“What is this thing?” the woman with the gun demanded. The warehouse owner had never seen a more beautiful woman who scared him so badly.

            “I don’t know. I just rented him the warehouse. He was always working in here, when he wasn’t spending long hours staring up at the stars with that telescope he made.”

            “He made it?”

            “The most brilliant astrophysicist I have ever worked with,” the man with the accent and pondering eyes said. It sounded like a quotation. “He’s doing a great deal of preparation for this one.”

            “And then he just disappeared?” the woman asked.

            “I could see lights and hear things going on as I came up to the door, but everything was quiet when I came in. He was gone. I know he was in here! I saw his shadow. There’s no way out except the way I came in. But he was gone!”

            “Relax,” the woman snapped. “He’s a regular Houdini. Did he leave anything for us?”

            “As a matter or fact, he did. Yesterday he gave me this. He looked a little strange—excited, you know? Like he’d just done something he’d always dreamed of doing.”

            The man and woman gave each other a look, a look that said they knew exactly what that meant but didn’t at the same time. The woman snatched the small box from his hand, tore off the lid, and plucked out the small circle of metal.

            “Not more of this stuff!”

            “It’s a nice one!” the warehouse owner protested. “Most of the ones you see are some kind of cheap plastic. This is some kind of metal I’ve never seen before, and it looks like it could almost work.”

            With a swirl of dark hair, she gave him a look that made him feel like a loathsome insect. “Don’t tell me you’re one of those lunatics.”

            “No red book?” her partner interposed.

            “Red book?” the owner repeated. “No.”

            “He left the telescope,” the distinguished-looking man said. “We should look at whatever he’s left it aimed at.”

            “Well, go to it, Galileo.” She turned away to the intimidating man in the suit who stood back by the door. “Get this stuff packed up. I want to get it back to Broots.”

            Broots? the warehouse owner wondered. What’s a Broots? Or where?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

            Captain Picard and Lieutenant-Commander Deanna Troi met in the transporter room. At the captain’s nod, the transporter technician activated the transporter.

            “Do you know anything at all about this man, Counselor?” the captain asked.

            “No, Captain. I have never heard of him. And you don’t know anything about why he has been sent to the Enterprise?”

            “No, I don’t, Counselor. And that disturbs me.”

            The tall, lean man in red Starfleet uniform who beamed aboard was at attention when the transporter effect died away. Two silver cases stood at his feet. He said formally in a deep voice, “Commander Jarod Westmore. Request permission to come aboard, Captain.”

Scene 1

            “I don’t know what it is,” Broots said. “But it’s incredible.”

            Miss Parker seized him by the collar. “Find out,” she said between her teeth. She gave the strange machinery a kick and stalked over to where Sydney was working. “What do you have on those star charts?”

            The gentle-faced psychiatrist leaned back in his chair. “Nothing. Stars. I can’t figure out what Jarod is trying to tell us. I wondered if he had discovered astrology, but he doesn’t know his birth date. Why has he got a telescope pointed at the star they call 40 Eridani A? His need for astrophysics has come to an end with his exposure of the professor who was sexually abusing his female students. Usually by now he would have put that area of study behind him and gone on to something else, but instead he continues staring at stars and building mysterious machines.”

            “And sending us to Lunatic Central,” Miss Parker grumbled.

            “Hey, that science fiction convention was great!” Broots called. “Did you see the guy dressed as a Breen? The detail on that suit was…” His voice died away as he caught Miss Parker’s glare. “Science fiction’s good for the imagination, you know,” he mumbled.

            “Oh? And who do you imagine yourself as? The Creature from the Black Lagoon?”

            “No, that’s Mr. Raines,” he muttered.

            Caught off guard, Miss Parker actually laughed, startling them all. Broots grinned his somewhat cautious grin and ran his hand over his mostly bald head. No, when he put his imagination to science fiction, he was Captain P—

            “Broots!”

            He jumped and applied himself to the mysterious machine.

            Looking at the red book left behind at the university, Sydney chuckled.

            “What?” Miss Parker demanded, leaning her svelte self against his desk and lighting a cigarette.

            “Jarod Hawking. It’s always interesting to see what name he chooses for himself. You would think sometimes people would notice how obvious they are, but they don’t. Or else he has a good explanation. What did that professor say?” He looked through notes. “He said, ‘Jarod said he wasn’t related to Stephen Hawking, but sharing a name was an inspiration. It must have worked, because he was the most brilliant astrophysicist I have ever worked with.’”

            Miss Parker made a face, almost a shudder. “Now there’s a man who reminds me of Mr. Raines.”

            “Stephen Hawking?” Broots exclaimed, outraged. “Stephen Hawking is brilliant, Miss Parker! He’s not evil incarnate. You know how his theory of everything—”

            “The only theory I want is yours on that machine!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 2

            Commander Jarod Westmore looked like a Vulcan, Deanna Troi decided. Tall, slender, and dark, he looked as if he hid as much strength in his elegant body as a Vulcan, and he even had the haircut and oddly calm demeanor. Perhaps he had studied on Vulcan. She had often noticed that some people who spent a considerable time on Vulcan retained an unearthly sort of calm. But his strong-boned, rectangular face was far too alive for a Vulcan. When he smiled his eyes lighted with interest and mischief; when he did not smile he had an air of being lost in sadness and memory; and occasionally she caught a glimpse of strange darkness behind his eyes. And he did not feel like a Vulcan. Even to as strong an empath as herself, Vulcans were hard to read. The emotions were there, but they truly were contained under a layer of thick ice, difficult to penetrate. This man, this Commander Westmore, was like no one she had ever felt before. She had never met someone with so much complexity writhing so closely beneath the surface. She had to put up several shields between herself and him before she could concentrate on what he was actually saying.

            He had brought up several pictures on the viewscreen in the briefing room, all children. A Human, a Vulcan, a Trill, a Klingon, a Talaxian…

            “These children have all disappeared from their respective homeworlds over the last year. Normally they would each be a case for their local authorities. Children often disappear for a variety of reasons and are usually found by their parents or their local police in short order. But these children are different. Quite by accident I have discovered an unusual number of similarities between their cases. Each of these children has an abnormally high intelligence. Most were born to parents in professions that require a great deal of talent. All live on Federation worlds, and their parents occupy some minor sort of Federation position. Each child displays an unusual aptitude in one way or another which their teachers have been at a loss to develop. Possibly most significantly telling is that their parents report that each of them was seen by a Betazoid counselor within a year before their kidnapping.”

            Unconsciously everyone looked at Deanna. “Do you mean,” she said, “that someone has been telepathically assessing their talents and kidnapping them for a specific purpose?”

            “That is exactly what I mean, Lieutenant-Commander Troi.” His deep voice was even, but she caught a startling rage beneath it. “As no doubt you know, children have incredible potential, particularly those we might term prodigies or savants, and they are incredibly malleable. Remove a number of extraordinary children from their home situation, where they might have a normal development, and place them in an intensive situation where you can force them to use their talents far beyond the range that normal life usually allows, and you have an unparalleled source of intellect, ideas, solutions…power.”

            Beverly Crusher leaned forward. “But surely—in order to develop a child’s mind so intensively, you would have to neglect the rest of his development. Every waking moment would have to be spent in training. What would that do to a child’s emotional, social, and spiritual development?”

            Their guest’s eyes had narrowed into dark lines, making his long face look alarmingly ominous. “It would be stunted. In some it would wither away. The children’s well-being is not these people’s object. Power is their object. The children are seen as commodities, Dr. Crusher. They are machines to be used. They are owned. They have only one purpose: to serve the—their captors.”

            The doctor shuddered. The commander’s eyes on her suddenly went soft, understanding. “You are thinking of your own extraordinary son, Doctor Crusher, what it might be like if he had been taken from you and subjected to this life. Instead he has known love. He has known his mother. This is a blessing greater than any other.”

            She blinked at him, and Deanna realized that this strange man had nearly brought Beverly to tears.

            Riker broke in. “Commander, with your credentials we have no trouble believing everything you’ve told us. But what does this have to do with the Enterprise? Shouldn’t you be tracking leads on one of these children’s homeworlds?”

            Jarod Westmore turned the full force of his dark-rimmed eyes on him. “My task, Commander Riker, is not to find out what has been done but to project what will be done. I have a particular talent, and that is to inhabit the mind of a person I am tracking, find out how he thinks and feels and what he will do. We have learned that this shadow organization has planted people on starships to evaluate the children aboard them. The crewmembers aboard Federation starships have proven themselves to be intelligent, capable, talented people and are likely to have intelligent children. If this organization can identify one prodigy or savant out of ten starships, they will consider it well worth the time spent.”

            “Our children?” Dr. Crusher gasped. “There are people aboard this ship evaluating our children to kidnap them?”

            “It is likely to be only one person, most likely someone working as a teacher, childcare provider, counselor, or doctor, someone in frequent contact with the children on this vessel. My job is to blend in with the crew. I am here as a guest astrophysicist to study the star cluster your ship is on its way to investigate. I am also known as a foremost children’s teacher in primary astrophysics, and Captain Picard will give me opportunities to speak in classes and conduct introductions into the job of an astrophysicist aboard a starship.”

            “Can you really do that?” Riker asked.

            “Yes, sir. I have taught astrophysics at university on my world and have also been a children’s school teacher. I will become my role completely. While I am interacting with the children, I will interact with those around them. I know the kind of person I am tracking. When I interact with him or her, I will know it. Then I will set a trap that will allow the person to betray himself. Once we have one member of the organization, we will be able to track backward to the source of the whole thing.”

            “A trap?” Lieutenant Worf growled.

            Deanna watched the man’s whole stance change as he turned toward the security chief. His body opened, seemed to become larger and taller as his hands went to his hips. He was becoming a Klingon. “Yes, Lieutenant Worf. I trust I may have your assistance, as Captain Picard permits?”

            “Of course,” Worf answered.

            “choquvmoH.”

            Worf stared. Even in these more enlightened times, there weren’t many Humans who took the time to learn Klingon.

            Captain Picard rose. “Thank you, Commander Westmore. Ladies and gentlemen, I  cannot stress enough the top-secrecy of this operation. The commander’s mission is so secret that I received no word of it myself until he was actually here. Starfleet Security believes this shadow organization may be working within Starfleet itself, illegally but sanctioned by certain Starfleet officials.” A murmur arose. He quelled it with a movement of his hand. “This means that any and all lines of communication may be monitored. Thanks to the commander, we have a state-of-the-art jamming device running during this conversation. It must be present for any conversation on this subject, and no such conversations will take place without my permission or Commander Westmore’s. This operation regards our most precious cargo on this ship, our futures as our respective races, and our future as a Federation the galaxy can trust. Remember that. You are all dismissed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 3

            “Counselor Troi, come into my ready room.”

            Deanna followed the captain in and took her accustomed seat against the wall. Picard sat next to her. They had left Commander Westmore in conversation with Data about adjustments to the ship’s sensors for the new star system they were to study. It would be hard to say who seemed the more fascinated with the other.

            “First impressions, Counselor?” Picard asked quietly.

            Deanna let out an explosive breath. “I don’t even know where to begin, Captain.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well—let’s begin with you. How do you see this Jarod Westmore?”

            Picard said slowly, “I can see that he is one of the most intelligent beings I have ever encountered, and that takes into account a number of Vulcans. I see that he instantly observes and comprehends everything around him in a way that would rival even Data’s favorite Sherlock Holmes. He has a calm demeanor, but it is easy to see that he is a man of great depths.”

            “That is exactly correct, Captain. How can I describe it to you? Have you ever known a person well and then discovered he felt deeply about something you had never even considered?”

            Picard smiled. “Yes.”

            “We often discover this in certain areas about our friends, like stumbling into a hole in what we thought was a flat and explored landscape. Jarod Westmore’s whole character is like that. Everything about him is deep, unexplored, unexpected—and violent.”

            “Violent, Deanna?”

            “Don’t misunderstand me, Captain. I mean his feelings are violent. All of them—they affect him violently, intensely. They rage and surge inside him. Captain, I feel from him some of the deepest pain I have ever felt from anyone. I feel anger, helplessness, confusion, blankness, searching, longing, loss, hatred, far too many tears. He is feeling this constantly, sir, not as a dull hum in the background as many of us do but as the major thread of his life. He is such a mass of confusion even I can’t sort out all the emotions. There are people he hates with every fiber of his being. There are people he loves as much as he hates, people he trusts involuntarily even while he doesn’t trust them. There are people he loves desperately and clings to psychologically even as he searches for them. He feels nothing half-way—every emotion is intense and full. And yet, Captain, he is a man of peace. His passion is justice, and he wants nothing more than to live at peace. He can find no lasting peace, but he does find temporary relief in bringing peace and justice to others. He—” She broke into a soft laugh, feeling inside her what she had felt when he first looked at Data. “He loves life, Captain. He is incessantly fascinated by all the new experiences it brings him. If I didn’t know better, I would say he is like a child experiencing the world for the first time. Even all his pain cannot dampen his child-like joy at learning and experiencing something new. If I am correct, he will love this new star system as if it were his only object in being here.”

            They were both silent a moment. Picard had not expected such a thorough description of the man’s character. “And in essence, Counselor?”

            “In essence, Captain, you can trust him. If I needed to, I would place my life in his hands, step back, close my eyes, and let him do what he needed to do. He has a stronger drive for justice and goodness than anyone I have known. He is…he is not unlike James T. Kirk in that, Captain.”

            Picard smiled again. “And as history tells us, that is what drove Kirk as well. Thank you, Counselor. As always, your insights are valuable.”

            “Thank you, sir.” She rose to go, then stopped. “Captain, there is something else. There is something he is not telling us. I don’t know whether it has anything to do with this mission or whether it is a personal matter of no importance to the mission. But he is definitely withholding something.”

            “And yet I can trust him.”

            “And yet you can trust him.” 

Scene 4

            “Broots, I’ve brought someone to help you.”

            Broots turned to see Sydney ushering in Angelo. The older man had his hand against Angelo’s back, and once again it occurred to Broots to wonder how a man who cared as much for his subjects of study as Sydney did could use them as subjects of study. But then, Broots wasn’t sure about the morality of his own involvement in the Centre, either, and he tried not to think about it much. He pulled his sweater close around him, as if it could protect him from Angelo’s strange abilities. “Oh—OK. Um, Angelo, there’s this machine, and these other pieces of technology that seem to belong to it, and this little badge Jarod left us—oh, and these videotapes we found in his apartment. But they’re all just science fiction. Oh, and this great uniform—he was really getting into the sci-fi convention thing. I wish I had his resources and time. Boy, that would be fun!”

            He stopped. Angelo was grimacing at him, that expression of lips curled back from teeth that seemed to pass for a smile. He wondered if Angelo had conscious thoughts, or if he was all a mass of emotions and impressions. “Uh, well, uh, I guess I’ll let you get at it then.”

            He stood aside with Sydney and watched. Angelo stood stock-still, his eyes darting rapidly under his heavy eyelids, his pocked face intense. He pawed among the items Broots had pointed out, ran his hands over the red and black uniform, sniffed at it.

            “Uh—can he pick up emotions through smelling?” Broots whispered.

            “Well, emotions are caused by hormones, which cause certain excretions in the body,” the psychiatrist answered. “That would be an intriguing area of study, the effect of scent on an empath. Thank you, Broots.”

            “Sydney, can I ask you a question?”

            “Certainly.”

            “Why doesn’t Miss Parker like Angelo?”

            Sydney gave a soft laugh. “Miss Parker doesn’t like anyone, Broots.”

            “I know, but she’s always meanest to Angelo. She has her nicer moments with us, you know.”

            “Yes, I know. Well, Broots, I would say it is because she can’t control him. You are scared of her, so she can control you, which gives her freedom to unbend a little. She thinks she knows me well enough to know what I might do in any situation—and she may be right. Or she may be wrong. But it still offers her control. But Angelo? He is a cipher. She does not understand him. She cannot comprehend an empath. She has no control. And she must also protect herself from pitying him. What Mr. Raines did to him—and the fact that her mother died trying to rescue him and Jarod—she must protect herself, or she will have no control.”

            “Who will have no control?” a cold voice jerked into their ears.

            Broots jumped guiltily. Sydney turned around. “We were speaking of an injured animal Broots’ daughter brought home. He wondered why it attacks when it is shown kindness.”

            “Right,” Miss Parker snorted. “What is the one-man freak show doing?”

            Angelo had pulled on the jacket of the red and black uniform. He stood up straight, looking oddly like a man rather than the strange, furtive being he was. His shoulders took on a military bearing.

            “Jarod has put himself into the role this costume indicates,” Sydney said. “It has been more than a toy to him.”

            “Wait—wait—wait!” Broots exclaimed. “Oh, I’m having a brainstorm. I’m a genius. What if he was on one of these episodes?”

            “An actor?” Sydney said softly. “The Pretender playing the role of an actor playing a role? That could be significant, Broots.”

            “He’s been everything from roach exterminator to gigolo,” Miss Parker snapped. “Why shouldn’t he be an actor?”

            “We never found any evidence that he ever fully fulfilled the job description of a gigolo,” Sydney reminded her.

            “Oh, come on, Sydney. He’s male.”

            “His employer told us of his reluctance, Miss Parker. You know that originally gigolos were merely professional dance partners.”

            “I don’t need the whole history of male prostitution, Sydney!”

            “I wonder what he felt in that role,” Sydney mused, ignoring her.

            Miss Parker didn’t need to answer. Her grin said everything.

            “What I mean is, did he experience all the feelings of exploitation and loss of value that often accompany such a job? He must have done. He is too familiar with those emotions not to recognize them in that situation.”

            “Look, I don’t care about Jarod’s finer emotional sensations! I just want to find him! Can you stick to the matter at hand? Is he in Los Angeles or wherever they film these things?”

            “No,” Broots said. “Wouldn’t work. They film these things like a year ahead. These ones were taped off TV just recently.” He sounded disappointed.

            Now Angelo had the uniform off, and he was popping a tape into the VCR. He seemed to know what he was looking for, fast-forwarding, stopping to chuckle at something, pausing and staring for a long moment at a beautiful woman with dark curly hair in a blue and black uniform. Finally he stopped and looked at them.

            “What?” Miss Parker demanded.

            Angelo got up and wandered away. Broots, Sydney, and Miss Parker peered closely at the television screen. The tape was paused at a crowded scene, uniformed people milling around at some kind of official function.

            “Look,” Broots said. “There he is.”

            There was Jarod, in red and black uniform with insignia that marked him as a Commander, blended nicely into the background of the scene, looking every inch an officer. Only he was turned and smiling directly into the camera, his face alight with mischief and that silly grin that turned him from a strikingly handsome man into a little boy. Broots’ age, Miss Parker thought sourly, glancing at the short, slender man who was probably her own age as well as Jarod’s.

            “He’s not really there,” Broots said. “He’s inserted electronically into the scene. Maybe he studied post-production, because it’s really well done.”

            “What does it mean?” Miss Parker snapped.

            “He’s living out a fantasy,” Sydney answered. “The fantasy of every boy his age, to be there, either on that ship or on that set.”

            Broots sighed. “Yeah.”

            “Only he never had that fantasy, did he?” Miss Parker demanded. “Because he knew nothing about these stupid TV shows as a child. So he’s living out your fantasy for you, Broots. Too bad you’ll never get to.”

            “Yeah,” he sighed again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 5

            Jarod relaxed in his quarters, staring at nothing in thought for a while. This was the most unusual Pretend he had ever done or ever would do. Not only did he have to infiltrate a new situation and act—no, be the part in a new job, but he had to infiltrate a new century, a new world, a new…universe. This one had taken more careful preparation than any other. He had given himself a full month in San Francisco, in this San Francisco, to prepare himself for things like molecular transportation, replicators, and the current mode of speech. Being an officer, an astrophysicist, or a teacher was the easy part. Being in a different universe entirely and not betraying any unfamiliarity with it was the hard part.

            It had started back at the astrophysics lab in the university he had been a professor at for so short a time. He couldn’t believe no one had picked up on the odd readings on some of their instruments. Oh, it had taken some intensive study into the newest theories of quantum mechanics, but he had already known what it was. Sydney had had to train him thoroughly in the art of going through each step to a conclusion, rather than just jumping straight into it with no evidence to show how he had got there.

            Yes, it was what science fiction called a wormhole, and yes, it did connect to an alternate universe. Amazing how easy it was, just like in the science fiction shows. And he wasn’t even an astrophysicist.

            He built a machine that picked up transmissions from the other side. He had planned to find out a little and then leave it to the real physicists, but what he found out first delighted him and then threw him into turmoil.

            A fictional world was real. At first it only seemed vaguely familiar. He hadn’t watched much science fiction, but a face had caught him, an accent, a phrase. Blessing his photographic memory, he searched out the source of his memories and discovered the fascinations of science fiction. It would have been fun on a normal day, but discovering its reality even as he discovered its fictionality boggled his mind as few things ever had. It had been delightful, worthy of following up on, and yet he still intended to pass it over to his physicist friends.

            But then he discovered the Savant Project. He had tapped into a top-secret transmission, and what he learned plunged him into flashback-like memories. The new memories that had surfaced during the child-kidnapping case he had solved so recently blazed out at him, uncontrollably, like a tidal wave, just as they had as he hunted down the kidnapper of that little boy. Darkness. Terror. The sudden knowledge that Mom and Dad weren’t able to help him. The empty horror of their absence. The fear of the men and the strange places they took him. And then the blackness of memory. “Where are my mom and dad?” had become “Who am I?” “Who am I?” had become “Doesn’t anyone love me?”

            It was happening again. In a foreign place, a strange fantasy world, his nightmare was happening to other children. They would grow up like him, imprisoned, alone, unloved, valued for a single ability, treated like an object to be used. “A slave,” he murmured. “Will there be strange, alien wars because of what they are forced to think up? Will presidents of vast, interplanetary alliances die because of them? Will innocent people die as ‘collateral damage’ because of them? Like they did because of me?” As he had a thousand times before, he buried his head in his hands. “Sydney, why did you do this to me? Sydney, why am I psychologically attached to you? Will this happen to these alien children? Will they come to crave the love of their captors, their studiers, their teachers in the art of how to lose themselves? Will their Pavlovs be benign in character, like you? Or will they be Dr. Mengeles, like Mr. Raines?”

            He hadn’t even had to stop to consider whether he should or even could do something about it. He never did. Each new situation called out to him with its own voice, making itself known. This one screamed in the voices of a dozen kidnapped children, Angelo’s voice, his own voice. So he had made the machine. He had made the unsettling, instantaneous voyage to the San Francisco of a strange new world. He had learned all about this Federation, this Starfleet. He had discovered wonderful, fascinating things, marveled at a vision of a possible future. But he had learned about unsettling undercurrents that threatened to one day tear it apart. Alien wars and rumors of wars. Maquis. Section 31.

            Section 31, that top-secret organization within Starfleet Intelligence. It was just like the Triumverate, the head of the Centre. Where power and secrecy were combined was unlimited potential for corruption and exploitation. It was the Federation’s responsibility to deal with its own underworld, he knew. If it refused, it was not worth preserving. But it was his responsibility to protect and avenge the innocent. He had spent thirty years thinking up ways for the Centre to injure the powerless. Now he had the rest of his life to spend helping them. How ever long that was.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 6

            Jarod squared his shoulders and pushed open the doors into Ten Forward. Quite a few people looked up as he entered the crew lounge. By now most people had heard about the distinguished guest sent from Headquarters. Their first glimpse of him did not disappoint. His red uniform suited him, and many women had told him how handsome he was in the last two years. In the Centre, what he looked like had never mattered. Outside the Centre, all that mattered was that he fit into his role, physically as well as mentally.

