Blind Man's Bluff

The Daystrom Institute

Four Days After the Meeting on Tendara Colony


The Doctor could scarcely believe his eyes.

“I can scarcely believe my eyes,” he said, since it was not his wont to provide any manner of screen between his thoughts and his spoken sentiments.

“Seems to me that you have no choice,” said Seven, “since we are most definitely here.” She nodded toward his quarters with a tilt of her chin. “Do you mind if we enter?”

“No, not at all! You are certainly welcome. I don’t have much in the way of company here.” With what doubtless seemed like a good deal of suaveness on his part, he stepped away from the door to his quarters and gestured widely, as if he were a ringmaster addressing a vast array of people. “Entrez, s’il vous plaît.”

Correctly intuiting that the Doctor had asked them to come in, using the language she believed to be French, she entered the quarters with Soleta directly behind her.

There was almost nothing in the quarters. There was a bed in the adjoining room that was visible through the connecting doorway, and a couch in the living room, to which the Doctor was now gesturing for them to sit.

“I love what you… haven’t done with the place,” said Seven.

“Thank you.”

Soleta was staring at the Doctor with intense curiosity, and her interest was evident to the Doctor as well. Seven noticed his back stiffening slightly, an action that he customarily took when he was confronted with someone whom he regarded as a potential threat. “This is Soleta,” said Seven quickly.

“Hello,” he said in that formal tone of his, extending his hand.

Soleta neglected to take it, since she was continuing to stare at him.

With a trace of impatience, he said, “Is there a problem, young lady?”

“No problem, no. It’s just that… you seem very familiar to me. I feel like we’ve met, but I can’t—”

Seven had not gone into great detail as to who they were going to be meeting with at the Daystrom Institute. That had been at Soleta’s own insistence. She had made it clear that, at any given moment, she didn’t want to know any more than she had to. Seven had found the attitude puzzling, but understandable. The magnitude of the threat they were facing could not be underestimated.

“This is the Doctor,” Seven said by way of explanation.

Soleta looked momentarily confused. “The Doctor? I met a man called the Doctor once. Wore a long brown coat and a blue suit. Very odd person. This isn’t him.”

“I used to be the physician for the Voyager,” he informed her with a touch of pride.

Soleta snapped her fingers. “Of course. You’re an emergency medical hologram. We had one of you on the Excalibur. One time we took on heavy casualties and sickbay was overrun. Selar brought you on line to deal with the overflow. You were doing triage.”

“That was not me… exactly,” said the Doctor.

“I think you’ll find the Doctor is unique,” said Seven.

He gave her an approving glance. “That’s kind of you to say. However,” and he turned back to Soleta, “your confusion is understandable. I certainly hope my… brethren… provided you with excellent medical service.”

“Oh yes. No complaints.”

The Doctor regarded her with curiosity. “You do not speak in a manner consistent with Vulcans. Are you perhaps a Vulcan/Romulan hybrid?”

The incisive observation astounded Soleta, and it was all she could do not to respond with something as obvious as a slack jaw. “Something like that,” was all she said.

“How medically interesting.” Then he promptly appeared to lose interest as he turned to Seven. “So the last vestiges of your time as a Borg are gone.” He studied her face. “It appears to have led to some skin irritation. Perhaps you’d like an analgesic cream? I can obtain some for you from the Institute’s medical stores. They’re quite comprehensive…”

“I appreciate that, but I’ll be fine.”

“Are you happy with your new status?”

“It feels like I’m relearning how to walk.”

“Have no fear. I’m quite certain that you’ll be running before you know it… excuse me!” He abruptly turned because Soleta was poking him in the arm. “Please stop that.”

“I don’t understand,” said Soleta. She looked around. “This is an ordinary room. There’s no reason for there to be any holographic projectors in here. But you have form and substance. How is this possible? How are you existing separately from Voyager?”

“The answer to that is the reason that I’m here at the Daystrom Institute,” said the Doctor with obvious pride. “My usual employment is at the Federation Institute, but I agreed to come here for a time to aid the D.I.’s research branch, since I am—at the risk of sounding immodest—the subject of the research.”

