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Rocketship Voyager	By : Odon Category: Star Trek > Voyager Views: 1330 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek Voyager and aren't making any money off this fanfic.

Chapter List
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Second of Three Parts
Synopsis: The United Nations Rocketship VOYAGER under the command of CAPTAIN JANEWAY was returning to Earth when it was caught in the gravitation beam of a vast cube-shaped spacecraft that carried them off to the other side of the galaxy! Whilst VOYAGER was able to break free, their losses forced CAPTAIN JANEWAY to form an alliance with renegade Spacefleet officer CHAKOTAY and his crew of Maquis rebels. Seeking a clue to the whereabouts of the cube-ship, VOYAGER has set course for a mysterious alien space station orbiting a black star.

Chapter VII: A MEETING OF MINDS
"Captain's Log: February 13, 2020. Our journey home is several weeks old now, and I have begun to notice, in my crew and in myself, a subtle change as the reality of our situation settles in. Here on the other side of the galaxy we are virtually the entire family of Man. As such we are more than a crew, and I must be more than a captain to these people. More than ever now, they need me to be larger than life. I only wish I felt larger than life."
Janeway swung the speaker cup away from her mouth and switched off the sonotyper. In the videograph on her memex-desk, Mark Johnson smiled his bashful smile while playing with the Irish setter puppy they had rescued from a termination clinic at Manhattan Memorial Crater. Mollie had died of cancer despite their efforts and their relationship had not lasted much longer. They had signed a six-month marriage contract, but she had balked at making their marriage permanent as she would have had to resign her commission.
Mark had never understood, and how could she ever explain to someone who was not a spacer? What it was like to feel the terrible power of a rocketship unleashed, to slip free the binds of gravity, to experience the humbling infinity that transformed one's soul into a saint or a madman. There were times she wished the videograph was only a still-life image. Mark and Mollie's never-ending frolic seemed a lost opportunity trapped in a loop of time. The Bureau of Eugenics would never give her permission to bear children now, given the risk of exposure to cosmic radiation in her career.
'I only wish I felt larger than life...'
Janeway frowned, having second thoughts about leaving that last sentence in her Log. She threaded the recorder spool through the editing block and was trying to splice and tape the offending section when the Chief Steward buzzed her on the intercraft.
"You asked me to remind you of your upcoming dinner appointment, ma'am."
Janeway uttered a Martian word they had not taught her at the Scholarium. She wasn't even dressed yet. "Thank you, Daniels. Just give Space Commander Chakotay a drink when he arrives and tell him I'll be joining him... eventually."
Janeway made a half-hearted effort to rewind the spool before giving up and shoving the whole lot into a drawer to be taken care of later. She slid off her boots and stuck them to the bulkhead by their magheels, then stripped off her clothes and dumped them into the laundry chute. She entered the refresher and was enveloped in a warm fog and a spray of scented soap to lather her up, followed by jets of water to rinse her off and blasts of hot air to dry her, sonic vibrations to massage her body and ultraviolet radiation to kill harmful bacteria. A hood crammed with brushes, spray-nozzles and micromanipulators lowered over her head, whirred and hummed for several minutes, then raised to reveal that cosmetics had been applied and her hair had been shampooed, combed and styled into soft auburn curls that brushed against her shoulders. With the advent of pseudo-gravity, it was time to let her hair down from the updo her crew had dubbed 'The Bun of Steel'.
Janeway stepped out of the refresher to find her uniform had emerged from the laundry chute freshly cleaned and pressed, but she decided instead on a more casual look: a loose-fitting white blouse, wide-legged slacks, a dark blazer cliched at the waist by a magclip belt, and a pair of jade earrings she had picked up on a weekend rocket trip to New Zealand in her Academy days. Thick-soled oxfords completed the ensemble—Spacefleet had abolished height restrictions with the advent of the larger CT rocketships, and too often now she found herself craning her neck to look a shipmate in the eye. She checked the result in a mirrored wall panel, took some painkillers for her ribs which were aching again with the restoration of gravity, and made her way to the jerry tube.
The jerry tube was the reason female spacers did not wear skirts even under pseudo-gravity. Voyager was now a thousand-foot skyscraper shooting through space with 'down' in the direction of their Cochrane Drive, so the Central Passageway had become a vertical shaft fifteen decks high. Spacers climbed ladders recessed into what had once been deckplates and bulkheads; those going up moving to the right of each hatchway, those going down to the left. In the center of the shaft the technos had jerry-rigged a continuous belt-lift to carry supplies between the various decks. Heedless of the drop below, Janeway leapt across to a platform carrying half a dozen cylinders of chlorofluorocarbon refrigerant and rode it down, stepping off as she came level with the hatchway to the officer's wardroom.
The wardroom was more than a mess for the ship's officers; it was a place for greeting dignitaries, holding briefings or holding court if needed. As such it was the public facade of Voyager and appointed accordingly. Sound-absorbing panels hid pipelines and electro-mechanical circuits, the deckplates were covered by a carpet heated by radioactive isotopes and a luminous ceiling bathed everything in a lambert glow. Self-adjusting chairs upholstered in red Martian leather (the null-gee straps tucked away in discreet compartments) surrounded an elliptical table made of genuine tree-grown wood from Venus. Dominating the room was a framed 2-D painting: a Chesley Bonestell pastiche of Voyager flying over the rings of Saturn, its silver hull reflected by the ice crystals beneath.
Janeway had selected the other decorations, most of them over the strenuous objections of Spacefleet psychotechs. A solar microscope from 18th Century France. A bronze bust of the Homeric hero Odysseus. A dragon carved from white jade, smuggled out of Red China before the End of History. Antique books printed on paper: Divina Commedia by the Italian poet Dante Alighieri, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (one of the few copies to survive the pyres of the House Committee for the Protection of Youth), Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead, and Twenty Jataka Tales by Nora Inayat-Khan. Sealed behind leaded glass stamped with warning trefoils was an antique parchment she had salvaged from the ashes of Milan: a flying machine sketched by Leonardo di Vinci, four hundred years before the Wright brothers took to the air.
Her First Officer was nursing a drink bulb and pondering the latest addition to her collection; a shipbuilder's plate that had been mounted after their recent battle over Vesta.
N.R.S. Valjean
No. 233 constructed by
Deutsche Raketen AG
Utopia Planitia, Mars
1995
"Perhaps you should take this down," said Chakotay, "given the current circumstances."
"Certainly not," replied Janeway, pretending not to notice his non-regulation footwear. "I'm quite proud of that trophy. The captain of that rocketship gave us a good deal of trouble, as I recall."
Chakotay had to smile. "I'm surprised at the books you have here. The Wizard of Oz is still illegal in certain city-domes of North America. And isn't the Jataka Tales a Buddhist text? Not the usual thing to find in a Spacefleet wardroom."
"Well that book was written by a very brave girl. During the Second World War she parachuted into Nazi-occupied France to aid the Resistance, only to be betrayed and die in a concentration camp."
"A Maquis supporter? A woman after my own heart."
Janeway carefully removed Divina Commedia from its temperature-controlled cabinet. The book was already damaged, with pages missing and Inferno appropriately charred. "So much of our culture has been lost. The history purges of the Communists, the moral crusades of the Rationalists, three world wars. Even the post-war reconstruction only led to a flood of escapist entertainment. People just wanted to forget what had happened—let the past burn and good riddance, they said. There are children these days who can't even read Esperanto, let alone these ancient European languages. They've been raised on book-spools and tri-vids."
"Consider your origin," Chakotay quoted. "You were not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge."
Janeway looked at him in surprise. "I didn't know you studied pre-Atomic literature."
"I don't, but I was once stuck on a long Hohmann trajectory to the New Earth colony on Venus. I must have played every book in their Arkive. Anyway, I agree with Dante. Mankind has a higher purpose than fighting and watching feelies. We would never have made it into Outer Space if we were meant to scrabble about in our own ashes."
"A soldier and a philosopher," mused Janeway. "Your intelligence file doesn't do you justice." She turned to the first canto and read aloud:
"In the middle of the journey of our life,
I found myself astray in a dark wood
where sight of the straight road had been lost.
How hard it is to say what it was like
in the thick of thickets, in a wood so dense and gnarled
the very thought of it renews my fear.
It is bitter almost as death itself.
But to set forth the good it also brought me
I will speak about the other things I saw there."
Janeway put the book back in the cabinet, gingerly pressing the null-gee restraints against the binding. She sealed the doors and turned to Chakotay.
"Why did you rebel against the Tri-World Federation?" she asked bluntly.
Chakotay had been expecting the question, but had no intention of making it easy for her. "Isn't there a tradition about not discussing politics in the officer's wardroom?"
"Or women, as I recall. I never understood why Spacefleet has to follow naval traditions. The pioneer aviators who were the first to leave the surface of the Earth: Amelia Earhart, Chuck Yeager, the Wright brothers—those are the ones we should look to for inspiration."
"Fair enough," said Chakotay. He put the drink bulb back in its slot. "I'll answer your question if you tell me why you mutinied against your captain on the Valkyrie."
"There was no mutiny. Captain Qu had gone insane. We detained him under orders from the senior remaining medical authority."
"Most people do go insane if you shut them in an air-lock for ninety-seven days with only a tankful of algae for company."
"He was lucky we didn't throw him out the other side." If they had been back in the Solar System, she would have told Chakotay to go jump out the air-lock himself. But they weren't, so maybe candor was the best way.
"Things were tense on the Valkyrie even before the disaster," said Janeway. "The wardroom was something of an Old Boys Club. In Spacefleet Academy I'd been taught that an officer should maintain a certain distance, but ours preferred the hands-on approach, if you know what I mean. There was a lot of fraternization; favoritism shown to those girls who were willing to do favors in turn. It put a lot of pressure on the rest of us who were just trying to do our jobs. Then the meteorite hit..." ('And I had to seal the berthing compartment, sacrificing everyone inside to save the ship.') Tu'Vix, the Martian lieutenant who had refused to participate in the hazing conducted by the other officers, had reached the collision-hatch just in time to be cut in half.
Janeway took a deep breath. "The captain decided to put the Valkyrie down on Mercury to wait for rescue. The planet is tidal-locked to the Sun so one side is always boiling hot and the other freezing cold, but Qu believed (incorrectly as it turned out) there was a thin region between the two where humans could survive. Somehow this idea of waiting for rescue turned into a grand vision of the first Terran colony on Mercury, using the female crewmembers as a baby factory to consolidate later territorial claims. No-one cared what we had to say about the matter."
"That sounds familiar."
"Really, Chakotay? I fail to see the resemblance. Didn't you defect to the Maquis to avenge your father?"
"My father was a spacer—so was I. Death is part of life in Outer Space. I rebelled because the government was going to take away our land, and not for the first time either."
"They weren't the Great Plains, Chakotay. Your homeland is an airless asteroid only 270 miles in diameter."
"Your body's only five-foot-five, but you were willing to risk your entire ship and everyone on board to protect it. Shouldn't you girls have just closed your eyes and thought of the Tri-World Federation?"
"We didn't mu... detain our officers to protect our chastity! We knew we could get the Valkyrie to safety and we did! What were you hoping to achieve, Chakotay?"
"Something other than abject surrender! There are times you have to risk everything on principle, or what are those principles worth?"
The two officers stood glaring at each other for a long moment, then Chakotay sighed and planted himself in the nearest chair, fishing in his jacket for a cigarette.
"I didn't come here to fight," he said.
"That's good, because I came here to eat."
The meal was elegantly served by white-jacketed stewards on china plates with zirconium cutlery, a gift from the engineers who had built their Cochrane Drive. Prime Martian beef with lightly-steamed vegetables and a bottle of red wine, followed by coffee and yeast cake. The first Martian colonists had been a heterogeneous lot: Negro sharecroppers fleeing the lynch mobs, Brazilian gauchos whose grazing land had been seized by the factory-farms, and refugees from war-torn Europe including a family of winemakers from La Barre in France, though it had taken years of hard work and scientific research to enrich the soil enough to grow anything. The food had a faint burnt flavor from the irradiation used to preserve it for long space voyages, but neither officer complained. With the food shortages on Earth everyone had long since learned to eat what was put in front of them.
