had the lab to themselves? Taitt allowed herself to grunt in frustration and point an accusing finger at the screen, voicing her real frustration in front of Lan in a way she'd never do in front of her staff.

"I hate it."

"Tell me how you really feel," Lan said, grinning.

Taitt had been trying to figure out a way to get Hatil Garan home—and her whole team had failed to come up with a way to predict a vacuole with enough lead time. She kept hoping some natural pattern would form.

It wasn’t forming.

“The vacuoles. They're evil. They’re random,” Taitt said. “Which is a problem.”

Lan eyed the screen, seeing the playback of every vacuole their sensors had caught, including the ones in the rings around the planet. The time-stamped lights denoting the vacuoles within the ring system were numerous. The total rate was up to a vacuole opening every minute and forty-five seconds or so, though spread across the rings and in the areas further away from the planet, no single individual vacuole terminus seemed to repeat more than once every two hours at best, which made her wonder if the other points on these vacuoles were somehow anchored or fixed thanks to the element Hatil Garan’s people—the Vhnori, they were called—apparently secreted upon their death.

“You think it has something to do with the biopolymer,” Lan said, following the notations and sensor focus Taitt had put in place.

“I do,” Taitt agreed.

Now that they knew what to look for, the newly discovered element—a biopolymer—wasn’t the only thing they found among many of the scattered asteroids in the planet’s rings. Vhnori bodies also filled caverns located on the various asteroids, and a body was quite often deposited on the asteroids when vacuoles opened there.

The strange energy that also appeared was harder to categorize, but seemed to weave itself into a complex ambient electromagnetic field surrounding the planet.

“What are you thinking?” Lan said.

Taitt took another big swallow of the tea—it had a nice bite to it—and took a moment. “I’m thinking there’s some piece of the puzzle I’m missing between the biopolymer, the vacuoles, and that field around the planet. It’s all a bit too complex to wrap my head around it.”

“Can I suggest sleeping on it? You’ve been at this all day.” Lan cradled her mug. “We’ll have more data from the probes in the morning, won’t we?”

Taitt wanted to argue, but instead she blew out a breath. “You’re probably right. I just hate the thought of telling Captain Cavit I need more time.”

“I think he knows,” Lan said. “Besides, I hear our guest will be out of Sick Bay in the morning, too. He might have more to tell us once he’s back on his feet.”

Taitt eyed her. “When did you get so optimistic?”

“Optimistic? Me?” Lan laughed, then frowned. “You’re right. This isn’t like me. I hope it’s not another symptom of the symbiont’s pregnancy.”

“I think we can put this down to you trying to be a good friend. It was a pretty gentle ‘Go the hell to bed, Zandra,’ all told.”

Lan offered a crooked grin. “I can say it that way, too, if you think it’ll help?”

Taitt raised a hand. “No, I know when I’m done. Hell, I sent everyone else to bed. I should take my own advice.” She tapped the main display, putting it into sleep mode, then turned to walk out of the lab with Lan.

Unable to help herself, she glanced at the probe status board on her way, and stopped.

“What?” Lan said. “Do you need another round of ‘go to bed’?”

“We’ve lost four microprobes,” Taitt said, looking at the updated readings. A moment later, another vacuole opened, capturing a microprobe, but when the vacuole closed, the probe hadn’t returned. “Five.”

Lan put down her mug and slid into the chair, tapping the controls and bringing up the probe signals. “It was inevitable we’d lose one or two, but five?”

“Something’s wrong.” Taitt put her own mug down. “What changed?”

“What do you want to do?” Lan said.

“I think the smartest thing is to recall the probes,” Taitt said. “If more are drawn away, we risk losing them completely, and—”

It was as though speaking the words tempted fate. A series of vacuoles opened in rapid succession, and another trio of microprobes vanished.

“Calling them back,” Lan said, issuing the commands. One by one, the probes rotated themselves to face Voyager and ignited their thrusters. It wouldn’t be quick, but the position in space they’d chosen for how often the vacuoles seemed to appeared wasn’t large.

Another vanished. And another.

“The vacuoles are getting faster,” Taitt said, shaking her head. She had no natural theory, which left her to consider the opposite of a naturally occurring phenomenon. “This could be intentional somehow.”

“They’re all on the move,” Lan said.

Seven more microprobes disappeared by the time they had moved another ten thousand kilometres further back toward Voyager’s position. The vacuoles seemed to stop then.

“Looks like I’m going to have to tell Captain Cavit things are even less clear than I thought,” Taitt said.

“I’ll come with you,” Lan said, tapping her commbadge. “Lan to Swinn. We’ve sent most of the probes back to Voyager. Can you handle wrangling them when they arrive?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you,” Lan said, closing the channel. She picked up her mug. “Shall we?”

Taitt smiled, grateful, picking up her own mug.

These damn vacuoles were going to drive her mad.

*

Ro nodded to Crewman Stiles and Sveta, who were sitting together at the first table in the Mess Hall before she crossed the room to the serving window. Eru had a bristling trade going this morning, and was apparently deep in conversation with Ensign Parsons about something, so she served herself a mug of the spicy beet juice she’d grown rather fond of, and one of the breakfast wraps piled to one side.

When she turned to pick a place to eat, she noticed their guest, Hatil Garan, was sitting at one of the tables by himself, staring out through the windows at the stars. A plate of food sat in front of him, about half-eaten, but he didn’t seem to be paying it much attention. She glanced around, and noticed Crewman Foster standing to one side of the room, giving Garan his space. Ro had had her assigned to Garan once Fitzgerald had said Garan was strong enough to leave Sickbay, but she was glad Foster was being inconspicuous.

The man had been through a lot.

“Is this seat taken?” she asked, gesturing to the chair opposite him.

“Oh.” He seemed to come back to himself from far away. “Of course. Please. It’s Commander Laren, right?”

“Commander Ro,” Ro said, but not ungently. “My people put their family name first, then their given name.” Or at least, many of them did. She’d been a little let down when she’d gone through Voyager’s crew manifest in her first week aboard and realized Crewman Tal Celes had given in to assimilation and reversed the traditionally Bajoran order of her names.