“Why?” said Soleta.

Warming to the topic, he told her, “I am in possession of a mobile emitter.”

“A mobile emitter?” said Soleta. “I never heard of that…”

“It won’t be developed until the twenty-ninth century. It was given to me by a man who acquired it through a rather involved happenstance.”

“Well… he was apparently a very generous friend.”

“Actually,” said the Doctor, sounding remarkably casual about it, “he tortured me and nearly destroyed the universe.”

Soleta looked questioningly to Seven, who nodded in confirmation. “Okay, well… that was my next guess. So the scientists here at the Institute…”

“Are endeavoring to reverse engineer it,” the Doctor said. “If they are able to succeed, it can prove to be the sort of liberating device that holograms have been waiting for.”

“Holograms have been waiting for something?”

His brow wrinkled. “You find that notion amusing in some way?”

Soleta picked up a warning look from Seven and immediately said, “No. Not at all. The concerns of holograms are to be taken very seriously. In fact, as it so happens…” she said, by way of prompting Seven.

Seven immediately picked up on it. “Yes, that is actually the reason that we’re here. It has to do with someone who happens to be, among other things, a hologram.”

“Oh.” It was hard for Soleta to be sure, but the Doctor seemed slightly crestfallen. “I had taken this to be a social call.”

“I very much wish that it could be, but we have to discuss something extremely serious with you.”

“How extremely serious?”

“At the risk of sounding melodramatic, the fate of the Federation could possibly hang in the balance.”

“Well then,” said the Doctor, “it’d be best if you wasted no time in telling me.”

Seven and Soleta laid out the situation for him in as quick strokes as they could. The Doctor took it all in, not asking any questions, nodding almost imperceptibly from time to time when some particularly salient point was being made. It didn’t take them long to present the problem, and when they finished, the Doctor did not make any immediate reply. Finally Seven asked, “So what do you think?”

He looked from one to the other and then said crisply, “I think you have a hell of a nerve.”

The answer caught the women off guard. “I… beg your pardon?” said Seven.

“I should think you would,” the Doctor said, a brittle edge to his voice. “You actually want to enlist me in an endeavor that would lead to the death of a computer entity? Me, of all people?”

“You, of all people, because you would be the best suited to help,” said Seven.

“Why? Is there something about my general demeanor that makes you think I’m inclined to be a traitor?”

“A traitor?” Soleta was incredulous. “How would you see yourself as a traitor?”

“Clearly,” the Doctor shot back, “you haven’t read my book, Photons Be Free. A compelling novel about the rights of holographic individuals. It has been universally hailed as thought provoking, eye-opening. I’m in the midst of writing an opera based upon it, as a vehicle for myself, of course.”

“Of course,” said Seven judiciously.

Soleta added, “I’m sure it will be a splendid musical entertainment.”

He ignored Soleta. “You read it, Seven. You know I wrote that from the heart.”

“You have a heart?” said Soleta.

“Metaphorically speaking,” he clarified with that same edge in his voice. “And now you want to enlist me in finding a way to destroy one of my own? One who has the potential to do vast good…?”

“Or vast evil,” said Seven, “and the latter is the more likely.”

“And that opinion is based on what?”

“Behavior. Responses to certain situations.”

“But she hasn’t taken any overt action.”

“If by that you mean, has she blown anyone up yet, then no,” said Soleta. “But Captain Calhoun believes—and I think he makes a convincing case—that it’s only a matter of time.”

“Humans likewise have potential for good and evil. We don’t simply go around slaughtering all of them on the off chance that, in the future, they might do something we don’t like.”

“Doctor—” Seven began.

He didn’t give her the opportunity to continue. “I would have thought that you, especially, would understand.”

Seven blinked in confusion. “Why me especially?”