            Behind the bar was a woman, a dark woman with a broad, luminous face. Not beautiful, but he ached for the peace in her eyes. Guinan. He had hoped she would be here. He went toward the bar.

            “What can I get for you, Commander?” Her voice was just as it had been on his television, calm and smiling.

            “Well, Guinan, I’ve heard about you and this place, but I’ve never been in here, so it’s all quite new to me. What would you suggest?”

            “Guinan, give him a Sumerian Sunset.”

            He turned to see Deanna Troi in civilian clothes smiling at him. “A Sumerian Sunset,” he repeated. “That sounds intriguing.”

            Guinan was pulling out bottles. “And where are you from, Commander Westmore, that you have never had a Sumerian Sunset?”

            “Oh,” he smiled, “just a little planet of no consequence but to those fortunate enough to have lived in it.” Or unfortunate.

            “Pride and Prejudice,” Deanna smiled back. “You don’t find many men who can quote Austen, Commander.”

            “Then the majority of men are sadly under-educated, Counselor. Or should I call you Commander?”

            “You may call me Deanna.”

            “In that case, please call me Jarod. It sits better with me than the formalities of titles.”

            “Jarod, then. Now watch.”

            Guinan poured the last ingredient into the tall glass before him and then, her eyes on him, gave the glass a tap with her dark finger. The clear liquid immediately flushed gold, orange, rose, a sunset in the glass.

            Jarod broke into a laugh. “That is wonderful!” His eyes were bright, his face delighted.

            Deanna grinned. “I thought you would like it.”

            He gave her a quick look. How much could a Betazoid empath find out about him? Her talents seemed to him far different than Angelo’s.

            “Commander?” Geordi LaForge was standing behind him. “Would you like to come join Data and me?”

            “I would. Thank you, Guinan, for the beautiful sunset.”

            She smiled after him. “Come again, Commander.”

            “I will.” 

            He took his seat at one of the lighted tables across from Data, Geordi and Deanna on either side. Data was one of the things that most interested him in this entire world he’d found himself in. In a way he and the android were alike. They were strangers to the world of humanity, trying to discover their place in it, trying to learn to be human.

            “So, Commander,” Geordi said, “how are you finding the Enterprise?”

            His smile broke out. “She is wonderful! I have never seen anything quite like her.”

            Geordi grinned back. “Well, she is the flagship of the fleet. A chance to work aboard her is quite an honor for all of us.”

            “I believe it. Commander Data, would you mind if I asked you a personal question?”

            “I have no feelings to be affronted in any way by a personal question, Commander Westmore,” the gold-skinned android answered. “I will answer any question you have for me.”

            “Is it also an honor for you to work aboard the Enterprise, and if so, how do you evaluate it?”

            “It is true that I still find it difficult to comprehend the Human attachment to what is essentially a tool. If I could feel the emotion, I could comprehend it better. But I also recognize the importance of this vessel to the Federation and the exceedingly high caliber of her crew and officers. I recognize the honor, even if I cannot feel it.”

            Jarod tried to put himself in Data’s place. No feeling. Only thinking. Perhaps if he could have been like that as a child, as Sydney obviously wanted him to be, he could have been spared much pain. Much searching. But Data still searched. And perhaps the absence of emotion was itself a kind of pain. He smiled the tight-lipped smile of his own pain. “Thank you, Commander.”

            “Commander Westmore, I have a question of my own for you,” Geordi said.

            “First, please call me Jarod.”

            Geordi’s eyebrows went up over his VISOR, but he nodded. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is. You may not want to answer.”

            Jarod understood and pulled a small device from his pocket, fiddling with it seemingly absently. It was the jamming device he had picked up back on Earth. “Oh, don’t worry. I’ll follow Commander Data’s lead and answer whatever you want. Within reason.” He grinned.

            “Well, then, why Command?”

            “Command?”

            “The red uniform. As an astrophysicist, wouldn’t you normally be wearing Sciences blue? Or, as a Security and Intelligence officer, gold?”

            “Oh, that. Well, the red uniform looked better on me than gold.”

            They all chuckled, except Data, of course, who looked puzzled as to why a man would choose his career path based on the color of its uniform. The laughs of the others alerted him that it was a joke, a gentle irony. But it wasn’t far off from the truth. Jarod had been attracted to the red uniform. Perhaps it was because on this particular Pretend, he felt he needed more control and command of his own. He could so easily get swept up in the emotions of this case so like his own. He needed to exert control over it. He chose red. Command.

            And he reminded himself that it no longer stood for the expendable crewman who always died. Red’s destiny and meaning had been changed. These children’s destinies would be different than his.

            “To tell the truth,” he made himself say before Deanna could look at him oddly, “I am not an astrophysicist—not primarily. I am a Command officer first whose abilities have drawn him into all this. I did not intend to be here, to be working for Starfleet Intelligence. My life originally was on a far different course. Well, now that this has happened, I can’t go back to what might have been. I can only do my job with all my heart and strength. I always do.”

            “I believe it,” Deanna said. “And that includes learning Klingon?”

            Jarod relaxed and chuckled again. “I have a chance to work with the only Klingon in Starfleet, the only Klingon I have ever met. The least I could do was learn a little Klingon.”

            “A little? He told me your accent and grammar are impeccable. When did you begin to learn it?”

            “A little less than a month ago. I have an ear for languages. But not, apparently, for Betazoid.” It had disturbed him, his inability to comprehend the language.

            “That’s because Betazoid is as much about telepathy as it is about talking, Jarod. Unless you’re telepathic as well as brilliant, you just won’t get it.”

            “Well, I have been accused of it. But I’m not.” And glad for it, mostly. He comprehended what went on in others’ brains too well as it was.

            Geordi stood up. “Well, folks, I’ve got to get back to work.”

            “May I accompany you? I have some questions about the newest transporter technology I would like to ask you.”

            “Certainly Comman—Jarod.”

            They nodded goodbyes to Deanna and Data and left Ten Forward, deep in conversation. The counselor and the android were left looking at each other over their drinks.

            “Data, what do you think of him?”

            “An excellent officer, and a very intelligent man, for a Human. He spoke with me for thirty-six minutes about my positronic network, and by the end of our conversation he had come up with a solution to a minor problem that even Geordi had not thought through. He could be an engineering officer, if he chose. What do you think of him, Counselor?”

            “He is…a mystery,” she said slowly. “And his greatest mystery is that he is a mystery to himself.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 7

            “Children, this is Commander Jarod,” Counselor Troi announced. “He is here to teach you about the new stars we are approaching.”

            “Good morning, class.” Jarod smiled at all the six-year olds. They smiled back. Children liked him. They trusted him. Maybe it was because he had only recently learned to be a child himself. He and they could approach the world on the same level. “How many of you are interested in stars?”

            Over half the class raised their hands. They were the children of Starfleet crewmembers, after all.

            “Well, by the end of my time with you, I hope you’ll all be interested and have learned some very interesting things. Shall I tell you why I like stars?”

            Deanna watched as the Starfleet officer who could turn himself into a Klingon and talk positronic networks with an android became the sort of teacher a child would remember all her life. As far as she could tell, he inhabited the mind of a child to the extent that he knew instinctively how they needed to be communicated with. His emotions as he interacted with them intrigued her. He felt the way they did. Something inside him had never had a chance to grow up, and there was always a child looking out of his eyes. What could have happened to this strong, intelligent man to leave him still a child inside, still identifying so intensely with the hopes and fears and needs of childhood?

            To the children, he was instantly and instinctively a place of safety. She could have seen it even if she had not felt their emotions. Children gravitated to him as if he were a shelter. The most non-empathic of them felt his warmth and care. Deanna felt his yearning for them—to be them, safe and happy, to protect them and keep them safe and happy. She knew that if his mission failed, it would crush him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 8

            Angelo enjoyed watching them fail to work out the machine. He knew what it was for. And he knew why Jarod had left it for them to find. Angelo used his mind far more than they thought he did, the mind Mr. Raines had given him, when he took Timmy’s away.

            Late one night he slithered into the lab. By now no locked room was locked to him. The Centre was well provided with ventilation shafts and other passageways. He crept up to the machine, glanced around, then took the remote device and activated it. Something glowed. Light swirled around him. Angelo giggled.

Scene 9

            “Now that you have met all the teachers and doctors aboard who have been here three years or less, do you have any initial impressions?” Deanna asked Jarod.

            Jarod put his elbow on the arm of his chair and considered her. He had never yet explained to someone just how he put himself into the mind of another person. He had developed his gift with Sydney, the psychiatrist training him in it as much as he discovered himself. If he had ever felt like thanking Sydney for his work, it would have been for that. But he had never worked so closely with someone from the beginning of a Pretend as he was working with Deanna. There was very little he could keep from her. Bare facts that would put him in the brig if known, yes. But none of the emotions that he felt for himself and for others. He could not hide from her his ability to feel what his prey was feeling.

            He steepled his fingers in a way, though he did not know it, that made him look more like a Vulcan than ever. “You think I’m an empath. Well, I’m not. Not like you. Not like—” He’d almost said Angelo. “Not like a telepath. I must use my imagination. I imagine how it must have been, and from that I deduce how it was. My talent is in that I am nearly always right.”

            “Sherlock Holmes,” she murmured with a grin.

            “Sherlock—Holmes? An intriguing name.”

            “You know Austen, but you don’t know Sherlock Holmes?”

            “My reading has been…sporadic.”

            “Data is our Holmes expert, Jarod. If you find yourself with spare time, you must ask him to introduce you.”

            “Introduce me. To…Sherlock Holmes?”

            “On the holodeck.”

            “Oh, the holodeck. I look forward to that. But to answer your question, I have received some interesting impressions from certain of the teachers and doctors. I can see things in their interactions that give me reason to ponder why I would act in this or that way if I were they. Now tell me, Counselor: knowing what you now know, how do you interpret the emotions you feel from the people under my surveillance?”

            “It can be difficult,” she admitted. “Each emotion from each person is different, and I cannot always interpret their meanings. The same level of anger from two different people may mean two entirely different things. It may also mean two entirely different things within a single person at different moments or even at the same time.”

            “I know,” he said quietly and accepted the sudden glance she gave him.

            “I have to be careful not to let what I presume about a person influence how I interpret his feelings. I must not presume that just because a person is hiding something it must mean he is dangerous, a traitor, or a liar. We all hide things. I often learn things that have no bearing on the task at hand, and it is not at that time my task to uncover them. I am sure it must be the same with your work.”

            He felt a sudden rush of gratitude to her that he knew he could not hide from her. “It is.”

            “In addition, there are also a very few people I cannot feel, or cannot feel clearly.”

            Jarod slowly sat up straight. “There are?”

            “Certainly. Certain races, usually the telepathic ones, have some ability to mask their emotions, like Vulcans. Others, like the Qinar, simply have such incompatible brainwave patterns that I do not sense them at all, as if we are in two different dimensions.”

            “You mention Vulcans and Qinar specifically. There is a Vulcan teacher, Sirok, and a Qinar nurse, Onatah.”

            “There is also a teacher, Thato, a Spoun, another race I cannot feel. What is it, Jarod?”

            “If you were going to place a secret operative aboard a starship with a Betazoid empath, wouldn’t it be logical to choose an operative that Betazoid cannot read?”

            “Yes, it would,” she slowly answered.

            “In addition, those three are among the crewmembers I have decided to observe more closely.”

            Deanna made a grimace. “This means I can’t help you.”

            Jarod smiled. “You already have, Deanna. It is unusual for me to have such help. I usually work alone in the beginning.”

            “You do not need to work alone here, Jarod. You have support.”

            His smile had pain in it. “I appreciate it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 10

            Jarod opened up the silver case and slid a small, round disc into its slot. On the case’s screen in black and white was his young self, about ten years old, the young man Sydney, and the words JAROD. FOR CENTRE USE ONLY. He had recently finished a simulation dealing with Irish terrorists and was debriefing with his handler. As usual, he was posing as many questions as answers. Hadn’t it ever occurred to Sydney that it wasn’t right to make a child solve the problems of terrorists?

            “Is there a God, Sydney?”

            Sydney, as normal, managed to look unsurprised by the question. “Why do you ask, Jarod?”

            “Because of all those Irish people, Protestants and Catholics, killing each other, in part over their beliefs about God. But their beliefs are so similar. Is there a God?”

            “I don’t know, Jarod. What do you think?”

            “I don’t know either. So many people think there is. All those people killing each other in the simulation think there is. So many people have something inside them that needs to think there is. What does it mean?”

            “That is a question no psychiatrist or philosopher has ever been able to answer, Jarod.”

            “If people need a God, there should be a God. Isn’t that logical? And if there is a God, he shouldn’t let people kill each other. Or die in plane crashes like my parents.”

            Jarod snapped off the DSA recording. “Or be kidnapped from their parents and raised in captivity. Why do these things happen? Why? Isn’t there anything out there that cares?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 11

            “Where’s Cousin It?” Miss Parker said instead of “Good morning.” The day she gave a commonplace, civilized greeting was the day Broots would have a heart attack.

            “Angelo seems to be in hiding today,” Sydney answered.

            “Yeah,” Broots chuckled. “Mr. Raines is in a fury that they can’t find him. He has some sort of special project.” He stopped with a gulp. Mr. Raines’ ‘special projects’ were never a laughing matter, as Angelo himself was a testimony.

            Miss Parker’s lips compressed. As much as she reserved her own right to push Angelo around and call him names like “Jello-Brains,” she, too, had felt all the horror of what Mr. Raines had done to him. Broots was still scared to death of her, but he had had enough peeks inside her carefully constructed shell to know that her bark and her bite were often mere show. Still, she did bite.

            “Anyway,” he said, “I don’t think there’s any more Angelo can tell us.”

            She put her face down close to his ear. “That means,” she answered in her soft, silky voice, the one that meant she was about to shout at him, “that we are only waiting for you. I am sick and tired of constantly being a step behind Jarod! I am beginning to suspect that you want Jarod to escape!”

            “No—no—” he stuttered, even while a tiny part of his brain considered that as a viable option. A very tiny part. “He’s a genius, Miss Parker. He’s outwitted us a hundred times. Hey, what’s the possibility that this machine is a red herring?”

            “It’s not,” Sydney said. “Jarod’s red herrings are never really red herrings. They always mean something. Even if they send us astray, they are always a means of reaching out to us. Jarod needs us.”

            “Needs us, Syd?” Miss Parker snapped. “We are chasing him. He knows full well that I am going to shoot him someday.”

            “Until he finds his family, we are the only family he has. You, me, Broots, Angelo. He has always reached out to us, even when we pushed him away—or threatened to kill him.”

            As it did at very unexpected times, Miss Parker’s face softened as she looked at him. She didn’t say what was there for her to say, that she knew Sydney regretted pushing Jarod away. Instead she said, “Then it’s a pity he hates us as much as he needs us. As long as he hates us, it will take me shooting him to bring him in.” Jerking out a cigarette, she stalked away.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 12

            “Captain! Intruder alert!” Worf called out. “Jeffries tube 42—no—wait. Captain, I seem to be having instrument malfunctions.”

            “Which is it, Mr. Worf?”

            He scowled at his instruments. “I am not sure, sir. I thought I read a transporter signal in the Jeffries tube, but it instantly faded, and there is no sign of any intruder.”

            “Dispatch a security team there and give your instruments a complete diagnostic.”

            “Yes, Captain.”

            “Captain,” Data said, “it is possible that our proximity to the new star system may affect our instruments.”

            “Thank you, Mr. Data. Do whatever you can to correct for it. Inform all sections as to any possible malfunctions.”

            “Yes, Captain. We will be within sensor range of the star system in five-point-two minutes, sir.”

            “Inform Commander Westmore and invite him to the bridge.”

            “Yes, sir.”

            Jarod seemed to have spent as much time playing as he did working. With the children he was a great favorite, and he spent time with them even when he was not teaching. He had taken part in a short Sherlock Holmes holodeck program with Data, where he had solved the mystery almost as quickly as Data did, and thereafter he was observed researching smoking pipes and taking up the violin. When he wasn’t researching the new star system with the science officers or teaching the children about it, he was in Engineering studying transport or holodeck technology with Geordi, learning Klingon sparring techniques from Worf, investigating various uses of the medical technology in Sickbay with Dr. Crusher, or having a Sumerian Sunset in Ten Forward with Guinan. It was as if, people thought, his whole life was about learning and absorbing everything about him.

            Now he bounded up to the bridge with a light of expectation in his eyes.

            “Commander Westmore, the stars you ordered,” Picard said with something of a quirk at the corners of his mouth.

            Jarod stood at the rail near Worf’s station and watched the distant glimmer of light in the viewscreen. When the star system was close enough to identify, he was smiling with wide eyes, his expression one of someone who has never seen such a thing before.

            “Commander Westmore?”

            “I’m sorry, Captain. It’s a beautiful sight, isn’t it?”

            “Yes, it is, Commander. You may take your position at Science Station 2. Technical information will come to you there, and then you may decide what you want to do with it. We do seem to be having some instrument malfunctions as a result of our proximity to the stars.”

            “Understood, Captain.”

            “Captain,” Worf broke in, “security reports no intruder detected.”

            “Intruder?” Jarod said sharply.

            “Most likely technical malfunctions, Commander,” the Klingon told him, “and not an actual intruder, but we’re checking it out anyway.”

            “Oh, I see.” He applied himself to his readouts. Data came to join him, and they conferred quietly.

            “Counselor, is anything the matter?” Picard asked. Jarod’s head came up, and he turned to gaze down over the edge of Worf’s console at them.

            “I am not certain, Captain,” Deanna answered. “I am sensing something odd—I can’t tell what it is. A presence, perhaps? Not quite; more like a disturbance in the landscape of emotion aboard the ship.”

            It did not occur to Data to wonder why Jarod’s hand clutched the edge of the console for a moment.

            Riker turned to look at Worf. “It seems a little coincidental that the internal sensors should pick up an intruder that isn’t there and that Counselor Troi should sense something that isn’t quite a presence.”

            “It does indeed,” the chief of security agreed. “I am running internal sweeps of the ship. Thus far it is not picking anything up. I am getting interference from the stars.”

            “Commander Data,” Picard said, “back the ship away until we get to the bottom of this. I’m sorry, Commander Westmore. Your project will have to be put on hold for a short time, just until we understand what is going on. As soon as we identify precisely what technical problems we may expect from our proximity to this system, we will know whether our peculiar readings have anything to do with it.”

            “I understand, Captain. I’ll take what information we have received and prepare an initial lesson for the children. Perhaps one of the teachers would like to help me.”

            “They have been ordered to give you every assistance you may need.”

            “Thank you, Captain.”

            As Jarod left the bridge, Picard began giving orders for special sensor sweeps for cloaked ships. They found nothing. Deanna examined herself and decided—perhaps—she had been imagining things.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 13

            Instead of going to the school area, Jarod went to his quarters. Turning on only one small light, he took out his jamming device, activated it, and set it on a table. He glanced around the darkened room. A shadow detached itself from a corner and moved toward him.

            Jarod wheeled around toward it. “Angelo?” He reached out and grabbed two shoulders, pulled them forward. “Angelo!” He gathered the faintly grinning empath up into a strong hug and felt himself being hugged back. It felt good. So good.

            “So you got here,” he smiled when he and his friend and ally released each other. “I thought you would figure out my machine, because you can figure out me. I’ve been expecting you for a long time. I wonder why I decided to leave it set for the Enterprise instead of San Francisco. It’s a little more dangerous. Well, at least this ship will be somewhat familiar. No lack of places to hide, just like at the Centre. Jeffries tubes, accessways… I can’t imagine you had much trouble finding me.”

            Angelo chuckled.

            “Now, listen to me, Angelo. You have to stay hidden. Don’t let anyone see you. I made a built-in sensor cloak in the machine that will keep you invisible to the ship’s sensors for some time, but you won’t be invisible to eyes. And there’s also Deanna.” He frowned. “I don’t want to deceive her. But if they find you before I’m done, they could find out everything, and that would be disaster. This captain and his first officer will not take kindly to someone masquerading as an officer on their ship and in their Starfleet. However, Deanna didn’t seem to understand what she was feeling when she felt you. Listen, Angelo. Stay near people, but hidden. Find out about them. Feel them; take on their persona. She might not detect you then.” He put out his hand to Angelo’s arm. “Angelo, find happy people. There are plenty of happy people on this ship. Learn what it’s like to feel true, unalloyed happiness. I have felt it once or twice. There is nothing like it in existence.”

            Angelo touched Jarod’s hand. “Jarod…happy here.”

            “Yes, yes, I am, Angelo. This is a good place. These people care for each other. They are interested in their work, and they are interested in what is good. We’ve known very little of that, haven’t we, Angelo? People who care for each other.”

            Angelo made an effort. “Angelo…care.”

            Jarod’s eyes went bright with spontaneous tears. “Oh, Angelo. I know you do. You give me such a gift.”

            “Sydney…care.”

            Something went flat. “Does he? Sometimes I feel that he does, Angelo, but when I look at my past, I see that he doesn’t. What kind of a man keeps a child locked up and studies him and runs him through simulations? Is he really discovering a conscience, now that I’m gone? I want to know why he didn’t help me and whether he cares now about what they did to me! Or am I still his subject? Does he care, or is he fascinated?” He jerked up, paced.

            “Jarod…sad here.”

            He slumped back into his seat. “You can feel the residue of my dreams, can’t you? Recently, Angelo, I rescued a little boy from his kidnapper. That was good, and it felt good, but I kept—I kept remembering. Things I have never remembered. My entire memory has been the Centre, but suddenly I was remembering…home. Lying in bed, safe. And then terror. Sheer terror. I was trying to help that little boy, and these floods of terror kept immobilizing me.” He was shaking. Angelo was shaking with him, feeling his terror, remembering his memories. “I remember my own kidnapping, Angelo! And now here I am again. Once again racing against time to give the children back the life I never had, and I can’t sleep at night. I dream about them, and they’re me.”

            “Me—me—” Angelo shuddered.

            “Yes, they’re you, too. Together, Angelo, we’ll keep this from happening again.” He put his arm around Angelo, and they huddled together.

Scene 14

            “Doctor Crusher, I have a question for you.”

            Beverly smiled. “Well, I’m not busy right now, Jarod. Come in and have a seat.”

            Jarod sat across her desk from her, smiling back. Beverly Crusher had a gentle air that made you like her and an ability to command that made you respect her. It was not often those qualities were combined so well.

            “I have a friend who has not had access to the kind of medical facilities the Federation offers. His world is fairly primitive, compared to Federation worlds, and his condition is not such that he can travel easily to get what he needs. I’m looking into research that will let me help him.”

            “Well, Jarod, it would be best if you could get him to one of our facilities. Not just anyone can administer medical assistance.”

            “I know, and I’m working on that. But I do have medical experience.”

            “Jarod, is there anything you don’t do?”

            Jarod grinned. “I’m trying to work my way through all the professions. But I’d like to know if you could help me get started in the right direction for my research.”

            “I would have to see records of his condition before I can tell you that.”

            With something like a smirk, he handed her the scans he had taken of Angelo’s brain the night before with a medical tricorder lifted from—and returned to—her own Sickbay.

            “Oh,” she gasped, looking through them. “Dear merciful stars. How long has he been like this?”

            “Since he was a small child, perhaps seven, perhaps younger.”

            “He’s Human, Jarod. You didn’t tell me that.”

            “Is he? He used to be. Can you change the very structure of the brain without changing the essence of what being Human means?”

            “His DNA is the same. Jarod, this isn’t a natural degeneration, is it? This was done to him.”

            Jarod’s eyes glittered darkly between narrowed eyelids. “Yes, it was done to him.”

            “By whom? Why? Where is he from?”