“I’m sorry,” Garan said. “Commander Ro.” He said it like he was trying to memorize it.

“It’s fine,” she said. “Really.”

He offered a small smile. Despite his clean bill of health, the man still seemed remarkably thin and fragile looking to Ro. She nodded at his plate. “How was breakfast?”

“Excellent,” he said, with another of his fragile little smiles. “I just put too much on my plate. It’s been a while since I felt like eating, but apparently my stomach hasn’t caught up.”

“When I was younger,” Ro said. “Food wasn’t plentiful. I understand what you mean: you get used to surviving on less, and when abundance returns, it feels off.” She lifted her wrap, taking a bite.

He nodded. “Off is a good word for the last day or so.”

“I’m so sorry we’ve put you through this,” Ro said.

To her surprise, Hatil Garan waved one hand. “Honestly? The more I think about it, the more I’m not sure it’s something you should apologize for. It’s hard to explain, but… I’m not sure my faith was up to my choice in the first place.”

Ro had read enough of the report he’d given to Taitt and Fitzgerald to know what he likely meant. “You mean using the cenotaph?” She worked to keep her voice neutral, knowing the last thing she should do was telegraph her feelings on the subject. She took another bite of her wrap to hide her features.

But if Garan noticed her concern, he didn’t show it. “I chose to end my life and enter the Next Emanation because I couldn’t contribute. I’d become a burden to my spouse and my family and most of all?” He shook his head, that brittle smile returning. “I was tired of living in so much pain. But if I’m honest with myself, I never had the unbreaking belief in the Next Emanation most of my people have. I wasn’t an Impiricist, but…” He waved his hand again. “Now that I’m here, and you’ve told me my people aren’t reformed with new bodies in a new world with their former loved ones?” He blew out a breath. “Half of me wants to cry, and the other half wants to laugh.”

Ro took a moment with that. She didn’t often feel this way, but at times like this she wished Voyager had a Counsellor on board. “In a way, I can relate,” she said.

That surprised him. “You can?”

“I was involved in an accident a few years ago,” Ro said. “On a different ship. A fellow crew member and I were… altered.” She paused, putting it into terms Garan might understand. “We were made invisible, and no one could touch us—and we couldn’t touch anything, either. I was convinced I’d died, and needed to make peace with the people in my life so I could move on to our afterlife.” She shook her head. “I’d never believed before that moment, but it seemed like the only rational explanation for why I could walk through walls and no one could see me.”

“When did you change your mind?” Garan seemed genuinely interested.

“When I started to get hungry. You weren’t supposed to get hungry in the afterlife. Also, my crewman wasn’t Bajoran like me, and so his afterlife being like mine was suspect. Also the people responsible had accidentally gotten one of their own, too, and he came after us with a disruptor.” She smiled at the last part, and Garan actually laughed.

“That seems convincing enough,” he said.

“It was.” She took a bite of her wrap.

“Do you believe now?”

Ro took a second with that, swallowing before she replied. “Bajoran belief is complicated. We have the Prophets to guide us, but we’ve learned the Prophets are extradimensional aliens who live outside the flow of linear time. You said your people have impiricists?”

Garan nodded. “People who need to see and touch and understand something before they believe it.”

“I’d say when it comes to my faith, I’m somewhere in between, but the scientific data on the Prophets helped me believe, in some ways.” Ro shrugged. “It’s complicated.”

“I think all faith is,” Garan said. “We don’t have prophecies, but we do have the circle. The Next Emanation is said to bring us around to a new beginning, to build on what we lose, and to make whole from parts. We’re told the first to pass through the spectral ruptures sent their promise back, but we never received another message from the Next Emanation after that.”

“Their promise?” Ro said.

“Woven cloths,” Garan said. “Clothes our ancestors used to wear. A few remain, and some of the early Impiricists have even studied them when the Thanatologists allowed it. We wrap ourselves in similar garments when we make the journey, but the garments remain behind. Some have been in families for generations.” He shook his head. “I suppose my wife has mine again, thinking I’m gone.”

“If we can find a way to send you home, we will,” Ro said.

Hatil Garan took a deep breath. “The thing is, Commander Ro? I’m not sure that would be the kindest thing.”

*

Sahreen Lan relieved Ensign Nozawa and called up the sensor logs from overnight. She had a few ideas for algorithms that might help put a pattern to the vacuole problem they were facing, and she intended to try them out as soon as possible. She looked up when Commander Ro arrived for her shift, sharing a brief nod, then went back to work as the First Officer spoke quietly with the Captain in their command chairs.

Lan’s first attempt failed, but that was fine. She had a dozen different ways she could tweak her first algorithm before she’d give up. But just as she was about to change the variance, a reading appeared.

“I found a microprobe,” she said, surprised.

“What?” Taitt said, from the Science station on the bridge. She’d been co-ordinating her staff in Stellar Cartography and Planetary Sciences both.

“It’s… on one of the asteroids in the ring around the planet. I’ll send the co-ordinates through,” Lan said, doing so.

“Is it online?” Cavit asked, turning his head to face them.

“Seems to be,” Lan said.

“I’m pulling up the data now,” Taitt said. “It went to the same interior of a capsule as the other probes.”

“A cenotaph,” Ro said.

Cavit nodded.

“But it was removed when it appeared.” Taitt tapped her screen, clearly watching the replay. “It looks like the Vhnori wrapped something around the probe, then placed it back in a cenotaph. But for some reason it ended up on the rings, rather than out in space.”

“Any sign of the other probes?” Ro said.

Lan shook her head. “No, Commander.”

“We can assume they went to the Vhnori, too,” Cavit said, frowning. “They’re a pre-warp civilization. I don’t like the idea of them handling the microprobes.”

Lan understood entirely. Her memories of Dolay Lan included a healthy dose of respect for the Prime Directive, and this was—albeit accidentally—a breach of the protocol.

“Hatil said their wrappings don’t usually go with them through the cenotaph,” Ro said. “So if something came through wrapped around the probe, it might be important.”