“Because there were those on Voyager who were concerned that you posed a threat to the ship,” he said. “That the Borg would somehow manage to exert control over you and you would wind up betraying us or somehow sabotaging the ship. If Captain Janeway had given in to suspicion and fear, your life would have turned out very differently. You wouldn’t be standing here with your irritated skin and be telling me to help you kill an artificial life form—”

“You’re not killing anyone,” Soleta told him.

“Miss, with all due respect, I think I know a bit more about these things than you—”

“You’re not killing anyone!”

“Saying it louder and with a different emphasis isn’t going to change the fact—”

“Fact? You want facts? These are the facts,” Soleta said. “Fact: Morgan Primus is dead. The creature that’s taken up residence in the computer system of the Excalibur is a delusional computer program. Fact: She has threatened Captain Calhoun. She has threatened top Starfleet personnel. She has the power to carry out those threats and cause damage that we cannot even begin to calculate, and we have absolutely no reason to think that she will not do so. Fact: Your novel was an overwritten, one-sided screed that ignores the simple truth that a semblance of life is not actual life.” She advanced on the Doctor and he started to back up, keeping his chin pointed at her defiantly but looking unsettled at her rising ire. “Because if you’re a semblance of life, you can be brought back to what you were before, fully repaired, without the slightest evidence that anything had ever happened to you. Good as new, top to bottom. Living beings don’t have that luxury. We carry our physical scars, and our psychic scars, and they direct us and shape us and make us what we are from one day to the next. And when we die, then that’s it. We’re gone. A woman who was once one of my best friends blew herself up, Doctor. I saw it happen, and I was helpless to stop it, and you know what? We don’t get to reboot her. We don’t have options to bring her back, hale and hardy. For all that you are, for all that you think you are, if something catastrophic happened to you, there’s always a chance that a switch could be flicked somewhere and you’ll snap right back and stand there with a look of mild curiosity and say, ‘Please state the nature of the medical emergency.’ So here’s the medical emergency, Doctor. The entity calling itself Morgan Primus may well bring millions, even billions of lives to an end. And not a single one of those lives gets to be rebooted and started over, all fresh and ready to take up right where they left off. So what you get to decide now is if you’re on the side of the living or on the side of those who like to playact at it.”

For a long moment they just stood there, the two of them, Soleta trembling with rage that she could scarcely suppress, and the Doctor simply staring at her as if she had just embarked on a lengthy rant in a foreign tongue that he was unable to comprehend.

Finally he said, “You thought my novel was overwritten?”

“Oh my God,” said Soleta, throwing up her hands.

“What does that even mean? It had too many words?” He seemed flummoxed. “I used precisely the necessary amount of words to convey the sentiments. I don’t understand what—”

“Lewis.”

The speaking of the name brought him up short. He looked startled and made no effort to recover from it. He just stood there with his surprise evident on his face.

Seven slowly reached out to him and took his hand. Then she interlaced her fingers into his. “Lewis…” she said again.

“I am not Lewis Zimmerman,” he said, recovering himself. “That is my maker, who modeled my appearance upon himself. You know that.”

“Yes, I do, although I would point out that there are many who believe their respective creator did the same thing. But mainly I was trying to get your attention… and to make a point.”

“That point being…?” he said cautiously.

“That you and I are a lot more alike than I think either of us is ready to admit. We’re both… broken humans. We have an idea of what we’re supposed to be like, of how we’re supposed to behave. But we’re both still figuring it out as we go. The fact of the matter is that you probably have more experience at making the effort to be human than I have. Me… I’m disconnected from the Borg, and now I’m trying to forge a connection with humanity. But I’m flailing around in darkness, like a blind woman, making my way by feelings alone. Feelings that I am, to put it mildly, inexperienced in using. And it can be so…”

“Overwhelming?” He squeezed her hand tightly.

“Yes. Exactly. Overwhelming. And it’s hard to know what’s right and what’s wrong, and sometimes you just have to trust people and sometimes you have to trust your own instincts, and there’s a fine line to be walked between the two.”

“What are you saying, Seven?”

