On a smaller scale, Riker’s mistake had caused serious damage to at least one member of his crew, probably more. Melora Pazlar was in sickbay with numerous broken bones and other physical traumas, her fragile, low-gravity frame badly damaged by Tuvok’s attack. The damage to her mind by the forced meld had not yet been assessed; Dr. Ree did not believe there would be neurological damage, but the psychological was harder to assess. As for the damage to Tuvok’s career as a Starfleet officer, or Orilly Malar’s, it was too early to judge. Others had been under the jellies’ emotional influence and had not acted upon it. At the moment Riker was more inclined to blame himself than either of them, though.

As soon as Tuvok had accessed the sensor data and transmitted it to the jellies, Deanna had called the bridge to pass along their triumph and gratitude. Within minutes, they had begun replicating the new sensor components, incorporating them into their anatomy. They began instructing their young to do the same, and sending out the word through their telepathic channels. More than likely, Jaza had surmised, they would write it into the genes of new embryos, and the ability to detect and evade the Pa’haquel would become a permanent part of their species.

But Qui’hibra’s hunting fleet had already left by the time Riker learned of this. Shortly after their fourth kill, they had wrapped their trophies in their tentacles and warped away, even taking the remains of the one they couldn’t use as a ship (for scrap parts, perhaps—or was “allografts” a better word?). Deanna had guessed that they were taking a risk by striking so close to a breeding world, not wishing to chance scaring them away from it, and thus had chosen to process their kills away from the jellies’ sensory range.

Yet Riker had chosen to set off in pursuit. Jaza still hadn’t figured out how to track star-jellies at warp beyond a certain distance, but Riker ordered Lavena to set course based on their warp-entry vector. It was necessary, he had resolved, to inform the Pa’haquel of exactly what had happened, and to offer what assistance he could in dealing with the consequences.

“Is that such a good idea?” Vale had asked in the privacy of his ready room. “Maybe we’ve already done enough damage with our good intentions.”

“So we just walk away? Wash our hands of the consequences? You can’t really believe that, Christine.”

“I don’t know. You’re right, I don’t want to leave our mess for someone else to clean up. Of course I want to help fix it if we can. But it was wanting to help that started this in the first place. That’s why there’s a Prime Directive.”

He had paused, considering her words. It had been the horrors on Tezwa, as well as Delta Sigma IV and Oghen, that had led him to reject the idea of the Prime Directive as an excuse for turning a blind eye to suffering. But Tezwa’s horrors had resulted from President Zife’s abandonment of the Prime Directive, his self-serving interference in the planet’s political affairs. Did Riker run the risk of becoming the very thing he was trying so hard to fight against?

No—he wouldn’t accept that. He’d forced nothing on anyone. He’d gone to help where he’d been specifically asked, and had tried to engage in a dialogue with the other side, imposing nothing on them. His decision to tow away the jelly’s corpse may have been damaging to relations with the Pa’haquel, but not to their way of life. His mistake had been in failing to anticipate the influence the jellies would have over members of his crew. That had not been a Tezwa-sized mistake, and it was one he was willing to do his best to remedy.

“I stand by what I said before, Christine,” he had declared. “The Prime Directive isn’t an excuse to avoid responsibility. Responsibility means being aware that you can and will make mistakes, and should do everything you can to minimize and correct them. It doesn’t mean being so afraid to make mistakes that you avoid taking on any responsibility at all. Mistakes happen. They’re a part of the process of getting anything done. So they’re no excuse not to try.

“In a case like this, the Prime Directive means that we can’t impose our values or solutions on the Pa’haquel. We can’t dictate to them how to solve the problem we’ve helped bring about. But that doesn’t mean we can’t assist them in finding their own solutions.”

It was now the next day, and the Pa’haquel fleet had tracked Titandown, coming up alongside them at warp and surrounding them in a formation that said “pull over” in no uncertain terms. As Riker gave the order to drop to impulse, he decided that they probably wouldn’t be all that interested in his “assistance” right about now. But at least they deserved answers.

Moments later, Qui’hibra appeared on the main viewer. “Riker ofTitan,” he said. His tone was calm, quiet, coldly furious. He stood utterly still, his hawklike eyes fixated on Riker, unblinking, unwavering, like a raptor studying a field mouse. Will felt a flash of gratitude that there was a viewscreen, raised shields and dozens of kilometers of vacuum between them. “I know that what has happened is somehow your doing. You will explain to me precisely what you have done.”

“Elder Qui’hibra. That’s exactly what I’ve been meaning to discuss with you. If you’d care to beam aboard, we can—”

“Understand something, Riker. Thousands of Pa’haquel have died in the past day. Our hulls no longer shield us from the skymounts’ senses. They are teleporting entire crews into vacuum. We cannot retaliate because they suddenly have shields like yours, and can suddenly sense us coming and be ready for us before we exit warp. The word to suspend hunting skymounts has been spread as fast as it can be, but the Pa’haquel are spread wide and many did not get the warning in time. You have murdered whole clans, Riker. My desire for an explanation from you is the only reason you are not currently a cloud of atoms dissipating into space. You will give me that explanationnow, and if you wish to have any chance of avoiding that fate, you will include the means of reversing what you have done.”

Riker was horrified. He had expected that the jellies would simply flee from the hunters, leaving them unable to make new kills, forcing them to gradually give up their nomadic lifestyle, or at least switch to constructed starships, as their “skymounts” wore out or were lost. Since the jellies were incapable of firing on their own kind, he’d assumed that retaliation would not be an option. He hadn’t considered that they would target their attacks against the crews inside. And he was so accustomed to combat in the age of deflector shields that he hadn’t considered the use of teleportation as a weapon. In retrospect, it seemed obvious—the jellies would not want to leave the bodies of their dead to be further desecrated. They would want to cleanse them of infestation and return them to their native soil at long last.

“Elder Qui’hibra…” He hesitated. “I assure you, I had no knowledge or intention that anything of the kind would happen. What’s taken place here was an accident, not a deliberate act.”

“You are still not explaining.”

“Very well. We were able to use our sensors to scan inside your ships and detect your presence. We also found a way to distinguish your warp signatures from those of live, er, skymounts.”

“There are no such ways. We shield our inner hulls specifically to preclude detection.”

“Our sensors are a prototype design. And it was difficult even for them to detect you.”

“Go on.”His voice remained level, yet the fury in it was deeper than ever.

“We had no intention of sharing this information with the skymounts. We did not take sides. However, the skymounts are powerful telepaths, and they were able to influence those members of our crew with similar abilities. We attempted to repress our crewmembers’ telepathic senses, but when you attacked near the breeding world, the sheer quantity of terrified emotions was overwhelming. Two of our crewmembers, acting under the creatures’ influence, gave them access to our sensor information and shield calibrations, and the specifications for replicating the necessary components for themselves.”