            “A small planet very far from here. I can’t tell you where, Beverly. It is classified. He exists under a regime that views other people as objects to be exploited. Child or adult, it doesn’t matter. They are the physical and intellectual property of the regime.” He said it with so much bitterness that Beverly leaned forward and watched him intently. “In his case, they wanted to expand his intellectual capabilities. Just as an experiment. He was a very intelligent little boy. And so scared.” He saw Timmy again in his mind, scolded by Mr. Raines, terrified of going back wherever Mr. Raines would take him. He had been Timmy then, right up until— He jerked his head to dispel the images. Sometimes he couldn’t remember if they were memories or images from the Digital Simulation Archive discs he had stolen from the Centre. “It was some kind of botched neurological experiment. It went horribly wrong, changed him. They hadn’t expected it, but it proved useful to them. They erased who he was and made him an empath.”

            “An empath?”

            “Not like Deanna Troi. He absorbs the personalities of others and brings out information about them. He has very little of his own—he is quite empty inside—and what he does have he hides from most people. For fear they will take that as well.”

            Beverly muttered something under her breath. “I can’t believe this happens. But not within—”

            “The Federation? No, my friend does not live on a Federation world. I believe the Federation’s mission and goals have prevented such a thing from happening…until now.”

            “Until now,” she said with a sigh and a frown. “And it’s really happening here. Jarod, is this friend of yours the reason you’re doing all this?”

            “Partly.” He couldn’t keep his jaw from clenching as too many memories flooded him. “I can’t let what happened to—to him happen to others, Beverly! I care about the innocent lives that no one else seems to care for. They need justice, and I have seen too many instances where power is used to deprive them of justice. The powerful rule, and the innocent suffer for it. I can’t let it happen here! I can’t!”

            “Jarod—” Beverly said gently.

            Jarod got a strong grip on himself. “I’m sorry, Beverly. I didn’t mean to shout at you. But I love this Federation and this Enterprise. They are founded on everything that drives me. Discovery, learning, mercy, justice. To allow that to be perverted from the inside—it makes me sick.”

            Beverly picked up the brain scans. “I’ll start looking into these. I’ll do whatever I can. It makes me sick, too.”

            He slid into her place in his mind. “Having a child of your own must drastically change the way you see the circumstances around you.”

            “It does, Jarod, and as you have noticed, I keep seeing him as one of these children, or as your friend. He is one of the gifted ones. He grew up on these ships; he could have been one of the ones under secret surveillance.”

            Jarod leaned forward with a reassuring smile. “I understand Wesley is doing very well at the Academy.”

            She smiled back at him. “Yes, he is.”

            He was glad she wasn’t Deanna, able to feel his slight dismay at what was coming for Wesley at Starfleet Academy. He had seen the episode… “He will always do his best to make you proud. I know it.”

            “How do you know?”

            “I have put myself in his place. I know him, though I have never met him. He may do foolish things, like any young man, but he wants to make you proud of him. He knows you love him.”

            “I do.” A puzzled look came over Beverly’s face, and Jarod knew his own face was betraying his longing. He deflected it.

            “Thank you for helping me.”

            “Jarod—” She broke off whatever she was going to say. “Jarod, I will try my hardest. But I can’t promise anything yet. Primitive experiments can still ruin a brain past the ability of advanced technology to heal. To begin with, I need more specialized scans of your friend’s brain. Once I look these over thoroughly, I’ll be able to tell you precisely what kind. Can you get them?”

            “I don’t know, but I will try.”

            “And Jarod, please remember I’m not a neurologist.”

            A smile crossed his face. “No. You’re the chief medical officer aboard a Federation starship. That means you have experience with solving the most complex and obscure problems that this strange, wonderful world throws at you. I believe in you, Beverly, and so would my friend, if he could.”

            As he was going out of the door, she said, “Jarod, what is his name?”

            He paused. “Timmy. His name is Timmy.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 15

            “Miss Parker! Miss Parker!”

            Miss Parker looked up with a glare from her conversation with Sydney as Broots screeched to a stop in her office. “What, Broots?”

            “I’ve got it! The machine!”

            “You know what it’s for?”

            “No. But I know how to turn it on.”

            She put her forehead down in her hands with a groan. “Oh, good. At this rate we’ll catch up with Jarod when your daughter is ninety.” Nonetheless she and Sydney both went to join him.

            The little man looked proud of himself. Maybe it was something to be proud of, if your ego was the size of a pea. The machine looked…alien. Like most things Miss Parker did not want to believe, she shrugged that thought off. Too much time at that stupid science fiction convention. “Well?”

            “Well, see, there are no switches or buttons—”

            “I don’t want the whole blueprints! Just turn it on and see what it is.”

            With a gulp, Broots picked up one of the other things Jarod had left with the machine. “It’s a remote,” he said with a nervous chuckle. “So easy.”

            “That does not look like a remote.”

            “No. But watch.”

            He brushed his fingers down the square thing in his hand. Something glowed.

            The world disappeared.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 16

            “Where are we?” Miss Parker spat.

            They were in a very cramped, very dark space. Either Broots was sitting on her lap, or she was sitting on Sydney’s lap, neither of which was cause for any great joy.

            “Just stay calm,” Sydney said. “Everybody try to get up, slowly.”

            “I don’t need survival tips from you, Sydney. Broots, get off of me!”

            “I’m trying.”

            “Well, try harder!”

            Presently they were disentangled. Miss Parker ran her hands over the walls. They were in a mostly square room, barely large enough for the three of them to stand far closer together than Miss Parker ever wanted to be to either of them, unless she was intimidating them.

            “Is this a door? It feels like a door.” She pushed and pulled, but it didn’t open. She found something that felt like a flat-panel keypad and pushed things. It made a melodious beep but did not open.

            “Wait, Miss Parker,” Sydney said. “Before we get out we should find out where we are.”

            “Thank you, Zen master.”

            “Hey, look what I found!” Broots said brightly. A sharp blue light shone in her eyes.

            “Get that out of my eyes! Give me that! Where did you get it?”

            “It’s a little flashlight I keep on my keychain.”

            “Why? So you don’t fall over things in the dark when you get up to have some milk?”

            “No, it’s in case I find myself locked in a closet with Miss Parker and Sydney.” He flinched back as she loomed down on him, strangely lit in the blue light, no less beautiful and no less intimidating than usual.

            “Well, do you have anything else in those pocket protectors of yours that will get us out of here?”

            “No. What wouldn’t I give for a sonic screwdriver right now, eh?” He grinned feebly.

            “A what? No—I don’t want to know.”

            “Well, whenever the Doctor’s locked up somewhere—and I don’t mean the EMH, I mean The Doctor—different franchise, you know—British—”

            “I said I don’t want to know!”

            “Miss Parker.” Sydney was inhumanly calm, as always, and sounded amused as well.

            “What?”

            “Look up.”

            She directed the flashlight upward. Their little room extended far above their heads, and metal rungs were set in the walls.

            “Shafted,” Broots murmured.

            “Shut up, Broots. It’s an access shaft. Can anyone explain how we got in an access shaft? Broots?”

            “Don’t look at me.”

            She shone the light in his eyes. “Whatever it was, you did it. Now climb.”

            “You know what?” Broots panted as he climbed. “This place seems familiar.”

            “Familiar how? You spend much time in access shafts, Bat-Boy?”

            “Other than in the Centre, no. It’s not the Centre. We’re definitely not there. It feels different.”

            “Feels different?”

            “Yeah. A gut feeling, I guess you’d call it.”

            “Broots, I would not willingly give a human title to any feeling you might have.”

            Broots was quiet. She wondered if she’d hurt his feelings. She told herself she didn’t care.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 17

            “Captain, another ghost intruder alert! This time in Jeffries tube 47. Just like the other: it came and went, more like a circuit overload than anything.”

            Picard sighed. The stars had been playing merry havoc with their instruments. Data and Geordi had been able to cross-circuit things to compensate, but the captain still didn’t like it. It was like being colorblind. Meanwhile, the data collection Starfleet wanted was going forward, and Commander Westmore had laid out his suspicions about certain crewmembers and was working with Worf on a very creative trap for them and other members of their organization. Riker didn’t like it, but then, he didn’t seem to like Westmore very well. Something about the man, he said, rubbed him the wrong way. Something faintly wrong. And yet Deanna had detected nothing to alter her belief that he was trustworthy.

            Deanna had been jumpy for days. She said she felt as though the crew’s emotions had been amplified somehow, as if she were sensing an echo bouncing back onto them. She and Dr. Crusher had been trying to figure out if the new star system might have anything to do with it.

            Picard sighed again. He would be glad when this was all over, when Starfleet Intelligence operatives were no longer running all over his ship and performing secret experiments, when ghost echoes were no longer making his security officers run all over the ship…

            “Send a security team, Mr. Worf,” he ordered.

            “Yes, sir.” Worf didn’t roll his eyes, but he felt like it.

Scene 18

            A trapdoor opened with a very smooth sound, giving access to a lowly-lit, cramped tunnel, thankfully horizontal this time. Broots collapsed on the floor, Sydney leaned against a wall, breathing hard, and Miss Parker tried to look as though she climbed miles of ladders in high heels and tight skirts all the time.

            “Boy, this place looks familiar,” Broots wheezed.

            “Here’s a sign,” Miss Parker said. “GNDN. What does that mean?”

            Broots’ brow wrinkled. “Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing?” he murmured.

            “Oh, funny.” She pulled open the panel the tiny notice was on. “What in the—Broots! Hey, Broots! Get your carcass over here. What is this?”

            Broots crawled over (there was no standing in the tunnel). When he saw the complicated maze of tubing behind the panel, he gasped and recoiled. With trembling hands, he shoved the panel back into place.

            “Broots, what is wrong with you?”

            “Nothing—nothing—nothing. I’m fine. It’s just something…very advanced, or something.” No, I’m not having a nervous breakdown. I’m not having a nervous breakdown. He didn’t notice that he was murmuring it under his breath.

            “Broots,” Sydney said, “try to calm yourself. We’re in some kind of strange situation, and anyone would be scared. But you’ll be fine.”

            Miss Parker gave him The Look. “Oh, please. Can you save the therapy session for later? There’s a door here. Broots, open it.”

            “Open the door, Broots,” he muttered. “Break into Mr. Raines’ office, Broots. Hack into classified files, Broots.”

            “What are you muttering about?”

            “Nothing.” He poked randomly at the flat-panel keypad by the door. To his immense surprise, it unlocked. Shoving him aside, Miss Parker pushed it open. He got a glimpse of the huge room beyond as she got one long leg out, and with a strength he didn’t know he had, he grabbed her, hauled her back in, and slid the door closed.

            Sydney gave him a raised eyebrow of surprise. Miss Parker gave him a lot more than that.

            “What do you think you’re doing?” she ground out into his face, thumping him up against the wall with each enunciation.

            But his brain was already exploding anyway, and even when Sydney hauled Miss Parker away from him, he could hardly talk. “Uh—uh—there’s—there’s something horribly wrong,” he managed, hid voice a squeak.

            “What?”

            “Um—Sydney—you’ve got to help me here, because I think I’ve gone insane.”

            “Take a few deep breaths, Broots. Long and slow.”

            “When you’re quite done with your Lamaze class, maybe you’ll tell me what is going on?” Miss Parker shouted. “Why do I have to be stuck in this place with you and no cigarettes? They would be better company!”

            “OK,” Broots said. “Fine. Uh—we’re on the Enterprise, OK?”

            They both looked at him, and he knew he was right. He really had gone insane. Even Sydney thought so.

            “The shuttle?” the psychiatrist said slowly.

            “No! The starship! Uh—I’m not sure which one. D, E—”

            Miss Parker let out a breath. “Broots…”

            “This is a Jeffries tube, Miss Parker! And that out there is Engineering! It’s got a big, fat, blue warp core in the middle of it! And this is a Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing sign!”

            After a long silence, Miss Parker said, “Certifiable.” She turned back toward the door. Broots grabbed her shoulder.

            “Listen to me! I saw it! You saw it too! The room. The big blue thing. And don’t tell me we’ve somehow wandered from Delaware to the TV studio in Los Angeles. On the set of a TV show, things look fake, OK? Things don’t really beep and pulse and glow! People in Starfleet uniforms don’t wander around without a cameraman in their face! Things like this don’t work!” He pulled the GNDN panel off again. “This thing, whatever it is, is working, whatever it does. I know a piece of viable technology when I see it.”

            Miss Parker stared at the panel in Broots’ shaking hand. “Did you just use the word ‘viable’ in a sentence, techno-boy?”

            He stared at her, for once not flinching, part of him marveling at her ability to disbelieve anything she didn’t want to accept.

            “Miss Parker,” Sydney said quietly, “I really don’t know what to think. I didn’t see out there. You did. But for once maybe we ought to listen to Broots.”

            “Listen to him? He’s gone stark, raving mad!”

            “I’m trying to keep an open mind, Miss Parker. Maybe you should, too.”

            “Open minds are what got us into all this in the first place. Specifically Jarod’s open little mind.” She sat back on her heels. “Fine. What now, Captain Kirk?”

            Broots gave a faint grin. “This is definitely the wrong ship for that. Miss Parker, I don’t know what’s going on. If this is something Jarod did, it’s way beyond even his usual. But—but—hey! All the clues he left us. The convention. The uniform. The videotapes.”

            “His work in astrophysics,” Sydney said slowly. “The telescope pointed at the stars. 40 Eridani A. Do you know anything about that, Broots?”

            Broots racked his brain. “40 Eridani A. is that—wait. Oh, my stars. I think—I think that’s the star Vulcan is supposed to orbit.”

            “Vulcan?”

            “You know, Spock’s planet.”

            “Spock. Oh, my stars,” Miss Parker mocked him viciously. “Don’t tell me you believe this, Sydney.”

            “There is more in heaven and on earth, Miss Parker, than is dreamt of in your philosophy.”

            “Don’t quote Hamlet at me, Syd, unless you want to be playing his father’s ghost in your next life.”

            “Why don’t you just take another look out that door?” Broots suggested. “Uh—don’t let anyone see you, but get a good look and tell me if you still think we’re back at the Centre—or on Earth at all. Sydney, you too.”

            Sydney, amused that Broots was taking the lead, crawled over beside Miss Parker and peered out of the door as she slid it open a crack. Broots edged in over their shoulders.

            And there it was, the long room, beige in color, with consoles down the center and back-lighted panels along the walls, and at the end the darker section with the tall, glowing, pulsing blue warp core. Broots’ heart beat hard at it. It beat harder when he saw a very familiar dark face, eyes obscured by the silver VISOR, and harder yet when a tall figure in black and yellow with a metal baldric from shoulder to hip strode in.

            “Commander LaForge,” boomed a very deep voice, “Commander Westmore has asked me to go over the final preparations with you.”

            Broots saw Miss Parker’s hand go automatically to the gun in the back waistband of her skirt. With a gasp he pulled her and Sydney both back and slammed the door closed.

            “What are you doing, you little—”

            “Miss Parker, you can’t go out there waving a gun! That—that was Worf! Even you wouldn’t stand a chance against a Klingon! It would be like being run over by a truck! A semi-truck! Anyway, certainly not with something so primitive as a projectile weapon—”

            “Primitive? Broots, if you touch me one more time, you’re the one who will be run over by a semi. What is going on?”

            “Let’s get out of here first. Up, away from Engineering and all their devices.”

            Without waiting for a response, he started up the next ladder. Sydney chuckled as he and Miss Parker followed.

            “What, Syd?”

            “Broots is certainly acclimating well to this strange twist of events.”

            “Better than me. I don’t like not knowing what’s going on, and I don’t like depending on Geek-Boy for all the answers.”

            “You should have paid more attention at the science fiction convention.”

            “Yeah, right. What about you, Syd? You seem to be taking this in stride.”

            “Well, I am convinced that I am back at home sound asleep, my dreams influenced by Jarod’s clues and too much time and energy spent chasing him.”

            “That’s a better explanation that that a spaceship from a TV show came down and abducted us. I never did get into the whole X-Files craze.”

            “Wrong TV show,” he grunted as they came to the top of the ladder. Miss Parker and Broots both extended hands and helped him through the trap door. He collapsed on the floor, gasping for air.

            “Syd?”

            “I’m—alright—Miss Parker. I’m just not used to this. I’m a psychiatrist, not a mountain climber.”

            They were in a small room that seemed to be a meeting place for several of the access ways. Sydney finally pulled himself up and leaned against the wall, while Broots looked around worriedly and Miss Parker checked the clip in her gun.

            “Alright, Broots. Spill.”

            “Well—I don’t know what’s going on, Miss Parker. I can tell you anything you want about this ship and her crew, but how we got here? Huh-uh. Of course, if this were science fiction, it would be easy. Alternate universe.”

            “Alternate universe?”

            “You know, the place where historical events took a different turn than intended and split off a new reality, operating concurrently—What?”

            Miss Parker didn’t even bother to answer him.

            He sighed. “Have you ever seen ‘The Wizard of Oz’? Miss Parker, I don’t think we’re in Delaware anymore.” He offered a feeble smile and caught what might have been a faint glimmer of humor in her eyes. “This seems to be the Enterprise. It’s a spaceship with a thousand crewmembers and their families.”

            “Families?” Sydney interrupted. “They bring children along?”

            “Yes, they do. This ship is their home. The captain is Jean-Luc Picard, and he’s not someone even you want to tangle with, Miss Parker.”

            “Why? Is he another one of those rhinoceros-headed monstrosities?”

            “They call them turtle-heads in the makeup department, I think. No, he’s not a Klingon. He’s a French archaeologist.”

            “A French archaeologist?”

            “Miss Parker, he’s taken on Q and won. Q is an omnipotent being.”

            “And he’s here.”

            Broots jumped. “Oh, I hope not.” He glanced around as if expecting to see Q’s face staring out of the bulkhead at him. “This ship travels around the galaxy and discovers new planets. It belongs to Starfleet, which belongs to the United Federation of Planets. Oh, and the year is something like 2367. Late 2360s, at least, judging by the uniforms.”

            “Twenty-three sixties?” Sydney said with a soft laugh. “We’re in the future. I can only imagine what they’ve done in the fields of medicine and psychology.”

            Broots grinned back. “It’s pretty amazing alright. Oh, and Sydney, they have an empath.”

            “An empath? Like Angelo?” Sydney’s eyes grew wide with interest. He looked like everyone’s favorite uncle.

            “Nothing like Angelo. She’s part of a telepathic race, but she’s half Human, and her telepathy isn’t so good. What she does is feel what people around her feel. She can stand right next to you and feel what you’re feeling, just as you feel it.”

            “Oh, I see. That could be very useful in dangerous situations. Miss Parker?”

            Miss Parker had covered her face. “Please tell me I’m dreaming,” she was muttering. “Please tell me I’m dreaming.”

            “I don’t think you are, Miss Parker,” Broots said humbly.

            “But what are we doing on a spaceship named after a poor excuse for a car rental dealership? How did we get here? Why?”

            “Jarod’s machine,” he whispered. “It was a transporter. It transported us here. Takes your molecules part, beams them somewhere, and puts them back together.”

            “I think I’m going to be sick. He sent that machine so you would figure it out so he could trap us all here— It’s worse than being in jail in that one-horse hick town. I need a cigarette.”

            Broots said slowly, “Maybe he didn’t intend for us to come at all.” He bent swiftly and picked up something from the floor. “Look!”

            “Popcorn? You expect me to care about popcorn?”

            “Not popcorn, Miss Parker. Cracker Jack.”

            Miss Parker sat up straight and looked at him. “Angelo. The human amoeba is here.”

            “I see,” Sydney said. “Jarod has brought Angelo here because he thinks they can cure him.”

            Miss Parker scrambled up. “That means Jarod’s here, too.” Her gun was in her hand again.

            Broots got between her and the door, careful not to touch her. “Wait, Miss Parker! This isn’t Earth! The instant you set foot out there, they will be all over you, and we’ll be in the brig! We’re not Starfleet! We don’t belong on this ship, and anyone can see it. You can’t just go waving your gun around at people here! First they’ll lock us up, and then they’ll ask us questions, and then they’ll send us back to Earth to stand trial as terrorists or something! Maquis, maybe.”

            He shuddered as the silver nose of the gun came considerably closer than he was comfortable with. “Well, what do you suggest we do, fanboy?”

            Tentatively he glanced up.

            “You expect me to pull an Angelo all over this ship while Jarod is walking the halls free?”

            He shrugged helplessly.

            With a glare that was practically feral, she holstered the gun and swung up the ladder. “Keep your eyes on the rungs and off my legs, or you’ll get my heel in your hand.”

            Broots believed her well enough that he obeyed, despite the excellence of her legs. Behind him, Sydney panted, “Broots, this empath of yours—how strong is her sensitivity?”

            “I don’t know. What do you mean?”

            “How close does she have to be to someone to feel him?”

            “Oh! Uh—pretty far, actually. She can feel people on other ships.”

            “That’s not good. Then she could probably feel Miss Parker in another solar system.”

            “You mean she could know we’re here? By feeling us?”

            “I don’t know, but from what you’ve said it seems likely.”

            “That’s not good.”

Scene 19

            Angelo had been very useful. Not only had his unsettling presence distracted Deanna from looking too closely into what she felt from Jarod, but he had also been able to help Jarod identify the two crewmembers Jarod wanted. Late at night Jarod snuck him into the school rooms and Sickbay and watched him perform his magic, prowling the desks and the scanning beds, identifying the unreasoning fear of one small, intelligent child and the inhuman interest of one of the teachers and one of the medical personnel. Jarod had already identified them, but it was good to have Angelo’s second opinion.

            He had also managed to take some of the scans Dr. Crusher wanted, though not all. Some would leave a definite signature of the machine used to take the scan, and he couldn’t risk Angelo being discovered. Not yet. At their last meeting, Beverly had seemed close to a breakthrough.

            Angelo loved the Enterprise. There were even more hidden passageways than at the Centre, more interesting people to watch, more fascinating things to take (Jarod made him take them all back), and, best of all, there were replicators. At first he seemed determined to replicate nothing but boxes and boxes of Cracker Jacks, once Jarod figured out how to program it to copy the box Angelo had brought with him, but Jarod had convinced him to try something else. The Cracker Jacks Angelo had had in the Centre as a child had been Jarod’s first taste of the wonders of processed food, but he couldn’t fill his quarters on the Enterprise with them. He had gotten Angelo interested in chocolate sundaes and, of all things, Vulcan plomeek soup. Even Jarod had been unable to stomach bright purple soup, though he was very fond of a good, strong Klingon raktajino. Angelo loved the purple stuff. Jarod had convinced him to only eat it in the quarters they were now somewhat sharing; plomeek soup dribbled through all the Jeffries tubes was not a good idea.

            “Angelo, listen.”

            Angelo was eating a nauseating combination of the soup and Cracker Jacks, and Jarod was about to go on duty on the bridge.

            “Angelo, when all this is over, I’m going back to our world. I still have to find my family, as much as I would like to stay in this place. But I brought you here to stay. Do you understand? This is a good, safe place for you. No more Mr. Raines and the Centre. When it’s time, I’ll introduce you to Dr. Crusher. She’s been looking for a way to help you, Angelo, a way to bring back Timmy.”

            Angelo looked up vaguely from dropping bits of popcorn into his soup. “Timmy…gone.”

            “Maybe, Angelo. They can do wonders in this world. They will take care of you and be kind to you. I’ll miss you and all the help you’ve been to me, but I want you to have a better life. I want to be able to do something for you.”

            He knelt down by Angelo’s chair and looked up at him. Angelo grimaced his twisted grin at him. “Help…Angelo.”

            “Yes, Angelo. I will help you.”

