essentially as a mobile tricorder, from the first day until
now. It was a relief to get away from him and accompany
Admiral Paris on this short mission to one of the moons of
Urtea II, where They had mounted a sensor array three
months earlier. There should now be valuable records of the
K.havior of extragalactic neutron stars and nonbaryonic
matter, two major components of the galaxy's distant halo.
"Hear much from your father?"
ventured the admiral once they were underway.
"Actually not, sir. He sent me a subspace message a couple
of months ago, but he couldn't really tell me what he was
doing." As usual, thought Kathryn. "He looked tired. He
must be working hard."
"I wouldn't doubt it." There was a silence between them,
for talk of her father always raised the specter of
Cardassia, and hence the questions that remained unanswered
about their own mission-questions that couldn't even be
posed.
To her relief, Kathryn had found that that other, covert,
mission might as well not have existed. She was unaware of
the ship's doing anything except surveying the galactic rim
and amassing data on halo objects. If there was
ini"ormation gathering going on at the same time, she was
gratefully ignorant of it.
"I got a communication from my son Tom the other day,"
continued Paris. A smile of what could only be called
paternal pride played on his mouth.
"He won the aeroshuttle derby at his school.
Set a record for the course." "You must be proud."
"I knew from the time he was a toddler that he'd be a
pilot. I'd take him with me on routine flights, and I 187
remember from the time he was two he was fascinated by the
controls. He'd sit and watch me work them and not move for
hours. He was like a little adult, studying and learning.
When he was five he asked if he could try the simulator."
Admiral Paris shook his head and smiled at the memory. "It
was all I could do not to laugh. Put a five-year-old in a
simulator? How could he possibly handle it? Well, I asked
him a few questions and damned if he didn't know all the
answers. So we went to the Academy one weekend and we fired
up the beginning flight program on the simulator."
The admiral stared out the window as though to recapture
that long-ago moment. "It was amazing.
Here was this little mite of a thing handling that flight
program as though he were an Academy cadet. The next day I
brought some friends along and let them watch, because I
knew no one would believe me if I told them a kid that age
could handle a simulator." He chuckled briefly at the
memory. "They said I must've programmed an autopilot
sequence and just let Tom sit there and pretend. But of
course they checked and saw that wasn't true."
"How old is he now, sir?"
"Fifteen. Already been accepted for admission to the
Academy when he graduates." Kathryn thought she had never
heard such naked pride in a parent before. She envied this
young Tom Paris, who had a father that gloried so in his
accomplishments. She doubted that her father ever regaled
his cohorts with stories of her achievements. "We're
approaching the upper atmosphere of the moon, sir," she
said, reading from her instruments. "Preparing landing
sequence." Then she gasped as she saw something else on the
sensors and heard the admiral grunt as he noticed the same
thing.
"There's a ship behind the limb of the moon," she said
automatically, knowing he was well aware of it.
He was already keying controls, swinging the shuttle in an
arc to return to the Icarus. "I don't recognize the
signature," she began, but he interrupted brusquely.
"That's a Cardassian ship, Ensign."
A cold knot formed in her stomach. This wasn't Cardassian
territory. What was it doing here?
"Should I alert the ship?" "Maintain communications
silence. It's possible they're unaware of the Icarus. I'd
like to keep it that way."
Kathryn was aware that he was running a fairly complicated
series of evasive maneuvers. What was he anticipating? She
willed herself to remain calm, and focused on the sensors,
which showed that a massive ship was rounding the limb of
the moon. In seconds it would be within eyesight. The
shuttle was dancing in space, maneuvering gracefully but
unpredictably, when the Cardassian ship appeared. It was
huge, roughly arrow-shaped, with a variety of weapons
systems prominently displayed along its hull. Kathryn felt
her heart hammering, but her mind was focused and her hands
on the controls were steady.
A deep violet tractoring beam suddenly emanated from the
Cardassian ship, and Kathryn realized the admiral had been
anticipating this; his maneuvers were an effort to keep
them from locking on. He glanced over at her, and his grave
eyes were worried. "This may get unpleasant for us,
Ensign," he said. "Do your best, but don't be unnecessarily
heroic." She didn't know what he meant.
For a few minutes he was able to avoid the tractor, but as
they both knew, it was only a delaying tactic. Eventually
the larger ship with its fat tractor beam would ensnare
them-and that's exactly what happened, with a bonejarring
snap that tossed them around like toys. Kathryn's 189
head bounced off the console; lights flared in her head, a
brief but brilliant display that she barely registered
before everything went black.
I did it, Daddy, she was saying, 1 derived the distance
formula. She kept saying it over and over, but her father
wouldn't look at her; he just kept his eyes straight ahead,
not listening. She said it louder, trying to break through
to him, yelling in her urgency to get him to turn and look
at her. I solved the problem, I know how to derive the
distance formula! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy-The sound of her own groan pulled her to consciousness,
and her father faded; she tried to get him back but the
moment had slipped away.
Now she was aware only of cold and dampness, and a dull
pain in her head. She reached to touch it and encountered a
thick crust of dried blood. Where was she? She should be on
board the Icarus, but what she felt beneath her was soggy
earth. A holodeck program? She struggled to make sense of
the situation.
She pulled herself to a sitting position and her head
erupted in pain. She steeled herself, waiting for it to
abate, and gradually began to assess her situation.