"There was a time when every woman knew how to cook," said Janeway. "It's a lost art—all I know is how to push buttons on a menu selector. My mother was going to teach me..." (before the Bureau of Eugenics burnt the memories out of her brain—whatever happened in the bomb shelter after the lights went out—so she wouldn't pass on her psychoneurosis to her children) "...but I was more interested in tinkering with radios and chemistry sets like the other girls."
"Well, you weren't lying about the coffee," said Chakotay. "It's a lot better than synthokaf. Is this really made from beans grown in the soil?"
"On trees, grown on the slopes of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. It's a good thing those hard-working agrifood executives need coffee too, or the entire island would have been turned into a banana farm. Make sure you savor that cup. I'm down to my last bag, which I'm sacrificing to you in the interests of diplomacy."
They kept up such banter for a while, maneuvering around each other with words as they once had with rocketships, neither of them discussing the recent war or friends whom the other might have killed. Chakotay told the same old tale of his attempt to free the last bald eagle on Earth, while Janeway joked about her antics searching for non-existent treasure as a student on Mars. Chakotay found himself enjoying her company, this woman who had been trying to blast him into radioactive dust only a few weeks ago. When the captain seemed sufficiently at ease, he brought up the subject of B'Elanna Torres. "With her background and academic credentials she could work as a synthesist. There's too much narrowmindedness in the Science and Engineering departments. You need someone who can think outside the box, combine disciplines, find practical solutions. A Belter rather than an Earther."
Janeway flicked a glance at the stewards who were standing discreetly in the background. Without a word they filed out the hatchway—only after it had sealed behind them did the captain speak again. "B'Elanna Torres is a civilian, not a Spacefleet officer; I'm not putting her in a position of authority on this ship. You've got the pardon you asked for, Chakotay. Don't let it go to your head. This is a temporary arrangement, no more."
"Are you sure about that? We could be stuck together longer than you think. What happens if we can't find that cube-ship? It could be anywhere in the galaxy, or even in a completely different galaxy! And even if we did find those aliens, they might not be glad to see us. Last time they made First Contact with the Human Race you fired an atomic torpedo at them."
"I'm hoping for a more peaceful approach next time," said Janeway with a confidence she didn't feel. "Anyway, if Miss Torres is as smart as you think she is, the aliens on that space station could send us home in the wink of an eye. Provided they have eyes, of course."
"Provided they're willing to send us home at all."
"I'll cross that Einstein-Rosen bridge when I come to it."
Chakotay leaned forward, his dark eyes fixed on hers. "You're not thinking this through. There might not be any way back to the Earth that we know. Have you heard of time dilation? Voyager was accelerated faster than the speed of light. We could get back home and find that centuries have passed! Earth could be a world as alien as anything we could find out here."
Janeway met his gaze evenly. "I don't know about you, but I didn't join Spacefleet to fight wars in the Asteroid Belt. I joined to be a scientist and an explorer. This crew will face whatever the future holds. And as their captain I will do my utmost to get every one of them home."
"This crew has to be prepared for the distinct possibility that they might never get home. If that's the case we need to search for a habitable planet and establish a colony. Think about it: a second foundation of Mankind on the far side of the galaxy. Insurance for our species if Earth is destroyed by social collapse or some other cataclysm. Maybe it's fate that we ended up here."
"I've heard this speech before, Chakotay!"
"So I've heard, and that's the problem. This isn't the Valkyrie. You're so fixated on getting this crew home, you've blinded yourself to other options."
Janeway forced herself to speak calmly. "You're the one who's not thinking this through. Voyager isn't a colony ship; we've no race bank of embryos, no Arkive holding the accumulated knowledge of the Human Race. We have barely enough people to establish a stable population—even counting the extraterrans in our crew—and the slightest disaster would deplete those numbers. I've seen too many colonies fail due to poor planning and genetic inbreeding."
"Then we find a world with biologically-compatible aliens."
Janeway was aghast. "What you're suggesting is a direct violation of our Prime Directive!"
"Is this the right time to worry about Spacefleet's ban on miscegenation?"
"It's right in any circumstances! Ask your friend B'Elanna how good her life has been, caught between two worlds and belonging to neither!"
"Is that really what's bothering you, Kathryn? Perhaps you've been a Spacefleet captain for so long, you've forgotten that you're a woman with her own needs."
"I didn't know we were on a first name basis, Space Commander Chak__"
His arms were strong and his kiss was passionate. For a moment Janeway felt herself melting into his embrace, then she wrenched herself free and her palm cracked across his face.
For a moment they just stared at each other, breathing hard. What might have happened next neither could say, but the harsh blare of the bullhorn put an end to it.
"GENERAL QUARTERS! GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL HANDS MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS! MULTIPLE OBJECTS ON INTERCEPT COURSE! SET MATERIAL CONDITION ZEBRA THROUGHOUT THE SHIP!"
The alarm took everyone by surprise. When Voyager set course for the alien space station no-one expected some rocketship bristling with rayguns to appear, demanding they heave-to in the name of the Galactic Patrol. Such warlike confrontations in the depths of the void were the fantasies of scientifilm. The speed of a modern rocketship was such that a defender would have mere seconds to intercept before the two vessels shot past each other (though psionic-guided weaponry was increasing that time). It made more sense to wait for an aggressor to decelerate and come within range of an overwhelming volley of interceptor missiles. Even in the Asteroid War the battles had taken place around the space stations and asteroid mines that were worth fighting over, not empty Space.
The two officers rushed to the jerry tube and found it packed with men and women swarming ape-fashion up the ladders. Janeway was gauging her jump to the nearest belt-lift platform when the ship lurched and she would have gone headfirst into the shaft if Chakotay had not grabbed her. A pallet burst sending its contents raining down on the people below. The passageway echoed with screams and curses and the belt-lift shuddered to a halt.
"Let me sort that out," Chakotay urged. "You're needed on the Bridge."
"Isn't there some Indian trick where you turn into a bird and fly me up there?"
"You're too heavy." Bracing a foot on the hatchway, Chakotay swung himself out into the jerry tube, using his body to block those climbing up from below. Ignoring their complaints, he yelled, "Make a hole! Captain, coming through!"
Janeway brushed past him and started to climb. The rungs were vibrating as if Voyager were flying through the storms of Venus and she had trouble holding on. Weeks of null-gravity had taken their toll on her muscles and Janeway was exhausted by the time she got to the Bridge where everyone seemed to be shouting at once.
"__intense gravimetric disturbance! Accelerometers are jumping across the dials!"
"__coherent beam of electromagnetic radiation bouncing off our hull! They know we're here, but they're not turning away!"
"__two vessels... make that three... four! No, five... fifteen vessels!"
"So much for ESP! Why didn't you detect them earlier, Vor'K?"
"They were just there, Pablo! They came out of nowhere!"
"Everyone quiet!" ordered Captain Janeway, having regained her breath. "Helm, maintain our course and heading. If they can see us, they know to avoid us. Sound collision, Mr. Rollins; I want every section sealed whether it's manned or not. Mr. Vor'K, load all torpedo tubes, maximum yield on the atomic warheads. Sparks, broadcast a standard hail on as many frequencies as you can manage. Try the signal lamp as well."
"Which language shall I use, ma'am?"
"It doesn't matter; they won't understand it anyway. Just make it clear we want to talk instead of shoot." Clutching the null-gee handgrips to steady herself, Janeway struggled across the lurching deck to her acceleration couch and buckled herself in. She snapped down the intercraft toggle. "Astrogation, I want eyes on those vessels now!"
"My God!" someone gasped, reverting to ancient superstition at the sight that appeared on the telescreens. Spacecraft like none of them had ever seen: saucers with cantilevered nacelles, spheres encircled with glowing portholes, squid-like monstrosities that looked grown instead of made. They flashed past on every side leaving Voyager bucking in the turbulence of twisted space-time, like a native canoe caught in the wake of an armada of steamships. Then in an instant they were gone, stretched into infinite streaks of blue that vanished as suddenly as they had appeared.
"They've gone off our scopes, ma'am," said the Senior Radarman. "Whoever they were, they can outrun the pulses from our radar. That's faster than the speed of light."
There was a stunned silence on the Bridge. Captain Janeway struggled to keep the dismay off her face. Acceleration like that should have turned the crews of those spacecraft into pulp. What kind of technology were they up against here?
"Status, Mr. Rollins," she said quietly.
"Damage Control says we have atmospheric integrity in all compartments. Minor damage on Decks Four and Six. Space Commander Chakotay reports casualties in the Central Passageway. No fatalities, but he'd like the collision-doors to Sickbay unsealed."
"Do it." Janeway leaned forward to peer at a telescreen. It showed an ovoid pod tumbling through space, marked by a flashing beacon light. "It looks like our visitors have left us something. Atom bomb? Message buoy? Intergalactic garbage can?"
"No radiation detected," said Rollins. "Radar shows no metallic reflection, but there's a thermal signature. And it's venting gas... spectrometers show oxygen and nitrogen. That pod looks big enough to hold a man if he was scrunched up a bit, but if there's anyone inside they won't be alive for long."
"Grapple it and bring it on board." Janeway released her safety webbing and pried herself out of the couch. "Mr. Rollins, you have the Bridge. Have the space marines and a rescue team meet me outside the Hangar Deck."
Tom Paris was commanding the rescue team but even the six-foot Terran was dwarfed by the marines in their jetpacks and space armor. Unauthorized modifications to the latter showed the bitter experience of the recent Asteroid War. The red finish that looked so impressive on the parade ground had been burnished down to bare metal, then slathered in black and grey stripes like the disruptive camouflage of 20th Century warships. Oversized pauldrons had been removed and extra radiator fins added, the fault-prone collapsible helmet replaced by a sturdy asteroid-mining helm of armorglass and boron carbide. Bandoleers were packed with grenades, breaching bombs, thermite cutters, cans of hull-sealant, and clips of explosive bullets that would shred flesh but not pierce the hull of a rocketship.
"If possible I want a peaceful First Contact," said Janeway, feeling somewhat ridiculous addressing the towering space marines while in civilian dress. A Spacefleet captain was supposed to delegate tasks like this, to run things from the Bridge where she had all the controls and communications at her fingertips. But the past couple of months had given Janeway a crash course in leading men into danger, and she had learned the importance of letting them see you were willing to put your life on the line as well. There was too much of the old contempt for the military in Spacefleet, a residue of the atomic wars of the previous century when soldiers like these were mere radiation-fodder, controlled by drugs and hypnotic conditioning. "Even if the alien is hostile, it's essential that we take it alive for questioning. Shoot only in self-defense; I want all weapons set to stun."
"You heard the captain," growled Sergeant VanBuskirk. "Rubber bullets and tear gas only. Make sure you aim for the torso, not the white of its eyes. Those rounds can still maim."
"It's an alien—what if its eyes are in its torso?" asked Paris. The marines ignored him.
Janeway accepted an oxymask from the rescue team, making sure to pull the straps tight against her jaw, both for a proper air seal and to ensure that bone conduction would transmit her words to the built-in radio mike. "Captain to Hangar Control."
"Chief Petty Officer Nozawa here, ma'am. The pod is on board and the Hangar Deck has been pressurized. We just saw some kind of creature emerge and scamper out of sight, too quick for us to get a clear look. I could reduce the oxygen level and knock it unconscious..."
"No, I don't want to risk harming it. Turn off the lights; let's draw our guest out into the open. Is everyone ready here?"
"YES SIR!" was the response. Janeway had given up trying to get the space marines to address her as "ma'am". Their training was too ingrained.