            Angelo chuckled. But when Jarod had left, his grin faded. “No—no. Protect…Jarod.” His head came up sharply. “Miss Parker…coming. Protect…Jarod!” he shouted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 20

            Deanna Troi was having bad dreams. The odd thing was that they were not of things that would ordinarily have bothered her. Scenes from her own life played over in her dreams, innocuous scenes, accompanied by the same emotions that had accompanied the events, only intensified, almost unbearable in strength.

            Then she dreamed she woke and knew there was another presence in her quarters, scarcely more than a dark shadow of being. A presence was there, and yet she could not feel it, only herself, as if she had stepped out of herself. In her dream she lay still in her bed, afraid to turn on a light, for fear she would see herself standing there, reflected back at her as in a mirror.

            What are you? she tried to ask it. Her own memories came reflected back. The latest memories were there, like a flood. The Starfleet Intelligence operative, his horrifying news, his covert mission, and the storm of emotion that accompanied him. How lost the man was! How like a lost child, desperately seeking the security and warmth of home. How confused about his past, about the people he knew, how frightened and angry and longing.

            Deanna Troi…cares for Jarod. Was it a whisper in her ears, a thought in her mind, or a feeling in her heart? Or all at once? Care for Jarod. Protect…Jarod!

            With a gasp, she woke up, sitting straight in bed. Protect…Jarod! Protect Jarod! pounded in her temples. What in the galaxy was going on? She didn’t know.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 21

            Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots spent an uncomfortable night in another horizontal accessway, Miss Parker cursing Broots for not letting them occupy some empty crew quarters they had found. When the Enterprise had settled into its pseudo-nighttime, it startled them all, even Broots, but it had proven advantageous. Locating empty quarters, they used them briefly, Miss Parker occupying the bathroom while Sydney investigated the replicators and Broots found ship layouts on the computer. He also made a valuable discovery.

            “I found Jarod’s quarters. Information on him, too. Commander Jarod Westmore, Starfleet Science Division, assigned to the U.S.S. Enterprise 1701-D on special assignment to investigate a new star system and…teach astrophysics to children!”

            “That man does get around,” Miss Parker said grumpily. “An alternate universe and he’s already a commander on their precious ship?”

            “Special assignment, huh?” Broots mused. “That explains why no one thinks it’s strange they suddenly got a new officer. Westmore…Westmore. Why is that familiar?”

            “You recognize it?” Sydney asked.

            “Yeah. Something to do with this series, but I can’t remember what. Say, Miss Parker!”

            “What, Broots?”

            “Did you happen to bring that communicator Jarod left us?”

            “Does it look like I packed for this trip, Broots?”

            “I just mean that little metal badge that was in the box.”

            “No, I don’t have it. It was on the table with the other stuff. What is it?”

            “A communication device. You tap it and speak to whoever you want.”

            Miss Parker heaved a sigh. “Broots, logically it had to have been a fake from that convention, unless you think he made one of those things before he left, too.”

            His face fell. “Oh, yeah. Well, if we could find one we could probably contact him—”

            “And let him know we’re here? We have the element of surprise this way, Broots.”

            Sydney came away from the replicator with food. “We really ought to find out what he’s doing here and possibly allow him to finish it before we bring him back.”

            Miss Parker snatched a plate from him. “Finish? Why should we do that?”

            “Logic, Miss Parker. He is more likely to come back with us if he feels his mission is accomplished. We are still dependent upon him to get back. Even if you have a gun in his back, he is in control of the situation.”

            In frustrated silence, Miss Parker tore into the food. “What is this?”

            “I don’t know. It just came out.”

            Broots was eating something violently purple. “This is good! I think it’s that Vulcan soup. Want to try it?”

            Miss Parker gave him a withering look. “Will that thing make cigarettes?”

            Broots almost choked. “You can’t smoke here, Miss Parker! They’ll think something’s on fire. They don’t smoke in this century.”

            “Barbarians,” she snarled.

            “Look, maybe I can do something.” He applied himself to the computer, and in a moment he gave the replicator some instructions. “Here you go.”

            She glanced at the small glass suspiciously. “What is it?”

            “I think it’ll work like a nicotine patch. Except you drink it.”

            “You think?”

            He shrugged. “I’m a computer tech, not a doctor.”

            She sighed and drank it. In a few moments, she sighed again. “Thank you, Broots.” She gave him a sudden glance. “I underestimate you.”

            “Uh—uh—you’re welcome, Miss Parker.”

            Now, with a mental picture of the access tunnels, they were in an obscure one Broots had chosen and trying, unsuccessfully, to make themselves comfortable on the floor.

            “This is so weird,” Broots said, mostly to himself.

            “What is?” Miss Parker demanded.

            “We’re on the Enterprise hiding out from the crewmembers. I’m only afraid I’ll wake up and it’ll all be a dream.”

            “Don’t I wish. What’s so great about it, anyway? This is a stupid, fake world, and we’ve done nothing but climb these ladders and crawl around in tunnels since you brought us here. Why are you so excited about this?”

            Broots sighed. “Miss Parker, I work for the Centre. For a zombie named Raines and with an empath who shouldn’t really exist. I’m tracking a bad guy who technically isn’t the bad guy…which I suppose makes me the bad guy. This is the best thing that’s happened to me in ages.”

            After a moment’s silence, she said, “Why don’t you leave the Centre?”

            “You don’t ever really leave the Centre. You know that, Miss Parker. What would become of my little girl if something happened to me? Thank goodness she’s at a sleepover tonight. Can you imagine her coming home from school to find me missing? Our neighbor is always glad to have her over whenever I’m gone, but it would still be frightening for her.”

            “Well, you’d better hope we get back before her little party is over. If we ever can.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Well, you didn’t bring that remote, did you?”

            “No. I dropped it when we started transporting. You don’t think Jarod has got us stuck here permanently, do you?”

            “Jarod wouldn’t do that to you, Broots,” Sydney said. “Jail for a day or two, perhaps, but he knows your daughter needs you. He knows how to get back. He always has an escape planned.”

            “How do you know this isn’t his escape?” Miss Parker asked wearily, turning over, trying to get comfortable. It was not a comfortable Jeffries tube.

            “He has no chance of finding his family here. He cares about that more than keeping us off his trail. Otherwise he would have disappeared without a trace long ago.”

            She shifted again. “Thank goodness for meaningless obsessions.”

            “Meaningless? Not at all. Not any more than your search for answers is meaningless.”

            “Leave me out of it!” She flopped angrily again.

            “Miss Parker, I have a shoulder if you’d like.”

            “Oh, thank you, Syd, for your blatant surrogate-father-figure approach. It’s worked really well with Jarod, hasn’t it?”

            Sydney’s voice was weary. “I have never attempted to be a surrogate father to Jarod. If anything, he was the one who sought me. Rather a reversal of roles, in a way.”

            “It’s too bad you didn’t. Maybe he would never have run away.”

            “I couldn’t have manipulated him that way.”

            “You manipulated him in every other way. Why not that one?”

            Sydney didn’t answer. After a few moments, Broots heard Miss Parker whisper something that almost sounded like, “Sorry, Syd.”

            Silence fell. Broots went to sleep. When he woke, stiff and cramped, he saw that Miss Parker’s head rested on Sydney’s flung-out arm, the rest of her body angled away from him. He admired her ability to maintain her aloofness even while accepting a certain amount of intimacy. He almost wished he’d been the one to offer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 22

            Beverly couldn’t sleep. Tomorrow was the day Jarod had set for his entrapment of two Starfleet officers, and though Beverly had nothing to do with the trap itself, she felt as nervous as if she were the one waiting for it to spring.

            Children! The main victims of this crime were children, the ones who would be used like machines, like slaves, because of their intellectual capabilities. Within the Federation itself! It infuriated her on many levels, as a dedicated officer of the Federation, as a doctor who strove to give people life and meaning, and as a mother of an extraordinary son who couldn’t imagine the horror of having him torn from her to be raised as a commodity in an environment without love and a mother’s touch.

            What might Wesley have been like if his life had been so sterile? If his capacity for play had been stifled, his knowledge of himself as a lovable human being erased, his emotional life ignored, his mind hyper-developed far too early? His questions about his origins unanswered, his affectionate heart starved. In many ways his sense of self would have atrophied. He would not know who he was as a Human, would be adrift in a confusing world. She could see him exploring a world entirely new to him, fascinated yet sensing his own lack, seeing children with parents and feeling his own void, angry at the ones who had made him that way, longing for what he could not understand. In short, he would be like—

            She pulled up sharply. Surely not. Absurd! Not Commander Jarod Westmore of Starfleet Intelligence. He was a man of formidable intelligence with a self-confident air, a man who trusted himself and his mind and instincts. And yet… A child looked out of his eyes, a child who had been suppressed and never allowed to grow up. No wonder she felt a powerful maternalness toward him, in a way she had never felt toward anyone but her own son.

            But how? And who, and where? You’re missing something, Beverly, she told herself. Timmy! Could he have been another Timmy, living under the same regime, escaped, perhaps, and fled to the sanctuary of the Federation, now devoting himself to righting that same injustice—?

            It’s all pure speculation, Beverly. Scientists should not make wild guesses. But there was everything that had shone in his eyes when he told her about his friend, when he talked about his mission. Wild emotions that choked him. She was not Deanna, but she could see them.

            Decisively she spoke to the computer. “Computer, where is Commander Westmore?”

            “Commander Westmore is in Holodeck 2,” the computer answered.

            She should have known he would be working instead of sleeping. She touched her communicator. “Dr. Crusher to Commander Westmore.”

            “Jarod here, Beverly.” Was it only her suddenly overactive imagination, or did he sound exhausted?

            “Jarod, when you have a moment, would you see me in my quarters? It’s about Timmy.”

            His voice was suddenly alert. “I’ll be there immediately.”

            She hadn’t intended to tell him about the possible solution she had found until after the sting operation, not wanting to distract him, but maybe he needed to hear it now. As he stood in her doorway, he looked like he needed good news. She knew when she looked at him that she was right about him. This case was taking a toll on him, slumping his shoulders, darkening his eyes, and drawing weariness on his face. When she had first seen him, she had been struck by his air of bright interest in the world around him. Now his air was veritably saturnine.

            “Jarod, have you been sleeping at all?”

            A smile briefly lighted his face. “This is quite a case. What have you got to tell me, Beverly?”

            “I thought you should see the possible treatment I have come up with. I can’t promise anything with it quite yet, but it’s a start in the right direction.”

            It was the right news. The smile reached his eyes this time. “Please let me see.”

            Beverly pulled up the computer files she had been working with earlier. “I want to run some computer simulations and do some more research, but I’ve discovered a serotonin isotope that could have the possibility of reversing your friend’s condition.”

            Jarod leaned forward, reading intently. After a moment he nodded. “I see. Beverly, this is good news, some I have needed.”

            “I know.” She dismissed the information. “Jarod, do you want me to prescribe something to help you sleep?”

            “Oh, no. Thank you.”

            “This case comes too close to home for you, doesn’t it? Have you been having flashbacks or dreams or both?”

            He sat very still and watched her.

            “Jarod, I’m a doctor and a scientist and a mother. When I imagine my son in this situation, I see you.”

            Jarod’s whole body slumped, the pain coming out fully in the compressed mouth and hollow eyes. “I don’t know who I am. I was taken from my parents when I was a small child, and I have never known them. I was these children. They are me. I can’t bear for them to grow up not knowing their parents as I did.”

            Beverly acted on pure instinct. Jarod Westmore couldn’t have been more than ten years her junior, but her son was looking out at her though his eyes, and she knew that he was in essence a little boy who had never known the comfort of a mother’s arms. Her arms went around his shoulders. He, with the instinct of a child to match her instinct of a mother, put his face down on her shoulder, and she held him as she had once held her son Wesley when he was small and heartbroken over the loss of his father. He clung to her as Wesley had clung, temporarily lost in the mother’s warmth he could not remember.

Scene 23

            “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Captain,” Deanna said, sitting in Picard’s ready room with him and Riker. “Suddenly I can’t trust anything I’m feeling. It’s like being able to see but knowing that what you’re seeing isn’t right.”

            “And Doctor Crusher has not been able to find out any reason for it? No connection to this star system?”

            “Not that she can find, which doesn’t mean there is no connection. I think it would take a Betazoid telepath to really get to the bottom of it. It did only start after we arrived here.”

            “After Commander Westmore came,” Riker said.

            “No, will, it was specifically when we arrived here. He had been aboard for nearly a week at that point.”

            “Convenient, though. Sensors unreliable, your personal sensors unreliable—”

            “Are you meaning to say that Jarod has something to do with it? Will, if you think that he’s in any way connected with the organization he’s trying to expose, you’re wrong. I can say that much at least.”

            Picard held up his hand. “Counselor, explain to me what you are feeling.”

            She took a deep breath, concentrated. “The whole crew, all at once. That’s normal. But it’s as though echoes of them are bouncing around the ship. Suddenly an emotion one person is feeling will come raging out at me, overpowering in its abruptness and intensity. Not necessarily unpleasant emotions—it’s been joy as well as sorrow. But when I ask, the person tells me that while he did experience such an emotion, it was not with any particular intensity. And then I seem to feel more people than are actually here—”

            “More people?” Riker interrupted.

            “More echoes. Ghosts. I can hardly concentrate because of everything else. I’ve also been feeling myself.”

            They gave her odd looks. “Isn’t that normal?” Will queried.

            “No! Not like this! I feel myself as though I were outside of myself, as if I were another person. An echo.”

            “We seem to be getting a great many echoes,” mused Picard. “Or, as you say, ghosts.”

            “And you’re sure Westmore isn’t one of your ghosts?” Riker asked sardonically.

            “Will, Jarod is the most real thing in all of this. Sometimes his inner turmoil is the only steady thing happening to me.”

            “And you don’t consider that significant?”

            Deanna looked at her hands. “Perhaps it is. Perhaps it’s significant in ways other than you think it’s significant. Perhaps it’s not. I can’t tell you.”

            Picard said gently, “Counselor, I want you to get some rest. Deal with yourself as you would deal with a patient under similar emotional strain.”

            She gave him a tired smile. “Yes, Captain.”

            When she had gone, the captain turned to his first officer. “You don’t think she’s interpreting this correctly, Number One.”

            Will frowned. “It’s presumptuous of me to question Deanna on her area of expertise. But I can’t help wondering if she has allowed herself to get emotionally involved with Westmore and is allowing that to influence her conclusions about him. I’m not an empath, but I feel something peculiar about the man. A sort of gut feeling.”

            “So you have said.” Picard didn’t tell him he had thought it might be some slight stirrings of jealousy. He was a captain, not a counselor. “Well, Will, I trust Deanna’s instincts, but I trust yours as well. Do some investigating. Carefully, Will. We’re in the middle of an explosive situation, and it wouldn’t do to alert the wrong people about Commander Westmore’s presence or purpose. For all we know, Westmore is merely dealing with personal issues that have nothing to do with his mission. That is what Deanna thought.”

            “Yes, Captain. I’ll keep that in mind. I trust her instincts, too.”

            “Good. Dismissed.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 24

            Under the watchful gaze of the pale-haired Vulcan teacher, Jarod taught the six-year olds their simple lesson in astrophysics. It mainly involved how stars produced light and how the stars he was studying were different, in very simplistic language. One of the children, though, a small Ktarian named Krantregk, posed sharp questions of much greater depth than any of the others. It required ingenuity to come up with answers that would satisfy him without boring the other children. When they had been set to work making their own models of the stars, he took Krantregk aside for the sort of lesson they had both been wanting. Why wasn’t this child in a much more advanced class? Was he easier to study this way? Jarod was well aware of the presence of the tall Vulcan named Sirok always nearby.

            He thought perhaps if he could comprehend this Vulcan, he could comprehend Sydney better. How could such a logical being violate the logic of ethics so completely as to contemplate the kidnapping of children as part of the greater good? The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one, or the few? That was how they would see it. But how could they not see that violating the rights and needs of the one was ultimately a violation of what it meant for all to be self-determinant, sentient beings? If one child could be expendable, all children could be. I defy your belief that you have the right to call me expendable, Jarod thought fiercely, briefly meeting the eyes of the tall Vulcan.

            Vulcans. They dichotomized their lives and atrophied their connection to the rest of the universe. Sydney was like a Vulcan, calm, studious, intelligent, intense. He was like a Vulcan in that he kept his own nature in two separate boxes. There was his work, his study, the business of his life, the examination of the human mind that enthralled his own mind. The Centre provided that for him as no other organization could. It provided him with an arena for pure research where other considerations such as ethics did not enter in. He could see a child not as a creature that required love and warmth to thrive but as an abstraction, a theoretical construct to investigate. Even all his great psychological knowledge was no more than a list of ideas to apply to a situation. There was no right or wrong in this box.

            But in the other box there was a man. That man was warm and cared about people. Jarod had always been able to see it. That was the man he had always reached out to, only to encounter the calm, cold wall of the scientist Sydney. Jarod had never been able to put up that wall between mind and heart, and he had spent years trying to wear down Sydney’s. Had he ever succeeded? Didn’t you ever love me, Sydney?

            He walked slowly down an empty corridor on his way to the bridge after the lesson, lost in his never ending questions. His whole identity was questions. Sometimes, as much as he sought the answers with his whole being, he wondered if he would cease to exist once he found them. Would there be life when the searching was over? Would the searching ever be over?

            “Jarod!”

            For a moment the shout was a product of his own brain, a snippet of memory that stopped him in his tracks. Then with a familiar horrified chill, he knew he had heard it with his ears. He turned around slowly.

            Miss Parker stood in the middle of the corridor, beautiful and dangerous in dark grey and pale blue, that far-too-familiar gun pointing straight at him. Her short skirt and blouse were wrinkled, her hair not so perfect as usual, but the expression of grim determination on her sharp face had not changed. She looked entirely out of place in the Enterprise corridor.

            Behind her one of the Jeffries tube doors was open, and Broots was hauling Sydney out of it. In the middle of the suffocating weight of capture, Jarod grinned. It was like a parade. Where one Stooge went, the other two followed.

            “Miss Parker, I said it wasn’t time—” Sydney began.

            As Miss Parker began to glare down at him, Jarod did what came naturally. He ran.

            “Jarod!”

 

Scene 1

            With a scream of frustration, Miss Parker gave chase. She hadn’t stopped to consider what would happen if she were caught pulling a gun on a “Starfleet officer.” She had seen him walking past the Jeffries tube she, Sydney, and Broots had been imprisoned in, and all she could see was herself forcing him to get her off this awful ship. Her two colleagues pelted after her, complaining as usual.

            Ahead, Jarod slipped through a door. Before it could close, her hand caught it and forced it open. Behind her Broots stumbled into her, forcing her into the tiny white room. The door slid closed after Sydney. “Jarod—”

            “Miss Parker!” he shot at her with a raised eyebrow, and she realized they were not alone, even as Sydney’s hand closed around hers and forced her gun to her side.

            The small child who had been alone in the strangely small room before four running adults had invaded gave her a sober and strangely evaluating look. Its face was deformed, rounded lumps splitting its forehead.

            It’s another alien! she realized with a chill.

            “Krantregk, this is my friend Miss Parker,” Jarod said with that dark side-glance that was as good as a smirk. “At least she was my friend until she joined the Dark Side.”

            “The Dark Side of what?” the child asked.

            “That’s a good question. What is your dark side, Miss Parker?”

            She glowered at him.

            “Why is she dressed like that?”

            “I think she’s been spending a little too much time on the holodeck. There’s a simulation she likes, called The Centre, but its problem is that it doesn’t look anything like real life. One moment of real life, Krantregk, is worth thirty years of simulations.”

            “You’re speaking metaphorically,” the child said, far too knowingly for a little kid. “But this is my deck. Will you tell me more later, Commander Jarod?”

            “If I can.”

            The doors of the little room opened, and the child stepped out. Miss Parker could have hit herself. An elevator, of course. She glared at the man in blue uniform trying to enter.

            “Taken! Wait for the next one.”

            Startled, he stepped back, and the doors closed. Miss Parker raised her gun again.

            “So, Captain Picard, nice place you’ve got here.”

            “I’m not Picard. You might not have noticed, but I’ve got hair.”

            “Well, then, Commander Jarod Westmore, it’s time to go home.”

            He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. How did he managed to look so amused?

            “I can’t do that, Miss Parker.”

            “You can if you don’t want a hole in your foot.”

            “No, I can’t. I don’t have the recall device. Did you happen to bring it?”

            She glared at Broots, who was trying to make himself very small next to Sydney, as if Jarod were the one with the gun and might eat him besides. “Apparently not.”

            Jarod grinned. Miss Parker wanted to hit him with the gun.

            “Why do you relish getting me into these situations, Jarod?”

            “For the same reason you enjoy thinking about shooting me, Miss Parker. You weren’t supposed to be here in the first place. How did you get here?”

            She gestured at Broots. “Wonderbread here has more brains than you give him credit for.”

            Broots’ eyes brightened. Then the doors swooshed open again, and his jaw dropped. “The bridge.”

            Jarod stepped out, and his three pursuers automatically stepped out after him. With a sinking feeling, Miss Parker knew that once again he had managed to put her at the disadvantage, without even doing anything. All the people in the rounded room were staring at her and her gun.

            “Commander Westmore!” a bald man in red and black snapped in some kind of accent, “what is this? What is that?”

            A man with strangely gold skin took a step toward her. “Captain, that appears to be a projectile weapon much in use in the twentieth century. I am unsure of the particular make—”

            Miss Parker grabbed Jarod and pressed the gun to his back. “The kind of gun is irrelevant! What is important is that I will kill him if one of you so much as blinks.”

            “Why should our blinking cause you to kill him?” the gold-skinned man queried, perfectly calm.

            “Despite Miss Parker’s anachronistic choice of weapon,” Jarod said, “she is correct about its destructive capabilities. Captain Picard, this is Miss Parker and her colleagues, Sydney and Broots. As you can see, they are not Starfleet personnel, but they do work with the project I am investigating. They have been tracking me for several years.”

            “How did you get on my ship?” the bald captain barked.

            “That does not matter,” Miss Parker barked back. “What matters is how we’re going to get off.” She caught a movement to her left and shot a glare at the only person there she recognized, a large figure in black and yellow. “Don’t you move, Turtle-Head, or I’ll kill him.”

            Suddenly Broots laughed. “Westmore! I get it!”

            Jarod glanced back over his shoulder. “Good, isn’t it?”

            Without warning the elevator doors swooshed open. Miss Parker had only time to catch a glimpse of a blue uniform and a pair of impossibly pointed ears and to hear Jarod shout something that sounded like, “Velan totsuky!” before a brown hand fell on her shoulder and everything went blank.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 2

            Jarod caught Miss Parker’s gun as she fell, leaving her to be caught by the Vulcan medical officer whose quick reflexes and to'tsu'k'hy, the Vulcan nerve pinch, had saved him. “Thank you, Doctor V’Lan.”

            “I am glad to be of service, Commander, and that I happened to have an errand on the bridge. The situation seems to have been tense.”

            Jarod set the safety and removed the clip. “Just for a moment. Lieutenant Worf, your assistance, please.”

            Worf relieved V’Lan of his burden. “This woman is like a Klingon,” he said with something like approval.

            Broots gave a sudden snort or laughter. “Yeah, she is. I never thought of that.”

            Worf glared at him. “A dishonorable Klingon! To shoot a man in the back—”

            “Actually, she mostly just wants to shoot him in the foot, or so she says.”

            “Broots,” Sydney whispered, “perhaps you ought not to talk anymore just now.”

            With a gulp, Broots closed his mouth. Jarod restrained another grin.

            “Let them experience a starship brig, Mr. Worf. Captain Picard, you’ll be wanting explanations.”

            “I certainly will be.”