She could see nothing. Wherever she was, it was black as
pitch. She reached out and patted the earth in front of
her; it was dank and smelled of peat. She extended the
range of her patting and quickly encountered a barrier of
cold metal. Moving to her right, she followed the wall
until it abutted with another at right angles; in this
fashion she proceeded until she determined she was in an
enclosure approximately a meter and a half square. And less
than that tall. She couldn't stand up, could barely sit
upright without her head touching the ceiling.
And she could only lie down curled into a ball; the pen
wouldn't allow her to stretch out. The damp ground had
absorbed heat from her body, and
cold seemed to have penetrated into her bone marrow.
Was she in danger of hypothermia? She began rubbing her
legs and arms briskly, trying to warm them up.
What had happened? Her last memory was of being on the
Icarus, working with a padd . . . Justin Tighe was there,
cold and intimidating . . .
Wait. The shuttle . . . Admiral Paris .
. . they were on their way to check a sensor array .
. . and then . . .
A sudden sound, and an aperture opened in the darkness,
flooding the enclosure with bright light that knifed into
her eyes like ice picks. She covered them with her hands as
a man's voice said, "Please, my dear, come out and join
us."
Head down, eyes still shut, she crawled toward the light.
She could feel warmth beyond the opening, a welcoming
sensation that momentarily lifted her spirits.
A strong arm took hers and helped her to her feet, but she
couldn't stand; her legs buckled into the fetal position
they'd held for so long. She thought of newborn animals,
wobbly and unstable, trying to get to their feet. The
strong arms held her firmly until her legs were steady, and
then she looked up, still squinting in the harsh light,
into the face of an alien.
He was of a species she'd never seen. He was quite tall
and rather thin; his face and neck were corded with
cartilage. It was an imposing presence, but the eyes that
peered at her were kind. "I am Gul Camet," he said, and his
voice was rich and pleasant. Kathryn began to relax
somewhat.
"Please accept my apologies for the way you've been
treated. I assumed my men had arranged quarters for you,
and then I discovered you'd been treated like a common
criminal. I assure you they will be reprimanded." The tall
man inspected her head wound carefully. "This should be
treated at once.
Please, come with me."
Grateful, she followed him from the brightly lit courtyard
of stone into which she had emerged from her box, down a
corridor softly glowing with muted light, and into a
somewhat grand chamber with low vaulted ceilings and ornate
designs on the walls. A table and two chairs were its only
furnishings.
Gul Camet pushed some controls on the table and gestured
her to sit. "The physician will be here right away. How are
you feeling?" "I'm . . . not sure. Cold. My head hurts."
"You may have suffered a mild concussion. The physician
will treat you. Do you remember how you were injured?"
Kathryn struggled to piece together the images in her
memory. "I was in a shuttle . . . with the admiral . . ."
Suddenly she remembered Admiral Paris and became alarmed.
"Where is he? Where's the admiral?" "Your companion? I'm
afraid he was more seriously injured than you. He is in a
hospital facility, but he should recover completely."
Kathryn was staring at him. She had remembered the final
moments before the blackout. "You're Cardassian," she said
softly. "Yes," smiled Camet, "and you are human. Our
species haven't had much interaction. I wish this one
hadn't been so unpleasant for you. Why were you on one of
our moons?"
Kathryn's head was clearing quickly. The Cardassian ship,
the tractor beam, the admiral's final cryptic admonition-they were prisoners, no doubt about it, regardless of what
this sleek and charming Gul had to say. "I wasn't aware it
was yours. In fact, I'm sure it's in Federation territory."
"Was in Federation territory. We have annexed it."
"I'm not sure I understand how you can annex what is not
yours." "It's quite simple. You take it."
His eyes were not so kind now, she noted, and had become
lidded, like a snake's. "Now, once more-what were you doing
there?"
"My name is Kathryn Janeway. I'm a Starfleet ensign and a
member of the United Federation of Planets."
Camet was waving off her words with a gesture of disdain
and tedium. "Please, my dear, don't posture with me. If I
choose, you will tell me what you were doing on our moon.
You will tell me anything I ask, you will betray your
mother, your father, your friends, and beg to betray others
if I will just stop hurting you. That would be just before
you went insane." He eyed her briefly to see how she
responded to this statement. Kathryn did her best to be
perfectly neutral.
"But I don't want to do that. You're quite young, quite
lovely. And you seem intelligent. So I hope you'll see the
wisdom of cooperation. After all, if you had a legitimate
purpose on the moon, I have no quarrel with you. I
understand that the Federation was unaware of our recent
annexation."
Kathryn considered his statement. It sounded utterly
reasonable-a tactic, she knew, of a skilled interrogator.
On the other hand, she knew her heroic stand was, as he
said, impossible to maintain, and she remembered the
admiral's admonition as they were captured. Best to keep
this Gul talking. "We are on a scientific expedition,
studying massive compact halo objects. We established a
sensor array on that moon two mons hs ago and we were
returning to collect data."
"Ah. A mission of scientific endeavor."
"Exactly."
The door opened and another Cardassian man entered with a
satchel. Gul Camet instructed him to treat her injury, and
the man began to clean the wound; his touch was gentle and
experienced. "In that case, Ensign Kathryn Janeway of the
United Federation of Planets, why were there extremely
sophisticated surveillance devices installed in that
array?"
Kathryn wished that she knew nothing about the other
mission of the Icarus, so that her innocence would be real,
not feigned. "There weren't. You must be mistaking elements