Paris spun the wheel to unlock the hatch and hauled it aside. Moving quickly despite their cumbersome appearance, the marines rushed through the dangerous chokepoint, spreading out into a defensive formation on the other side. Janeway barely had time to join them before the hatch slammed shut again behind her.
The only light came from Hangar Control, a squat observation tower in the center of the hangar. The entire deck crew was crammed inside, peering anxiously through the canted windows. VanBuskirk switched on the blacklight projector and panned it slowly across the hangar, its infrared rays invisible to anyone who was not wearing snooper goggles. No bug-eyed monstrosity was exposed to their gaze. The only sound was the drip of condensation, the hum of air-renovators and the clinking of hoist chains in its artificial breeze. Then, faintly, came the sound of claws skittering on a metallic surface.
"Over there," someone said. Janeway caught a glimpse of a tail, the flash of white teeth in the dark.
"Chief, give us some light in here."
The glare of floodlights threw some areas into brilliant exposure, others into greater darkness. Though the hangar took up an entire deck it was congested with tanks of rocket fuel, loading mules and fire-fighting bots, racks of tools and munitions and spare parts. An ambulance pod and a marine breaching pod sat on the deck, both pitted with shrapnel scars and radiation scorch marks. Shuttleboats hung on their launch cradles: the saucer-shaped Aeroshuttle and the skeletal Type 6. The grapple-line was wrapped around the drum winch and the alien pod squatted on the arresting platform between the manipulator jaws. As the marines fanned out across the hangar Janeway went over to examine it. The pod resembled nothing so much as a large leathery egg, its upper surface splayed open in four petals. Janeway leaned over to peer inside...
The blast of a jetpack made her start; Janeway spun round to see a marine leap into the air and land nimbly on the Aeroshuttle's launch cradle. He shone his helmet lamp through the bomb-aimer's window. "Here kitty... Here kitty-kitty..."
Annoyed at her show of nerves, Janeway went back to the pod which appeared to be some kind of bio-organic technology. It was empty except for a translucent slime that she was careful not to touch, though it could well be harmless. She knew the Spaceborn used oxygenated fluid to fill the pressure-distribution tanks that enabled torchship pilots to withstand high-G's. Was that how the crews of those spaceships were able to survive acceleration to supra-light speed?
"Captain." Janeway looked up to see VanBuskirk towering over her. "The alien's gone to ground somewhere. With your permission, I'd like to use gas to flush it out."
"Do it," was her curt command.
The Y-rack launcher mounted on the sergeant's burly shoulders fired a half-dozen bomblets that bounced off the deckhead and spun into every part of the hangar, spewing clouds of white gas. Strobe lights flashed and a pre-recorded voice announced: "Atmospheric contamination (Phenacyl Chloride) detected on (Hangar Deck)! Protection Level (Charlie-Charlie-Charlie) required!", the alert repeating until Nozawa shut it off.
There was an ear-piercing screech from the Aeroshuttle and a dark shape erupted from its ramjet nozzle, slamming into the marine and knocking him off the launch cradle. His jetpack auto-fired to break his fall and he careered across the hangar, flailing blindly at the alien clasped to his face. Janeway cringed as they slammed into a rack labelled DANGER: MONATOMIC HYDROGEN sending cylinders of highly-volatile rocket fuel bouncing across the deckplates.
"ARGHH! Get it off me!" The alien was only half the marine's size but was hissing and spitting in fury, biting and clawing at his helmet and body armor.
"Corporal Rico, hold still!" shouted VanBuskirk. He took careful aim and the hangar echoed with the crack of a rifle shot. The creature yelped and fell to the deck where it writhed helplessly, winded by the impact of the rubber bullet.
Janeway took note of the intruder's clothing, its omnivorous teeth and opposable thumbs and ordered: "Everyone back off. Sergeant, secure those fuel tanks, then clear the Hangar Deck. Inform Mr. Rollins the crew can stand down from General Quarters. And get Mr. TuV'k down here. Tell him to bring a portable encephalo-adjuster."
As the marines filed out through the hatchway, Janeway sat herself down on a cargo pallet and studied the alien. It (or 'he' Janeway guessed from the lack of evident mammilla) had a squat body covered in yellowish-brown fur and a long prehensile tail, the rodent-like appearance scarcely diminished by plaid leggings, split-toe boots, and a rather tattered vest lined with many pockets. His face was a blunt muzzle framed with long ginger whiskers that formed a kind of beard, with a high forehead and dark brown eyes that gazed back at her with an all-too familiar intelligence. Janeway was not the type of girl to jump on the nearest chair and shriek when faced by a giant rat, but she could not deny a feeling of wrongness, of alienation—the instinctive psychological rejection of a creature that was in the form and manner of a Man, yet was not.
Once the air-renovators had filtered out the tear gas, Janeway removed her oxymask and the alien took that as a cue to sit up on his haunches. He began to make elaborate gestures with his paws and tail, whistling and shrilling and crooning until Janeway's head hurt. She suspected that some of the sounds were pitched at frequencies too high for human ears.
"If that meant: 'Take me to your leader', I'm already here."
Janeway heard the hatch open and shut behind her. Footsteps crossed the deck and she sensed TuV'k's presence by her side.
"This fellow seems quite eager to talk," said Janeway, not taking her eyes off the alien, "but I can't understand a word."
"I have never attempted the melding-of-minds with a non-anthropoid life-form, Captain."
"You've seen the power these aliens have: gravity manipulation, supra-light drive, anti-acceleration technology. Our next encounter could be a lot more dangerous. Until we can speak the language we're just blundering around in the dark. I need a Rosetta Stone."
The Martian sat down on the deckplates in a cross-legged position, similar to those used for meditation by the ancient mystics of India. He held a squat plastisteel box that he placed in front of him. He flicked switches and twirled dials. There was a hum of power as the micratomic pile and vacuum tubes warmed up. The alien shuffled over to watch the proceedings with evident interest. A rank stench arose from his body that the two Spacefleet officers did their best to ignore.
TuV'k put on a copper skullcap from which sprouted a cluster of trailing wires that plugged into the box. "You do not have to take part in this, Captain. Sharing one's mind with a sentient alien who is untrained in mental telepathy can be dangerous."
Janeway wordlessly held out her hand. TuV'k passed her another skullcap, plugged in a third and held it out to the alien. Janeway placed the cap on her head and gestured for the alien to do the same. He took the cap in his paws, sniffed at it, then tasted the copper with a long pink tongue. Janeway was wondering if she was going to have to call in the marines to hold him down when he abruptly perched the cap atop his florid plume of ginger hair.
TuV'k began to chant a mantra in a long-dead language, though Janeway knew its meaning from her years as a student on Mars: my-mind-to-your-mind-my-thoughts-to-your-thoughts-our-minds-are-as-one. These three people from three different worlds closed their eyes and saw...
A great tree, the greatest tree in all the world, a world that was a vast forest that covered the moon of Rynax. When Father Talax was high and bright in the sky, his family would gather in song among the warrens and shelter-leaves and protein-buds: father and mother, sisters and brothers, their mother's mother, father's father, their sisters' sisters, their brothers' brothers—all the litters from all the generations of their endless family, all tending and singing to the Great Tree that loved and nourished them in return.
(...they saw...)
Her father was a fireman. Her father would come home reeking of smoke from the books and vids he had burnt, the ones created by the fantasists they had been warned about in school. At night by the glow of a radium lamp, he would read to Kathryn from the pages he had saved from the flames. Tales of princesses and philosophers and scientists and explorers, of men of conviction and women of courage. Of heroes who walked among the stars and were not afraid to dream.
(...they saw...)
For eight days and nights the students at the Scholarium ran amok. They cast down the Sentinel and pleasure-coupled in the corridors. They stole the spice reserved for vision quests and consumed it with abandon. They loudcast the strange music of Terra in the PsiDome, singing the nonsense words with voice and telepathy till all were caught in its thrall. The scholars fled the city lest their minds be swept away by the bacchanalia.
Only the High-Master remained. He knelt in meditation under the apex of the PsiDome, ignoring the chaos, his mind disciplined against their madness. When a sandstorm forced the students there for shelter, they danced around the solitary figure and taunted him with lyrics from another world:
Mister Sandman, I'm so alone.
Don't have nobody to call my own
Please turn on your magic beam
Mister Sandman, bring me a dream.
"Why should we listen to fossils like you?" demanded TuV'k. He had discarded his student cloak for skinsuit jeans and a floaterbike jacket with words in Terran-English printed on the back: Mars Needs Women. His mind as always was on his Outworlder classmate with her exotic red hair, who roused dangerous passions. "Our world is dying, while the Terrans are vigorous and powerful and fear nothing. Let us adopt their ways and we shall be strong and fearless ourselves."
"You are a child," scolded the High-Master, though his voice was without rancor. "You see the freedom and strength of the Outworlders, but not what they have sacrificed to achieve it. You see their vigor but not their blindness. It is we who must teach them."
(...they felt...)
The sky brought flaming meteors whose impact threw up monstrous pillars of ash that blocked out the sun. The wind brought diseases that made the leaves turn brown and their fur fall out in clumps. Cloud-seeding brought torrential rains that drowned the warrens and turned the soil to squalid mud. Autonomous machines prowled the forest and patrolled the skies, slaying everything that lived.
The Great Tree was a barren spire, strangled by vines of an alien hue sprouting poisonous seeds that they could not eat. The air changed, sucked into colossal machines belching clouds of green mist that drifted across the land, seeping into the deepest warrens, the most well-protected creche, killing all who breathed it.
Father died. Mother died. Father's father and mother's mother and all their children died. When his sister Alixia died, he ate her flesh to fend off his hunger.
By the time the colony ships landed, few were left alive to oppose them.
(...they felt...)
The captain spoke of eugenics, of a Second Foundation of Man, of the duty of Humanity to spread civilization among the stars. He was just getting to the best part—where the surviving men of the Valkyrie would breed with the most attractive and fertile women on the crew—when three figures in oxysuits and bronze helmets filed in through the ventral air-lock. Ensign Kathryn Janeway, Assistant Astrogator Alice Keefer, and the sole surviving medical authority: Hospital Corpswoman Third Class Eve Maryk.
"What are you girls doing here?" barked Space Commander Adams. "Get back to your stations!" Perhaps he thought they were a deputation of damsels come to bleat about their virtue. If the officers had looked at their expressions instead of their tight-fitting pressure suits, they would not have been so patronizing.
"Doctor's orders, sir," said Kathryn, nodding towards Eve. She had a speech prepared, but none of these men deserved it. They had lost her respect long before the disaster that had stranded them here. "I don't know how to tell you this... but the wedding's off!"
Eve was holding a red globe that she hurled to the deck between Adams' feet. The fire grenade shattered, filling the Bridge with choking white powder. The officers stumbled about, coughing and cursing.
"Impetuous harlot!" screamed Captain Qu. Too late they saw the gun in his hand.
At this range the rocket-propelled bullet had not expended its fuel when it pierced Eve's oxysuit, and the pure oxygen within went up in a sheet of flame...
(...they felt...)
A soundless cry of fear swept through the watchers as the giant landing glider passed silently over their heads—larger than any bird of prey, pristine white but for the blue globe of an alien world painted on the underside of its wings. A cry that spread in a telepathic warning to all parts of the city, even to those laboring in the catacombs deep under the red sand. Driven by the same compulsion men donned masks of metal and reached for their hive-guns, women smashed priceless crystal ornaments and plucked with bloody fingers the sharpest shards, children dropped toys and books to take up sticks and rocks. The thought amplified and reinforced as it passed from one Martian to the next, like white corpuscles swarming to fight an infection: 'Kill the invaders from the third planet, kill the not-people, kill... kill... kill...'
(...they understood...)