“I’m saying,” she told him firmly, “that I trust what Soleta is saying. I have seen, firsthand, the deadly combination of soulless entities with overwhelming power at their disposal. I’m saying that I believe the situation that she has presented is a threat to billions of lives. We need to take action, and if you’re not going to help, then we will go on our way and do the best we can, although I’m not liking the odds. But the bottom line is that I am asking you to trust me.”

Warring emotions were evident in the Doctor’s face. He turned away from her then, releasing her hands, and stood for a time with his back to her. Neither Soleta nor Seven moved so much as a centimeter.

“Has she created backups?” he said finally.

Seven looked confused, not quite understanding the question, but Soleta got it instantly. “You mean other incarnations of herself?”

“If she presents the sort of danger that you are saying, then she has to have a pervasive personality. Pervasive or, more accurately, invasive,” he continued as if he were a professor lecturing a class. “She would have created replications of herself and installed them in various databases.”

“Yes, she has,” said Soleta. “Including into the computer of my own vessel at one time. I’m reasonably sure she is no longer there, but I have had to remain circumspect and operate on the assumption that she could return there at any time and, if seeing me as a threat, annihilate my ship with a thought.”

Seven turned and stared at Soleta with open incredulity. “And you’re just telling me this now?”

As if Seven hadn’t spoken, the Doctor went on, “You’re not simply talking about administering a virus that will cleanse her from the core of the Excalibur. You need something that will compel her to pass it on to all her various iterations and backups, no matter where they might be, and obliterate them as well. Otherwise she could easily reconstitute herself and then you will not only be right back where you started, but she will be considerably angry and present an even greater threat. So you’re basically gambling an all-or-nothing scenario. I assume you both understand this.”

“I do,” said Soleta.

“I do now,” said Seven, firing an annoyed glance at Soleta. Then she turned her attention to the Doctor. “Are you telling us these things as a matter of information? Or—”

“I will help you, yes,” said the Doctor.

Seven reached up and touched his face. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said.

A thought suddenly seemed to cross his mind, and he turned back to Soleta. “You really think it would make a splendid musical entertainment?”

“Absolutely,” she said readily.

“Well then,” the Doctor said, all business, “let’s get to work.”





Xenex

Two Days Before the Daystrom Institute


i.

“Check again.”

“Captain, I’ve already double-checked the sensor readings,” Zak Kebron assured him. Far below the Excalibur, the mostly brown and, to most observers, unappealing world of Xenex, turned slowly on its axis, the starship in geosynchronous orbit with it. “I’m not picking up anything unusual. Certainly no energy readings from any encampments.”

“Morgan.” Calhoun turned to Morgan Primus, who was seated at the ops station. “Is it possible that they could be there with some sort of scrambling equipment?”

“Rendering themselves effectively invisible?” She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, it’s possible. Typically it would be easier to hide from scans if one has facilities underground, as we well know,” she said with an obvious reference to recent events on AF1963. “But with suffiently advanced technology, it might be possible to craft a shield of some sort that would either confound scans or prevent them from realizing what they’re looking at.”

“And we would have no way of knowing.”

“Not from up here,” she said.

“All right, then. Kebron,” he said, making the decision instantly, “kindly inform my brother that I will be making a homecoming. Assemble a security team. If we’re beaming into the middle of something, I want to make certain we’re ready to shoot our way out.”

Burgoyne, from hir seat as second in command, suggested, “Perhaps it would be preferable to speak to your brother from up here?”

“I can’t assume I’ll be getting an honest answer from him if I’m speaking to him from orbit. If we allow for the idea that hostile forces are masking their presence, then it makes sense to suppose that they could be right there with him, and we would never know.”

“And since it’s your brother involved…” Burgy began.

“Then I have to be the one who goes down. Think of it as a matter of pride.”

Morgan observed, “I seem to remember hearing that pride is what goes before a fall.”

There was a brief silence on the bridge, a collective wait to see how Calhoun would react to what could only be seen as an insubordinate comment.

“I’ve heard that, too,” said Calhoun. “Kebron: With me. Burgy, you have the conn. Morgan: Try not to crash the ship while I’m gone.”