“But if we bring Voyager anywhere near the planet, we risk attracting more vacuoles,” Lan said. “A warp core acts like a magnet. We could end up seriously compromising Voyager’s structural integrity.”

“Shuttlepods don’t have warp cores,” Stadi said. “We still have four.”

“Remember when we said a shuttlecraft could do everything a shuttlepod could, so why not replace them?” Ro said, leaning over to Cavit.

“You relish the moments where we’re wrong, don’t you?” Cavit said with a small smile.

Ro’s rare smile was something Lan never got tired of seeing.

“Prep a shuttlepod for launch,” Cavit said. “But let’s take every precaution. Just because we don’t have a warp core attracting the vacuoles doesn’t mean they’re not a danger.” He turned to face Lan. “You think you can beam the probe back from a safe distance?”

“Yes, Captain,” Lan said.

Cavit nodded. “Go ahead.”

Chapter Text

“Who’d you upset to land you this piloting gig, Ensign?” Sahreen Lan put a lot of amusement into her tone, just in case it wasn’t clear she was joking.

Laughing, the dark-eyed brunette who’d already started running the pre-launch checklist glanced up at the Trill as she awkwardly ducked into the small interior space of the shuttlepod. “Just lucky, I guess.”

“It’s Jetal, right?” Lan said, struggling to remember the name of the Ensign. They’d only met once in the last two months, she thought.

The woman nodded. “Ahni Jetal. Ahni’s fine, if you’re in the mood to skip protocol?”

“Always. Call me Sahreen,” Lan said, deciding she liked Jetal immediately. Something about the ensign was inherently sweet, and that was a nice quality for the woman to have given they were about to spend at least two hours together in a tiny shuttlepod. Lan slid into her seat beside Jetal and brought up the systems checklist. The shuttlepod wasn’t equipped to do much more than ferry people back and forth at impulse, but it was upgraded enough to have a transporter capable of beaming two people at once, albeit not at great distances. She ran a quick diagnostic check, and everything came back green.

“Shall we?” Jetal said. She was clearly eager.

“Level with me,” Lan said. “You volunteered for this, didn’t you, Ahni?”

“Well,” Jetal said, “a lot of the other pilots find the shuttlepods boring, but I love seeing what I can get them to do.”

Lan tilted her head. “That feels ominous.”

“Don’t worry, Sahreen,” Jetal said with a sly wink. “I’ll keep the barrel rolls to a minimum.”

“Great,” Lan said, drawing out the word. She opened a commlink to the bridge. “Shuttlepod One is ready to launch.”

“You’re clear to launch. Safe flying,” Commander Ro’s voice responded.

Ahead of them, the Cargo Bay doors slid open, the forcefield crackling visibly in places.

Ahni Jetal set them in motion, and soon Voyager was dropping away behind them. In the far distance, Lan spotted the ringed planet that was their destination.

An hour there, beam up the microprobe, and an hour back.

“So,” Lan said. “Read any good books lately?”

*

Taitt and Cavit stood side-by-side in the observation area as the shuttlepod glided back to its place along the rear wall of the shuttle bay. As soon as the cargo bay doors had slid shut again, they walked out onto the deck. Both doors of the shuttle-pod had opened like wings by the time they arrived, and Ensigns Jetal and Lan were climbing out, smiling and chatting with each other. Obviously, the two had gotten along.

“Next poker night, then?” Lan was saying as they reached the pair.

“I’ll be there,” Jetal said.

Lan had the microprobe in her arms, Taitt noticed.

“No trouble?” Cavit said.

“None at all, Captain,” Lan said. “The closest we came to a vacuole was half a kilometre away, so Ensign Jetal didn’t have to show me her barrel roll after all.”

Cavit seemed amused by that, facing the other ensign. “Better luck next time.”

“I’ll cross my fingers. I’ll handle the post-flight checklist,” Jetal said, nodding at Lan, before heading to the rear of the shuttlepod.

Taitt was just grateful they’d recovered the probe. Looking at it now, though, she saw up close that it had, indeed, been covered in something. “Is it cloth?” she said, nodding to it.

Lan nodded. “I didn’t want to disturb it until we got it back to Voyager, but according to the sensors, it’s just a tightly woven cloth, tied up with its own trailing edges.”

“No sign of the other probes in the rings, either,” Taitt said. It wasn’t a question, as Voyager’s sensors would have picked them up by now, too, but Lan shook her head anyway.

“Well, let’s unwrap her,” Taitt said, and she and Lan unfastened the cloth—it had been cleverly woven to create strings along the edges, used to tie it up snugly around the probe. Once the cloth was free, she held it out, and revealed symbols all along the inside of the cloth, the inner surface that had been facing the microprobe.

“Maybe we better bring this to our guest,” Cavit said, looking at the symbols. “That looks like language to me.”

Taitt agreed. “He was helping Daggin in the garden,” she said. The airponics/hydroponics room had once been a cargo bay, but now the crew all tended to refer to it the way the Ocampa did, as simply “the garden.”

“I’ll download the probe’s sensor logs and meet you there,” Lan said.

Cavit nodded, and the ensign left them. They headed for the turbolift together. She kept looking at the cloth, though she had no hope of translating it herself without a computer. The quality of the weave was lovely, even if the colour was plain.

Sure enough, they found Hatil Garan working with Daggin, and the man looked happy enough transplanting seedlings from one of the smaller trays into the larger, two-level container shelves they used to grow larger plants. When Cavit and Taitt entered the room, the thin little man turned to them with a genuine smile.

“Captain,” he said. “Lieutenant.” He gave them both a little nod.

“We got the probe back,” Cavit said. “And it was wrapped in this cloth. I’m wondering if this means anything to you?”

Taitt handed the man the cloth, and he took in the symbols printed on the inside. His smile, which had been genuine and quite pleasant, faded slowly as he looked.

“Is everything okay?” Taitt said, exchanging a worried glance with Cavit.

Daggin, standing beside Hatil, put a hand on the man’s shoulder. She wondered if the Ocampa had picked up on something from Hatil telepathically, or if he was just being his usual kind self. There was no way to know.

