Or to slow down the increasingly urgent scientific agenda of Science Officer Jaza, who stood anxiously at the head of the long conference table.

Two other key members of Titan’s science staff were already present and seated—or otherwise positioned—at the table near Jaza: Melora Pazlar, the head of stellar cartography, and Dr. Se’al Cethente Qas, Titan’s senior astrophysicist. Clad in her gravity-canceling exoframe, Pazlar nestled comfortably into a chair, her garlanic wood walking stick leaned up against the table. Dr. Cethente, whose Syrath physiognomy precluded “sitting” in the conventional sense, was poised opposite from her near the head of the table; chairless, Cethente stood on his four intricately articulated legs.

Taking a seat beside Cethente, Troi watched as Will and Christine Vale took seats across from one another. Tuvok and Akaar did likewise, all the while seeming to go to great lengths to avoid looking directly at one another; the pair of Klingons and Donatra staked out positions at opposite ends of this same side of the table. Only two chairs, both located on Will’s side of the table, remained empty.

Still standing, Troi turned back toward the doorway, where Frane stood quietly, under the watchful eyes of Lieutenants Hutchinson and Sortollo. The two security officers, assigned by Tuvok to chaperone Frane, were discreetly hanging back from their charge, though they were clearly on the alert for any sudden moves on the Neyel’s part. But Troi sensed no aggression whatsoever coming from Frane; the Neyel merely seemed to be experiencing apprehension, though not nearly as intensely as he had a few minutes earlier in the transporter room.

The low conversational buzz in the room began to subside after Will rose from his chair, signaling that the ad hoc briefing should now come to order. Troi quickly crossed to Frane and favored him with her most disarming smile. He didn’t resist as she took one of his arms and gently led him toward the two unoccupied seats located near Will. Frane quietly took the chair nearest the bulkhead, where he paused to look at a pair of chess sets—one three-dimensional, the other set up in the far more ancient, traditional flat arrangement—that adorned a corner recreation table. Sensing the Neyel’s clear recognition of the flat board and its array of ornate game pieces, Troi wondered what other commonalities Frane’s people shared with his human cousins.

Such as myself,she thought, pondering how closely related the Neyel’s forebears might be to the ancestors of her own human father.

“We’ve already learned a lot about the phenomenon that brought all of our ships here,” Will said, quickly gaining the undivided attention of everyone in the room. “Just as I’m sure you have, Commander Donatra. Captain Tchev. And if we’re to stand any chance of getting home, we’re all going to have to share everything we know.”

“Agreed,” Donatra said. “Now that the Valdore’s comm system is up and running again—and with both our vessels out of the worst of the subspace interference zone surrounding the Bloom—my crew has begun transmitting its data to Titan.”

“Thank you, Commander,” Will said, nodding. Gesturing toward the science specialists, Will made quick introductions, then turned the floor over to Jaza.

Troi noted a certain tension in the room, as curiosity about the happenstance that had brought everyone to this distant place was neatly balanced by anxiety over whether those very circumstances might successfully be run in reverse. She sensed that everyone who had come through the rift was worried, at least to some extent, that returning home might not be an option.

“First of all,” Jaza said, still standing at the head of the table, “we’ve discovered that there’s a lot more at stake here than just getting home.”

“For you, perhaps,” Tchev said. “We have no interest in this region of space, other than expediting our departure from it.”

“I agree,” Donatra said. Troi sensed her surprise at hearing herself utter this phrase in the context of an accidental collaboration with Klingons. “My first concern is locating my…misplaced ships, and returning them and their crews safely to Romulan space.”

Troi felt Donatra’s anguished sense of loss, and saw her hard gaze settle briefly on the two Klingons who had accompanied her here. Off of the veiled-yet-surprised reactions of Tchev and Dekri, Troi gathered that this was the first time Donatra had admitted to having lost her fleet in the Klingons’ presence. But Frane reacted with only a small degree of startlement, as though Donatra had merely confirmed his own strong suspicion.

Of course, Donatra must have realized that she wouldn’t be able to conceal this doubtless embarrassing fact from any of them for very much longer.

“Of course, Commander,” Will said to Donatra in soothing tones. “Titan’s sensor are fully engaged in the search, now that we’ve cleared most of the disturbances coming from the rift.”

Donatra inclined her head forward toward him, her dark eyes momentarily refulgent with gratitude. “Thank you, Captain.”

Jaza’s emotional state, in stark contrast to Donatra’s, seemed nearly as serene as ever, though it covered an undercurrent of great urgency. “I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the importance of this place,” the Bajoran science officer said, obviously speaking primarily to both Donatra and the Klingons. “The spatial rift out there seems to be having some extremely strange effects on local space.”

“What sort of ‘strange effects’?” Dekri asked in surly fashion.

While Jaza seemed to be gathering his thoughts, Norellis stepped into the conversational breach. “Simply put, space itself here has begun coming apart.”

Donatra’s eyebrows rose, and she radiated equal parts incredulity and incomprehension. “ ‘Coming apart’?”

“More precisely, large volumes of space are in danger of being…permanently displaced,” Jaza said.

Tchev bared his snaggly teeth. “Displaced by what?”

Jaza leaned forward and touched a control on a keypad that was built flush into the tabletop. A meter-wide model of the spatial anomaly obligingly appeared nearly a meter above the conference table, the image overlaid by a latticework of fine, distorted grid lines that reminded Troi of twisted nets woven by ancient Betazoid oskoid fisherfolk.

“By what appears to be another universe,” Jaza said. “An emergent universe, which is even now in the process of forming. A protouniverse, if you prefer. The process could complete itself in a matter of weeks, or perhaps even days. And if this happens while we’re still anywhere near the rift…” He trailed off, obviously aware that finishing that particular sentence was unnecessary.

Dekri looked askance at the spatial rift’s holographic image, then fixed a skeptical eye on Jaza. “You have evidence of this?”

Only now did Troi sense a disturbance in the tranquillity of Jaza’s emotional surface. The senior science officer nodded, a look of sorrow darkening his features. “Definitive evidence. Unfortunately.”

In response to Jaza’s next quick manual command, the image of the spatial rift vanished, to be replaced by a computer-rendered schematic of a blue, Earthlike world.

“This is the sort of evidence I hope never to encounter again,” Jaza continued. “The world you see before you has endured for perhaps five billion years since its formation by the ordinary processes of stellar and planetary evolution. Until recently.”

“What are you saying?” Donatra asked.

Jaza looked haunted. “Simply that this world, its primary star, and every other object in its system from the size of a planet all the way down to dust grains has… disappeared.We believe the protouniverse that’s now emerging from the spatial rift has something to do with the phenomenon.”

Although Troi already knew this much, like all the Titanpersonnel present, a hush again descended on the room as Donatra and the Klingons processed Jaza’s revelation.