“Noted,” Xiong said. “Let’s run a full diagnostic and make sure we didn’t break anything.” While Theriault and Klisiewicz subjected the array, the isolation chamber, and all its related systems to a thorough review as a precaution before conducting more experiments, Xiong left the shielded area of the master control panel and made a quick review of the outer stations’ data, so that he could add those findings to his report. He would file a detailed account of the test’s success, qualified with all the appropriate caveats and warnings, but he was fairly certain no one at Starfleet Command or Research and Development would pay any attention to anything except whether they had achieved the desired result.

He stopped at an unmanned auxiliary station beside the isolation chamber and compared the readings from several different sensor palettes to see if they had detected any interesting new correlations. As he waited for the computer to finish its analysis, he couldn’t help but stare at the array. His eyes were drawn to the web of interlinked crystals, all of which now burned with the wild, kaleidoscopic hues of captive Shedai essences. Though he and the now-departed civilian scientists had mastered the challenge of negating the artifacts’ fear-inducing aura, he imagined he could still sense the terrifying energy trapped inside those fragile containers.

Stop, he told himself. Shake it off. You’re freaking yourself out. It’s just nerves, is all.

From the overhead PA came the voice of the station’s senior communications officer, Lieutenant Judy Dunbar. “Ops to Lieutenant Xiong.”

Xiong opened a response channel from the work console. “This is Xiong.”

“You have a priority transmission from the starship Repulse on a coded frequency.”

This was it: the verdict on their insane undertaking. “Patch it down here, please.”

“Routing the signal to your office,” Dunbar said.

Xiong hurried across the lab, dashing and dodging around the other Starfleet scientists, until he reached his office. He scrambled behind his desk and saw that the signal from the Repulse was waiting to be answered on his secure terminal. As he sat down, Theriault and Klisiewicz appeared in his office doorway, and he waved them inside as he opened the channel. The face of the Repulse’s youthful commanding officer, Captain Eugene Myers, appeared on his screen. “Captain Myers,” Xiong said, coiled with anticipation.

“Lieutenant Xiong,” Myers said, his manner guarded. “My crew and I don’t know quite what to make of the readings we’ve taken for you.”

“Just give me the high points, Captain.”

“The high points? All right. For no reason we can determine, space-time folded in on itself, pulverized Ursanis II—a Class D planetoid—and then the whole mess winked out of existence. Would you care to explain that? Can you explain that?”

“I’m sorry, Captain, I’m afraid all other details of this operation are classified. I presume you and your crew have already been briefed by Starfleet Intelligence?”

Myers cocked one eyebrow with suspicion. “Yes, we’re all painfully aware that we were never here, this never happened, and we didn’t see any of what didn’t happen. Or else we’ll all be living out the rest of our natural lives in a penal colony on Izar’s frozen moon.”

Xiong nodded. “Sounds about right. Thanks for your help, Captain. Xiong out.” He switched off the terminal, closing the subspace channel, and looked up, wide-eyed, at Theriault and Klisiewicz. “Did you hear that? We just obliterated a planet at a range of ninety-six light-years with the press of a button! Even the debris disappeared.” He reclined his chair and took a deep breath to slow the furious tempo of his pulse. “Wow.”

Klisiewicz looked stunned. “I can’t deny it’s kind of a rush to think we’re controlling that kind of power. But all I can think about is what’ll happen if it winds up in the wrong hands.”

His sentiment seemed to strike a chord with Theriault. “Ming, can you think of a single good reason why Starfleet would need to be able to crush planets from a hundred light-years away? Or even a slightly not-crazy reason?” She raised her hands in a pantomime of surrender. “Because I’m drawing a blank, here.”

As much as Xiong wanted to bask in the satisfaction of a major accomplishment, monstrous though it might be, he had to admit his friends were right. Nothing about this experiment boded well for the future, and imagining all the ways this technology could be abused filled him with a pervasive dread. “Then I guess the next question—”

The beeping of an internal comm cut him off. He thumbed open the channel. “Xiong.”

“This is Jackson” said the station’s chief of security. “I need you up here at Ezthene’s habitat, on the double.”

The urgency of the request drew troubled looks from Xiong and his two colleagues. Worried that he already knew the answer, he asked, “Why? What’s going on?”

“It looks like our resident Tholian’s having a psychotic episode.”

Xiong was out of his chair and running for the door. “On my way.”

Five minutes later, Xiong dashed out of a turbolift and sprinted the last several meters to the outer hatch of Ezthene’s customized habitat. Inside the enclosure, the pressure and temperature were extreme enough to disintegrate most organic matter, and the majority of substances that could survive those elements would succumb to the corrosive effects of the various compounds that served as an atmosphere for their Tholian refugee.

Lieutenant Haniff Jackson waited beside the hatch with Lieutenant Felicia Knight, the station’s preeminent expert on Tholian biology. The two of them peered through a ten-inch-thick viewport of specially treated transparent steel. Neither seemed to note Xiong’s approach, so he called out, “What’s happening in there?”

Jackson stepped aside and motioned for Xiong to take his place. “See for yourself.”

Xiong pressed up against the window and peered into the ruby mists of Ezthene’s habitat. “Where is he? I don’t see him.”

“Look down,” Knight said.

As indicated, the expatriate Tholian was lying on the deck in front of the inner hatch, below a unique interface panel that had been designed to enable Ezthene to initiate contact with those outside his segregated compartment. His orthorhombic limbs were all curled inward, as if to shield his abdomen and thorax. Xiong asked, “Has he moved?”

“A couple of times,” Jackson said. “He alternates between—”

Ezthene sprang from the deck and flailed about in wild, jerking movements. His piercing screech shrilled over the open intercom channel like a diamond drill cutting through duranium. He slammed his body against the walls and the inner hatch, and his ponderous thuds of impact were audible through the reinforced bulkheads. Xiong recoiled by instinct as Ezthene threw himself violently against the transparent barrier.

Hoping to end the tantrum, Xiong reached over and spoke into the intercom. “Ezthene! Calm down, please. It’s me, Ming Xiong.” Ezthene continued his display, his ferocity undiminished. “Ezthene, can you hear me? It’s Xiong. Please respond!”

“The voice!” shrieked Ezthene, his words sounding as harsh from the universal translator as they did in his native language. “The voice!”

He kept repeating those same two words, over and over, until Xiong turned off the intercom. “That’s not good,” he muttered.

Knight turned her baffled stare in his direction. “You know what that means?”

“I have some idea,” Xiong said. “But please don’t ask. I guarantee you really don’t want to know.” He turned toward Jackson. “Have you been maintaining surveillance on Ezthene?”

“Twenty-four seven,” Jackson said, “just like the admiral ordered.”