“These are names,” Hatil said. “Specifically, see how this symbol comes before each set of names? It means they’re all people who recently passed into the Next Emanation, and…” He paused, surprised. “That’s me.” He shook off the odd moment, running his finger over his own name, presumably. He kept scanning the cloth. He pointed to a series of symbols in the centre of the cloth. “This is a request.”

Taitt realized she was frowning, and took a moment to relax her features. “A request for what?”

“They want to know why their families sent these offerings from the Next Emanation.” Hatil glanced up. “They want to know if they should open them or if they’re meant to be cherished as-is. They’re… asking permission of those from the Next Emanation.”

Cavit let out a breath.

“Oh no,” Taitt said. If the Vhnori found a way to access the probes, not only could they end up learning about technology they potentially shouldn’t have, they might even find a way to discover the probes sensor logs, and if they did that?

She might very well be responsible for throwing their faith into a tailspin.

“Did…” Cavit cleared his throat. “Did they give us a time limit?”

Hatil Garan frowned at the cloth, searching over the many symbols, then finally looked up, shaking his head. “No. But… In general? The thanatologists are not quick to act,” he said. “But if any Impiricists got wind of this, there would be some pressure for the thanatologists to uphold the doctrine.” He sounded apologetic.

Cavit turned to Taitt. “Do we have a way of sending a message to the Vhnori homeworld?”

“Potentially. The problem is whatever we send, it has to go through a vacuole, which we’re not able to predict,” Taitt said, nodding to Hatil. “It’s the same with any solution for getting Hatil home. Preferably we use the vacuoles in the rings, since we know those are the ones connect far more often with the cenotaphs the Vhnori use.”

Hatil Garan met her gaze, and unless she was mistaken, the man was definitely conflicted. He didn’t say anything, though.

“I promise, unless I’ve got something completely figured out, we won’t risk your safety,” she said.

That made him look a bit better, though not much.

All of this felt like her fault. She knew it wasn’t—there’d been no way of knowing so many of the vacuoles would be intrinsically tied to a pre-warp culture’s death rituals in some other timeline or dimension—but it didn’t make her feel any better.

Cavit took a breath. “Put together some options for the senior staff.”

“Aye, sir.”

Cavit turned back to Hatil Garan. “Thank you,” he said. 

They left him there, with Daggin. When Taitt glanced over her shoulder, Daggin had gone back to work, but Hatil was holding a seedling and staring off into nowhere, looking completely lost.

She had to fix this. Somehow.

*

“I’m sorry to call you all back in again,” Taitt said, eying the Stellar Cartography staff. Once again, she was asking them to work beyond a regular shift. None of them looked like they wanted to argue, and Ensign Murphy had even arrived with two large flasks of coffee—having used his replicator rations for them, no less—which he set down on the counter for them all. Ensign Hickman and Crewman Telfer had accepted mugs with genuine smiles, and Abol hadn’t so much as blinked, showing up with a couple of PADDs like usual. The five of them were growing into such a tight-knit group, relying on each other to get work done that would usually take five more dedicated scientists with diverse backgrounds in different stellar sciences, and she couldn’t be prouder of them.

It was Telfer who spoke up first, and as much as she’d really wanted to let him have his time off to go see Dr. Fitzgerald, it was clear he was still focused on getting things done. He still looked tired and drawn, but he seemed better than before.

“What about the transporter?” he said. He tapped a few commands into the wall panel and a detailed probe replay of the journey back and forth through one of the Vhnori vacuoles appeared. “The opening is short, and the quantum flux is a problem, but there’s a clear enough reading of what’s on the other side for a transporter lock, right?”

“Technically,” Hickman agreed. “But the bigger problem is locking on fast enough once a vacuole opens, since we don’t know when that will happen.”

“Can we compensate for the quantum flux?” Murphy asked.

Taitt considered, then tapped her commbadge. “Taitt to Engineering.”

“Go ahead.” Honigsberg’s voice was practically cheerful.

“Lieutenant, if we wanted to beam something through a vacuole, could you compensate for the quantum flux?”

Honigsberg took a second to reply. She liked that about him. He didn’t tend to agree or disagree without thinking. “Let me run it by Chief Tamal. I think so, but it would depend a lot on what you were trying to beam through. Have you found a way to predict a vacuole?”

“One miracle at a time, Alex,” Taitt said, and she heard him chuckle on the other side of the comm.

“I’ll grab Chief Tamal and Ensign Lan and we’ll put our heads together,” Honigsberg said. “We’ll have our miracle before the meeting.”

“Perfect,” Taitt said, smiling into the air. “Us too.” She closed the channel, and eyed her scientists. “Well, you heard the man. Let’s miracle up a solution to predicting a vacuole.”

Abol cleared his throat, and the group looked at him. “I have what I think is a terrible idea.”

“Ooh,” Murphy said, grinning. “I love those.”

Abol seemed a bit more emboldened by that. “Remember how the warp core of the Aeroshuttle drew a vacuole to it when it powered up?”

They all nodded.

“What if we did it on purpose, only larger?” He held up his PADD, and she saw it was a schematic of Voyager’s warp core.

Taitt’s eyebrows rose. Abol was right. It was a terrible idea.

Which didn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t also a great idea.

*

Ro watched Cavit take in everything Taitt, Lan, and Honigsberg were saying. The longer they spoke, the more even his gaze crew, even when he nodded to make it clear he was understanding everything they said. It was the smallest of tells, and she didn’t think the others had really picked up on it—other than Dr. Fitzgerald, maybe—but she could read it loud and clear.

He hated everything about this plan.

“So we use Voyager to draw the vacuoles to us, shield the warp core and other core systems with dampening fields piggybacked on the structural integrity system, and beam Hatil through the vacuole,” Cavit repeated their plan. “Then we get the heck out of Dodge and hope he convinces them to send back all the probes.”

Taitt nodded.

“You’d be putting a lot of stress on his system,” Fitzgerald added, but he didn’t sound like he was completely rejecting the idea.