            Worf and another security officer ushered Broots and Sydney onto the elevator along with Miss Parker’s still-limp body. Jarod quirked an eyebrow after them. Broots looked absolutely excited to be taken into custody by Worf, but Sydney gave Jarod one of those familiar exasperated-but-patient looks.

            In the captain’s ready room, Jarod activated his jamming device and looked at Picard and Riker. “I’m sorry that I can’t tell you a great deal, Captain, Commander, but I will disclose some information. I used to work with these three operatives. We worked for what I later discovered to be Section 31, a top-secret and sometime-rogue section of Starfleet Intelligence. Few people know it exists, and even fewer people believe it. When I discovered that its existence and goals violated the tenets of the Federation, I got out and went to work for its rival branch within Starfleet Intelligence. Our main goal is to oppose and take down Section 31.”

            “And Section 31 is running the Savant Project?” Picard asked.

            “Yes, sir. However, you don’t just leave Section 31. For the last two and a half years, these operatives have been tasked with finding me and bringing me back. If they can, they will hold me captive and force me to participate in their projects.”

            “You seemed to be quite familiar with them,” Riker said.

            “I am. As I said, I worked with them before I learned the truth about Section 31. The woman is dangerous, but conflicted. The two men…they are more dangerous than they look. They know me better than anyone in the universe, and they have nearly captured me countless times. I had no idea they had actually found me this time.”

            “Do you think they know about your mission?” Picard asked.

            “I doubt it. Section 31 operates on a principle of not letting the left hand know what the right is doing. These three are trackers, not mission agents.”

            Riker crossed his arms. “How did they get aboard?”

            Jarod spread out his hands. “My fault. I developed a transportation device with a built-in cloak. I thought I had disabled it before my escape, but Broots—the small man—is a technological genius. If anyone could figure it out, he could.”

            “A cloak?” Riker glanced at Picard. “What sort of cloak?”

            “A fairly average sensor cloak, though in conjunction with the beaming technology, it works the cloak into the person being beamed. A personal shield. It does fade after about a week.”

            “You developed this?” Picard repeated.

            “Yes, Captain. All it took was a little reading on the Romulan cloaking device and advanced transporter technology.” Online technical journals by avid science fiction fans, he thought, restraining a grin. Invaluable.

            Riker pursued his original thought. “And this cloak—does it involve any psychic phenomena at all?”

            Jarod blinked at him. “No, Commander. Why?”

            “Deanna’s ghosts,” Picard said slowly.

            “Ghosts?”

            “Counselor Troi has been sensing echoes of these people. She ought to have felt their presence the moment they came aboard, but they were…cloaked.”

            “Odd,” Jarod said carefully. “An unintended repercussion, perhaps.”

            Riker cocked an eyebrow at him.

            “She needs to know about this.” Picard tapped his communicator. “Picard to Counselor Troi.”

            After a moment a groggy voice responded. “Troi here, Captain.”

            “Deanna, when you are able, go to the brig and interview the three prisoners you’ll find there.”

            “Prisoners, Captain?”

            “Your ghosts, Counselor. Perhaps you ought to start trusting your feelings again.”

            Jarod imagined the meeting between Parker, Broots, Sydney, and Deanna Troi. He restrained another smile. Sydney would be so fascinated… He almost wished he could be there. He shook it off.

            “It is imperative that the operation goes as planned tonight. If I get the information I need, I will be able to proceed with the second part.”

            “Second part?” Riker said sharply.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 3           

            Miss Parker came slowly out of a deep darkness, light and voices intruding.

            “I can’t believe I just met Captain Picard!” Broots? Was that Broots? “We—we actually held up the bridge! And got taken prisoner by Worf!”

            “Broots, bring yourself to reality,” came Sydney’s slow voice. “This is not a game. No matter whom we have been taken prisoner by, we have been taken prisoner. Is Miss Parker alright after whatever that…person did to her?”

            “Oh, yeah. She’ll be fine. She’ll come out of it any time. It’s nothing like the Vulcan death grip, which,” he chuckled, “as we all know, doesn’t exist.”

            “She’s out of it,” Miss Parker said. She tried to say it coldly, but it came out in a pathetically weak voice. Sydney and Broots moved to her side as she tried to sit up.

            “How do you feel, Miss Parker?” Sydney asked.

            “Like I’ve been run over by a semi. What happened? That wasn’t a Klingon, unless bat ears accompany turtle heads.”

            Broots chuckled again. “No, that was the Vulcan nerve pinch. A flow of energy interrupts the electrical signals in your…” He trailed off as she tried to glare at him.

            “Where are we?” She squinted around at the bright, grey room.

            “Uh—the Enterprise brig. You did try to hold up the bridge, you know.”

            “Great. This fabulous spaceship everyone’s fanatical about, and we get stuck in Jeffries tubes and the brig. Not a very good jail cell. They just leave the doors open?”

            She got up and went to the large open space in the wall. Lights lined it. She shook her head in contempt and stepped through it.

            Tried to step through it and found herself lying on the floor with Broots’ “Miss Parker, stop!” ringing in her ears. He and Sydney helped her up and back to the bunk she had been lying on.

            “It’s a forcefield, Miss Parker. You can’t just go through it.” Broots touched the invisible wall, and it shimmered and rang with an electric sound.

            “I hate this ship,” Parker said between her teeth.

            Broots was backing away from the wall. “Uh—uh—she’s coming. Sydney, Deanna Troi is coming.” He glanced at Sydney. “The empath!” he hissed.

            Sydney rose. “Oh.” He stepped forward as if the beautiful woman coming toward their cell were his subject of study instead of the other way around. “How do you do?” he said before she could say anything. “My name is Sydney.”

            “Hello, Sydney,” she answered with an accent as exotic as her looks. “My name is Deanna Troi. I’m the ship’s counselor.”

            Sydney broke into a smile. “Really? I’m a psychiatrist, too.”

            “Syd, would you shut up?” Miss Parker got up to stand across the doorway from Deanna Troi, hands on hips. The shorter woman’s dark eyes took her in completely, from head to toe and, Miss Parker could almost imagine, from outer image to inner soul. She tried on a smile. “I’m Miss Parker. Why are we here?”

            “I understand you tried to take a Starfleet officer hostage.”

            “No, we were trying to do you people a favor. Look, you’ve got a dangerous lunatic running around your ship!”

            “You don’t really believe that, Miss Parker.”

            Miss Parker recoiled a little. “What?”

            “You don’t believe Commander Westmore is a dangerous lunatic, nor a criminal, nor anything else you may come up with to try to get me on your side. You know very well he is doing what is right, which makes what you’re doing wrong, as much as you try to convince yourself otherwise.”

            “Uh—Miss Parker,” Broots whispered, “don’t try to lie to her, OK?”

            Miss Parker turned around and snarled in his ear, “I thought you said she was like Angelo.”

            “No, I said she wasn’t like Angelo.”

            Miss Parker stalked away and sat down, crossing her arms and legs and glaring at Deanna. The counselor turned to Broots.

            “What’s your name?”

            “Um—um—Broots, Counselor Troi.”

            “Don’t be nervous, Mr. Broots. I’m not going to hurt you. You seem to know a lot about me.”

            “Well—” he squeaked, “I’m—uh—a big fan of Star—of starships and their crews and especially this ship. A big fan. It’s kind of—you know—a dream come true to be here.”

            “In the brig?”

            “Well, it’s a nice brig. And, uh—talking to you is a—uh, great honor.” He laughed self-consciously.

            “If that is so, why did you sneak aboard this ship to take one of our officers hostage?”

            “Well—uh, that was an accident, and he’s not really one of your officers.”

            “He’s on loan, yes, but that is beside the point.”

            “No—I mean—”

            “Broots, stop talking.” Miss Parker rose and came to stare down her nose at Deanna Troi. “You will not learn anything from us.”

            The counselor did not seem easily intimidated. There was also anger at the back of her dark eyes. “On the contrary, Miss Parker, I have already learned a great deal from you.”

            Sydney leaned forward. “I would be interested to know what you have learned and how, Counselor. Broots has told me about your abilities, but I’m not sure I completely understand them.”

            Deanna gave him a long look. “I can feel you, Doctor Sydney, and a person’s feelings tell a lot about him. It is a very rare person who will act against his emotions.”

            “Jarod does. Sometimes. When it really matters.”

            “Jarod does what is right, despite his feelings, doesn’t he, Doctor?”

            “Yes, he does, Counselor.”

            “But you three are the opposite. You carry out your jobs despite the sense that what you’re doing isn’t quite right.”

            “What we do, Counselor Troi, we do for the good of society.”

            She shook her head, dark curls bobbing. “No, Doctor. You try to convince yourself of that, and you bury the truth. But you all operate out of very confused motives. Miss Parker is driven by anger, Mr. Broots by fear, and you by…intellectual curiosity? And guilt, too. But even now you’re not so much listening to me as investigating me. Is that what you did to Jarod, Doctor Sydney?”

            Miss Parker elbowed up to the forcefield. “You leave Sydney alone. Syd, don’t play her mind games.”

            “I know all about mind games, Miss Parker,” he said quietly.

            “Why are you so angry, Miss Parker?” Deanna asked.

            Into Miss Parker’s mind flashed all the reasons she had to be angry. Her mother’s death, leaving her alone as a child without guidance. Finding out so late her mother had been murdered by someone within the Centre, all for trying to help little children… Timmy and Jarod. Jarod! The Centre dragging her back into fieldwork after she had advanced out of it. Chasing Jarod fruitlessly for two years, with him continually taunting her with his clues and his revelations. Oh, she had plenty to be angry about. “I’m stuck in your brig!” she snapped. “What do you expect?”

            She felt Sydney and Broots staring at her, and she walked away from them. Broots’ liquid nicotine patch was wearing off.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 4

            Once again Deanna sat in Picard’s ready room with him and Riker. “Well, Captain, they are definitely the ghosts I felt. I should have recognized them as real intruders instead of echoes!”

            Picard shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Counselor. Strange things have been happening in this area of space. Unfortunately, we’ll have to be here a while longer than anticipated. How was your meeting with the prisoners?”

            “Interesting. I could feel them each clearly, and I was even able to interpret quite a bit of what I felt. They’re all very intriguing people. Three very strange types to put together into a manhunting team, but they have worked themselves into a great deal of respect and even care for each other. The woman, Miss Parker, was very protective of the other two, though she tried to hide it. She is the leader of the team, a very aggressive woman ready to push over anything in her way.”

            “Worf did say she was like a Klingon,” Riker said.

            “Did he? That’s very insightful. She is. But despite their aggressive nature, most Klingons don’t operate on anger and fear all the time. Miss Parker does. She is deeply, intensely angry about something that happened a long time ago, and it has developed into a hard shell that hides a small, hurt thing inside. Much of her aggression is directed at Commander Westmore. I would say she has misdirected all her rage on to him. Perhaps he has a capacity to reach inside her that she resents.

            “Her partner Broots is both terrified of her and fascinated by her, perhaps even attracted to her. His motivations are complex. He is terrified of the repercussions that leaving his job would entail, and he’s genuinely interested in his work. Plus they need him, and there’s nothing so heady as being needed, for some people. He’s fascinated with Jarod, and tracking him is like a great game which he really doesn’t want to think about very deeply. He also knows a great deal about this ship, Captain, and he’s as interested in it as Jarod is, in much the same way, with a child’s delight in a wonderful toy. That puzzles me the most.

            “And Doctor Sydney the psychiatrist—”

            “Psychiatrist?” Riker interrupted. “That’s a strange person to set on the track of an intelligence operative.”

            Deanna grinned at him. “It’s a very logical person, Will, particularly when the psychiatrist knows the operative as well as Sydney knows Jarod. He is the most interesting of all of them because his motives are so obscure. He is a scientist, an intellectual studier. He tried to study me while I was studying him. He probably learned nearly as much as I did. His emotions about Jarod are very complex. He feels guilt for some past association, something he did to Jarod. He feels pride whenever his team fails to capture Jarod—pride in Jarod’s ability to escape them. He is overwhelmingly fascinated by Jarod’s mind and abilities—what psychological professional wouldn’t be?” She laughed quietly. “And then there’s part of him that longs equally to have Jarod near him and to see Jarod escape for good. He hides far away inside him a deep love for Jarod, hides it so well he fools himself into thinking he can’t feel it—like a Vulcan, perhaps. He thinks he wants what is best for Jarod, but he’s no longer sure what that is.”

            “Do you think we could turn him?” Riker asked eagerly. “Maybe a double agent, working against them from the inside?”

            “I don’t know, Will. He has quite a loyalty to his work. He loves and hates his work at the same time. I don’t know if he could bring himself to give it up. Anyway, he is the enemy. You see, he’s the one Jarod is afraid of. Jarod loves him and hates him; he leans on him and pushes him away. If Jarod went back to this organization he told you about, it would be for Sydney, and he would hate himself when he did. Sydney is dangerous because he is temptation. It’s only a guess, but I think Jarod came to the organization very young, perhaps at a time of personal loss, and Sydney was his trainer and mentor. Then when he found out what the organization stood for, he felt betrayed by a friend and father-figure. He is angry, but he still needs Sydney, as we all need our fathers even if they let us down. There’s more—there’s much more between them, but I don’t know what it is.”

            “Counselor, do you think this is what you sensed Commander Westmore withholding from us?” asked Picard.

            “Some of it. Until these three showed up, it was irrelevant to his work here.”

            “Well, it looks like we’ve stumbled into a much bigger situation than anticipated. Can we hold these three until the Commander’s mission is accomplished without alerting their superiors to their disappearance?”

            “We’re going to have to try,” Riker said grimly. “I for one can’t wait to get them off this ship and into Intelligence custody, but it can’t happen until Westmore is done. Nothing can look unusual, especially not to his suspects.”

            “The first operation is tonight,” Picard said. “If it goes well, the next will be in only a few days’ time. Then we can put this all behind us.”

            Deanna wondered. Could you be emotionally connected to the inner soul of a man like Jarod and then simply put it all behind you?

Scene 5

            Nurse Onatah was sleeping the serene sleep of the just—undeserved, in her case, though she wouldn’t have believed it. She was dreaming of promotions and exciting new opportunities. She had no idea that her life was about to turn upside down, that she would never again receive anything like a promotion…

            A hand clapping down over her mouth jolted her awake. She screamed, but no sound came. She couldn’t move, couldn’t resist the two dark figures who lifted her up out of her bed. She struggled, but her motions were as gagged as her voice. Terror crowded her in the dark room, her safe quarters on the Enterprise.

            “Marzat, beam us aboard,” a quiet—and strangely familiar—voice said. She must have passed out during the beaming, because everything was dark for a long time.

            “Time to wake up, Nurse!” boomed an unbearably chipper, deep voice in her ears. The darkness was yanked away with the cloth bag pulled off her head.

            She was sitting in a shuttlecraft, an unfamiliar one, completely immobile, bound with a forcefield to her chair. The terror hadn’t gone with the darkness.

            “Good morning, Nurse Onatah.” A tall man stood in front of her. She couldn’t identify him for a moment, not with fear dimming her eyes. But then—

            “Oh, excuse me. Let me remove your gag so you can talk.”

            “You’re that—that astrophysicist!” she gasped.

            “Actually, I’m not really an astrophysicist. I represent a more lucrative trade.” He leaned down, smiling into her face. The smile wasn’t echoed in his dark eyes. His eyes hated her. “Isn’t that right, Marzat?”

            The pilot leaned back out of his chair. “Right you are, Jarod!” His skin was bright green.

            “Ah, do you begin to guess? Let’s see if you’ve guessed right. I am a dealer in sentience, Nurse Onatah. You see, the Orion Syndicate—oh, that’s caught your attention now, hasn’t it? The Orion Syndicate doesn’t only deal in flesh. It also deals in minds. Valuable minds, like yours. Your Qinar frontal lobes alone—” he put out his hand to the raised ridges over her eyes “—could get me a small fortune. But let’s not be mercenary. Contained within the whole package of your highly functioning self, those frontal lobes could do a great deal of good for the well-being of many people.”

            “Well-being?” she spat. “Since when does the Orion Syndicate care about the well being of anything but its purse?”

            “Well, it depends on how you look at it, Nurse Onatah. If the Syndicate is happy, its people are happy. The richer it is, the better the overall economy. The wealth will trickle down; everyone will benefit from a thriving society.”

            “Everyone except the people whose backs it is built on!” she cried.

            His long face loomed down at her again, his eyes dark slits. “Exactly. Isn’t it amazing how logical it can be made to seem when you’re not the one in captivity? Aren’t you a participant in a slave trade of minds, Nurse Onatah? You should understand how it works. You have something in that head of yours that others need. I feel justified in taking it, because it will benefit my society. Isn’t that what you told yourself? The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? Well, now you are the few.”

            “No—no!” she cried, trying to hold on to what she had been told. “That’s not how it was! We’re trying to save lives!”

            “By destroying others?” His voice had risen to a roar, chilling her. “By destroying the lives of children, the most precious thing you have? Did you ever see that child, that little boy, Krantregk, when you studied him? Did you see him as a set of lobes inside a shell? Or did you ever think to see him as a child who needs his parents, needs to love and be loved? Did you think about the effects on a child of being raised without parents and knowledge of who he is? No! All you thought about was an isolated brain in a package of bone. Well, you’re going to learn firsthand what that is like.”

            Inside her wild fear, it almost occurred to her to wonder why this man was so angry, what it was that raged so violently beneath his saturnine face.

            “Jarod, we’re approaching the coordinates,” the Orion pilot broke in.

            “Take a look at your new home, Nurse,” Jarod said, suddenly calm, moving aside so she could see the ship out of the viewscreen. I already have a buyer lined up. Contact him, Marzat.”

            In a moment another green face appeared on the screen. “Jarod, my friend! Do you have the goods?”

            “I do, Uehar. Have a look.”

            “Oh, a Qinar. Good catch, Jarod. Good catch.”

            “Thank you. We’ll be ready to beam aboard in a few minutes.”

            The green face disappeared. Jarod turned back to Onatah with a smile, dark and menacing. “Do you have any family? Parents, brothers, sisters—a lover? I’ll send them your goodbyes, when I tell them how you died in a shuttle accident.”

            “No, Jarod!” she screamed. “Don’t do this! Jarod, please! Think what you’ll do to my parents!”

            “Did you think what you would do to Krantregk’s parents?”

            “You’re right, Jarod! I didn’t think! I didn’t think about that at all! But I’m thinking now! Jarod—Jarod—don’t sell me to the Orion Syndicate! Please—I’ll do whatever you want!”

            “Tell me who recruited you,” he snapped at her. “Was it the Vulcan Sirok?”

            “Yes, it was,” she sobbed. “Two years ago, soon after I came aboard. I wanted to do something significant for the Federation, and just being a nurse wasn’t enough. I though if a Vulcan was involved, there couldn’t be anything wrong with it.”

            “You thought that, did you,” he said softly, like a growl. “Well, you were wrong. Logic can be a weapon as well as a tool. And now you will pay for your illogical judgment.”

            “No—no! Jarod, I’ll help you! I’ll tell you whatever you want to know!”

            “Where do you keep the information you collect? How do you report it to your superiors? What codes and communications channels do you use?”

            Sobbing, she told him everything she knew, which was little enough and, she feared, not enough to satisfy him. But when she was done, he sat down in the seat next to her and stared at her.

            “It never ceases to amaze me,” he said, his voice calm, “how people can do so much wrong for a cause they believe is right. But listen to me, Nurse Onatah. Nothing is more significant than helping hurting individuals at their weakest time. You should never have given that up.”

            This from the man who wanted to sell her? “What—what are you going to do with me?” she gasped.

            To her surprise, he grinned. “Turn you over to Starfleet Intelligence, of course. You didn’t really think I’d made a deal with Orion slavers, did you?” He stood up. “Computer, end program.”

            All the breath left her lungs as pilot, shuttle, Orion ship, and her own restraints disappeared and around her appeared the familiar grid of the holodeck.

            Jarod leaned down close to her. “You never left the Enterprise. Surprise!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 6

            Worf and Riker came onto the holodeck, and Jarod handed Nurse Onatah over to Worf. “Lock her up, Mr. Worf. Make sure she’s completely alone so she has space to rethink her life.”

            “Yes, sir.” Worf touched his communicator. “Two to beam directly to the brig.”

            “Very ingenious, Commander,” Riker said. “Very unorthodox.”

            Westmore flashed him a smile. “I’ve never been orthodox, Commander. I must say, having a holodeck at my disposal puts a whole new spin on things. I very much appreciate your and Captain Picard's willingness to go along with this.”

            “Your orders from Headquarters gave us very little choice. You really know Admiral Zeubin? How’s that beagle of his doing?”

            “The one that died last month or the new one his daughter gave him, Commander?” Jarod asked softly.

            “Oh, the dead one, naturally,” Riker grinned.

            “He’s at dinner.”

            “Dinner?”

            “Not where he eats but where he is eaten.”

            Riker frowned. “Julius Caesar?”

            “Hamlet. Admiral Zeubin’s favorite. He would think the quotation macabre but appropriate. Excuse me, Commander. It is time for me to deal with Sirok.”

            Riker looked after him as he strode from the empty holodeck. He was almost beginning to like the man. What he had had to say to the nurse had been something that might have come from Captain Picard’s mouth, or Beverly’s, or Riker’s own, only it had had not only total conviction in it but the even greater force of total emotional involvement. The man had felt deeply every word he said, just as Deanna insisted. So why did Riker still get a funny feeling about him? It was a pity Admiral Zeubin was out of communication with anything Federation at the moment. A strict rest leave, his doctor said. Riker was inclined to think it was more along the lines of a secret mission. It sure would be good to talk to him about his prodigy Jarod Westmore.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 7

            Jarod slipped into the Vulcan’s quarters. He had monitored the teacher’s movements and knew when he would be taking the small amount of sleep he required.

            “Sirok,” he hissed in Vulcan. “Sirok, wake up.”

            The Vulcan was instantly awake, sitting up, his nearly-blond hair gleaming in the pale candle light. “Who are you? What are you doing in my quarters?”

            Jarod’s back was to the candle light, his lean length and Vulcan-like haircut all that could be seen from Sirok’s position. “Your position has been compromised, Sirok,” he said in the language of a superior to an inferior, language that automatically stiffened the Vulcan into an attitude of proper respect. “Onatah has been found out.”

            “Onatah? What do you mean? Who are you?”

            Jarod leaned in close. “She is being taken to the brig as we speak,” he said in his crispest Vulcan. “They are bringing in special interrogators, including some of our people, who will be able to get beneath her Qinar surface.”

            “Our people?” Now Sirok recognized him. “Commander Westmore? You are not Vulcan.”

            “I play many roles,” Jarod said mysteriously. “I am whatever I want to be. And in this case, I am here to tell you that you have compromised your mission.”

            Sirok scrambled off his bed and activated the lights. He stared at Jarod with the intimidatingly level gaze only Vulcans can give. Jarod, who in that moment was Vulcan, gave him the same stare back.

            “What mission are you speaking of?”

            Jarod raised an eyebrow and said quietly the few identifying words Onatah had told him. For a moment he was afraid she had lied to him, for Sirok only stared at him. But then Sirok pursed his lips with what might have been a sigh in anyone but a Vulcan.

            “Who are you, sir?”

            “I am the man who has been sent here to see that you and Onatah are doing your jobs properly. They always send out observers, Sirok, who rarely ever need to identify themselves to the field agents. I ought not to have done so, but you are now in danger. Your choice of Onatah was…unwise.”

            “Has she said anything?”

            “Very little, other than her indiscreet comments to Doctor Crusher, which landed you both in this mess. I have promised Captain Picard that I would attempt to discover everything I could about her mission, which has given me an opportunity to cover up as much as possible, but I do not think it will be enough. What error in logic led you to Onatah as a candidate for this job?”