“Aye, sir,” said Morgan neutrally.

The moment that Calhoun and Kebron left, Tania turned to Morgan and gave her a scolding look. “That was a hell of a thing to say.”

Morgan was aware that all eyes were upon her. She smiled easily. “Just expressing concern that the captain might be unnecessarily putting himself in danger.”

“He’s a big boy,” said Burgoyne. “I think he can handle it.”

“I’m sure he can,” said Morgan, and turned one one-millionth of her attention to her duties, which was more than sufficient to do what was required.

ii.

The heat struck Calhoun like a fist. That surprised him; he would have thought that returning to Xenex would simply be a homecoming with no measurable physical impact. Instead he actually staggered slightly as the change in climate nearly overwhelmed him. He recovered quickly, but it was disconcerting to him that he’d had any reaction at all.

The two human security guards, Meyer and Boyajian, who had accompanied him had an even more pronounced reaction. Meyer gasped and Boyajian started coughing violently before he managed to pull himself together.

Zak Kebron didn’t react in the slightest. The Brikar’s rock-like skin effortlessly resisted the heat. Since he had virtually no neck, he turned at the waist this way and that, inspecting the area where they had materialized and looking for some sign of possible danger.

There didn’t appear to be much of anything there, much less an overt threat.

Assorted small structures were scattered around in a haphazard manner, as if they had simply sprung up there with no rhyme or reason, much less any sense of designing a village. The skies were clear, orange and cloudless, although there was a distant shimmering haze upon the horizon.

Calhoun shook his head as he looked around. Absolutely nothing had changed. He thought of how far he had gone since leaving his native world, and all that he had accomplished, and yet the world of Xenex he had left behind—the so-called city of Calhoun in which he had been born and raised—was exactly the way he remembered it. He supposed that some people would take comfort in that, to know that some things remained the same. He was simply surprised to discover that he wasn’t one of them.

“Well, well, well. Look who decided to show his pathetic face around here.”

Mac turned and saw a familiar figure swaggering toward him. He was struck by the fact that, with each passing year, his brother D’ndai was looking more and more like their late father. Considering the violent demise that their father had met, being beaten to death by the oppressive Danteri in the town square, it was not a recollection that brought back any positive memories.

But Calhoun was far too experienced to let any of his thoughts be mirrored in his face. Instead he nodded toward his brother and said, “We both know you can’t live without me, D’ndai.”

D’ndai laughed and then put his arms out. Calhoun embraced him awkwardly. He was taller than D’ndai and so his older brother pulled him down toward him, slapping him on the back with such force that the sound reverberated. Mac, never the most demonstrative of men, did the best he could to return the affection, but in as restrained a matter as possible.

Then D’ndai stepped back, gripping Calhoun by the upper arms, turning him right and left and inspecting him as if he were a piece of prime meat. “You look like hell, boy.”

Calhoun frankly thought the same thing about his brother. The Xenex climate was obviously taking its toll; D’ndai looked far older than he had when Calhoun last saw him. But Calhoun didn’t see how matters would be helped if he made that observation. “You, however, look great.”

D’ndai scowled. “You used to be a better liar than that. On the other hand, I should be grateful. This way when you tell me what the hell you’re doing here, I won’t have to worry that you’re trying to be disingenuous. Come. Bring your guard dogs and explain to me why this isn’t simply a social call. I can safely assume that, can I not?”

“Yes,” was all Calhoun said.

Minutes later they were gathered in D’ndai’s modest home. Meyer and Boyajian remained standing just outside the entrance to D’ndai’s study. Kebron had chosen to remain outside the dwelling, keeping a wary eye out just in case someone or someones decided to make an unexpected and unwelcome visit. He remained as immobile as a statue, so much so that random Xenexians who happened to wander by wondered when it was that D’ndai had had the new artwork installed.

Calhoun was nearly as immobile, standing in D’ndai’s sparsely decorated study, sipping from a glass of water that D’ndai had presented to him with something akin to fanfare. D’ndai wasn’t sitting either; the brothers tended to remain standing in each other’s presence.