“We have to compensate for the quantum flux,” Lan said, not disagreeing. “It won’t be pleasant, but Chief Tamal and I believe we’ve got it up to safety tolerance.”

“Theragen,” Fitzgerald said, almost to himself.

“The nerve gas?” Ro said. Theragen was an old Klingon bio-weapon, unless she was mistaken.

“The kind of pressure a transport like this would put on his nervous system could be somewhat mitigated with a theragen derivative,” Fitzgerald said. “It’s been used before in cases of spacial-related stressors.” He offered a little smile. “And it goes well with Scotch, if I remember correctly.”

“This seems like the plan with the least direct contact with the Vhnori that we've got. How soon can you have the dampening fields ready?” Cavit said. 

Honigsberg shared a look with Taitt. “First thing in the morning?”

“Another late night,” Taitt agreed with a smile.

“Okay,” Cavit said. “Get started.”

“There’s one more problem,” Ro said.

Everyone turned to look at her. Cavit’s cool blue eyes were still even.

“We’ll need to ask Garan if he wants to go home,” she said.

*

Hatil Garan’s hands were curled up into near-fists at his sides as he stepped into the Ready Room. Ro exchanged a quick glance with Cavit, and he aimed a small nod her way. Clearly, he saw how nervous Garan was, too.

“You wanted to see me, Captain?” Garan said. His eyes, which always appeared somewhat watery in Ro’s estimation, were all the more uncertain now.

“Have a seat,” Cavit said, gesturing to the more informal couch along the windows of the Ready Room, rather than the desk and chairs.

The three sat down.

“We think we have a way to send you back home,” Ro said. “But it’s not completely without risk, and we wanted to talk to you. Explain everything, so you understand what we’re asking you to do.”

“I see,” Garan said.

“Your safety is our biggest concern,” Cavit said, leaning forward on the couch. “I want you to know that. But we also want to make sure those microprobes come back before your people discover something that may hurt them in the long-term. We don’t usually speak to civilizations that haven’t discovered faster-than-light travel, and we certainly don’t give them technology that may be decades or centuries ahead of what they already have. It’s too dangerous.”

Garan nodded. “I can understand why.” He took a shaky breath, clearly gathering his courage. “When do I have to leave?”

Ro frowned at his turn of phrase. “We won’t force you to do this, Hatil.”

He turned his pale eyes on her. “You won’t?”

“No,” she said, as clearly as she could.

He turned to Cavit. “I… I’m not sure I understand.”

Cavit smiled at him, not unkindly. “Do you want to go home?”

Hatil Garan took a deep breath. “The thing is, Captain… I don’t think I can.”

Cavit waited for him to go on. Ro watched Garan, who seemed to shrink in on himself with every word. “If I go back, I’d be the first person to go to the Next Emanation and return. The Thanatologists would want to know everything about my journey. So would the Impiricists. And…” He bit his bottom lip, then released it. “I don’t think I could lie. I honestly don’t think they’d let me, truth be told.”

Ro realized what he was saying. “And you don’t want to tell them the truth, either.”

Garan nodded, the relief at her understanding his feelings on the matter clear on his face. “Would you want to be responsible for the collapse of the major faith of your people?”

Ro tried to imagine the collapse of Bajoran faith. It wasn’t possible—Bajoran faith and Bajoran identity were nearly one and the same. Even the discovery of the Celestial Temple and a greater scientific understanding of who the Prophets were, exactly, hadn’t impacted the greater faith of the vast majority of the Bajoran people.

“No one would,” Cavit said. He turned to Ro. “Maybe we can come up with another way to beam back the microprobes. Lock on to them through vacuoles, somehow?”

Ro nodded, though she had no idea how probable that was.

“There is something else, though,” Hatil Garan said.

They both turned to look at him.

“I…” He blew out a breath. “I could write a message. If you can send it through, I can do that. It’s the least I can do, and…” He eyed them both. “It wouldn’t be outside of what my people believe. Or, at least, not beyond what my people already believe.”

“The circle,” Ro said, remembering something of what he’d said before about Vhnori faith.

Hatil Garan nodded. “If I sent back wrappings with a message telling them to return the offerings…” He shrugged. “I believe the Thanatologists, at least, would probably respect that.”

“That,” Cavit said, placing his hand on Hatil Garan’s shoulder, “would be greatly appreciated, Hatil.”

Hatil Garan nodded. “Do you have a loom I could use?”

“Not exactly,” Ro said. “But I think we can do you one better.”

Chapter Text

Lan’s readings spiked again. She eyed the readings, and spoke up.

“Vacuole opening on Deck 11. It’s inside a Jeffries tube on the upper level of Main Engineering.” Lan double-checked the vacuole wasn’t likely to intersect with any key systems. “The dampening field seems to be working…” She paused, waiting for the vacuole to close, then added. “And a Vhnori body was left behind.”

“Bridge to Transporter Room One,” Cavit said. “I’m afraid we’ve got another body for you, Chief.”

Chief Tamal’s voice replied barely a moment later. “I’ve got it, Captain.”

“He’s beaming the body to the transporter room,” Lan said.

“That’s the third body,” Ro said, pitching her voice low, but Lan still caught it.

Cavit nodded, replying in kind. “We’ll beam them over to the asteroids when we’re in range. It’s where they were meant to go.”

“We’ve got about half an hour more on the dampening field,” Honigsberg said from the Engineering station. “After that, piggybacking we’ll be risking the dampening field overloading the SIS relays.”

“Time until we’re in transporter range?” Cavit said.

“Five minutes, Captain,” Stadi said from the Conn.

It would cut things close, Lan knew, as they needed the dampening field on their way back out of the planet’s vicinity, too. But so far, so good.

Her readings spiked again. It felt like her own fault for the positive thought, really.

“Another vacuole. Deck 7, section 3,” she reported. “Dampening field is effective: no danger.” She waited for a few more seconds, then. “A Vhnori body was left behind.”

“Transporter Room One to bridge,” Dean Tamal’s voice came through before Cavit could open the channel himself. “Locking on and transferring the body.”

“Thank you, Chief,” Cavit said, then shared a smile with Ro.