            “I can see no error, sir. She was a perfect candidate, precisely as we were taught.”

            “Perfect, Sirok? Logic teaches that perfection is unattainable. Has living among so many Humans made you arrogant, Sirok? Logic lies in humility. Arrogance blinds, and you have been blind. Has it occurred to you that her perfection might have been intended?”

            “Intended…” Sirok repeated. “You think she was planted to expose me?”

            “What do you think?” Jarod said viciously. “You have compromised the entire project. There are already elements within the organization who are questioning the logic of the project—”

            As he had hoped, this got a rise out of the Vulcan. “Questioning the logic, sir? It is logic rather than sentiment which drives the Savant Project. It has been refreshing to find Humans who will put aside their weak emotion and act on logic. Admiral Joda herself recruited me through a faultless use of logic. Now the Humans are rejecting it again?”

            “It is the Vulcans who are questioning the logic of members like you, Sirok. Is it logical for Section 31 to draw attention to itself by depriving parents of their children? Is it logical to oppose the course of nature by taking children from parents? Is it logical to create an intellectual force that will one day turn against you when it realizes it has been exploited? The day always comes when slaves turn on their masters, and you will have given the slaves their greatest weapon, intellectual development. Is it logical to see only the short-term benefits and ignore the long-term risks?

            “However, I have not come here to debate your faulty logic with you. I have a chance for you to escape, because, despite everything, you are a good operative. You will receive a message tomorrow that your mother is dying and requires your presence as her heir. You will leave immediately and report to Section 31 headquarters. I will cover up your involvement, but you must arrive and be ready to face your judgment before interrogators can get information out of Onatah. Otherwise you and all you know will be lost.

            “Tonight you must make a complete deposition to me. I want to know everything—I mean everything. Onatah might have learned from you, whether you know it or not. Not only everything you told her but everything you did not tell her. Remember that she is Qinar, and the Qinar have mental abilities they do not tell even other Federation members about. Sit down and begin.”

            Jarod rejoiced to find that, while Sirok was a Vulcan and an excellent teacher and intelligence operative, he was also rather stupid. Underneath his Vulcan control, he was frightened. He was not used to being frightened, and it confused him. He knew more than Jarod had imagined, more than he even he was aware of, and he told it all to Jarod. Jarod filed everything away in his photographic memory and knew he would be able to extrapolate much more than Sirok was aware he was telling. The one missing piece was where the already kidnapped children were being held, the one piece Jarod needed most to learn. Needed? Yes, needed, both for the children and for himself. If he could not save them, it had all been pointless.

            Krantregk came into his mind. No, not completely pointless. The boy was safe. He would be happy and healthy. He would never be another Jarod. When Jarod finally fell, exhausted, into bed, it was that knowledge that let him go to sleep. Sirok had given him the information he needed to be able to find out where the children were. He would rescue them, too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 8

            Five highly-placed Federation officials received five nearly identical messages at the same moment. Each message was from a Section 31 field agent who identified himself as a double agent for Starfleet Intelligence and offered to not turn them over to Intelligence if they would pay him a large amount of gold-pressed latinum. The messages contained enough evidence that they knew it was more than a mere bluff. Each one made preparations to meet the agent at a certain location in five days’ time. Each one made preparations to kill him.

Scene 9

            “In five days the Savant Project officials will arrive,” Jarod told the senior officers. “Data and Geordi, we have that long to prepare the ship’s cloak. I already have the holodeck prepared. Worf, we’ll go over security arrangements later. Beverly, what is the status of the drug?”

            “It will take four days to synthesize, but it will be ready, Jarod,” she smiled.

            “Good. Deanna, will you be ready to stand by in case your expertise is needed?”

            “To be honest, Jarod, the most I can say is ‘I think so.’ I’m doing much better, but I’m still going through strange spells.”

            Jarod frowned. Angelo’s presence was still neatly jamming Deanna’s empathic abilities. He was having the time of his life, but he would have to stay away from the holodeck. “I trust you, Deanna. I believe you’ll be fine. Any questions?”

            “About the Vulcan teacher Sirok,” Riker said. “How are you tracking him?”

            Jarod smiled. “He ate his tracking device. We had a little soup together before he left. You know, clear plomeek broth is not as bad as the actual soup. Anyway, I am receiving all his information, and the recordings will go straight to Starfleet Intelligence. I want to reiterate how much I appreciate all you have done. Normally my missions don’t require me to make so much use of others’ personnel. I am glad you’ve been able to join me. This mission will not destroy Section 31—they’re too good for that—but it will strike a death blow to the Savant Project, which is what is important to me just now.”

            “We’re with you on that,” Geordi said.

            As Jarod and the senior officers left the room, Picard reflected on how well Jarod dealt with the crew and how instinctually they responded to him. He had been aboard not even three weeks, and he had a connection to each officer in a way Picard had never seen in anyone but Deanna. Deanna could feel with each of the others, but in some way Jarod seemed to be able to become them. Even Data, which was more than Deanna could do. It was what made him such a good intelligence officer, but nom d’un nom— Picard shook his head. The Federation had missed out on a fine starship captain.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 10

            Jarod had not seen the three prisoners in the brig since Worf had led them away. He didn’t want to be distracted. But now it was just waiting, and he was already distracted. If they hadn’t been there, he would have enjoyed his time working on the cloak with Geordi, talking to Guinan, or taking in a few Sherlock Holmes mysteries with data, but their presence ate at him. What would he gain by talking to them? They could not speak freely, in this place where they shared the same secret, and he could not ask them for information about his family. He had not intended for them to be here and had nothing to tell them. He didn’t want to see them. But he went down to see them.

            They didn’t need to be bored in there. He had seen to it that they had books, music, intellectual stimulation. Sydney and Broots, at least, were occupying their time trying to learn 3-D chess. But of course Miss Parker was bored and seething.

            “Jarod, you—” she swore at him.

            “Now, Miss Parker, mind your language. You’re talking to a Starfleet officer.”

            “It—it looks good,” Broots offered from the safety of the back of the cell. “The uniform.”

            “It is a good uniform, isn’t it? As for you, how does it feel to be part of Section 31.”

            Broots bristled. “I’m not Section 31!” Then he considered. “Gosh, maybe I am.”

            “Section 31?” Miss Parker said between her teeth, barely holding onto her temper.

            “The Centre, Miss Parker,” Jarod answered. “Just another name for the same old thing. Ruining people’s lives for the sake of profit, politics, science, or whatever you need to call on to justify it. I didn’t expect to find it here, but I did. I guess people are the same wherever you go, no matter what kind of people they are.”

            “You’re enjoying yourself here, Jarod, whatever sort of people you have found, aren’t you?” Sydney asked.

            “Why, yes, Sydney. I’m sorry I can’t say the same for you, but that’s not my fault.”

            “Actually, Jarod, both Broots and I are enjoying ourselves highly.”

            Jarod leaned against the opposite wall and crossed his arms, grinning. “I suppose you would be, wouldn’t you? There’s plenty for you to study here, Sydney, even in a brig.”

            “There certainly is, not the least of which is Deanna Troi. She has visited three times.”

            “Has she? Interesting. What do you think?”

            “She’s angry with us, Jarod. On your behalf, I should think. But she is very interested in us as well.”

            “Just what I need,” Miss Parker muttered. “Two shrinks following me around. I wish you would tell her to leave us alone.”

            Jarod shook his head. “Far be it from me to tell a scientist who she may study, Miss Parker. You could learn a lot from her, you know.”

            She rolled her eyes. “No, thank you. I’ll learn what I want, when I want.”

            “Don’t limit yourself, Parker. You owe yourself more than that.”

            She came close to the forcefield. “Jarod, listen to me. Get me out of here! I’m going insane.”

            Jarod stepped up to the forcefield too, so that no more than a few inches of what looked like empty space separated them. “You don’t like being confined any more than I do,” he said softly. “I’ve put myself in your place, too, you know. I’ve been you. I’ve felt what you feel. You hate being trapped. You hate being impotent. It tears away all your defenses. Now put yourself in my place. Freedom means even more to me than it does to you. You will not have me. And for the moment you’re going to stay trapped. Experience what you’re trying to do to me. So you may as well take advantage of it as Sydney does. You won’t stop me.”

            Miss Parker raised her hand and put it against the forcefield so that it buzzed and rang. “Jarod, I’ll kill you.”

            “No, you won’t.” He turned and went out.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 11

            Now only one day was left, one day until the second sting operation that would allow Starfleet Intelligence to demolish the Savant Project. Jarod has prepared the complete report with all evidence, as he usually did. This time it would not be going in a manila envelope but by subspace communications. It was timed to go out automatically when he went to meet the Section 31 leaders. Starfleet Intelligence, of course, knew nothing of his existence and the mission he had created for himself. But they would know all about the Savant Project when they received his report, and from then on it would be their responsibility. Section 31 would continue, of course. There were enough of those people in Starfleet. But Starfleet would not allow the kidnapping of its children to continue. It was still run by more decent people than he had ever thought could exist in one place.

            After the Centre, he ought to have been stripped of all belief in the positive side of human nature. After all, his whole childhood had been spent investigating murders, assassinations, bombings, epidemics, piracy. There had been no investigation of things like family life, friendship, random acts of kindness. But somehow he had clung to the belief that these things must exist. When he stepped into the mind of the assassin of a great civil rights leader, he also stepped into the mind of the civil rights leader himself and learned about what drove him. He stepped into the minds of policemen, politicians, and doctors, learning about their passion for justice. And when he escaped, he sought those things automatically. He found both sides of life, both exploiters of the helpless and defenders of the helpless. His first Pretend—it had been instinctual. He had witnessed a man give up his life to save a stranger from a mugging, and without thinking he had gone after the criminal who took that innocent, courageous life. He had gone after him his own way, becoming a police officer, finding that the talents Sydney had developed in him worked perfectly in the real world.

            He did have to admit that Sydney had been a large part of it. Sydney, who lived a double life within himself, had trained him in right and wrong. Sydney, who could close his eyes to the fact that his work exploited the powerless and yet believe passionately that his Centre existed for the good of society.

            When had Jarod realized that what they were doing to him was wrong? He had always questioned, always pushed the boundaries of what was allowed, always known his life was different than other children’s, but for a very long time it never occurred to him that what the Centre did was purely wrong. That would have been admitting that what Sydney did was wrong. From a very young age Sydney ran him through simulations of disasters, murders, kidnappings, things, Jarod knew now, no child should have to experience, much less to the level of emotional involvement he had experienced them. And he had not questioned whether it was right for the Centre—for Sydney to subject him to them, other than in his occasional childish fits of pique and stubbornness. In a way he had been innocent, taking part in horrors yet innocent. His innocence and trust in Sydney had died when he actually began to apply his considerable brain powers to the possible results of his simulations, when he learned that innocent people were dying because of them. But how long had it taken? When had it sunk in? When had he truly realized all they had taken from him?

            “Jarod Westmore.”

            He jerked, awoke from his reverie. He was in Engineering, finishing the last touches to the Enterprise’s cloak. Geordi had been astonished at his level of technical knowledge in the technology. He had joked that he liked to read technical journals. Well, he did.

            Now he turned to see Riker standing there with Worf and another gold-uniformed security officer. And at the look in Riker’s eye, his heart—his whole being—sank.

            “Jarod Westmore, will you come with me, please?”

            “Hey, Commander,” Geordi protested. “What’s this? Commander Westmore and I still have a couple hours of work.”

            “Stop your work, Geordi. Mister Westmore has some questions to answer—in the brig.”

            “The brig? But—”

            “Geordi, don’t stop working,” Jarod said urgently.

            Worf was taking his arm and saying uncomfortably. “Please come with us.”

            “Geordi, you have to finish it!” They were pulling him out of the room. “Everything depends on it, Geordi!”

            His brain was buzzing when the brig forcefield sprang into place behind him. “Please—” he said, though something was choking him, “please—you can’t do this! Let me complete my mission!”

            “Your mission?” Riker snapped. “You have no mission. Starfleet Intelligence has never even heard of you.”

            “Of course they haven’t! Do you think they admit the existence of their top-secret operatives to just anyone?”

            “Captain Picard is not just anyone, Westmore! I suspected you from the first, and he gave me clearance to do some checking up on you. There is no record of your existence in the Federation. You are not a Starfleet officer, which makes wearing that uniform a legal offense. Conveniently, none of the people who signed your ‘orders’ have been available to confirm them…except that Admiral Zeubin returned early from his ‘rest leave’ and says he has never heard of you. You have forged Starfleet Intelligence documents and sent a Starfleet ship on a wild goose chase!”

            “No!” Jarod shouted. “The Savant Project is real! You have to believe me! Real children are being ripped from their families, and no one is doing anything to stop it! Please! We have to stop it!”

            “You are no longer doing anything on this ship except sitting in this brig until we can turn you over to Starfleet Security.”

            Riker turned and stalked away. Jarod shouted after him, “Riker, look at the evidence! Examine Onatah! You can’t just turn your back on this!”

            Riker was gone. Jarod stumbled back, down onto the floor against the wall. No! You have to find them! The children! The children are still missing! You have to find them! Dear God, I have to find them. He put his head into his hands.

 

Scene 1

            Angelo dragged Jarod’s silver briefcase with the DSA recordings into one of his favorite hiding places just before the people in gold came in and started searching the quarters. He felt the anger in the tall man in red. He also felt the confusion.

            “Help…Jarod,” he muttered. “Help…Jarod. Help…children.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 2

            Sydney, Broots, and Parker all stood at the door of their cell and stared across the aisle at Jarod in his cell. He still sat with his head down on his arms propped up on his knees. He hadn’t moved in an hour, since he had quietly taken off his Starfleet uniform jacket and folded it neatly on his bunk. Even Miss Parker hadn’t had the heart to taunt him…yet. Sydney’s face was calm—no one would have known that something inside him was yearning to help the boy he had raised. The boy he was proud of.

            “Jarod,” he ventured, “are you alright?”

            “No,” Jarod muttered without lifting his head.

            “Jarod, you’ve done the best you could. Whatever it was you were doing here, I know you did your best.”

            Now Jarod raised a raging face. “Then my best wasn’t good enough, Sydney! I could have saved them! I know I could have saved them!”

            “Who, Jarod?”

            “The children. The children.” His head went back down.

            “What is it with him and children, Syd?” Miss Parker muttered. “Everywhere we chase him, children appear.”

            “It’s himself, Miss Parker,” Sydney answered in a low voice. “When he’s saving children, he’s saving himself.”

            Miss Parker’s face was thoughtful, quiet. She said nothing more, but Sydney knew her inside and out and knew that somewhere inside she was thinking, Why couldn’t he have saved me, too?

            “What children were they, Jarod?” he asked.

            Jarod looked up at him, his face bitter. “What children? Just guess, Sydney. Guess very close to home.”

            “The Savant Project, you said. Extraordinary children taken for intelligence purposes?”

            “It’s a newer project than yours, Sydney. I suppose it took the Federation longer to attract that sort of person than our government did. But they’re doing exactly the same thing. And I had a chance to cut it off at the root.”

            “This isn’t your world, Jarod. It isn’t your responsibility to put it to rights.”

            “Then whose responsibility is it?” Jarod blazed at him. “You have always made things my responsibility. I’m only continuing your legacy.”

            “Jarod—” Sydney begin, but Jarod put his head back down and would not respond. Sydney turned away and sat on his bunk, his head tipped back in thought. Why was it that when he felt most involved he became most detached? He saw Jarod in agony—many times he had spoken to him on the phone at the emotional height of one of Jarod’s Pretends and heard the agony in his voice—and always his own voice came out calm, detached, in control, like every good psychiatrist should sound. Just when he most wanted to reach out, his coolness put another brick on the wall he had built up. He couldn’t help it anymore. It was more natural than giving in to the warmth of his feelings. He could almost be amused at his own pathology—if it didn’t hurt so much.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 3

            “Should we release Nurse Onatah?” Riker asked.

            Picard shook his head, still staring at the computer recording. “No, Number One. I am still not fully convinced that this man is quite what you think he is.”

            “Captain, I think he’s Maquis, sent to keep us running around in circles after our own tails while they carry out some raid under our noses!”

            “Number One, we are nowhere near Cardassian space. Why should he come here rather than to some ship in that sector? I think it is more likely that he is a freelance operator. He had to be here, on the Enterprise.”

            “Then what do you think he’s up to, sir?”

            “I don’t know, Number One. If he is acting, he is giving a first-class performance of a man who wants to rescue  kidnapped children, even while in our brig. His conversation with his friends carries out the same theme, even while it confirms that he is not Starfleet. Before we do anything, Will, I think we should confirm that the Savant Project does not, in fact, exist, don’t you?” He tapped his communicator. “Picard to Doctor V’Lan. Join me in my ready room immediately, Doctor. I have a special project for you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 4

            Beverly Crusher had been thinking about Timmy so much recently that initially it did not surprise her when he shuffled into her office. Nor did she consider how she knew he was Timmy. He was there, and he was Timmy.

            For a moment she looked at him as he looked vacantly around her office, and then she rose slowly, the true nature of reality coming back to her. “Timmy?”

            “Timmy…gone,” he informed her. His diction changed. “Now he shall be called Angelo.”

            “Angelo?”

            “Jarod…help Angelo. Angelo…help Jarod.”

            “How did you get here?”

            He came close to her, hand outstretched. She didn’t quite recoil. He touched her shoulder, and his heavy brow furled. “Beverly Crusher…worried. Sad. Beverly Crusher is Jarod’s friend.”

            “I thought I was. Now it seems he has been lying to us all.”

            “No! Jarod is Beverly Crusher’s friend! Jarod…cares for Beverly. Jarod…cares for Wesley. Help Jarod!”

            Staring at him, Beverly touched her communicator. “Doctor Crusher to Counselor Troi. You’d better come to my office. There’s someone here you’ll want to see.”

            Deanna was as confused and discouraged as she was, Beverly could see. Her shoulders were slumped as she came in. But then she halted as if she had run into something. She stared wildly at Angelo, her hand spread on her ribcage.

            “Deanna, what are you feeling?” Beverly asked.

            “Me—you—reflections—echoes. Everything but him! This is what I have been feeling all this time! What is he?”

            “He is an experiment gone wrong, Deanna. Once an intelligent little boy named Timmy. Now an emotional reflector or absorber…named Angelo?”

            “Angelo,” the young man with dull eyes and bushy hair confirmed.

            Deanna came close to him and put out a hand to him as he had to Beverly. He grimaced at her.

            “Jarod…help Angelo.”

            Beverly nodded. “Jarod has been helping Angelo. He told me about him and asked me to find a way in which he could be helped medically. I’ve found a promising possibility, but it still needs work. I did not, however, know he was here.”

            “But where did he come from?”

            “My guess is Jarod’s homeworld, possibly the same way the three in the brig got here. I have no way of knowing where it is, and I doubt Angelo could tell us.”

            “So he’s been cloaked, the way they were. Aboard all this time, and we never knew. He’s an extraordinary presence, Beverly.”

            Beverly nodded. “Jarod called him an empath but said he was different from you.”

            “He explains everything, Beverly. There’s nothing wrong with me. I’ve only been feeling him feel everyone on the ship. Angelo—is that your name? What do you feel, Angelo?”

            “Deanna Troi…sad…confused…hurt.”

            She gasped as her own emotions came, intensified, back at her. “Angelo, please stop feeling me. Feel Angelo. What does Angelo feel?”

            He grimaced again, and Beverly realized it was a smile. “Jarod…Angelo’s friend. Help…Angelo.”

            Beverly saw tears coming into Deanna’s eyes. “Deanna?”

            “I’m feeling Angelo for the first time, Beverly. He’s—Oh, Angelo.” She put her hand on his cheek. “What did they do to you? He is hardly able to feel his own emotions, Beverly. He’s always feeling everyone else’s. But when he does, he feels fear…and love.”

            “Fear of the people who did this to him,” Beverly said. “And love—for Jarod?”

            Deanna sighed. “You know he has to be reported to the captain.”

            Beverly sighed too. “Yes, I know.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 5

            Picard had, when petitioned, given Beverly and Deanna permission to accompany Angelo down to the brig. He had even agreed to secure guest quarters for the shambling empath, but a confrontation with Jarod was the first order of business.

            Riker was already there, stalking up and down between the two walls. As the doctor and the two empaths entered, Jarod was shouting, “I am not Section 31! I would die before working with them!” Then he and Riker both saw Angelo, and his voice died. “Oh, Angelo,” he whispered.

            The three other prisoners, watching with various forms of interest, sprang up and rushed to the door of their cell. “Angelo?” Sydney said.

            Miss Parker shook her head. “It’s about time he showed up.”

            “Anglo, why are you here?” Jarod asked softly. “Why didn’t you stay hidden?”

            Angelo smiled at him. “Angelo…helps Jarod. Bring…Beverly. Bring…Deanna.” He looked at the two women. “Help Jarod! Help children!” He put his hand on Beverly’s arm. “Beverly…cares. Children are…hurt. Sad. Scared. Alone. Help Jarod help children.”

            “Oh, Angelo,” Jarod said again. “You’re here so we can help you. Beverly, I brought him here so you would give him asylum and cure him. He can’t ask for it himself, so I am asking for him. I’m the closest thing he has to family.”

            “Hey!” Miss Parker exclaimed. “He belongs to us!”

            “He belongs to no one, Miss Parker!” Jarod shouted at her.

            Sydney’s hand fell on Miss Parker’s arm. “Parker, be quiet,” he said.

            Riker turned on them. “I’d like to know what this man has to do with you. Are you Section 31, and have you been keeping him against his will?”

            “Technically no and yes,” Broots said. He flinched at Miss Parker’s glare.

            “These three are from my world, Commander Riker,” Jarod said. “They work for the Centre, which is nearly indistinguishable from Section 31, only culturally different. For thirty years they held me captive there, and Angelo nearly as long. Now I am requesting sanctuary for Angelo from the Federation.”

            “No,” Angelo said.

            They all stared at him. Jarod choked, “What?”

            Angelo made an effort. He came close to the forcefield and whispered, “Can’t help Jarod here.” He grimaced his grin at Jarod, whispering again, “Angelo hid DSAs. Jarod can find DSAs.” Then he pulled something out of his pocket.

            “The recall device,” Jarod whispered. “No, Angelo.”

            Angelo smiled at him again and touched the control.

            “No!” Jarod cried as Angelo disappeared before their eyes. “No, Angelo!” He turned away and fell to his knees. “No, Angelo! I wanted to help you!”

            With a glance at Riker, Beverly deactivated the forcefield and entered the cell. She knelt next to Jarod and, reaching out, turned his face toward her. “You did help him, Jarod. Do you hear me? You loved him. You of all people should know that that is a better help than all the medical treatments and political asylums in the world.”

            His face was the face of a child again. “I’m failing, Beverly. I’m failing at everything. I’m failing the children—as I was failed.”

            “You won’t fail, Jarod.” She got up and left the brig.

Scene 6

            “Jean-Luc, we need to talk.”

            Picard examined for a long moment his red-haired friend and colleague. Her face was pale, her eyes bright, and her mouth set in that way he knew meant she felt strongly about something and wasn’t going to back down from it. “What’s the matter, Beverly?”

            “Jean-Luc, you know you have to let Jarod finish his mission.”

            “Beverly, you know that’s impossible. He is not a Starfleet officer and can’t be allowed to act as if Starfleet vessels are his own private playground.”

            “Playground? Do you call it playing to dedicate your life and risk your safety to save children from slavery?”

            “Do you believe that is what he was really trying to do, Beverly?”