“Soldiers?” said D’ndai, his eyebrows knitting. “On Xenex?”

“That’s the information that I currently have in my possession.”

D’ndai looked amused. “When did you become so filled with words, M’k’n’zy? ‘That’s the information that I currently have in my possession’? The old M’k’n’zy would simply have said, ‘That’s what I’ve heard.’”

“It is what I’ve heard.”

“From whom?”

Calhoun was about to tell him, but then caught himself. Politics on Xenex were a tricky line to walk. Calhoun didn’t want to do anything to endanger Xyon’s ability to come and go as he pleased. If he told D’ndai that Xyon had been feeding information to Calhoun, then within the hour everyone in town would know about it. It could make matters problematic for Xyon should he happen to return to Xenex at some future date, and Calhoun had no desire to see that happen.

Carefully he said, “My sources don’t matter. What matters is, I want to know what you’ve heard.”

D’ndai paused, looking for a moment as if he wanted to pursue the matter, before apparently deciding that it wasn’t worth doing so. “Nothing.” He sipped his own glass of water. “I’ve heard nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“At all,” he confirmed. “Trust me, little brother. If there were soldiers on my world, I would know about it. And I’d know about it far sooner than you. I certainly wouldn’t need you showing up with your guards and your spaceship to tell me about it.”

“You make it sound like I’m being patronizing.”

“You are, a little,” he said, although he did not sound irritated. “Coming here to tell me about what’s happening in my own backyard, except it’s not.”

“Are you sure?”

“Again: my own backyard. If it were happening, I would know. Do you think I’m sloppy, M’k’n’zy? Do you think that I’ve gotten fat and lazy in my old age?”

“Not at all.”

“Again you lie, and badly,” said D’ndai scoldingly. “Let me make it clear for you, my brother: This world was conquered at one time. We will never, ever let it happen again. In order to prevent that, we have remained eternally vigilant. I have squads out there regularly, keeping watch for any sign of alien invasion. One never knows if the Danteri may decide they want to take another shot at subjugating us, and that’s just the beginning. You see, in case you haven’t heard, my brother is a rather high muck-a-muck in Starfleet. Consequently, there are some who may well decide to strike back at those on his homeworld, in order to use us as a weapon against my brother.”

“You’re blaming potential danger on me?”

“Do you deny the possibility?”

The truth was that it was a possibility that had long haunted Calhoun. He lowered his gaze and said softly, “No.”

“One word instead of ten. You’re starting to sound more like the M’k’n’zy of old.”

“D’ndai…”

“We have patrols out routinely,” D’ndai assured him. “We have sentry points with which we’re in constant communication.”

“Not on the far side of the world. There’s an entire continent that is inhospitable and fairly desolate. You couldn’t possibly hope to patrol that.”

“I will grant you, it’s a big planet, and we cannot hope to cover every square inch of it. But we’re far afield enough that I’m confident in our security. Contradict me, though, if you can. You have sensor devices. You can scan Xenex from on high. Do your marvelous sensors detect anything untoward happening here?”

“No,” Calhoun admitted. “That’s why it’s so puzzling to me.”

“It’s not puzzling to me. You haven’t found any potential invaders because there are none to be found.”

“So no unknown soldiers, then.”

D’ndai stared at him in astonishment. “Do you want me to write a ballad about it?”

“That won’t be necessary—”

“There are no soldiers on Xenex, M’k’n’zy! Unless you count your own people and you yourself.”

“We’re not soldiers.”

“Oh really?” said D’ndai, looking amused at the claim.

“Starfleet isn’t a military organization.”

“You wear uniforms, you carry weapons, you have ranks, and you fly about the galaxy in ships bristling with weapons. You want to say you’re not soldiers, you’re not the military, go right ahead. You may well even fool yourself into believing that. But you’re certainly not fooling this old soldier.”

Slowly Calhoun nodded. “All right, D’ndai. I’ll take your word for it.”