The minutes passed with growing tension, but finally, Lan could say the thing she’d wanted to say for the last fifteen minutes. “We’re within transporter range.”

“Bridge to Transporter Room One,” Ro said. “Beam the bodies to an asteroid.”

“Beaming now.”

Lan watched her display, then nodded. “The bodies are on the asteroid.”

“Find us a vacuole, Lieutenant,” Cavit said, nodding at Taitt.

“Yes, sir,” Taitt said.

On her own display, Lan saw Taitt’s series of scans, seeking a particular quantum flux. Throughout the asteroids on the rings, the vacuoles opened in a relatively rapid series, though rarely the same spot more than once every two hours. It was like running around with a tea-cup trying to capture a particular drop of rain, but as Lan watched Taitt aim and focus the sensor sweeps, she wanted to whistle.

Zandra Taitt wasn’t messing around.

Lan’s readings spiked.

“Vacuole opening on Deck 3, section uh…” Lan winced. “In your quarters, Captain.”

Cavit blew out a little breath.

“It’s got the right flux,” Taitt said, her voice rising. “Transporter Room One, can you lock on?”

“Locking on,” Tamal’s voice was clipped.

“Transport in progress,” Lan said. “A body is being left behind.”

“The vacuole is closing,” Taitt said. A second later, she looked up. “It’s closed.”

“The wrappings?” Ro said.

“Transport appeared to be successful,” Lan said.

“Okay, beam the body from my quarters to the asteroid,” Cavit said. “Then launch Shuttlepod One. We can’t stick around while we wait for the Vhnori to react.” He blew out a breath. “If any more vacuoles open, we’ll have to ferry them back to the asteroids via shuttlepods before we leave the system.”

“Shuttlepod One is launching,” Lan said.

“Stadi, best speed away from the planet. Honigsberg? Reduce the warp core’s output as much as you can. We don’t need our vacuole magnet anymore.”

“Laying in course,” Stadi said.

“Eye, sir,” Honigsberg said.

Lan kept her eyes on her readings, waiting for signs of any impending vacuoles. They weren’t out of the woods yet, but at least they were aimed in the right direction.

Now it was all up to the Vhnori, and Hatil Garan’s message.

*

Back when he’d been a child on a holiday with his great-aunt and great-uncle during one of his great-aunt’s shoreleaves, Jeff Fitzgerald had been exploring a botanical garden on the west coast of Canada. His great-uncle had been studying the flowers—it had something to do with a plot point in one of the novels he’d been writing at the time, Fitzgerald vaguely remembered—and while he’d looked at flowers, his great-aunt had pointed out something to Fitzgerald while they waited. A long, curved path that was intended to take viewers on a shady stroll under some trees around the edge of a large field had been skipped so often by people walking from one side of the field to the other, that a dirt path had formed where the grass had eroded away. The trees weren’t particularly visually exciting, so viewers crossed the field to get to the colourful blooming flowers on the opposite side.

“That’s called a desire path,” his great-aunt had said. “Some planner designed that path to show off those trees, but people being people, they decided they wanted to go somewhere else, and made their own path.”

His younger self had looked at the worn path, then eyed the trees alongside the paved pathway originally intended.

“Which way do you want to go?” he asked his great-aunt.

“You choose.”

“Can we look at the trees?” he’d said.

She’d smiled, and he’d remembered thinking at the time he’d maybe passed some sort of test or something, but in reality, he imagined it had more to do with sticking to the shade on a very warm day.

As Fitzgerald approached the Crew’s Lounge, the memory of the desire path struck him rather vividly. Designed as a gathering place for off-duty crew on Voyager, the Crew Lounge sat along the far aft section of the vessel's secondary hull, providing a view of space behind of the Intrepid-class starship through three pairs of broad windows. Comfortable chairs and small tables offered arrangements of small or larger groups in the room, and as far as Doctor Fitzgerald was aware, the place was almost always more-or-less empty.

During Voyager’s shakedown, it had become clear—quickly—that the crew preferred the Mess Hall as an off-duty gathering place, even when they weren’t eating. The Crew’s Lounge wasn’t a bad space, it was just on a path a bit too out-of-the-way for the vast majority of the crew.

Indeed, when Fitzgerald stepped into the space, there were three people present. At one end, two engineering officers sat at a table, both apparently reading. In one of the chairs that faced the windows, however, was the person Fitzgerald had been looking for.

He crossed the near-empty room and circled to the chair beside Crewman Telfer.

“May I join you?” he said.

“Oh.” Telfer blinked, clearly coming out of thought. “I mean, yes. Of course, Doctor.” He looked uncomfortable—not unusual for Telfer—and ducked his gaze away almost immediately. “I wasn’t ignoring your request to stop by,” he said, speaking quickly as though to avoid being called out. “It’s just been a little busy, what with…” Telfer raised his hands, waved them vaguely, and then lowered them again. “I’m just on a break while we wait to see if the Vhnori return the last of the probes, and then we’ll finish cataloging all their readings, and then I should be able to make some time. I’m sorry.”

Fitzgerald noted the smudges under Telfer’s eyes. “It’s fine, William.”

Telfer nodded, though the frown he sported made it clear he wasn’t buying Fitzgerald’s arrival as coincidental. Which was fair. By all accounts, Telfer was a bright man.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” Fitzgerald said.

Telfer took a breath. “I haven’t had a reason to go to Sick Bay,” he said, staring out through the windows.

“Your stomach is fine?” Fitzgerald knew Telfer’s gastrointestinal distress had always likely been a little exaggerated and mostly anxiety-fuelled, but still.

Telfer nodded, then seemed to remember he’d been asked a question by an officer. “Yes, Doctor. I’ve been feeling better.”

“And your burns and fingers?” The injuries Telfer had gotten during Voyager’s arrival in the Delta Quadrant.

Telfer flinched. He tried to hide it, but Fitzgerald caught it.

“William,” Fitzgerald said, his voice softer now. “It’s obvious something’s bothering you.”

Telfer met his gaze, and his eyes had filled with water.