Capture, enslavement, fear, pain, sickness, despair. Death for many, more often through the indifference of their captors than active malice. But his people had adapted. The cities and vessels of the invaders were not unlike the Great Tree: machines that provided shelter and nourishment, and they had burrowed within them like vermin, learning their crannies and workings.
Then came escape, and the years of scavenging and trading and grifting to survive, and all the time yearning for the song of the Great Tree, for the warmth of his kin who were long gone...
(...they understood...)
The convex windows showed the vista below but none of the children paid attention to the monotonous and familiar sight. Endless fields of corn and soybeans, bathed under the pseudo-sunlight of the orbital mirrors. Freight-tubes and rolling roads that vanished across the horizon, robot harvesters and factory-farms and the occasional weather control tower. Once they flew over a lake that was green from shore to shore, host to a vast algae farm.
"I used to go fishing there with my father," said the old man who flew the school aerobus. It was the only time he had ever spoken to her. "All the fish are gone now."
(...they understood...)
As an Adept of the Histories he wandered the ruins of Silas—the canals filled with sand, the mindscapes and observatories, the Labyrinth of Isen now open to the sky—but enlightenment did not come. Tri-vid advertisements drowned the whispers of psychic-ghosts, the libraries had been razed by Martian converts to the religions of Earth, the catacombs used to store nuclear waste. Even well-meaning efforts of the Outworlders were jarring. Safety barriers barred access to the Tesseract Maze, and the restoration of the Palace of Gi seemed incongruous without the society it had once served.
But in a tiny courtyard that had escaped the attention of tourists and archaeologists alike, TuV'k found what he sought. A single perfect arch, the windward-side eroded to a bone whiteness, while the inner surface retained the colors of hieroglyphs so ancient even the High-Master would not have understood them. In this pristine monument to the passage of Time he could contemplate the nature of entropy, see Mars not as a dying world but a changing one, this invasion of Outworlders as just another stage in the RRRRRRED PLANET RRRRROAST, ONLY FFFFIFTY CENTS!
Startled from his meditative posture TuV'k toppled into the sand, hounded by tri-vids that danced and spun around him. After days of fasting he salivated as odorophonics filled the air with the scent of cooking food. The projector was mounted on a burger-shaped bot on caterpillar treads that had followed him into the courtyard, tracking the carbon dioxide emissions of his breath. "GENUIIIIINE MEAT, GROWN IN THE VATS OF YOUR LOCAL RRRRRRED PLANET RRRRROAST!" it blared, heedless of the rocks that TuV'k hurled at its armored carapace. The robot responded with a barrage of coupons that added their own inane chatter, chorusing in tiny voices as they fluttered through the air: "Burgers-soyshakes-and-fries! Burgers-soyshakes-and-fries! Only fifty cents a burger at your local Red Planet Roast!"
"Don't sell yourself to the enticements of decadent capitalism!" urged a sword-waving specter of the ancient heroine T'Srrn the First (though TuV'k doubted a real princess of Mars would have worn the garb of a lower caste peasant-soldier). It took a moment for him to locate the second tri-vid projector; a crab-like robot coated in chameloflage paint, color-shifted to match its surroundings. The Eastbloc robot must have been stalking its American counterpart for some time. "Join your socialist brothers on Earth who support you in the fight against colonialism! Cast off the Overmind of your Martian oppressors and establish a true workers paradise on the Red Planet!"
"RRRRRRED PLANET RRRRROAST!" blared the American bot, raising its volume to ear-splitting decibels to drown out the Communist agitprop. "ONLY FFFFARRRGKH!!!" it cried as a messenger rocket slammed into its carapace and exploded in a shower of propaganda leaflets, sending the robot skittering out of control. TuV'k watched aghast as the battling bots crashed into the arch and sent it toppling down on them both...
"You've never shown me that memory before," said Janeway, removing the copper skullcap from her head.
"Were I to recall every idiocy perpetuated by your species," said TuV'k dryly, "I would have little time for more productive endeavors."
"Astounding! Amazing! Such incredible tales!" If the memories aroused by the melding-of-minds had upset the alien he refused to let it show. "You must teach me how to use this scientific wonder! It would avert many hours of tedious translation! And to think you have come from so far away! Let me offer my services as a guide. Allow me to introduce myself." He made a high-pitched sound that seemed mostly beyond their aural range; they heard only: "Neee" and "Lix!"
"Captain Kathryn Janeway, of the Tri-World Federation rocketship Voyager. This is Tech Lieutenant TuV'k, my Tactical Psionics Officer." She knew this alien was not suddenly speaking Terran-English; it just seemed that way as her own mind sought to put his extraterran thoughts into a familiar context. It would still be necessary to have him teach them whatever universal language was used by these aliens. "Do you know this area of Space well, Mr... umm, Nee'Lix?"
"I am famous for knowing it well," Nee'Lix bragged. "Perhaps not that well," he admitted, after he was shown a stereograph of the cube-ship that had brought them here. "I can't say I've ever seen a spacecraft like that before... but it's a big Universe you know! Let's just say I am well-travelled... though not as well as you, of course! So... you say this vessel whisked you away from another part of the galaxy and brought you here against your will? Sounds like K'Zon space pirates to me."
"Space pirates?" queried Janeway. Such crimes happened more in tri-vid melodramas than in real life. Robbery on the spaceways was usually an inside job, or privateers for governments trying to muscle out rivals in their never-ending cold wars. The few criminal syndicates that could afford to buy and maintain rocketships preferred to spend their money on more cost-effective ventures.
"The K'Zon and the Hirogen. They work as mercenaries for the Briori, the species that controls passage through the black star portals," said Nee'Lix, discussing the impossible as casually as a Terran would mention a flying car. "They use the portal network to raid other parts of the galaxy for slaves and technology, so the Briori can study them."
Janeway was glad that Chakotay wasn't there to see her embarrassment. It looked like she owed Miss Torres an apology. "Can we use these 'portals' to travel back to our own Solar System?"
"Certainly! Well, possibly... maybe not. It all depends if you can convince the Briori... they're not the easiest people to get along with. I prefer to stay as far away from them as possible, to be honest. I was able to get passage by hitching a ride on that convoy that passed you earlier, but there was a misunderstanding about a food replicator and they dumped me here. I do hope you Federation types aren't so unreasonable when it comes to sharing your technology?"
'Some things don't change no matter what part of the galaxy you're in', thought Janeway. "Of course, we would compensate you for your assistance. As yet we have no local currency but I'm sure some form of barter can be arranged..."
"That sounds quite reasonable! How about we discuss the price of my services over... uh, a meal?"
Janeway smiled. "Mr. TuV'k, notify the Disbursing Clerk that a civilian contractor wishes to discuss terms of employment. Make sure our guest has a chance to use a refresher and get something to eat before every amateur xenologist on the ship starts badgering him." She stood up to leave, then added, "Oh, and have B'Elanna Torres report to my cabin. It looks like I need to brush up on this Einstein-Rosen bridge theory."

Chapter VIII: THE ARRAY
According to Nee'Lix, the space station orbiting the black star had had many names over the millennia, but nowadays most people just called it the Array. It was the Outer Rim terminal of a network of portals that spanned the galaxy, the work of an ancient species whose existence would be attributed to myth were it not for this undeniable evidence of their technological prowess: a gargantuan cylinder of super-dense material allegedly mined from the collapsed star itself, impervious to Time or the efforts of lesser species to fathom its nature. Wars involving weapons of terrible destructive force had been fought over the portals without inflicting the slightest damage—except of course on the colonies that invariably clustered on their outer surface like barnacles on the hull of an ancient sailing ship. Thousands of derelict spacecraft—ranging from tiny lifepods to colossal generation ships—had been permanently moored to makeshift docking cradles and converted into trading posts and habitats and manufactories. Their portholes and beacon lights cast a baleful lumination in the absolute dark of the black star, ugly and beautiful as an anglerfish in the sunless ocean depths.
From where he sat at the helm of the shuttleboat, Tom Paris could see at least a dozen spacecraft lined up inside the cylindrical interior of the Array which—unlike its congested outer surface—was as bare and smooth as a gun barrel aimed at the heart of the black star. Exactly how the portal worked was a mystery. The technos and eggheads had been arguing over the subject since they first arrived, throwing around terms like 'transwarp conduits' and 'graviton catapults', but when Paris had suggested the portal could dematerialize a rocketship and beam it across the galaxy like a radio signal, the Science Department and the Glowing Gang had agreed for the first time ever by deriding teleportation as Fortean nonsense that would require more energy than was available in the entire Universe, and violated Heisenberg's Theory of Uncertainty as well.
There was a silent flash of light and the convoy vanished before his eyes. Paris turned his head towards the black star, but all he could see were the focal points painted on the inside of his bubble helmet to avert space madness. The star was still millions of miles away and quite invisible.
He pressed down the chin-plate to switch his radio to 'send'. "Let me get this straight, Nee'Lix. The Briori give safe passage to spacecraft passing through the portal network, while using that same network to send out their pirates to seize other spacecraft and drag them back here, so they can be stripped down and fixed to the Array like trophies?"
"You've got it, Mr. Paris." The latest addition to their crew was peering through the viewing slit of a decompression shelter-balloon that had been lashed to the observer's seat. It was the only spacesuit available that could fit his non-anthropoid frame. "Sometimes the passage isn't that safe either. It's not unknown for a K'Zon warship on convoy escort to be attacked by another K'Zon sect out raiding. They say the Briori secretly encourage this to keep the sects at each other's throats, so they won't join forces and seize the portal network for themselves. It's an uneasy alliance all round."
Three days had passed since Voyager first matched velocities with the Array, and their arrival seemed a matter of little import. No space pirates had bothered them (apparently the Briori preferred to keep trouble far from their own bailiwick) but Captain Janeway had decided to keep the ship well clear so they would have the freedom to maneuver if needed. That meant ferrying everyone over by shuttleboat and Voyager only had three of those, one of which was being cannibalized for spare parts after sustaining damage during the Resettlement. Paris was piloting a Type 6, a bare-bones shuttleboat designed to operate solely in Outer Space. Just two seats and a control board wired to a rocket engine, propellant tanks and a couple of thruster rings, all bolted to a latticework cage to which cargo pods, radiosondes or automatic cannon could be attached to adapt it to any task. Easily modified and repaired, they were the workhorses of Spacefleet.
The radio circuit crackled with words that Paris recognized as Traben, the language of a long-vanished empire that had once dominated this part of the galaxy. Their language had persisted as a lingua franca that had been put down on hypno-educator tapes by Nee'Lix during a lengthy session with the xenolinguists. Paris still had a headache from all that sleep-learning, but the advantage of Traben was not that it was easily learned (it wasn't) but that it was capable of being pronounced by human tongues.
"Mr. Paris, we're cleared to go."
"...where no man has gone before," Paris muttered. He toggled a row of oversized switches, clasped the pincers of his space armor around the control yoke and eased it forward. There was a noiseless vibration and he was shoved back into his seat as the engine fired. Back home this would all be done automatically, their robot-pilot locked onto a radar beacon, but Federation-standard electronics were not designed for anything out here.
'This is how flying should be done', thought Paris. 'By the seat of your pants like Father did in the War'.
As the Array filled his field of vision Paris turned on the landing beacons, the searchlights illuminating the Sargasso Sea of derelict spacecraft. He flew between the vast metal ribs of a gas giant miner, a-crawl with crab-like beings bereft of pressure suits, the blue-white flare of welding torches shining from between their claws. He saw an ocean in space, floating like a bubble inside a transparent globe tethered to the hull with gossamer cables. Swarms of podcraft maneuvered in precise formations like dancing bees. An atomic sun orbiting the Array brought an artificial dawn, invoking nostalgic memories of the ruins of New York City (though that had been behind several inches of leaded glass while their teacher droned on about the evils of global conflict).
"Over there," said Nee'Lix. A mushroom-shaped dome was positioned clear of the hull on a slender spire. As the shuttleboat neared, it opened like the eye of a giant monster pondering the approach of prey.
