When, after a century of guidance, their Oracle fell silent, it was the Guardians who had led the Orishan people underground, where they could continue to live and thrive without fear of displeasing the Eye.

  “The others go about their lives,” she said. “They breed and weave. They toil and build. But we must protect them.”

  “It seems you’ve done well with that too,” said Vale.

  “The [Oracle] has not spoken in many cycles, Commanderchristinevale,” said A’yujae’Tak. “So much time without word to say if we have pleased Erykon. We have done so much. We have come too far this time to have it all destroyed.”

  In that moment Vale thought she understood. These beings weren’t hostile or malevolent. They were terrified. Whatever the Eye really was, whatever the truth of her religious stories really was, one thing was clear. Something had happened to Orisha, over and over, to the point that the entire civilization was little more than a whipped dog, fearing even the hint of its master’s displeasure. Having been on the wrong side of terror more than once in her life, she knew very well the lengths to which someone might go to find peace of mind.

  They had been on their own, in a permanent state of fear for centuries, without even this Oracle of theirs to help them. They were smart, inventive, and increasingly skilled at hiding themselves from the thing they feared most.

  “We must protect Orisha,” said A’yujae’Tak. “We must never suffer that way again. Erykon must see this. You come from above. You were in the Shattered Place. Do you know Erykon’s will, Commanderchristinevale?”

  They were all staring at her. Every Orishan in the room, from the Mater down to the lowliest drone, had focused all their attention on Vale and whatever tiny hope she might give. They had lived with the fear of their imminent destruction for so long, so constantly, that it now permeated everything they did, everything they thought. What could she possibly tell them that could take that away?

  “I don’t know Erykon’s will,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  “Do you know Erykon’s nature?” said A’yujae’Tak. “Is Erykon [possible meaning: God]? Or merely some [possible meaning: mundane] celestial phenomenon?”

  “I-” Easy, Chris, she told herself. These people are desperate and terrified. You don’t want to shake their paradigm more than you have to. “I can’t answer that.”

  Something like regret rippled through the entire company, and Vale was sure she had disappointed them all in some fundamental, even primal way.

  “All right, Commanderchristinevale,” said the Mater. “Then perhaps we can learn the true nature of Erykon together.”

  A’yujae’Tak made a clicking noise in her thorax, and several of the smaller Orishans began frantically inputting codes into their various stations. The great central viewing monitor rippled, losing the image it had been displaying of one of the other Spires in favor of, well, Vale wasn’t exactly sure what it was she was looking at.

  There was a sort of undulating rainbow effect rolling across the screen, peppered all over with tiny black dots that seemed fixed in their positions.

  It took her only a second to realize she was looking at deep space via means developed by these beings. The black dots were clearly stars and, she guessed, the rainbow effect must correspond to the weird energy patterns in this system.

  Presently the image shifted again and other shapes became visible, ones that Vale found distressingly familiar. The first was a massive swirling orb of chaos. Was that Erykon? She couldn’t get a sense of its size without a reference point when that reference point presented itself in the form of a heavy-class Starfleet shuttle dropping out of warp distressingly close to the thing.

  All the blood rushed out of her face when she realized what she was seeing, what had obviously happened. That’s us, she thought. Before we fired the probe.

  It occurred to her also that there had to be something up there watching all this and relaying the signal back to the Spire, and she realized that she was watching her own actions of two days ago from the point of view of the watchdog vessel.

   They weren’t watchdogs at all, she thought. They were exploring, just like us. Only their motivations were different.

  “There is a larger [possible meaning: intruder] corrupting the local waves out beyond the other of Erykon’s creations,” said the Mater, and Vale was sure she heard a bit of malice creeping into the tone. “Do you have [possible meaning: knowledge] of this thing?”

  There it was. She could admit knowledge of Titan, of the mission, of the shuttle’s attempt to land on Orisha and get them to stop their warp experiments. She could beg the Mater not to allow the events she knew had already occurred to progress as they had before, thereby creating a paradox that should save her friends. Or she could follow the rules, protect the temporal line and let them and probably herself, Troi, Keru, and Ra-Havreii die.

  This was where Will Riker had been only days before, and now she understood the horrible price noninterference could exact on any officer, much less a captain.

   Screw it, she thought. They can court-martial me when we get home.

  The information poured out of her so fast she was sure the translator in her badge could never keep pace. She told them, as quickly as she could, of the events that had led Titanhere, what Titanwas, who it represented, and how there really was no need for anyone to fire anything at anybody much less the warp cannon on the nose of the Orishan ship.

  “You are [possible meaning: brain injured],” said A’yujae’Tak once Vale was done.

  “No,” said Vale, suddenly desperate and struggling futilely against the grip of the soldier who now held her. The watchdog vessel had already fired on the shuttle once and missed. It was now gearing up for its second shot. “It’s the truth. If you just let them alone-”

  But it was already too late.

  Vale watched, fascinated in spite of herself, as the warp cannon fired. The space around the bolt rippled very much like the waves the Orishans described. At the last instant another ripple appeared around the shuttle-Jaza’s unstable warp bubble. The bolt hit the bubble and after sending more ripples out through the waves of multicolored energy, seemed at last to grow still.

  Vale was the only one who knew it was just a momentary breather before the storm, and sure enough, even as the Orishans were puzzling over how the shuttle had twice survived their greatest weapon, a small spark of light appeared in the center of the thing they called the Eye.

  Vale, knowing what to expect, saw it first, but soon, one by one, all the Orishans present took notice. They all watched in obvious horror as the spark grew to encompass the entire swirling orb and then erupted.

  “They have awoken Erykon,” said A’yujae’Tak, aghast. “The Eye is open! Deploy the Veil. Now! Before we are lost!”

  It took Vale a confused moment to realize “the veil” did not refer to her, but something else entirely. Whatever it was, they were clearly desperate to have it activate. Everywhere workers scurried to obey their Mater. Buttons were pressed, commands were entered by trembling talons. Machinery, in the walls, in the floor, and for meters above began to hum and vibrate. Suddenly some force, some kind of invisible energy, rolled through the chamber, rattling Vale’s teeth as it went into the walls and up, up, up to the apex of the Spire.

  There was a flash of incandescent white that, for a moment, obliterated all sight. When it was gone, so was the image on the giant viewer. There was nothing to see there but a solid field of white.

  “Something is wrong,” said A’yujae’Tak. “This did not happen bef-”