“Anything you say to me stays between us,” Fitzgerald said.

Telfer closed his eyes, clearly struggling now. Fitzgerald put his right hand on the man’s forearm, gently squeezing, hoping to anchor him.

“I should be dead,” Telfer said. I was barely above a whisper. He opened his eyes, and a tear escaped. He swiped at it with his left hand.

“You mean when the EPS conduits ruptured in the lab?” Fitzgerald said.

Telfer nodded, swallowing hard.

“William,” Fitzgerald said. “That was an accident.”

“If I’d been at my post,” he said, then shook his head again, clearly struggling to talk.

“Both you and Ensign Hickman were lucky to survive,” Fitzgerald said, starting to think he understood what was happening. “And survivor’s guilt isn’t uncommon, William. But you didn’t cause any of it to happen, and it’s not your fault that you’re alive when others aren’t.”

“No. You don’t understand. I was upset,” Telfer said, shaking his head.

Fitzgerald didn’t follow. “Upset,” he said.

Telfer snorted. “No, you’re right. I was afraid.”

“When?” Fitzgerald wasn’t sure where Telfer was going, nor where he was even starting from, really.

“We were in the Badlands, there were all those plasma storms,” Telfer said. He took another deep breath. “Lieutenant Taitt had asked us to map as much of the Badlands as we could while we were there. I was working on trying to map the current storm patterns and how they interacted with planetary systems on long-range sensors. The storms were awful. The damage they could do if they’d hit us… I couldn’t stop thinking about it, and so…” He sighed. “I did what I always do. I asked if I could go to Sick Bay. Because I wasn’t feeling well.”

Fitzgerald waited, giving him a little nod to show he was listening.

“Ensign Delaney—Jenny—she said it was fine, I should go, but… I could tell she knew I was just…” He sighed. “She knew I was a mess. But I got up and I got to the door and then there was this pulse of light…”

“The probe.”

“Right,” Telfer said. “And then…” He shrugged.

Then the Caretaker’s wave had hit them and dragged them across the galaxy.

“If I’d been at my station,” Telfer said. “Where I was supposed to be…” He closed his eyes again. “I shouldn’t have said I was sick. I wasn’t sick. I was afraid.”

“Is this why you’ve been staying after your shifts?” Fitzgerald said.

“I need to do my damn job.” Telfer said, opening his eyes again. The tears weren’t falling now, but he didn’t meet Fitzgerald’s gaze. “Like I should have been doing since I got posted to Voyager. It’s the least I can do after…” He trailed off again.

“William,” Fitzgerald said, reaching between their chairs and forcing Telfer to face him. “You’re going to come with me to Sick Bay, right now, and let me check you out. At the very least, you need sleep, but you and I are going to figure this out, okay?”

“I’m okay.” Telfer shook his head. “I shouldn’t complain about feeling like this. I won’t complain.”

“You’re not okay,” Doctor Fitzgerald said, and when Telfer finally looked him in the eyes, he repeated it. “You’re not okay, but that’s okay. Understand?”

Telfer finally nodded.

“Come on,” Fitzgerald said. “Let’s go.”

Telfer rose when he did, and followed him. It was a long trip between the Crew’s Lounge and Sick Bay, but Telfer didn’t say a single word throughout.

*

“Shuttlepod One to Voyager.”

Cavit exchanged a glance with Ro, then looked up. “Go ahead, Ensign.”

“We’ve picked up a microprobe in the rings. We’re on our way to beam it aboard,” Ensign Jetal said over the channel. “It appeared a bit out of the pod’s transporter range.”

“That’s good news. Any sign of the other probes?”

“Not yet,” Jetal said.

“Keep us posted,” Cavit said. “Shuttlepod Two is en-route with two of the Vhnori dead.” They had five bodies to place in the asteroids around the planet, but shuttlepods weren’t roomy vessels to begin with. “Pass the probe to them and they can bring it back to Voyager when they’re done.”

“Aye, Captain.”

The channel closed.

“At least we know they got the message,” Ro said.

Cavit nodded. He hoped the rest of the microprobes would follow.

*

Captain’s Log, supplemental: Over the last eight hours, all the microprobes have turned up in the rings around the planet. Shuttlepod One is returning to Voyager with the last of them, and then we’ll be on our way. Hatil Garan is joining us, it seems, for the immediate future at least, and Lieutenant Taitt has asked to be the one to thank him personally, as she’s made yet another interesting discovery about this planet.

Taitt found Hatil Garan in the Mess Hall, but he wasn’t alone. Daggin and Abol were sitting with him, and the three men were chatting and drinking what looked to her to be mugs of marob root tea. By the time she got to the table, she was sure, the spicy scent confirming her guess and making her wish she’d stopped for some for herself.

“May I join you?” she said.

All three smiled, and she took the last seat at their table.

“I’m sure you’ve heard by now,” Taitt said, “but we recovered all the microprobes. We have you to thank for that.”

Garan ducked his head, clearly uncomfortable with the praise. “Abol told me, yes. And it was nothing.”

“I don’t know about that,” Taitt said. “I’m not sure I’d have known what to say.”

Garan hadn’t told them exactly what he’d written on the wrappings, only that it was a request to return their probes.

“Well,” Garan said, looking out at the stars through the Mess Hall windows. “I didn’t lie, but I may have stretched the truth somewhat.”

“How so?” Daggin said, tilting his head. Taitt was glad he’d said it, as she’d wanted to, but hadn’t wanted to push. The Ocampa seemed to have a species inclination to ask questions, though.

“I said I’d been asked by those on the other side for the return of the offerings. That the Next Emanation was a place of faith and trust, and this was a request of faith and trust.” He sipped his tea, putting the mug down slowly. “I never said I was in the Next Emanation, but I certainly let them assume it.” He sighed. “I still don’t know if I did the right thing. Should I have told them the truth? Our dead end up on asteroids around a planet?”

“About that,” Taitt said, tapping the PADD she’d brought with her. “I don’t think you lied at all. Or, at least, not really.”

Garan eyed her. “Pardon?”