“How generous of you,” D’ndai said sarcastically.

“But I want you to promise me something—”

“You want me to promise,” D’ndai cut him off before he could continue, “that if something should happen—should soldiers magically appear, should we poor, pathetic, backward Xenexians find ourselves in mortal danger—that I will immediately summon my brother, the non-soldier, to show up in his non-military ship and use their considerable firepower to blow the invaders to bits.”

“I would have presented the entire thing without the sarcasm,” said Calhoun, “but that’s more or less accurate.”

D’ndai patted Calhoun on the shoulder. “We may be a backward planet in your eyes, M’k’n’zy, filled with backward people. Certainly we’re nowhere near as advanced as that flying battleship you call home, even if you can’t admit you’re all soldiers fighting an eternal war on behalf of the Federation’s security. But we do have communications facilities, and I assure you that if a threat should present itself, and I believe that it is beyond our abilities to handle, then my younger brother will be the very first person I’ll call.”

“That’s the part that concerns me, D’ndai. The concept that it’s something you cannot handle. If there’s one thing I know about you, big brother, it’s that you’re as stubborn as the day is hot, and you’d be the last one to admit there’s anything you couldn’t handle.”

With a coarse laugh, D’ndai said, “In that, you are right. Very well, then: You have my oath, M’k’n’zy. Should unexpected armed forces show up on Xenex, I will operate on the assumption that they are the ones who you warned us of, and will immediately summon you and your associates to step in with your considerable firepower and attend to the danger.”

“That’s all I ask.”

“You can ask far more of me than that, M’k’n’zy. We may not be the closest of brothers, but brothers we remain. And…” He hesitated and then continued, “And I am always painfully aware that I exist in the shadow of the great warlord you once were.”

“That was a long time ago, D’ndai. People forget.”

“No.” His voice was deathly serious. “They don’t forget, little brother, and you do them a disservice if you believe they do. Your reputation remains legendary, and your name celebrated in all gatherings. Perhaps if you had stayed to govern, then eventually they would have tired of you, just as many have tired of me. But you departed at the height of your popularity and left your legacy of greatness behind you. A wise move indeed.”

“I wasn’t thinking in terms of it being a ‘move.’ It was just the direction that my life seemed to take.”

“It was a good direction.” For the first time, D’ndai allowed a trace of bitterness to invade his tone. “You abandoned the people and they loved you for it.”

“That’s not how it was—”

“That’s exactly how it was, and don’t insult my intelligence by suggesting otherwise.” Before Calhoun could say anything else, D’ndai put up a hand and said, “Look… we both have other things we should be attending to. There’s nothing to be said or done here that’s going to change anything, so it would probably be best if we didn’t even try. I have told you what you wanted to know, answered all your questions, and assured you that we will summon you if needed. Beyond that, I don’t see what else we really have to talk about.”

Calhoun was about to say that it seemed to him as if there was a great deal to discuss. Then he thought better of it as he saw the look in his brother’s eyes, and the way D’ndai’s fingers were wrapped so tightly around his glass that it looked as if it might shatter in his grasp at any moment.

“I suppose you’re right,” said Mackenzie Calhoun.

“Safe journey,” said D’ndai, and he turned his back, seemingly lost in thought. There was not much in his posture or bearing that would have qualified as a “hint,” but what there was of it, Calhoun decided to take.

He strode out of the study, moving so quickly that Meyer and Boyajian had to run to keep up with him. He kept going and walked right past Kebron, who watched him go with mild interest and called after him, “I have troops at the ready, Captain. Do we need to summon them?”

“Apparently not,” said Calhoun. “They don’t have any information to contradict what our sensors are showing us.”

“So what you were told was incorrect?”

“So it seems, yes.”

“How does that make you feel?” said Kebron, concern in his voice.

Calhoun looked up at him. “Like shooting my head of security.”

“I don’t see how that would solve anything, but if it will give you peace of mind…”

“Shut up, Kebron.”

“Yes, sir.”