            “Yes!” She took a deep breath and sat down. “Jean-Luc, let me tell you some things about Jarod you don’t know. He’s from the same planet as his friend Angelo. I don’t know what planet or where, and I don’t care. Those two young men were brought up together in precisely the same circumstances as the ones he is now trying to eradicate. They held him like a slave, and they still consider him their property. When he speaks of the children he wants to rescue, he is speaking as one who has been where those children are now, kidnapped and terrified.”

            Picard listened gravely. It was not the face of a doctor or a Starfleet officer across the desk from him but the face of a mother, and that was something not even a starship captain wanted to cross.

            “Beverly, I believe you. I liked the man, and I believed implicitly in what he was doing. From Doctor V’Lan’s mindmeld with Nurse Onatah, it looks like he really was trying to do precisely what he said he was. But the case against him stands. He impersonated a Starfleet officer, forged documents, and engaged a starship in a falsified mission. He used us—”

            “Yes, he used us!” Beverly was standing, leaning on his desk with both hands, and glaring at him as only a red-headed woman and a mother can glare. “He used us to do our work for us! This is a Federation problem, Jean-Luc! Why isn’t the Federation doing something about it? Why does it take an outside problem-solver to do our work for us? This is our work, Jean-Luc. We Federation officers who have sworn to uphold the tenets this Federation stands by. In this case we’ve had some outside help, a stranger whose actions must compel us to action. But we can’t leave him out of it. It’s his case now, as much as it is ours. If we turn him over to Starfleet, we will be committing an act of injustice against those children, against him, and against the Federation.”

            “Beverly—”

            “Jean-Luc—!”

            “Doctor.” Now he was a starship captain again, not a friend and confidant. “I understand you, and I will take what you say into consideration.”

            And Beverly was an officer again, who obeyed her captain. “Yes, Captain. Thank you.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 7

            Riker was about to restore the forcefield, but Deanna’s hand forestalled him. “Will, wait.”

            With a sigh, he stood aside. She entered the cell and let him activate the field behind her.

            Jarod sat on the edge of his bunk and watched her, his eyes smouldering and his mouth drawn into a tight line.

            “Jarod, you deceived me.”

            “Yes,” he said. “I did. About everything except what was in my heart.”

            She shook her head. “You used Angelo to confuse me.”

            “No! I didn’t know that was going to happen. I wanted to help Angelo, not hurt you. Deanna, I have never wanted to hurt anyone! I wanted to help them! It’s what I have given my life to.”

            “And you do it by masquerading?”

            “Pretending. It’s the only thing I know how to do. I can’t be me. I don’t know who I am.”

            Deanna stared at him, and her face was stony. “I don’t like being lied to, Jarod.”

            “Deanna!” he cried. “I am not lying to you! Stop putting up walls! Feel me! Feel everything I am feeling and then tell me I’ve been lying to you!”

            It wasn’t every day that someone laid himself bare instead of covering up everything inside. With a sigh, she sat down next to him and began demolishing her shields. It had taken a long time to learn to put them up so that every passing person didn’t invade her, and it wasn’t often she allowed them all to come down. Now she remembered why. Feeling the deepest intensity of another person’s emotions could be crippling.

            “Deanna?” Will said from the doorway. “Are you alright?”

            She put up her shaking hand and nodded wordlessly, sobbing. How could he bear this, day by day? Such loneliness—such need that went unfulfilled and hopes continually dashed. Helpless rage and aching pain, fear of the past, guilt and confusion. And also—compassion as deep as the pain, a thirst for justice, a need to make things right. And love that she could hardly understand—how could he find these things in himself, amidst the pain?

            He could bear it because he fought. His pain gave him purpose. How many other people could say that? The more he hurt, the more he strove to help others who hurt.

            While Deanna cried his tears, Jarod sat with an oddly calm look on his face. A look perhaps of peace. When her sobbing had stilled, he said, “You understand.”

            Still unable to speak, she set her hand over his heart. He curled his hand around it with a smile that, for the moment at least, had no pain in it.

            “You understand.”

            Riker said gently, “Deanna.”

            She got up, withdrew her hand, and left the cell. As she passed the cell of Jarod’s three pursuers, Sydney said, “Counselor.”

            She stopped and looked at them. Broots looked shaken. Even the Klingon woman, the hard, harsh, angry, frightened, hurt, desperate woman, was pale and gentle of eyes. And Sydney—he said, almost in a whisper, “Please help him, Deanna.”

            She looked him in the eyes and nodded.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 8

            Riker went out and found a chair, brought it up to Jarod’s forcefield, and sat down. “Westmore,” he said, “tell me your story.”

            Jarod looked up at him slowly. Then he got up and came to sit on the floor across the forcefield from him. “In the first place, my name is not Westmore. It’s Jarod. I don’t know the rest.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 9

            Picard rose from his desk. “Deanna? Are you alright?”

            “No, Captain, I’m not. Captain, I have to ask you to release Jarod and let him finish what he started.”

            Picard sat down again and stared at her. Had his entire medical division run suddenly mad? “Counselor, what has happened?”

            “I’ve been him, Captain. That’s what he does. He becomes people inside and out and knows them better than they know themselves. But he doesn’t know who he is. Sometimes it seems as though it’ll kill him, but it only makes his determination stronger. He could easily use his talents to his own advantage, sell them to the highest bidder, be more successful than the Ferengi, more learned than the Vulcans. But instead he spends his life finding people who need help and helping them. It’s his passion., what gives him a reason for living. He is the Federation, Captain! Everything we were meant to be. But there’s more. I can’t—I can’t explain in words all he holds inside himself. Except that it’s necessary for him to do this. If you have any compassion at all, you’ll let him do it. If you don’t, you might as well just tell him that the pain and horrors he has gone through don’t matter—to us or to the Federation! And we’re better than that, Captain! We are the kind of people he believes us to be, the exact opposite of the people who have hurt him so deeply. Please, Captain, let’s prove it to him. Let’s not hurt him anymore. Oh, Captain, if you could feel him as I have—”

            “Deanna,” Picard said softly. “You told me in the beginning I could trust him, didn’t you?”

            “Yes, Captain, and it’s more true now than ever.”

            “Counselor, do you know you have stood here and told me exactly what Doctor Crusher told me not half an hour ago?”

            Deanna’s mouth opened, then closed. “No, Captain, I didn’t know.”

            “Well, I’ll tell you what I told her. I have heard you, and I understand your viewpoint. I will make my decision soon.”

            Deanna took a few deep breaths. “Yes, Captain.”

            When she had gone, Picard steepled his fingers and stared over the top of them at his fish tank. Livingstone went round in circles. Two faces, Deanna’s and Beverly’s, floated before him, the same indignant passion lighting them. Then another came into view, a round face crowned with bushy reddish hair, the eyes dull until suddenly alight with something like the same passion. When Picard had gone down to Sickbay to investigate the strange empath Jarod had brought aboard, the man had touched him and spoken to him in his slow, heavy voice.

            “Jean-Luc…is a good captain. Jean-Luc…is a good man. Jean-Luc…does good. Jarod does good. Jean-Luc…help Jarod.”

            A good man, the empath called him, as if seeing him at his core. And what if good required him to go against Starfleet regulations, which required him to turn in a fraud?
            With a sigh he tapped his communicator. “Doctor V’Lan, please come to my ready room. I have another project for you.”

Scene 10

            The Vulcan doctor entered the brig and drew Riker to the end of the corridor, speaking quietly to him. Jarod heard Miss Parker muttered, “Oh, good. The human semi-truck again. Just what I need.”

            Broots chuckled. “He’s not Human, Miss Parker. He’s Vulcan. See the ears?”

            “Yes. They’re…attractive.” She looked at the Vulcan speculatively.

            “You can forget trying to tempt him to release you, Parker,” Sydney smiled. “Vulcans have no emotions.”

            She and Broots both looked at him in surprise. “No emotions?” Miss Parker repeated at the same time that Broots said, “I thought you didn’t know anything about it, Sydney.”

            “I know that much at least,” Sydney said. “It stayed in my mind because it interested me.”

            Against his will, Jarod grinned, mostly at himself. Yes, that would interest Sydney.

            Riker called in a security guard and left the brig. V’Lan came to Jarod’s cell. “Captain Picard would like me to perform a mindmeld on you. Will you allow me?”

            Jarod’s eyes widened. “A mindmeld! Yes! I would like that!”

            Both the doctor and the security guard gave him odd looks, but the guard released the field, and the doctor entered the cell. “Please sit down,” he said and sat beside him. “You will experience disorientation and emotional confusion. You will experience my mind and memories as I experience yours. Are you ready?”

            “Yes.”

            The Vulcan put out his right hand, pressed his fingers to Jarod’s left temple and cheekbones. Jarod briefly felt the tingling energy in the fingers as the Vulcan intoned, “My mind to your mind. My thoughts to your thoughts.” And then he was plunged into a kind of intimacy he had never experienced before, an alternate universe within his own mind.

            Parker, Broots, and Sydney jostled for position to see what was going on. “Broots,” Sydney whispered, “what is he doing?”

            “A Vulcan mindmeld,” Broots whispered back, awed. “He’s linking their minds together, so he can see Jarod’s and Jarod can see his.”

            “What?” Sydney laughed softly. “Such a thing is possible?”

            “Here it is. Gosh, I can’t believe I’m actually seeing it!”

            Miss Parker shuddered. “The idea makes me sick.”

            “Too much exposure for you, Parker,” Sydney said. “Too much honesty.”

            She glared at him. “Oh, you’re as bad as a Vulcan, Syd.”

            “That’s a compliment, Miss Parker,” he smiled.

            V’Lan and Jarod sat for a few moments after the meld had been broken, recovering. The Vulcan was shaking. He raised wide eyes to Jarod. “You are alien.”

            “Yes,” he acknowledged.

            V’Lan slowly got up and went to the entrance. The security guard released the field.

            “Are you alright, sir?”

            “Yes.” He left the brig.

            There was a long silence.

            “Jarod, are you alright?”

            “Yes, Sydney.”

            “What was that like?”

            His voice was a little shaky as he answered. “Like the most real Pretend imaginable. When I became someone, I really am him, for a moment. But this was…even more real. I was him. He was me. I have just lived a complete Vulcan life. It is…dissipating now. It is less like real memories than remembered images. But to be a Vulcan is unlike anything I have never been before. The rewash at one and the same time great calmness and great turbulence. Vulcans are emotional people, wildly so, but they put on calmness and logic like a shield and seek to keep the emotion so contained that it no longer has any impact on their lives.”

            “Ah, fascinating,” Sydney breathed.

            “It is a crippling way to live life!” Jarod flashed.

            “Yes, it is, Jarod,” Sydney said. “But one can see why they would choose it.”

            “Yes, he answered, subdued. “One can.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 11

            “Captain, I agree with Deanna and Beverly.”

            Picard stared at Riker. “You agree with them, Number One? You were the one who suspected him to begin with and convinced me to let you investigate them.”

            “I know, Captain. I had a feeling that he wasn’t what he said he was. Well, he wasn’t, and we found him out. But now we’ve found out that he is what he said he was. Intrinsically he is the man he said he was, doing the work he said he was doing. Our work, as Doctor Crusher said.”

            Picard leaned back in his chair. “It must be an extraordinary person who has made two of my senior officers so passionately willing to circumnavigate regulations on his behalf.”

            “We have circumnavigated regulations before, when the cause was more urgent than the regulations. Five Federation administrators whose work is undermining what the Federation stands for are nearly here and will be expecting Jarod to meet them. I say we let him do it.”

            Before Picard could respond, the door opened and Doctor V’Lan entered. He stood at attention before the captain.

            “Your report, Doctor?”

            “The prisoner holds no threat for the Federation, Captain. Quite the contrary. He wishes to see it prosper as much as we do. He also feels very strongly about the mission he has created for himself. He saw a need and had no hesitation about expending himself to fill the need. That is one of the major goals of his life.” The same passion that had been in Beverly’s Deanna’s, and Angelo’s eyes was quietly in the Vulcan’s. “It ought also to be one of our goals. Do we not on this ship often act as though it is?”

            Picard understood then something about the man who had called himself Jarod Westmore. For a few moments he had suspected that the man was forming a personality cult around himself, but it was different than that. Jarod received the loyalty of the people around them because he understood them, because he cared for them, and because his passion and his goals awakened their own often dormant passions and goals. Many of his people, he knew, had joined Starfleet because they wanted to change their worlds. Daily life could easily drown out those old passions. But Jarod lived his passions in his daily life, and he reawakened the core values of the people around him.

            “Captain?” Riker said when Picard’s musing silence had stretched out uncomfortably.

            “Thank you, Doctor,” Picard said. “Is there anything else?”

            V’Lan hesitated. “Captain, there could be a great deal more. I experienced his whole life in a few moments. There are things inside his head that have confounded me. He is far more alien than anyone you will ever meet on any planet you discover. But I do not think I should tell them to you. I will if you order me to, but it would be better if you did not.”

            Picard examined him for a long moment. “What you learned disturbed you.”

            “Yes, sir. But it is not about Jarod himself. It is about—” The Vulcan hesitated. “Reality. The reality of his world.”

            “Reality?” Picard’s eyes narrowed. “Do you judge that this would have any bearing on his mission here?”

            “No, sir. I do not believe so. Otherwise I would have told you immediately.”

            “Then reserve the information for such a time as you deem it necessary to tell us. Thank you, Doctor. Dismissed.”

            V’Lan nodded and left. Riker gave Picard a look.

            “Well, Captain?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 12

            “Jarod, tell us about the children,” Sydney had said. So Jarod had told them, and they all listened. Broots’ emotions showed clearly on his face. He had a child of his own. Sydney leaned back with his face tipped up, thinking who knew what. Jarod could have figured out what, but he didn’t try. He was tired of trying to be Sydney in his mind. Miss Parker listened quietly, too, and he knew she was remembering. Remembering their years in the Centre together, she the boss’s little daughter, he the company’s pet experiment, two lonely children who found a friend in each other. How had it come to this, her vivacity and sparkle subsumed under a hard exterior, their old friendship turned into a cat-and-mouse game? The Centre, of course. It had taken away who she was just as it had taken away who he was. That was why he could never bring himself to give up on her and treat her completely as his enemy, why he hunted her past as he hunted his own and reached out with veiled compassion. The Centre had hurt her as it had hurt so many others. He couldn’t believe, though, that the change was as permanent as the change Angelo had undergone. He knew his old friend still hid somewhere inside his new enemy.

            Another visitor came to the brig, and like the good Starfleet officer he wasn’t, Jarod rose to meet him. “Captain Picard,” he said.

            “Jarod,” Picard said, “put your uniform jacket back on.”

            “Sir?”

            “You have a mission to complete.” He released the forcefield. “The jacket, Jarod.”

            Dumbly Jarod put the jacket back on. Then he stood at attention as Picard came up to him. “I am granting you a field commission. You will be an acting lieutenant. Which means that you need to give me one of those pips.”

            Still dumbly, Jarod plucked it off his collar and gave it to him.

            “Acting-Lieutenant Jarod Westmore, you are authorized to complete your mission. Geordi is waiting for you in Engineering with the cloak nearly complete.”

            “Thank you, sir,” he said automatically. “Sir? To what do I owe this honor?”

            “To your own character, Jarod, which shines out of you so completely that you have had half my senior officers storming my ready room on your behalf. Including Commander Riker.”

            “Commander Riker?”

            “You will find, Jarod, that though it takes time to earn his trust, when you have earned it, there is no one more loyal than William Riker.”

            “I believe it, sir.”

            “Dismissed, Lieutenant.”

            “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”

            Jarod flew—but before he flew, he paused before the others’ cell, and he smiled at them. Broots’ grin back was full-hearted and enthusiastic. Jarod was living his fantasy, and Broots did not begrudge it to him. Sydney, too, gave him a smile that told him, like a shot, that he was proud of him. And Miss Parker put her hand against the forcefield and gave him a small nod. Do what my mother tried to do, she might have said. Succeed where she failed.

            Then Jarod flew.

Scene 13

            Five Federation officials converged on the same point of space within a few minutes of each other. There were two Starfleet admirals, a lowly lieutenant who held a very sensitive position in an Intelligence office, a commander with Starfleet Medical, and a single civilian, from the President of the Federation’s office. As was typical of Section 31, some of them didn’t know the others, and only one knew who each one was. That was the civilian, a female Coridanite named Kyan Cosam. The commander, a male Tibronian named Seriv, was involved in the development of the experimentation that would be used on the young research subjects in the Savant Project. The lieutenant, a male Human named Jefferson Nguyen, was a trained intelligence gatherer and obfuscator, trained in deflecting attention away from Section 31 and the Project. The two admirals, a female Human named Juanita Rosario, and a male Andorian named Wolosh, had worked together on development of the Savant Project under the oversight of Kyan Cosam. They arrived first in their shuttles and warily contacted each other.

            “Rosario? What are you doing here?”

            “Wolosh?—you’re not—?”

            “Were you expecting someone?”

            “Were you?”

            After a moment, they relaxed. “You got a message, didn’t you?” Admiral Rosario asked.

            “Yes, from a complete fool who needs to be taken care of,” Admiral Wolosh growled. Their communication link crackled. “Are you having instrument malfunctions?”

            “Yes. It’s the proximity to this star system. Wasn’t the Enterprise supposed to be here collecting data?”

            “They were, but I intercepted a communication saying they had gone to check out an emergency call.”

            “Hmm. Would you wager me that the ‘complete fool’ is a crewmember aboard?”

            “No wager. You’re probably right. We have two agents aboard. He might have been there collecting information on them. What does he mean by bringing two of us here? He’s at a disadvantage.”

            “Three,” a new voice cut in. The civilian, Kyan Cosam. “What are you two prepared to do about him when he shows up?”

            “You too?” Rosario exclaimed. “This person knows a lot, Cosam. Too much. We have to pretend like we’re going along with him while we find out precisely what he knows, if we can’t turn him over to our side, we kill him, make it look like a systems failure because of the interference from the star.”

            “You’re the expert in systems, Admiral. You plan it while Wolosh and I tackle him.”

            “Reading another shuttlecraft!” Wolosh exclaimed. “Shuttle, identify yourself.”

            “Admiral Wolosh?” the newest person cried. “Surely it’s not you—”

            “Commander Seriv,” Cosam said decisively, “we are all friends here. It appears we are all waiting for the same person.”

            “What kind of an idiot is he?” the commander muttered. “Bringing us all to the same place—”

            “Another shuttle approaching,” Admiral Wolosh warned. “Shuttle, identify yourself.”

            “Lieutenant Nguyen of Starfleet Intelligence! Identify yourself.”

            “So you’re the traitor we’re all waiting for.”

            “Admiral Wolosh, don’t be a fool,” Cosam snapped. “He’s with us too.”

            “This is ridiculous,” Admiral Rosario said. “We were never meant to all know each other. It’s a security risk.”

            “The intelligence officer who brought us here is an even greater risk. What is he waiting for?”

            “I was just waiting for you all to arrive,” a deep, jovial voice answered. A sixth shuttle was suddenly among them. “So glad you could make it. My name is Lieutenant Jarod Westmore.” His image suddenly sprang up on their viewscreens, a man with dark eyes, dark hair, and dark smile. “No need to introduce yourselves. I already know who you are. I also know what you do for a hobby.”

            “Who have you talked to, Lieutenant?” Admiral Wolosh snapped.

            “Well, I recently had a nice chat with a Vulcan named Sirok. Now he’s gone tearing back to your bosses for reassignment. The people he talks to are being monitored as we speak. The people they talk to will be monitored. Do you remember the old poem about the war lost ‘for the want of a six-penny nail’? Now your Project is lost for the want of a six-penny field agent.”

            “What do you want, Westmore?” Cosam asked calmly.

            “I already told you. The Federation might not use money, but plenty of other worlds do, and I want you to get me enough gold-pressed latinum to make me a king on the planet of my choice. I chose the five of you because you have very secure positions. Sirok’s information won’t take any of you down, but I have information that will, unless you pay up.”

            “Show us this information.”

            Instantly their screens were filled with documents, scrolling down to show how much information he really did have.

            “Well, Lieutenant,” Cosam said, “you are one good operative. Let me offer you something.”

            “What’s that, Cosam?”

            “A position of prestige with Section 31. It’s just your sort of organization. You have more freedom of movement than with Starfleet Intelligence, and we can make it much more worth your while. It would be a great pity to lose someone with your brains. You wouldn’t really want to settle down on some dull little planet somewhere, when you can play our dangerous game within the Federation, would you?”

            “You’re a good judge of character, Cosam. I won’t deny that I have considered it. After all, Section 31 isn’t held back by all those limiting moral considerations that impede Starfleet Intelligence. How many times have I asked my superiors to let me go after a target and been turned down because of the Prime Directive or some such rule?”

            “That’s exactly why Section 31 is here, Westmore. We don’t let such things hold us back. We do things no one else is willing to do. And we do it all for the sake of the Federation. No traitors here.”

            “Well, it’s temping, but I have to refuse. I’m tired of this game, always running and hiding, almost being found out, never sitting still for a moment. I would like to experience a quiet life for once. I’ll take the latinum.”

            The Coridanite woman’s lips curled in a cruel smile. “You’re a fool, Westmore. You must know we’ll never let you escape alive.”

            “I’m not worried. My shuttle is well protected.”

            “Doubly a fool, Westmore. When you selected this star system for your rendezvous, did you take into account the stars’ effect on your systems? And if you had done your research, you would have known that Admiral Rosario is an expert in starship security systems. Admiral?”

            “I’m through his shields, Cosam.”

            “Lock on and fire.”

            Their blackmailer stared around frantically and worked his controls. Moments later his shuttle exploded under Rosario’s phaser fire.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 14

            “Well done!” Admiral Wolosh exclaimed. “Lock tractor beams and tow the debris into the nearest star.”

            “Yes, well done indeed,” the deep voice with a smirk in it responded. The blackmailer’s image in his red and black uniform appeared on their screens again. “You didn’t really think I was on that shuttlecraft, did you? While we’re at it, do you really think you’re still on your own shuttlecrafts?” His lips curved in a cruel smile of his own.

            Their shuttlecrafts and the view from the viewscreens all disappeared. Their heads swam and felt suddenly heavy, everything dark. Once by one they felt the heaviness being yanked off their heads, and then they saw they were together in a small grey room. Jarod Westmore was piling five holoprojector helmets in a corner.

            “You see, the moment you entered this system, you were beamed onto my ship. You’ve been held unconscious in stasis for a week while we traveled to the planet we’re now on. Yes, you’ve lost a week of your lives. My little holographic scenario was clever, wasn’t it?”

            “What was the point, Lieutenant?” Admiral Rosario asked, stripping off the gloves that went with the helmets.

            “To get you to give me verbal confirmation of your involvement with Section 31. It worked, didn’t it? Your murder of me was an added benefit. Only one thing remains. At least one of you knows the location of the children who have been kidnapped for the Savant Project. You will tell me where they are.”

            “Actually, we won’t.” Cosam glared at the other four. “Say nothing.”

            Jarod shrugged. “It’s your choice. I’ll have to ask you to come with me.”

            Admiral  Wolosh stepped up to him, impressively, though his blue antennae barely tickled Jarod’s chin. “Lieutenant Jarod Westmore, I am still a Starfleet Admiral, and I order you to stand down.”

            Jarod smirked at him. “Tempting, but you know, you only have authority over Starfleet personnel. And I’m not really a Starfleet officer. Guards!”

            Five large guards entered the room and took the five of them well in hand. Admiral Wolosh, the one who might have had a chance to fight his way out, had a very tall Vulcan guard who kept a hand on his shoulder, ready to pinch him unconscious the moment it became necessary. They followed Jarod out of the room, down a dull grey corridor, and into another room. This one was quite large, on two levels; the prisoners followed Jarod onto the top level and sat down on a balcony overlooking the lower level.