"Ahhh Mr. Paris, we need to slow down..."
"Relax, my furry friend." Jets flared on the thruster rings and the shuttleboat pitched end-over-end; the classic 'skew-flip turnover' to reverse direction so the main engine could be used to decelerate a rocketship. A long burn and some delicate use of the thrusters brought them onto the landing pad with barely a bump. The dome slid shut above their heads and began to fill with air; silently at first, then increasing in volume as the interior filled with an atmosphere. Paris unstrapped himself and grabbed a hawser cable, only to find there weren't any cleats on the landing pad to fasten it to. Nee'Lix had said that the Array had an 'artificial' gravity—something to do with technology involving 'negative mass' (hadn't B'Elanna mentioned something about that?) but he had not believed it until now.
The roaring of the vents ceased. Paris checked the dials fixed to the back of his space gauntlet. "Barometric pressure at 11 psi. That's a touch less than we're used to, but not enough to need pressure suits. Synthetic atmosphere consists of oxygen and nitrogen in breathable proportions." 'Well that should make talking to dames easier', he thought. Voyager used an oxygen-helium atmosphere to reduce the risk of fire, but it made you sound like Daffy Duck. He undogged his shoulder yoke and swung back his helmet, making sure to breathe slow and deep to compensate for the low pressure.
"See, what did I tell you?" said Nee'Lix, struggling out of the shelter balloon with evident relief. "This section is specially adapted for warm-blooded oxygen-breathers like us. Now if you were a lightworlder or breathed ammonia, you'd have to land elsewhere. Why I remember this cytoplasmic life-form who had become somewhat attached to me..."
Paris paid no attention to his rambling, stripping off the bulky space armor and superfluous magheel boots and stowing them in a container behind the pilot's seat. From underneath the seat he slid out a plastisteel box and released the magnetic seals. Packed inside was a pair of saddle shoes made of genuine Martian leather, high-waisted plasto-textile pants, and a garish shirt fastened with manually-operated buttons that he donned with reverence.
Freed of his restraints, Nee'Lix loped to the rear of the shuttleboat and rapped a claw on the white transport pod. "Wakey-wakey, everyone! Hibernation time is over!"
There was a muffled clunk from inside the pod and the clamshell doors swung upon to reveal a dozen people crammed inside, far more than the regulation six passengers or two stretcher-pods it was designed for.
"Maybe we should buy a few more shuttleboats while we're here," said Paris, as the passengers untangled themselves. "I'm sure we can fit them on board Voyager somehow."
He snapped up a salute as Captain Janeway clambered out, followed by Chakotay and TuV'k. All three officers were in full dress uniform: space-black tunic with mandarin collar; white magclip belt carrying a holstered pistol, with a null-gee lanyard of gold braid looped through the shoulder-boards; trim breeches tucked into highly-polished jackboots; even the peaked officer's cap that was usually worn groundside, and only then under open skies (headgear had long since fallen out of fashion in a society where most people lived in space stations or domed megacities). The other passengers were a far more colorful sight. Spacemen who routinely sneered at the flamboyant fashions of Terra now strutted in polychrome pants and custom-tailored zipsuits, while the girls wore spray-on sweaters, titillating glimpse-skirts, and high-heeled shoes that would be dangerous in any city with a slidewalk. Paris gave an appreciative wolf-whistle as B'Elanna stepped down to the deck in a flash of brown thighs, assisted by a helping hand from Ensign Vor'K and (to his surprise) Joe Carey.
"You look smashing," he said.
"Thanks," replied B'Elanna self-consciously, though her dress would have been regarded as quite demure on Venus. It had taken several hours of reprogramming to get the ship's mecho-tailor to produce something other than Spacefleet uniforms.
"Of course, nothing can quite measure up with this shirt," said Paris, puffing out his chest with pride. "This is an exact recreation of a 1954 Surf 'n' Sand Aloha. An American classic."
Carey smirked at his gay outfit. "If you're wearing that to impress the ladies, Paris, you might as well go back to Voyager."
"Now that's where you're wrong. You've got to be seen to get noticed, and I plan on getting noticed."
"Looks like we've been noticed already," said Kim. A rotund cylinder was rising from the center of the landing pad. When it reached a height of approximately eight feet, twin doors inset in its surface slid apart with a hiss of hydraulics.
"INTRUDER ALERT! INTRUDER ALERT!" Everyone gaped at the metal colossus that clanked into their midst, brandishing an unmistakable cluster of weaponry at the end of its accordion arms. "DO NOT RESIST!"
"I've seen this vid!" Paris quipped. "Satan's Robot Conquers the World!"
"An armed autonomous android?" Janeway could not believe her eyes. "What kind of madmen are running this place, Nee'Lix? Who'd be stupid enough to build a robot that isn't subject to the First Law?"
"The Pralor, actually (it didn't work out well for them). Greetings, my mechanical friend! This is all just a misunderstanding. I speak on behalf of these aliens who are strangers to this sector and our ways."
"MY SCANNERS INDICATE CONCEALED WEAPONRY!" blared the bot. "ALL NON-AUTHORISED WEAPONS MUST BE SURRENDERED OR SECURED IN YOUR SPACE-VESSEL!"
"I was informed that ship's officers were allowed to carry personal sidearms, unless..." Captain Janeway whirled to glare at the assembled spacers. "All right you ruffians, cough up!"
Various pocket knives and work tools were produced with a resigned air by the Spacefleet personnel, well used to the ubiquitous surveillance of the TSA (Terran Security Administration). The Belters required some coaxing.
"Jonas, hand over that beam-welder!" demanded Chakotay. "I don't want you getting up to mischief. You too Hogan; these aliens aren't going to eat you. I know you're carrying more knives than that, Seska. B'Elanna, why exactly do you have a micratomic contra-rotating power-wrench in your purse?"
The illicit items were locked in the shuttleboat's toolbox but the robot refused to budge from its position in front of the door. The blank silver faceplate shimmered, then resolved into a photophone image of a fat glabrous face with dark beady eyes, tiny ears, vertical slits for nostrils and no neck.
"I am Overlooker Zet of the Central Hierarchy of the Array," announced the face on the android phone.
"An impressive title," replied Janeway, who could not help but think she was addressing a giant potato. "I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the__"
"Be silent!" barked Overlooker Zet. "Failure to answer the following questions truthfully will result in punitive sanctions. Has any member of your crew been exposed to the Phage?"
"What's a Phage?" asked Kim. Chakotay nudged him to silence.
"We have never encountered this 'Phage'," said Janeway, keeping a reign on her temper.
"Are any of them suffering from space madness?"
"No more than usual," said Paris.
Janeway cast a scalding look in his direction. "That's a NO."
"Temporal psychosis?"
"No."
"Telepathically-induced hallucinations?"
"No."
"Have any of you been exposed to theta radiation, tetryon radiation, chroniton particles, metreon isotopes, polaric ion energy, macroviruses, biomimetic life-forms or photonic fleas?"
"I don't even know what any of those are."
"Have you encountered alternate timelines, sentient nebulas, spatial implosions, temporal inversion folds, dark matter life-forms, chrono-kinetic surges, electrokinetic storms, astral eddies, graviton ellipses, subspace sinkholes, subspace divergence fields or chaotic space?"
"I make sure to keep well away from them."
"Are you or have you ever been a member of the Psiborg Collective?"
"Never heard of it."
"Have you ever had intimate relations with a Bolian?"
"Certainly not!"
"State your business on the Array."
"We wish to arrange passage to our homeworld."
Zet raised a thin metallic slab before his eyes and stabbed it with a turgid finger. Colored lights reflected on his face and the slab beeped like an electroptical feedback panel on Voyager's Computer Deck.
"State your destination," he said.
"Earth."
"The next groundside transport is scheduled for__"
"The planet Earth! Terra, third planet of the Solar System."
"Which solar system?!" was the irritated retort. "What are the galactic coordinates?"
"How in Hubbard's name would I know?" said Janeway. "I can give you the spectra frequency of our sun, or local star charts if that's a help."
Zet had no eyebrows but somehow managed to frown regardless. "Name the sentient species that occupy your solar system."
"Terran, Martian, Venerian, Jovian, and some nasty slugs on Titan that you wouldn't want to meet."
More frowning and finger-stabbing. "Those species are not listed in our files. We do not accept stateless persons at commercial docking facilities. Refugees, abductees, or those seeking political asylum may submit the appropriate form__"
"Now look here, we just want to get home!" Janeway stood with arms akimbo and gave Zet the full force of her glare. "I need to speak to whoever is responsible for passage through your Universal Portal Network."
"The Caretaker of the Array has many demands on his time. There is a three trikinn waiting period for passage through the UPN."
"How long is a trikinn?" asked Janeway.
"It's seventeen nameks," was the unhelpful response.
It took some time to establish that the Caretaker would not be available for some time.
"Do you wish to schedule an appointment?" asked Zet, after Nee'Lix and Janeway had worked out between them that three trikinn added up to forty-seven Terran days.
"Yes," said Janeway wearily.
"You may return to this docking facility in three trikinn."
"We wish to enter now, thank you. My crew seeks trade and cultural exchange with the residents of this space station."
"I have no interest in their personal depravities."
"Oh, I give up! Just get us inside, Nee'Lix. Tell him whatever you have to."
While Nee'Lix and Zet argued away, Voyager's officers sorted out the liberty arrangements.
"Does everyone have their food tester?" asked Chakotay. "Don't just say, 'Aye, Space Commander'—show them to me." When they had he asked, "Do you all have your credit cards?" Each spacer produced a magnetic-storage card programmed with Traben Imperial Credits, accepted on the Array if not everywhere else. Negotiation of a reasonable exchange rate for a Federation-standard bar of lead-pressed uranium had taken up most of the time they had spent waiting for permission to board the Array.
"Now show me your communicator." This was a compact flip-open device, similar in appearance to the portable photophones in vogue on Earth but without the myriad features like vidcams or music players that groundsiders regarded as necessary. Spacers preferred the 'bare-bones' model: a rugged voice-only transmitter/receiver/locator beacon with the strength to blast a signal to an orbiting rocketship. "Hogan and Jonas, you're guarding the shuttleboat. Paris and Carey, come back and relieve them no later than four hours Shiptime from now."
"I realize you're eager to blow off steam after being cooped up on Voyager for so long," said Captain Janeway, "but remember you are representatives of the Three Worlds. For the beings that you encounter, this will be their First Contact with your species. First impressions are lasting impressions, so make sure it's a good one. More to the point, if any of you get us thrown off this space station not only will you spend the next month in rad-suits cleaning the radioactive waste vents, but there will be over a hundred shipmates who will have something to say about being deprived of their own station leave. Now, is everything settled, Mr. Nee'Lix? Good, then tell this walking water heater to get out of our way."
The robot obediently clanked back into the elevator tube. No-one was in a hurry to follow until Janeway muttered, "Oh for Hubbard's sake!" and dived inside just as the doors began to slide shut—apparently activated by a photosensor as they immediately opened again. Five more spacers followed suit, nervously eyeing the robot's built-in arsenal.
"What now, Mr. Nee'Lix? Do we push a button? I can't see any."
"It's voice-activated, Captain. Just say: Promenade, Third Quarter."
"Promenade, Third Quarter!" The doors slid shut, leaving the others marking time.
"So just what is a Phage?" asked Kim, to fill the subsequent silence.
"It's a disease," explained Nee'Lix. "Quite virulent, very nasty. Trust me Mr. Kim, you don't want to know what it does to you."
"And why shouldn't you have sex with a Bolian?" asked Paris.
"That's something I don't want to know!" snapped B'Elanna.
"All right then... what's the Psiborg Collective?"
Nee'Lix scratched an ear. "Umm... what would you call it in your language: a bogeyman? They existed hundreds of years ago; a radical movement of scientists who experimented with eugenic engineering, artificial augmentation, psychic gestalts... anything they thought would improve their species."