“I can go over the science with you, if you’d like, but do you see this?” Taitt pulled up the scans of the planet, and its rings. “That sort of aura around the planet?”

Garan nodded.

“It’s an energy field. Every time a vacuole opened and a someone was left behind, there was an energy pattern that followed—and it came from the person left behind. That energy joined the field around the planet—it’s like a… cloud. And it’s unusually dynamic. It’s beyond complex, with incredible variation and what we call quantum density—which is a fancy way of saying we can barely understand what’s happening.” She tapped the PADD again, and the image changed, now focused on the rings. “See how the energy is gathering among the rings, here?”

Garan nodded again, though he was frowning, clearly barely following what she was saying.

But Abol was watching, too. “It’s having a system-wide gravimetric effect.”

“You said your homeworld doesn’t have rings,” Taitt said. “And we know you’ve got a quantum flux to you—you’re not from here-and-now in some way. If this field keeps forming the way it’s currently forming? It will eventually cause those rings to collapse into a single body—a moon, and not only that, it’s already begun drawing other asteroids and smaller objects from the surrounding space. The general mass  and rough topology on the planet matches the scans we got from the other side of the vacuoles, and you said your homeworld has a small moon, correct?”

Garan nodded. “Yes.” He frowned. “But I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

“Hatil,” Taitt said. “I think this could be your homeworld eventually. I think the Next Emanation might very well be creating your whole world, and eventually, all its people.”

Hatil Garan looked at the image on the PADD, then raised his watery eyes. He smiled.

“Like a circle,” he said.

Taitt nodded. “That’s a good way of putting it, yes.”

*

Rollins had just stepped out of the sonic shower when his door chimed. He took a moment to step into some shorts and then went to the door, opening it.

Durst took one look at him, grinned, and then pushed forward, letting the door close behind him. What followed was both athletic and enjoyable, but later, mostly covered by his bedsheets, having regained his thought process, Rollins couldn’t help but think their sex had been a bit frantic. Almost desperate, even.

Also, they’d yet to do this in Durst’s quarters. Durst always seemed to show up here. Then again, Rollins supposed his quarters were larger, what with him being a senior staff member.

He turned his head on the pillow, and sure enough, the look on Durst’s face was pensive.

“Want to talk about it?” Rollins said, shifting onto his side.

Durst looked at him, his eyes wandering over Rollins’s chest and shoulders and arms. “When you like there like that, it’s hard to do anything but enjoy the view.”

Rollins smiled, and maybe he flexed a little, but then he leaned over and kissed Durst, a slow, gentle kiss not designed to enflame passion but to open a discussion.

When he pulled back, Durst let out a little breath. “A lot of dead bodies.”

Rollins blinked. “Pardon?”

“The vacuoles. The dead bodies. And that alien, Garan? Coming face-to-face with learning your afterlife is a myth?” Durst shrugged one shoulder. “I guess it got a but under my skin.”

“That’s fair,” Rollins said.

Durst turned his gaze back to the ceiling. “The Delta Quadrant,” he said, after a moment.

Rollins waited, not saying anything.

Eventually, Durst glanced at him. “I’m not really a fan.”

“Of the Delta Quadrant?” Rollins said. He leaned down and kissed Durst’s shoulder. “That’s more than fair.”

“The Kazon. The Baneans.” Durst shook his head.

“The Vidiians,” Rollins said.

“Oh, definitely the Vidiians,” Durst said, tapping his own chest. “Feels like everyone wants us dead, and we don’t seem to be making friends easily.”

“The Ocampa,” Rollins said. “The Numiri.”

“The Ocampa don’t have starships, and the Numiri tried to take our ship before we managed to convince them we hadn’t attacked,” Durst said, raising a finger.

Rollins kissed Durst’s fingertip. “You’re right. But we can handle it. Captain Cavit and Commander Ro will get us home.”

Durst pressed his finger against Rollins’s lips until Rollins stopped speaking and smiled.

“You’ll stick by me, right?” Durst said.

Rollins leaned over him until they were forehead-to-forehead.

“Oh, you’re stuck with me,” Rollins said.

Durst wrapped his arms around Rollins’s broad shoulders, and smiled. “Good.”

*

The door to Stellar Cartography opened, and Taitt glanced up, surprised. Other than Bronowski, who was working at the astrogation station, she hadn’t expected anyone else to arrive.

Abol joined her at the desk, a couple of PADDs in hand as always, and his warm smile as he sat across from her did wonders for her mood.

“I thought you’d still be here,” Abol said.

“There are still about a dozen microprobe logs to go through.” They’d barely had time since the microprobes had ended up on the Vhnori homeworld to even so much as glance at the microprobes which hadn’t ended up in Vhnori cenotaphs. It probably could have waited until the morning, with fresh eyes, but Taitt couldn’t help herself. She’d wanted to see what the probes had seen. Maybe, after the accidental first contact and near-miss of cultural contamination, there might still be something worthwhile.

“Well, I’d love to help,” Abol said.

“By all means,” she gestured to the directory, which listed the logs.

Abol smiled and chose a file, downloading it to the tabletop display. His dark eyes moved across the readings with delight, and she let herself watch him for a few seconds more before turning back to her own work.

Her own probe’s readings had been of a region of space she hadn’t managed to map against long-range sensors yet, but she’d cleaned up the readings and tucked it aside, moving the file to the star-charts database for further examination and cross-reference. She imagined Murphy would enjoy figuring out where, exactly, that microprobe had found itself. He liked puzzles.

Taitt called up the next file, and gasped.

“Zandra?” Abol said.

“Lieutenant?” Bronowski said from across the room.

Apparently, she’d been pretty loud.

“Look at this, both of you.” She sent the microprobe’s readings to the main display of the lab, which took up a significant portion of the furthest wall.

“It’s a starship,” Abol said, clearly spotting the reading on the furthest edge of the probe’s range as the most immediately interesting, as she had.

Bronowski—a Conn officer—made the next connection. “The warp signature.”

Abol looked back and forth between the two humans. “I don’t understand.”

“That warp signature,” Taitt said. “It’s from a Federation vessel.”