            Jarod tapped his communicator. “Bring them in.”

            Below they watched more guards—not in uniform as Jarod was—bring in nine figures. Small figures. Admiral Wolosh jolted to his feet.

            “Sath!” he shouted. “That’s my son! What are you doing with my son? Sath!” Below the small blue figure with white hair and antennae whose angle spoke of great distress did not look up from his dejected contemplation of his feet.

            Now the others realized what they were seeing and rushed to the rail. “That’s my brother!” Lieutenant Nguyen cried.

            “My children!” Cosam pointed a shaking finger at three small figures, all identical.

            The lieutenant turned on Jarod. “What are you doing with our children?”

            The guards firmly restored the prisoners to their seats. Jarod stood in front of them with crossed arms. “They can’t hear you. They don’t know you’re here. Here’s the deal. You have twelve children held captive for your Savant Project. I have your nine children—and brother, Lieutenant—held captive here. One of you will tell me where to find the first group, or you will join their parents in never seeing your children again.”

            “Westmore—!” Admiral Wolosh shouted.

            “Now, now, Admiral. Don’t be so upset. Those are just nine resources at the Federation’s disposal down there. What shall we do with nine warm bodies equipped with brains? Train them as assassins? That would help with the Cardassian problem, wouldn’t it? Or take the two who are extraordinarily intelligent—” he nodded to Admiral Rosario—“and develop their minds to deal with special problems—like the Q, perhaps. Or maybe just give them away to some highly-placed Federation officials who are wanting to adopt children. They will never know what happened to you. They may even forget you and who they are.”

            Below them they could see that some of the children were crying. One of the Human children asked a guard plaintively, “Where are my mom and dad? You said they’d be here.”

            Commander Seriv sprang up. “Westmore, how can you do this?”

            Jarod took him by the collar and slammed him down in his chair. “How could you do this? This is what you are doing! Imprisoned in that little research lab at Starfleet Medical, making your little plots, did it ever occur to you what you were going to do to real children? Well, now you’ll understand! And if you don’t speak, your children will be gone! Permanently!”

            “I don’t know,” he cried. “I would tell you if I knew, but I don’t! That wasn’t my job!”

            “Well, your job, which you did so very well, will lose you your children, unless one of the others tells the truth.”

            “Cosam!” the commander cried. “Tell him! Tell him the truth!”

            Cosam’s lips tightened. Jarod tapped his communicator. “It’s time to tell the children about the terrible accident their parents were in.” He smiled at Cosam. “It’ll be traumatizing. They’ll never fully recover. That that’s the price we pay.”

            “Wait!” Cosam cried, her composure finally crumbling. “Wait! I’ll tell you!”

            Jarod put his face down close to hers. “It had better be the truth.”

            With trembling lips, she told him. He tapped his communicator again and repeated the information.

            “Now let them go!” Cosam shouted.

            “No, now we wait to see if your information was true. You’d all better hope it was.”

            They waited an hour, possibly two hours, every second dragging out. Below, the children milled around, some still crying, scared, even bored. Jarod stood leaning against the rail the whole time, his back to the children, his narrowed eyes on the parents, his arms crossed. Finally his communicator beeped.

            “They’ve been found, Jarod. All safe.” The accented voice sounded familiar.

            Jarod sank down on his haunches, his shaking hands going over his face. “Thank God,” he muttered. “Thank God.” Breathing hard, he stood up again. “Thank you, Captain Picard.”

            Picard?

            “Computer, end program,” Jarod said.

            And the room, the guards, and above all the children disappeared to be replaced by a holodeck grid.

            “Wha—” The prisoners’ heads swam again.

            “Welcome to the Enterprise,” Jarod said.

            “The Enterprise?” Rosario gasped. “We detected no ships!”

            “She was cloaked. We picked you up as soon as you entered the star system a few hours ago.”

            “A few hours?” Lieutenant Nguyen gasped in his turn. “Not a week?”

            “No.”

            “I’m not even sure what’s real anymore.”

            “That’s an effect Section 31 will have on you. Welcome to Oz.”

Scene 15

            When the prisoners had been led out by real Enterprise security guards, Jarod followed them slowly out. Deanna met him in the corridor outside, smiling broadly. She spread her arms wide, and he stepped into them and hugged her.

            “Congratulations, Lieutenant Westmore,” she laughed. “The children are safe. Their parents have been contacted and are on their way to meet them.”

            His eyes were bright with tears and joy at the same time. “Someday that will be me.”

            “It will be. It must be. Come on. You’re due for a debriefing.”

            As they walked, Jarod said, “Thank God Starfleet was willing to act on my evidence and go in search of the children when we got them the location.”

            Deanna grinned. “I understand there was a considerable uproar, Jarod, but there was enough evidence there—particularly the recordings from Sirok—that they were willing to forestall committee meetings and follow the evidence. They had ships and security teams ready to go anywhere. They did not expect them to be in Australia! Some remote asteroid outpost, maybe.”

            “They were playing it very close to their chest.”

            The door of the briefing room swooshed open, and Jarod was met by cheers and applause. He blinked, taken aback and strangely moved. Many times he slipped out of a Pretend before anyone could think to thank him. On rare, cherished occasions, he received a tearful hug from a family member. He had never received a standing ovation.

            The officers crowded around him. Beverly gave him the same sort of hug Deanna had. Geordi pumped his hand. “Brilliant, Jarod! Brilliant!”

            Worf growled at him in Klingon, “wa' Dol nIvDaq matay'DI' maQap,” an expression of honor loosely translated, “We succeeded together in a greater whole.”

            Data said formally, “Congratulations on your success, Lieutenant.”

            And then Riker was holding out his hand with a grin and saying, “Well done, Jarod.” Jarod squeezed his hand with a smile.

            “Acting-Lieutenant,” Picard said over the noise. Jarod came to attention. “You have an odd way of accomplishing things, Jarod, but we are all thankful you have accomplished them. Now have a seat. We have a debriefing to do.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 16

            Jarod went down to the brig for the last time. He was carrying his silver briefcase of DSAs that Angelo had hidden away for him. It also contained the formula Doctor Crusher had come up with. Now he only had to find a way in which his world could isolate the serotonin isotope and deliver it to Angelo’s brain.

            Sydney met him with a smile. “You did it, Jarod. They let us watch your mission.”

            “I know. I asked them to.”

            “You did it!”

            Jarod smiled. “Yes, I did.”

            “The holodeck was a brilliant idea,” Broots said. “I’d never have thought of that. But I don’t understand—”

            “Later. We have to go now.” Jarod released their forcefield.

            “Go?” Miss Parker frowned.

            “Before Starfleet Security arrives to collect the prisoners. Technically Captain Picard should turn us all over to them, but he is delaying his complete report until we’re safely gone.”

            “Breaking a rule?” Sydney asked.

            “Circumventing it. Be grateful. We won’t have to spend any more time in Starfleet brigs.”

            “Where are we going?” Miss Parker demanded.

            “Home, of course.”

            “Home? But you said we couldn’t go home! Angelo had the recall device, and he took it with him.”

            Jarod grinned. “All it requires is a very complex transportation formula, and that I’ve got in my head.”

            She wheeled on him. “You mean we could have gone this whole time?”

            He shrugged. “Sorry. I couldn’t risk it. Now go.” Something silver in his hand pointed at her.

            “That’s my gun!”

            “You’ll get it back, Miss Parker.”

            Broots was looking hurt. “My little girl’s going to be frantic. I’ve been gone nearly a week. You—you shouldn’t have done that, Jarod.” He flinched as Jarod put out a hand to his shoulder.

            “Don’t worry, Broots. I’ll get you back before she even notices you’re gone. Now come on!”

            In the elevator, a Vulcan joined them. Miss Parker glared at him, but he didn’t even look at her. “You wished to see me, Jarod?”

            “Yes.” Jarod handed him a small package. “A young doctor named Julian Bashir works on Space Station Deep Space Nine. He will need this information in 2374. Will you see that he gets it?”

            “Yes.”

            “Thank you, V’Lan. It has been an honor working with you.”

            “And with you.” V’Lan spread his fingers in the Vulcan salute. “Live long and prosper, Jarod.”

            “Mene sakhet ur-seveh, V’Lan.”

            The Vulcan stepped off the elevator. Broots looked wide-eyed at Jarod. “Doctor Bashir! You’re going to give him the evidence to take down Section 31?”

            “From the most recent episode, we know Section 31 survives at least another seven years, long enough to try to get him involved. Well, maybe now he will have a chance to do something about it. Here’s our deck.”

            A number of people awaited him in the transporter room. He had already said goodbye to Data, Geordi, Worf (who had told him seriously, “Dajonlu'pa' bIHeghjaj,” a wish that he would die before he was ever captured, a wish Jarod echoed), and Guinan, as well as the children he had briefly taught. Now Picard, Riker, Beverly, and Deanna stood waiting. He nudged Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots onto the transporter pad with the gun, which he then tucked into his waistband. Broots showed Parker and Sydney where to stand.

            Picard had dismissed the transporter operator. Jarod entered the coordinates, so complex an entry that Riker stared. Then Jarod turned to his friends.

            Beverly came and hugged him for a long moment. He put his face on her shoulder and pretended, for a moment, that he had found his mother. Sydney raised an eyebrow and smiled a little.

            Riker put out his hand. “It’s been an adventure working with you, Jarod.”

            “With you, too, Will,” Jarod said with a smile.

            “No hard feelings?”

            “None. You do your job well. Captain Picard is fortunate to have you for his Number One.” He put out his hand to Picard. “Captain, thank you for trusting me.”

            Picard shook it. “Thank you for teaching us our job, Jarod. You are officially relieved of duty.”

            “Thank you, sir.”

            He turned to Deanna last, sighed and shrugged a little, at a loss for words.

            She smiled at him. “Goodbye, Jarod.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed him softly on the lips.

            With one of his painful smiles, he stepped up on the transporter pad. He raised an eyebrow and held up his hand in the Vulcan salute, directed a smirk at Miss Parker. “Back to life as we know it. May you live long but not prosper, Miss Parker. At least in catching me.”

            Riker activated the transporter.

Scene 17

            Miss Parker, Sydney, and Broots stood in the lab staring at the machine.

            “We’ve been dreaming, right?” Miss Parker murmured.

            “Mass hallucinations are the stuff of fantasy, Miss Parker,” Sydney answered.

            “And that was fantasy,” Broots chuckled. “I guess Jarod must have put in two different sets of coordinates.”

            “He still has my gun!”

            One of Broots’ fellow technicians hurried into the room with a box. “Oh, there you are! I’ve been looking for you for like an hour!”

            They all three slowly turned and stared at him.

            “An hour!” Miss Parker repeated.

            He backed away a step. “Uh, yes, Miss Parker. Someone said they saw you in here an hour ago, but you were gone. I figured you’d gone to lunch, but everyone said you’d never left.”

            “An hour? What’s the date?”

            “The—date?”

            “The date, moron!”

            “Uh—uh—” When he floundered helplessly, Miss Parker grabbed his arm  and looked at his watch, dropping it as if burned. She wheeled back to the other two.

            “It’s the day we left!” she hissed.

            Sydney’s mouth opened. “What?”

            “A hole in space and time,” Broots breathed. “He put us back where he wanted and when. And my little girl will never even know I was gone.”

            The technician was staring at them. “Um—Miss Parker? We found this. It was buried at the bottom of a big box of Jarod’s stuff.”

            She took it. It was a white box tied with a black bow, labeled “Miss Parker.” Hurriedly she tore off the bow and opened it. And there nestled in white tissue was her silver Smith and Weston.

            She, Sydney, and Broots gaped at it for a moment. Then she turned on the technician. “Where did you say you found this?”

            “In a box of stuff Jarod left in that warehouse! Strange pieces of technology we can’t figure out.”

            “Has anyone else been in there since…” she floundered. “Since we brought the stuff back?”

            “No! Just those of us working on it. And it’s all locked up when we aren’t using it.”

            “Hey, Miss Parker,” Broots said, “here’s something I didn’t notice before. See Jarod’s uniform? It had two lieutenant’s pips when we brought it here. But Jarod was a commander when we arrived—he had three pips. He didn’t get his commander’s pip taken away until…earlier today, I guess. Or would that be a week from now?”

            The technician still stared at them.

            “Anything else?” Miss Parker demanded.

            “No…but—what—?”

            She smiled her coldest smile at him. “We’re practicing for the company play. Now leave!”

            He left.

            “What are you saying, Broots?”

            “Uh—time travel?”

            Sydney turned to him. “Do you think Jarod arrived before he left?”

            “Well, how else did her gun get put back there?”

            A faint squeaking suddenly galvanized them. They turned toward the door as Mr. Raines came slowly in, dragging his oxygen tank behind him.

            “Have you figured it out yet,” he rasped. “This machine Jarod left?”

            “Yes,” Miss Parker said. “It’s a dud. A red herring to keep us from going after him. Sydney thinks he’s on some special case that means a lot to him. Meanwhile we’ve been playing with this stupid thing for days.”

            “Miss Parker—”

            “You don’t need to lecture me! I’ll get him next time.”

            “You’d better, Miss Parker.” He walked slowly out, dragging his oxygen tank behind him.

            “Zombie,” muttered Miss Parker.

            “Protecting Jarod, Miss Parker?” Sydney asked with a smile.

            “No, I’m not protecting Jarod! But can you imagine what would happen if the Centre got their hands on that universe? Your Deanna Troi would be sharing ventilation shafts with Angelo.”

            Broots chuckled. “The Centre could never get the better of a starship crew, Miss Parker. You should know that by now.”

            “Well, listen, Broots. You make sure this machine doesn’t work anymore. I do not want a repeat of this week. Ugg,” she groaned. “I can’t believe I’ve been wearing the same clothes for a week. I’m going to burn this suit. See you guys tomorrow. I’m going home.”

            A familiar sound made them all jump, a quiet sort of beep. “Jarod to Miss Parker,” a disembodied voice said.

            “Where is he?” Miss Parker hissed.

            “The communicator!” Broots gasped and snatched it up off the table. “It really works!”

            Miss Parker grabbed it from him. “Jarod! Where are you?”

            “You have to tap it, Miss Parker. And you don’t have to hold it to your mouth like a microphone.”

            Miss Parker hit the little metal badge in her hand. “Jarod, where are you?”

            “In a different time and place than you are, Miss Parker, but, strangely enough, using the same communicator you are. I just wanted to make sure you’d gotten home alright. I couldn’t be quite sure of that equation. Time travel isn’t the easiest thing to get right.”

            “I lied to Raines for you, Jarod!” she snapped.

            “I gave you back your week, Miss Parker. We’re even. Did you get your gun?”

            “Yes, I did. Broots thinks you’ve discovered time travel.”

            They could hear the smirk in his voice. “I should tell you that I set a timer in my transporter. It won’t work anymore.”

            “Good. The thing’s a menace.”

            “In the wrong hands it certainly is. Miss Parker?”

            “What, Jarod?”

            “Take care of Angelo.”

            “Jarod—Jarod? Jarod, are you still there?”

            There was silence. Jarod had disappeared into the world outside the Centre again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 18

            Jarod had materialized in his warehouse. He glanced around for a few moments to get his bearings before tapping his communicator and speaking to Miss Parker. Then, with a grin, he plucked off the communicator and headed out of the warehouse.

            The owner lived nearby. Jarod knocked on his door.

            “Oh, hey, Jarod. Wow! Nice uniform! The convention must have been good. You look all excited.”

            “The convention was incredible, Steve. Look, I’ll be leaving tomorrow, and some friends of mine will be coming to clear out the warehouse. I got one of them a gift. Will you see that she gets it?”

            “Sure, Jarod.” He admired the communicator. “Boy, that’s a beauty. Not like those plastic ones they make.”

            “Do you have a little box to put it in? I’ll pay you for it.”

            “Forget it. I’ll find something. How will I know your friend?”

            “Oh, you’ll know her. She’s very beautiful, but not very happy. Thanks, Steve.”

            He went back to the warehouse and made some alterations to the transportation machine. When he was done, he found a box and some tissue and a ribbon that had accompanied his Starfleet uniform when he ordered it from a fan club in California. Removing Miss Parker’s gun from his waistband, he put it in the box, tied it up neatly, wrote her name on it in his precise handwriting, and buried it in the bottom of a box of spare components.

            A hand landed on his shoulder and spun him up and around. He caught his balance and grinned at himself. His younger self stared, wide-eyed, and then laughed. “So it works!”

            “It works. I was just leaving something for Miss Parker. Look, I’ll get out of your hair. There doesn’t need to be two of us here. Just a couple of things. Don’t make any changes to the timers in the transportation machine, but once you’ve activated your own transport to San Francisco, set it to transport the second time to a Jeffries tube on the Enterprise.”

            His younger self knew better than to ask why. He nodded. “Why don’t you sleep at the apartment tonight? I have things to finish here. You’ll need some different clothes.”

            “Whereas you won’t.” He grinned at the uniform with its three commander’s pips folded neatly on a chair. “We’ll leave the uniform I’m wearing here for Broots. He’ll enjoy that.”

            His younger self grinned back. “Anything else I should know?”

            “No. You know what they say in Starfleet. Any knowledge of your own future could have serious consequences for the timeline.” He shrugged. “For all I know, I could be wrecking the space-time continuum by standing here talking to myself.”

            His younger self chuckled with him. “Where are you going now?”

            “I thought…Los Angeles.” He put out his hand and wryly shook with himself.

            He was out of the apartment early the next morning, having packed up his few things, all except the Starfleet uniform with two lieutenant’s pips and the things he had taken with him to the world of the Federation. A short time later he sat in his rented car and watched himself enter the apartment and come out with the things he had left. His younger self caught sight of the car and gave it a jaunty wave.

            Later that evening he was outside the warehouses, in his car again, and he watched as Miss Parker, with Sydney and Sam the Sweeper in tow, pulled up in a large black car and met Steve the distraught warehouse owner. He smiled. Welcome to the adventure. Putting the car in gear, he pulled away and found the road for Los Angeles.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Scene 19

            Following Captain Picard up to the bridge, Riker said in a low tone to Deanna, “What was that about?”

            “What?” she asked in the tone that hid a laugh behind it. He knew that tone well.

            “That kiss. Are you in love with him, Deanna?”

            “Not that it’s any of your business, Will, but no, I am not. That kiss was…an acknowledgement.”

            “An acknowledgement?”

            “That despite Jarod’s extraordinary gifts and curses, he’s just a Human, like the rest of us, and deserves to find happiness and peace just as much as the rest of us do. I’m not sure he’s fully aware of that yet.”

            Riker raised an eyebrow. “You can communicate all that with a kiss?”

            Deanna laughed at him.

            They stepped out onto the elevator and took their seats. Data told Picard, “The course is laid in for our rendezvous with Starfleet Security, sir.”

            Thinking of the report he had to give, Picard shook his head wryly. “Engage.”

 

            The makeup artists were at work, chatting away despite the ungodly hour of the morning. Two were doing Vulcans and had only been there half an hour or so. One was doing a Cardassian and had been there since long before the other two had gotten out of bed. Another was later yet and was getting things ready for the easy Humans who would be coming in later. Of the three actors present, two were firmly asleep in their chairs, but one of the Vulcans was chatting brightly.

            “Yes, it’s my first job on the show. I don’t actually care that I’m no more than set dressing. It’s quite an honor to be part of it.”

            “A lot of the actors say that,” his makeup artist said, delicately applying a latex ear.

            “Well, you know it’s not everyone who gets to be a Vulcan,” the Vulcan said with a deep chuckle.

            “It’s not everyone who gets to put the ears on a Vulcan,” she smiled back.

            “No, I suppose not.” He grinned as if he knew exactly how she felt about it. “Speaking of which, I was kind of hoping to meet Michael Westmore. I’m a big fan of his makeup designs. He creates so many different roles. What an imagination! I know it’s asking a lot, worming my way in to meet the makeup supervisor, but do you know whether it would be possible?”

            She paused, spirit-gum in hand. “I could get you in. He’s not a hard man to track down. No problem.”

            “Really?”

            “Yeah. You’re a nice guy. Maybe you can do me a favor one of these days.”

            “I sincerely hope I can.
            “Say, what’s your name, anyway?”

            A child-like grin crossed his face. “My name is Jarod. Jarod Crusher.”

            “No way!”

            “Well, it’s better than Jarod Worf.”

            “Yeah, it is. Hey, kids! Did you hear this guy’s name?”

            Soon jokes were flying around the makeup trailer at the Vulcan’s expense, he laughing and making as many as anyone else. Presently the call came. “On set! Starfleet extras on set!”

            Jarod Crusher rose. “That’s me.” He pulled off the voluminous bib from around his neck, revealing a grey, black, and blue-green uniform with lieutenant’s pips. “Medical Officer V’Lan at your service.”

            “V’Lan?” his makeup artist asked, admiring him. He really did look like a Vulcan.

            “They didn’t give me a name in the script, so I made one up. Good, solid Vulcan.” He flashed them a smile and the Vulcan salute. “Mene sakhet ur-seveh.”

 

Background Notes

 

Doctor Crusher’s serotonin isotope: In the Pretender 2nd season finale “Bloodlines,” a few episodes after “Crossover” takes place, Sydney begins running Angelo through a series of experimental treatments, hoping he can reverse his condition and bring back Timmy, Angelo’s former genius-self. Sydney tells Miss Parker that Jarod had developed the treatment using a serotonin isotope. A series of treatments must be given to Angelo over a certain space of time, and if he doesn’t receive each treatment, his condition will completely regress. Over the course of the treatments, Angelo improves drastically, regaining memories, abilities, and IQ. When Jarod discovers that Mr. Raines has done to another little boy what he did to Timmy, he and Angelo rescue the boy and try to synthesize another dosage of the serotonin isotope for him. They fail, and Angelo volunteers his final treatment. The little boy’s life and personality are saved, but Angelo’s sacrifice causes his complete and permanent regression back to his empathic state. Angelo is my hero.

 

Doctor Bashir and Section 31: In a Star Trek: Deep Space 9 episode that aired less than a month before “Crossover” takes place, entitled “Inquisition,” Section 31 approaches Doctor Julian Bashir about joining them, in the year 2374. He refuses. They try again several times but only succeed in making him determined to expose them. He is ultimately stonewalled by forces within the Federation during a major war. Perhaps with Jarod’s evidence, he will succeed, in an alternate timeline.

 

Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges: A later Deep Space 9 Section 31 episode shows Doctor Bashir leaving Space Station Deep Space 9 for a conference on the Romulan homeworld and ending up exposing an attempted Section 31 assassination on a Romulan official. The episode’s title is Latin for “In time of war the law falls silent,” a philosophy of ancient Rome and of Section 31 that claims war gives leeway for unlawful actions. Bashir contests that claim and the insinuation that the Federation is like the Roman empire. The episode aired in March 1999 and would have been filmed sometime that previous summer, a perfect time and a perfect theme for an episode for Jarod to be in as an extra.

 

Michael Westmore: Michael Westmore was makeup supervisor and makeup director for Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Voyager, and Enterprise and worked on the four Next Generation movies as well.

 

Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing: In Star Trek: The Original Series, power relays aboard the Enterprise were often labeled with tiny labels to make them look official. As a joke, the set designers used the acronym GNDN, which they said means "Goes Nowhere, Does Nothing." Other jokes like this continued throughout all the series.

Jeffries Tubes: Jeffries tubes are maintenance shafts aboard Federation starships, designed to allow crewmembers to access ship's systems and to get around the ship in the case of a loss of power to the elevators. They were named after Matt Jeffries, the Original Series production designer who designed the look of the original Enterprise.