"Psychic gestalts?" asked Kim.
"The use of telepathy to join a group of people into a single overmind," explained Vor'K. "A dangerous procedure; the individual can lose their sense of self, whereupon the gestalt takes over."
"These Psiborgs said that if everyone joined their minds together it would lead to peace and universal understanding," said Nee'Lix. "It was a popular idea for a while, but the authorities didn't like how these overminds were not under their control; started to fear their strength, their influence. They said the Psiborgs weren't people any more; they had become something alien. There were propaganda campaigns, mass arrests, purges, pogroms, until eventually the Psiborg Collective was wiped out. Supposedly they're still lurking out in deep space or under our sleeping capsules, but it's just a story that people like the Caretaker use to crack down on anyone they deem subversive."
The doors slid open again to reveal an empty elevator and everyone filed inside.
"Promenade-third-quarter," rattled off Nee'Lix. The doors closed and indicator panels flashed in a downward direction, though they could feel no other sense of movement.
"So, the lift is controlled by the space station's Electronic Mind," stated Seska.
"Ahh no. There's a tiny electronic brain built into the maglev car. And that e-pad that Overlooker Zet was using. And just about everything else, really."
The Russian programmer looked flabbergasted. "You mean to say these people have thousands of electronic minds without central coordination? That is rather inefficient."
"And you call yourself a libertarian," quipped Paris.
"I call myself a New Soviet Techno-Socialist, you American shhh..." she trailed off as the doors hissed open and they were confronted by the sight of what lay beyond.
It was not their surroundings that were so unusual. The Promenade was recognizable as the former habitat ring of a Big Wheel-type space station, with bulkheads and collision-doors removed to create space for shops and service alcoves; nothing strange on Terran colonies where disused rocketships were routinely adapted as habitations or power sources. Neither was it the noise or the throng that was overwhelming—even the extraterrans on Voyager's crew had visited the overcrowded megacities of Earth. And every spacer (whether they admitted it or not) cultivated a self-image of being a Citizen of the Solar System, equally at ease on Venus, Mars or Terra. But the inhabitants of those planets all shared the same anthropoid form: one head, two eyes, two arms and two legs. It was only amidst this menagerie of aliens that it sunk in just how far they were from home. The crew of Voyager stood gaping like schoolchildren on their first trip to Luna as Nee'Lix scampered around them, pointing out various life-forms.
"Those six-legged beings are Ovion, that gillman is from the ocean world of Monea, the avians are Banea, and would you believe those Drayans age backwards? Don't step on that centipede whatever you do—it's from Kelemane's World, which has a high gravity due to its extreme rate of spin, so the inhabitants are stronger than they look! Those reptilians are Voth, a species so ancient they can't even remember where their homeworld is, but I doubt it's any place you've been. Those fellows over there are Ba'Neth (they prefer to keep to themselves) whereas those Ponea are real party animals (that's literally—they're an Uplifted species). No, that's not a brain in a jar, Mr. Paris—it's a sentient sponge in a variable gravity tank. That fellow's a Malon core worker... some Kadi priests... a Mikhal Traveler... she's Ramuran I think (I can't remember anything about them). That huge rock is actually a silicon-based life-form... in fact I do believe it's a famous Tsunkatse gladiator! Those fellows are from Vega and refuse to eat meat, and those are Brenari who are telepathic, and those are Devore who don't like telepaths, and those tripeds over there don't like anyone but we don't hold it against them..."
A spacesuited figure appeared in their path, features concealed by the yellowish-green gas that swirled inside the helmet. Those closest caught a whiff of chlorine and took hasty steps back. "Long journey ahead?" hissed a voice from the helmet speaker. "I have Rhuludian pills at a very good price. Just one can make days of tedious space travel seem like moments of exquisite rapture."
"Beware!" Kim started in alarm as he was confronted by the proverbial bug-eyed monster, a misshapen blob covered in a forest of eyestalks that all seemed to be staring at him. "I see the many paths of your future! Seven years of torment await you! Pain, disease and death—lots of death! You shall suffer the agony of unrequited love, the machinations of deceitful women, and you won't get promoted either! Only by embracing the Way of Oooharrchalii will you be saved!"
"Don't pay any attention, young man. Those psychics are all frauds." An extraterran of the same species as Nee'Lix sidled up to them. He wore a plaid jacket in loud colors from which he fetched a pawful of sparkling gemstones. "Now these are the genuine article! Lobi crystals, plundered by the K'Zon-Nistrim from the Crown Prince of Luria himself!"
"They look like diamonds to me," said B'Elanna, unimpressed.
"As if I would try that old crystalized carbon scam on such erudite spacefarers! Well if this doesn't catch your eye, young lady, how about some dilithium crystals?"
"Can't see why I'd be interested in them."
"Back off, Wix'Iban! These people are with me."
"Nee'Lix, you old scoundrel! They told me the Haakonians threw you out an air-lock! I wouldn't hire this fellow as a guide, my newfound friends. He couldn't find his way through the Nekrit Expanse without a map."
"Ask him if he saw which way the captain went," said Chakotay.
"If you mean some oddly-shaped aliens like yourselves who came out of the maglevator just before you did, they went to the Junkers Market," said Wix'Iban. "The K'Zon dump their stolen tech there after the Caretaker has finished playing around with it. I would be happy to give you a guided tour, as you are obviously strangers to this region. There are many dealers who will attempt to swindle you, but I can introduce you to the more reputable who (due to personal acquaintance) will offer significant discounts!"
"To Manhattan with that!" scoffed Paris. "I've only got four hours before I have to relieve Hogan. Where does one get a drink around here, Wix'Iban my man?"
"Not a problem, good sir! I know a tavern that serves the best leola root beer you'll ever taste!"
"You can get sozzled if you want," said B'Elanna. "Seska and I are going to check out that Junkers Market. With all those spacecraft being scavenged we might find something useful."
"I thought you Belters were supposedly to be hard-drinking rockriders," joked Paris, "but all you want to do is shop. I guess women are the same everywhere."
"So are men," said Seska, her scarlet lips curling in contempt. "If you want to slip away and break the Prime Directive while Janeway's not looking over your shoulder, don't let us stop you."
"Who me?" Extraterrans of a feminine appearance were gesturing to them from the darker alcoves of the Promenade Deck, wearing gossamer gowns that writhed with the movement of sensuous limbs, or maybe sinuous tentacles... "Now that you mention it," Paris said hastily, "I think I'll go with you after all. Might as well have an eyeball at what jets these aliens have."

Chapter IX: THE CARETAKER
It was some time before Chakotay and Nee'Lix found their captain and TuV'k on the shore of a sparkling ocean that stretched to the horizon under the radiance of twin suns.
"What the...?" Chakotay turned to stare in astonishment at the door he had just passed through and saw the bustling Junkers Market. Then the entrance faded to a translucent archway and his boots were sinking into a beach of varicolored sand. Where the door had once been, a greenish-purple rainforest ran all the way to the slopes of a distant mountain range, where light flashed on the wings of ornithopters hovering and swooping in the thermal updrafts.
"Sikaris, the Planet of Pleasure!" Nee'Lix threw off his jacket and rolled on the beach with glee. "It's been a while since I had a good sand scrub!"
"What in Space is this, Nee'Lix? We can't be on a planet, surely?"
"Oh no!" exclaimed Nee'Lix. "It's just like your Illusionarium! Well, not like it actually... a bit more advanced. A lot more advanced. In fact, it's so advanced it's not like your Illusionarium at all. But the concept is the same."
Chakotay crouched down and scooped up a handful of sand. He let the multi-hued grains trickle through his fingers, watching as they changed into a fine grey powder that somehow turned back into sand the moment it touched the beach.
"Resequenced photons," said Nee'Lix, brushing the same type of powder from his fur. "Shaped energy fields. And don't ask me how it works, Mr. Chakotay..."
"...because I'm not an engineer!" they chorused in unison. It had been a familiar refrain over the past few hours. There had been plenty of traders willing to sell technology whose effects were indistinguishable from miracles, but those few who claimed to be familiar with their workings were tight-lipped on the subject.
'We can add this to the million other things we'd like to study here,' Chakotay thought, 'if only we had a couple of decades, a team of eggheads, and one of those Electronic Minds that take up an entire megacity block.'
Their shipmates could be seen as distant figures a mile down the beach, but when Chakotay and Nee'Lix began to walk in their direction they found themselves on top of them much sooner than expected. When Chakotay glanced behind him he saw it was now the entrance arch that appeared far away, due to some kind of optical illusion.
"Did you find anything interesting?" asked Janeway. The two officers were sitting on a slab of limestone that hung out over the water. The captain had removed her jackboots and was dangling her toes in the ocean; Chakotay paid discreet attention to her bare ankles and sand-speckled feet. "Death ray, spacewarp drive, biologically-compatible extraterran?" She cast a coy smile at TuV'k who was seated in a posture of Contemplation, naked in his undershirt with his cap and tunic neatly placed on the rocks beside him. "Space Commander Chakotay thinks we should settle down on a planet with a harem of cute aliens."
"Well that one has nice legs," said Chakotay, pointing at a ten-foot insectoid stalking through the shallows. He dropped his haversack in the sand and sat alongside the captain. Janeway had been keeping a frustrating distance after what happened in the wardroom. Every time he tried to get her alone, TuV'k always seemed to be hovering around. "B'Elanna and Carey found some items that might be useful. A graviton compensator that we can use for anti-acceleration if we can make it work with our technology, and a pressor dish that projects a reverse gravity field to deflect space-dust and meteorites from the path of a spaceship even at supra-light speed. Don't ask me how 'reverse gravity' even exists; I guess if you can generate artificial gravity you can use it to do anything. I had them haul it all back to the shuttleboat."
"You did better than us," griped Janeway. "All we have are beads and baubles. Some huckster tried to sell me a 'replicator' that he said could make water from thin air, but it was just an atmospheric water condenser like we have on Voyager. And once word got round that we were seeking faster-than-light technology we were besieged by salesmen peddling investments in 'quantum slipstream drive' or 'transwarp thresholds'."
"The Briori sell their graviton technology to anyone with the money," said Nee'Lix. He unsealed Chakotay's haversack and rummaged through it without invitation. "I have an acquaintance in the K'Zon-Pommar sect who owes me a favor or three. He can get you a good deal on anti-gravity deckplates." He removed a tin of Alkian confectioneries and sniffed it.
"They weren't willing to sell to us," said Chakotay, plucking the tin from Nee'Lix paws—he'd bought the sweets as a present for the captain. "We had to get that graviton compensator second-hand from the Junkers Market. No-one knows where the Briori manufacture them, and no-one understands the principles behind their gravity manipulation technology... or perhaps they didn't think we would understand. Half of the people we talked to treated us like dim-witted barbarians because we're from some planet they've never heard of."
"We are barbarians," said Janeway, splashing the ocean with her toes. "This is supposed to be a tri-vid illusion but it feels like real water... TuV'k actually went swimming in it! There are people out there fishing, and eating what they catch! How is that possible?" A trio of amphibians lifted their heads up from under the water, studying Janeway with plaintive expressions. She quickly withdrew her feet. "Shoo! I told you before, I'm not your mother!"
"I think I know how Chief Sitting Bull felt when he toured the cities of pre-Atomic America," said Chakotay. "We're too far behind these people; we need to catch up fast. With this kind of technology these extraterrans could conquer Earth without breaking a sweat."
TuV'k's eyes were closed but his sharp ears must have been taking in every word because the Martian put in his own two cents. "The xenophobic response of a species that assumes its technological and cultural supremacy is an innate characteristic instead of a fleeting moment in history."
Janeway tossed her head. "So says the man who told me he joined Spacefleet to defend his world from a race of implacable aliens bent on conquest and assimilation."
"Jovians?" asked Chakotay.