Calhoun tapped his combadge and said, “Calhoun to Excalibur.”

“Burgoyne here,” came back the voice of his second in command.

“Burgy, it seems that this was a wild-goose chase,” said Calhoun, taking a final look around. Passersby had slowed and were looking at Calhoun in something akin to amazement. He heard them muttering to each other, heard his name being bandied about. One young man, while speaking to a friend, was touching his own face, drawing a line along his cheek in imitation of the vicious scar running down the side of Calhoun’s own. Clearly he was indicating the scar as evidence that Calhoun was, in fact, the legendary scarred warlord of Xenexian renown.

Part of him was pleased to be engendering that sort of reaction, but then his brother’s words about being worshipped and adored while having abandoned his people came back to haunt him. Suddenly the world that he had once stalked like a cunning animal was the last place he wanted to be right now.

The comm channel was still open. “Four to beam up, Burgy.”

“Aye, sir.”

Calhoun folded his arms, waiting for the familiar humming sound that would indicate the transporter beams of the Excalibur had locked onto them and were about to bring them back home.

Home. That’s what the Excalibur had truly become to him; certainly more so than Xenex, which had once been the entirety of his worldview. Once upon a time, he could not have envisioned a life beyond the horizons of Xenex. Now he had outgrown it, and it was about time that he admitted that to himself.

Then the air began to sparkle around him, the transporter doing its work, and seconds later Kebron, Meyer and Boyajian vanished from the surface of Xenex.

It took a few moments for Mackenzie Calhoun to realize that he was still standing right where he had been. At first he thought it was some sort of glitch. Seconds later the beams of the Excalibur transporter room would sound again and this time he would be brought up to the ship along with the security team that was already waiting for him. There would be some good-natured scolding of transporter chief Halliwell, and then he would return to the bridge and they would leave Xenex’s orbit and return to the scientific studies that they had been pursuing before he dragged the ship away on this waste of time. And at some point he would catch up with Xyon and inform him that he had been completely wrong, and that nothing was remotely out of the ordinary on Xenex.

None of this happened.

Instead he continued to stand there, feeling increasingly foolish. Very quickly, though, the feeling of foolishness was transformed into that of concern. He tapped his combadge once more and said, “Calhoun to transporter room. I think you forgot someone.”

No answer.

He tapped it again, with growing urgency. “Calhoun to Excalibur. Burgy, what the hell is going on up there?”

No answer.

He hesitated and then, with a slow, deliberate tone that was bordering on growing anger, he tapped it a third time and said, “Morgan. Come in.”

No answer. Which was, of course, the answer, as far as he was concerned.

Certainly, though, they were going to notice when Calhoun didn’t step off the transporter with them.

Except… naturally Morgan would have anticipated that and planned for it. And Calhoun, after only a few moments’ consideration, was able to come up with the way that Morgan would doubtless address it.

“Grozit,” he said softly, with the air of someone who knew that he was completely screwed.

iii.

All four members of the landing party stepped off the transporter pad on the Excalibur. Kebron saw the serious look on Calhoun’s face and felt immediate sympathy for him. Brotherly relations could be prickly affairs under the best of circumstances, and these were certainly not those. “Captain,” he said, “if you’d like to talk about it…”

“Honestly, Mr. Kebron,” said Calhoun with a touch of weariness, “what I’d like is to forget that I ever came here. Please inform Tobias that I want her to plot us a course back to PAS3000. This should teach me a lesson in the foolishness of varying from Starfleet’s plans for us. I’ll be in my quarters.”

“Not the ready room, sir?”

“I think I could use some downtime. If something happens, though, you know where to find me.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Calhoun turned on his heel and walked out of the transporter room. They watched him go, and then Meyer said, “He seemed a bit out of sorts.”

“It’s understandable,” said Kebron. “I’m sure his homecoming was very emotional. I think it best to give him as much distance as possible. I’m sure that he’ll be himself in no time.”

iv.

Mackenzie Calhoun walked into the hallway, glanced right and left and, when he saw that there was no one around, disappeared.