"Humans," replied TuV'k. The Martian opened his eyes and took in his surroundings. On the beach a dozen fleshy pyramids whirled and spun in an intricate dance, watched by a crowd of onlookers who clacked tusks or clicked mandibles in time to a baroque beat. What looked like a trunkless elephant with six legs was splashing about in the shallows, trying to push a large floating ball against a pole defended by a team of gillmen. In the distance a spider-like creature and a writhing mass of tentacles worked the sails of a multi-hulled hydrofoil. "You see threats where I see diversity, monstrosity where others see endless possibility."
"Few of these people are here by choice," said Nee'Lix. "Most were abducted by the Briori, others are refugees from cataclysm or persecution, some just have nowhere else to go. They get sold and used and discarded... but they adapt, survive, form communities... thrive even."
"That's something to consider," said Janeway. "We could be looking at the future of the Federation. Not just three worlds, but many! Hundreds of species, thousands of cultures, living and working together in harrrrrgggggghh!"
The world around them vanished for black walls that were suddenly too close for comfort. Avians screeched in panic as they found their airspace restricted, weaving and diving to escape collision. Bathers and sailors found themselves thrashing about on a hard metal deck, gillmen choking and convulsing in the shock of exposure to air. Janeway was struggling to pull on her jackboots while TuV'k was trying to retrieve his tunic from under the feet of a bellowing hexapod. The air filled with cries in a hundred languages that were quelled as abruptly as they had begun, and every eyeball and eyestalk turned in the same direction.
A pair of seven-foot high reptilians filled the entrance archway. Toothed and clawed like the dinosaurs of primeval Earth, their scaled bodies were decorated with warpaint and bone fetishes, yet girded with plastimetal armor and bandoliers of ammunition. They clasped heavy-caliber rifles mounted with blacklight scopes. Their unblinking gaze tracked across the room until it locked onto the three Spacefleet officers.
"Uh-oh, trouble." Chakotay helped the captain to her feet, then casually placed a hand on his holster. It unlocked on sensing his palmprint, pushing the butt of the Colt recoilless into his hand. TuV'k followed suit, moving several yards to the left to divide their attention.
"Who are they, Nee'Lix?" Janeway put on her officer's cap and stood with her hands resting on her hips, a position that put them conveniently close to her own sidearm.
"Hirogen hunters," whispered Nee'Lix, pressing low against the deck as if gripped by a genetic instinct to burrow for safety. "The Briori pay them to capture other life-forms and bring them back to the Array for study and enslavement. Otherwise they kill those they hunt: for sport, prestige, breeding rights, training for war. They've been doing it for centuries."
With claws scraping on the metal deckplates and spiked tails lashing from side to side, the two Hirogen stalked through the crowd which quickly made way for them. One kept his eyes fixed on TuV'k while the other stared at Chakotay, who could not suppress a shudder of revulsion at being caught in that reptile gaze. He dropped his eyes in apparent submission, but actually so he could watch their weapons for any aggressive move.
The Hirogen stopped a couple of feet away. The larger of the two took out a tubular device and hissed at length into an inset grill. As he did so, words in Traben emerged from the device in a harsh electronic tone.
"We hunt/seek [ambiguous syntax] Alpha/Captain of space-vessel from planet Ground/Earth [ambiguous syntax] of solar system How In Hubbard's Name Would I Know. As client [emphasis], not food/trophy/captive. The Caretaker orders/requests [ambiguous syntax] your immediate attendance."
"Looks like we've been moved to the front of the line." Janeway stepped forward, though her head only went up to the Hirogen's chest. "I am Captain Kathryn Janeway of the planet Earth, commander of the United Nations Rocketship Voyager."
"You [emphasis] Alpha/Captain [question fact]?" scoffed the Hirogen, staring down its snout at the short Terran.
"Me, Alpha Captain, confirm fact," said Janeway, glaring right back at him. "Now take me to your leader."
"I can't believe you actually said that," muttered Chakotay.
Any feelings of technological inferiority felt by the Spacefleet officers was soon offset by the convoluted path they had to take to their destination. In contrast to the efficient mass transit systems of Earth, travel through the maze of reconditioned spacecraft-turned-habitats involved an endless number of air-locks, transfer tunnels, maglevators and conveyor strips, or long waits at vacuum-tube stations while their Hirogen escort growled with impatience and commuters stared at them in idle curiosity.
"Roll up, roll up!" quipped Janeway. "See strange anthropoids from the other side of the galaxy!"
"Makes a change from you Terrans gawking at my ears," said TuV'k.
A long silver pod slid along the vacuum tube until it locked into place opposite them like a bullet loaded into the chamber of a gun. Doors slid aside and the crowd pushed forward, only to back away when the Hirogen snarled and brandished their weaponry. They took their seats and the transit pod set off the moment the doors were sealed. There was no feeling of acceleration; the view through the convex windows flashed past faster and faster until it merged into a grey blur which abruptly changed to total blackness.
It took them a moment to realize they were looking at Outer Space from an armorglass tunnel that ran along the exterior of the Array. Janeway and Chakotay could not hide their shock. No Terran engineer would build this way; exposure to the infinity of the void without mental preparation risked the onset of space madness. They gripped the armrests with white-knuckle intensity, eyes casting about in desperation for something (anything!) to focus upon. What they saw only convinced them they had indeed lost their minds.
An ancient castle, alien in architecture yet unmistakable in grandeur, had been erected on the hull under a huge transparent dome. Battlements to defend against obsolete weapons of war, roofs steepled against rain and snow that no longer fell, flagstaffs where there was no wind to billow standards. As they closed with the anachronistic structure, they could see gun barrels protruding from embrasures of armorglass and plastimetal, brick-faced spires concealing sensor dishes and broadcasting antennae. Yet the appearance remained of an edifice uprooted from the earth to be transplanted in its current location regardless of design or logic.
"How in Space did that get here?" exclaimed Janeway. "They can't have hauled that thing in the cargo hold of a rocketship, unless they did it brick by brick!"
"That castle is nothing," whispered Nee'Lix. Their guide had fallen unusually quiescent as they neared their destination. "The Briori used to lift entire cities into Space with spindizzy drives, tear them apart for their technology and dump the remains, sometimes with the populace still in them. I've seen vast craters and empty roads that are all that's left of global empires. They regret such actions now, of course. Far too wasteful. These days when their pirates turn up in orbit, everyone just hands over whatever they demand to make them go away. It's all very civilized."
The pod shot through an air-lock that opened and closed without the slightest pause in their passage, then slowly slid to a halt amid an overcrowded reception area where hundreds of life-forms argued, pleaded, blustered and truckled with a stolid panel of Overlookers. Their Hirogen escort bulldozed a path through the throng, making a bee-line for a security-locked maglevator which climbed a hundred feet in less than a second and opened onto a banquet hall where they were gruffly told to help themselves until the Caretaker was ready to meet them. It appeared that an official wanting to see someone 'immediately' had the same connotations here that it would back home.
The hall was octagonal in shape and surmounted by a vaulted ceiling; such a waste of usable area on a space station far more evocative of wealth and power than the expensive appointments. Micratomic lights added a harsh radiance to artwork designed for more primitive forms of illumination, and the walls were lined with alcoves displaying ornate sculptures, arcane technological devices, fauna and flora preserved in transparent cylinders.
Dominating the hall was a triangular table, laden with a feast inconceivable on famine-wracked Earth. On the right, the Hirogen tore at their food with savage teeth and quaffed from skulls that had been fashioned into drinking cups. On the left were the first anthropoids they had seen on the Array, though a serrated ridge of bone divided their foreheads and their hair grew in thick clumps instead of strands. Every man wore an armored cuirass under a fur-trimmed vest, with a pistol and short sword in crossdraw rigs for ready access while seated. Bodyguards prowled behind the diners, and no-one seemed willing to sit with their back to the door, as the side of the table facing the maglevator was lined with ornate yet empty chairs.
"I doubt this lot would be willing to embrace a Federation of Worlds," said Janeway. "Who am I looking at, Nee'Lix?"
"That's Imperator Jabin of the K'Zon-Ogla," whispered Nee'Lix, pointing with a surreptitious twitch of his tail. "Officially he's the ruler of all K'Zon, but that only applies as long as he can keep his sect strong and his rivals at bay. That man there—First Major Cullah of the K'Zon-Nistrim sect—has his own ambitions to be Imperator, as does Legate Haron of the K'Zon-Relora. Those Hirogen I'm not acquainted with, but the one seated on the chair made from the bones of his prey will be the Hirogen Alpha. I don't know his name—an Alpha will only reveal it to worthy prey, and that's an honor I'd rather avoid."
"They don't sound very friendly."
"The K'Zon were perpetually-warring barbarians on some insignificant planet on the outskirts of the galaxy when they were conquered by the Traben. As outsiders with no connection to the ruling elite they made useful recruits for the Emperor's Guard, and some of their officers became quite influential. After the Traben Empire collapsed they declared themselves its inheritors, but all they do is bully former subjects and fight each other for the title of Imperator—it's thanks to them this quadrant is in the mess it's in today. As for the Hirogen, their ruling matriarchy expels the males from their homeworld as soon as they come of age. They're allowed to return once every seven years with their hunting trophies as proof of their right to take a mate. The Hirogen believe that only the strongest among them should be allowed to breed."
"Sounds like the Bureau of Eugenics," Chakotay joked. "It's not a bad idea though. How about we arm-wrestle for the right to be captain of Voyager?"
"Excuse me, Space Commander, but whose shipbuilder plate is mounted in whose wardroom?"
Janeway strode over to the table and pulled out a chair. Chakotay sat down next to her, as did Nee'Lix after some hesitation. TuV'k remained standing in imitation of the other bodyguards, his hand resting conspicuously on his sidearm. Naked servants rushed up bearing trays of food and goblets of wine, a sight that might have been titillating had they looked remotely human.
"By what right do you sit at our table, woman?" growled the man that Nee'Lix had identified as First Major Cullah.
"By what right do you sit at mine?" replied Janeway, causing the First Major to go purple with rage.
Affecting nonchalant indifference, Janeway picked up a knife and fork and carved off a slice of meat that had been set before her on a silver plate. Careful to mask any distaste at eating unprocessed food, she popped it into her mouth and chewed avidly, surprised at its taste and freshness. Non-irradiated meat on a space station? She examined the cutlery she was holding. The fork was handcrafted gold, with a weight that suggested more than gilding. The knife on the other hand was precision-engineered from stainless alloy, its handle had the warmth that came from a radiothermal power source and the edge of the blade glowed with a razor-thin beam of light. She looked around at the glittering array of dinnerware and realized that none of it matched. Exquisite craftsmanship both artistic and technological had been thrown together at random like the jumble sale of a mad millionaire.
"We're here by invitation of the Caretaker," Chakotay replied to Cullah. "We are representatives of the Tri-World Federation."
"Never heard of it," scoffed Cullah, "and I have raided worlds across the entire galaxy! This wine I am drinking is from the only bottle of Malkothian spirits in a thousand light-years! Those silver plates I seized from the Palace of the Moons in the Alsur Realm. And this female..." He seized the arm of the servant pouring the wine, causing her to cry out in pain. "She is the daughter of some high-and-mighty Archon! When the Turei refused to pay tribute, we bombarded their cities from orbit and took a thousand of them as slaves!"
"Trophies of the hunt!" The words were sibilant yet recognizable Traben. Unlike the hunters who had brought them here, the Hirogen Alpha appeared to be fluent in the language. "But was the hunt fair?"
"Fair?" Cullah scowled, as if uncertain of the meaning of the word. "We take these trophies by right of conquest, as do you Hirogen!"
"You entered their cities with superior firepower against a weakened prey," hissed the Alpha. "Do you really deserve these... trophies?"
"Why should we take the trouble to create such luxuries when we can seize them from others?" said Imperator Jabin. "We are K'Zon! We feast on the wealth and culture of other worlds! These people once kneeled to the Traben, so it is right they now pay tribute to us."
"Of what right do you speak?" asked the Alpha. "Are you stronger than the beings who inhabit these worlds? More cunning, more fearless, more determined in the face of adversity?"
"Of course," said Cullah. "Unlike some, we are not ruled by our women." He cast a contemptuous look in Janeway's direction, though the barb was clearly aimed at the Alpha.
The Alpha continued unabated. "And if you were alone on these worlds without your warships supporting you from orbit, would you continue the hunt? If your prey were armed instead of defenceless, what then?" A claw gouged splinters from the priceless wooden table. "You are superior to no one, K'Zon! Never underestimate your prey or disrespect its abilities! If you do, then you will become the hunted!"
"Enough!" said a voice from behind them. "I apologize for the manner of my business associates, Captain Janeway. They insist on maintaining the cultural values of their primitive ancestors. We Briori have more sophisticated tastes."
Janeway turned in her seat. From the maglevator floated a discoid vehicle piloted by a slightly-built figure, anthropoid in appearance but for his grey pallor and oversized cranium. He sat within an armorglass dome enclosing a green-tinged atmosphere, and his frail arms were inserted into waldo gloves for a ring of prosthetic manipulators racked around the outside of the hover-craft. It was a sight alien yet oddly familiar, and then Janeway remembered the ancient superstitions of Earth: the Grey Men who would come in the night on flying dinnerware to abduct naughty children, or the UFO cults that flourished before Humanity encountered extraterrans for real and found them a lot more mundane.
She rose to her feet, Chakotay and Nee'Lix following suit. "The Caretaker, I presume?"
"That is my title," he replied, making no effort to introduce himself by name. "I understand that you seek passage for your space-vessel, to a planet you designate as Earth."
"That's correct. Thank you for agreeing to see us so soon. I'm told you're a busy man."
"Your request aroused my curiosity. It took some time for my staff to find your homeworld in the data-files." Projectors arrayed across the discoid sent a tri-vid image shimmering into existence before them: a blue-green world with all-too familiar continents. The scattering of lights on the nightside showed the population were not yet concentrated in megacities, and there was no sign of the extensive changes to the Mediterranean that had occurred after the damming of the Straits of Gibraltar, but Janeway still felt a pang of yearning at the sight.
"That's Earth, all right. How long ago was this image taken?"
"According to our records the last expedition to your world arrived in your Terran Year 1937. Eight sentient biological specimens were taken for study. Autonomous aero-drones were left behind to conduct a detailed survey over the next two decades, but found little of value. No further expeditions have been authorized."
"Well someone brought us here." Janeway held up a stereograph of the cube-ship. "This wouldn't be one of your raiders, by any chance?"
The Caretaker stared unblinking at the image. "This vessel is not known to the Briori."
'He's lying,' thought Janeway. It was a reckless thought when dealing with extraterrans, whose unfamiliar culture and mannerisms often led to misunderstanding. But Janeway had learned to rely on her gut instinct; it had saved her life too many times. "Yet you say the Briori have taken 'biological specimens' from Earth before. What happened to them?"
"One specimen was retained for my personal archive, the others sold on to our clients. Their fate is unknown. What others do with their property is not our concern."
"I do not understand," said TuV'k. "You have the ability to cross the entire galaxy, yet your mercenaries boast of seizing treasure and taking sentient life-forms as slaves. What possible use could they be to an advanced technological society?"
"They serve many uses," replied the Caretaker. "Clients like the Srivani and Vidiians, who have moral qualms about medical experimentation or organ-trading, find it more acceptable if practiced on species they regard as inferior. For cultural reasons the Hirogen require a constant supply of sentient prey. Unique life-forms are sought by scientific researchers and procurers for pleasure worlds alike. And there are always those who enjoy the subjugation and service of others for its own sake. Societies that have advanced beyond the day-to-day struggle for survival are easily bored and seek diversion. Thanks to the constant brigandage of the K'Zon, the collection of esoterica from far-off worlds has become what you Terrans call a 'fad' among my wealthier clients. Even we Briori are not immune to such petty distractions. Some of my people collect priceless artifacts, while others are obsessed with frivolous entertainment. I pride myself on making a virtue of my hobby, by advancing the study of Science and Culture. Allow me to show you."
The ducted fans on the hover-craft whirred, propelling him in the direction of the surrounding alcoves. Captain Janeway and her officers followed, trailed by Nee'Lix and a couple of Hirogen bodyguards breathing down their necks and scratching at their heels with clawed feet. 'Mind games', thought Janeway dismissively. This was not the first dodgy character she had negotiated with in her career as a Spacefleet officer.
"Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations," said the Caretaker, gesturing at a sculpture that looked more incomprehensible than the technology on display. "A fractal maze by the sophists of Vulca, taken by the K'Zon-Pommar in the Scouring of Zentar IV. Here we have a beryllium crystal interface, one of the Lost Treasures of Abaddon. These notations are the only extant writings of the scientist-philosopher Chachiin, regretfully slain by some fool of a K'Zon during their punitive expedition against the Tara-Phen. This clay tablet is all that remains of the once powerful Malkoth race. This is the electronic brain of the God-Machine of Vaal—its confiscation caused their society to collapse into barbarism, but our psychohistorians said that would have happened anyway in a few centuries. And this device was captured from the Royal Laboratories of the Rom-Ylan Star Empire. According to legend it could cloak the user from the gaze of others."
"And does it?"
"It works too well. Once the cloaking field is activated no person or electronic sensor can see in or out, making it useless for any practical application and rather difficult to study. Nevertheless, our scientists will soon penetrate its secrets."
"Not while it's stuck in your archive they won't," muttered Nee'Lix.
The Caretaker turned a cold gaze upon him. "Perhaps you will appreciate this next item then. A reproduction of the Great Tree of Rynax in the bonsai style, using a cutting taken from the original before it was sterilized."
A convulsive shiver ran through Nee'Lix's body. Janeway reached down and stroked the fur on his head.
"Save your sympathy, Captain. You should not trust these creatures. Beggars and thieves the lot of them, always lying and scheming, getting into places where they do not belong. We should have exterminated them when we scoured their world." Nee'Lix screeched something in his own language but the Caretaker was unperturbed. "I was born in a cloning tank so I have no maternal ancestor."
"I think we've seen enough," said Chakotay.
"Not quite. There is one more item I wish to show you." The discoid whirred across the hall to another alcove, this one hosting a tall transparent cylinder whose contents were illuminated as they approached. A young girl in her late teens floated inside, stark naked and unmistakably human. Blonde hair drifted around a face of delicate beauty, the eyes cornflower blue and fixed in a permanent look of terror.
"You wanted to know the fate of the biological specimens taken from your world. This female was one of the first exhibits in my archive. At the time I was quite young, a mere 153 of your Terran years, so I admit I lacked experience in the subjugation of sentients. I tried to enforce compliance via pain stimulation and pleasure addiction, but the specimen proved a disappointment. She attempted self-termination and I was required to preserve her existence in this suspended-animation tank. It is just as well, as your species is so short-lived."
"She's... still alive?" gasped Janeway.
"Her biological functions are being maintained. Suspended animation preserves the body, but the isolation from physical sensation is more than most sentient beings can cope with. She has been inside that tank for eighty of your Earth years and would have long since succumbed to insanity. And now down to business," he continued without pause. "Travel though the Universal Portal Network is expensive; the energy requirements for a journey across the entire galaxy, considerable. Do you have means of payment?"
Janeway felt Nee'Lix tugging on her arm and wrenched her gaze from the girl in the tank. She looked around for support. Chakotay was still transfixed in horror. TuV'k was facing down their Hirogen escort who were leaning close, teeth bared in unmasked hunger. Across the hall First Major Cullah watched her reaction with a smirk that reminded her of that lecherous swine Qu on the Valkyrie all those years ago. She pulled herself together with a visible effort. "Of course we do. Voyager is not a trading vessel but we have gold, tungsten, high-grade steel, lead-pressed uranium..."
"Gold is useful in electrical conduction, but the adoption of the electronic monetary system has reduced its value as currency. Steel and tungsten have long since been superseded by molecular-bonded alloys such as Tritanium and Duranium, while nuclear fusion has greatly reduced our need for fissionable material."
'Well something we have has got your attention, or we wouldn't be here.'
"Anti-matter," said Janeway. Spacefleet had seized every gram they could get their hands on during the Asteroid Resettlement, and Voyager had an electromagnetic field-trap in Cargo Bay One holding enough refined contraterrene to power a megacity. She was loath to surrender it now the Jovians had taken over the asteroid mines; it would be badly needed until an alternate source could be found. But she had no illusion their passage back would be cheap.
The Caretaker flinched. "I trust you are following the safety procedures set out under the GY74656 Interstellar Transport Agreement (Revised)?"
"I've no idea. We haven't blown ourselves to spacedust, if that's what you mean. You're welcome to visit Voyager and examine our confinement system yourself."
"I shall pass on your invitation," he said dryly. "As it happens, I have another form of payment in mind. A modest one, well within your means."
"That's very generous of you," said Janeway, waiting for the punchline.
"I require another sentient biological specimen like this one," said the Caretaker. "Female, Terran, of a fertile age. You have several among your crew, I understand."
Chakotay spoke for all of them. "Eat radioactive slag!"
"It would be unwise to refuse my offer."
"You know, I'm really easy to get along with most of the time," said Janeway in an overly calm tone, "but I don't like bullies, I don't like threats, and I don't like you. We'll take our business elsewhere."
"There is no-one else who can return you to your homeworld," said the Caretaker. "Perhaps you could buy passage on a vessel equipped with a spacewarp drive, but how far would they take you? Do you intend to cross the entire galaxy that way, a crew of itinerants going from one starship or star system to the next? Refugees and vagrants soon outlive their welcome. How long before you are sold to the Vidiians for your organs, or hunted down for sport by my Hirogen? How long before circumstances break up your crew and they come to grief in a hundred different ways?"
"Then we will take this to a higher authority."
"I am the Caretaker of the Array. I control all passage through the black star portal. There is no higher authority."
"Really? You refer to yourself as the Caretaker. That implies you're caring for that portal on behalf of someone else."
The Caretaker's eyes narrowed, slowly like those of a cat. "An error in translation. This language we are using is imprecise. I will have an answer from you, Captain Janeway."
Janeway placed her hands on her hips, feeling the holster unlock under her palm.
"I'll be precise then. The answer is no."
She drew her pistol and fired in a single fluid movement. Flame spurted from the recoil ports, holding the barrel on target despite the massive kick of the .51 caliber bullet. A large hole appeared in the suspended-animation tank and a shower of glutinous liquid sprayed across the floor, freshly tinged with red. Hirogen and K'Zon alike leapt to their feet, their bodyguards waving guns and trying to figure out whether to shoot Janeway or each other.
"Vandals!" screeched the Caretaker, the discoid bearing him up to the vaulted apex of the hall. "You shall pay for that!" His voice switched to a loudcaster. "Guards, I want this accursed female and her entire crew thrown off the Array! Their trading rights are hereby rescinded!"
"Looks like I'll be the one scrubbing those waste vents." Janeway holstered her pistol and turned to the others, ignoring what looked like several handheld artillery pieces being brandished in her direction. "Gentlemen, let's get the Manhattan Crater out of here."
"Agreed," said TuV'k. He and Chakotay flanked the captain, and with Nee'Lix following they walked straight to the exit, avoiding eye contact with the agitated mercenaries. They had just reached the maglevator when the Hirogen Alpha spoke, causing the entire hall to fall silent.
"My name is Karr D'knn. You are worthy prey, Captain Janeway. I shall hunt you down, and your bones will adorn the bulkhead of my ship."
"You're welcome to try," was Janeway's retort. "There's room for another shipbuilder plate in my wardroom."

TO BE CONTINUED
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Rocketship Voyager