Jerdahn took a deep breath as he considered Sulu’s proposal. A long moment later, he appeared to have reached a decision.

“I will guide you to our drech’tor,” he said. “But only if the two of you have bolides enough to accompany me back to my ship.”

Sulu took Burgess aside. “There’s no way I’m letting you beam onto Jerdahn’s ship, Ambassador. You’re under my protection for the duration of this mission.”

“With all due respect, Captain, I don’t think the decision is entirely up to you this time.” Her face was stone. “Trust [216] me, you’re going to have enough explaining to do in front of your superiors as it is. You can’t afford to get sideways with mine as well.”

Sulu had to admit that she had just made an excellent point.

A scowling Chekov paced around the transporter console, almost joggling the transporter chiefs elbows as he walked back and forth behind her.

“I don’t like this one little bit, Captain. I wish we could contact the Neyel before simply sending you onto their ship uninvited.”

“That would just confirm the suspicions Yilskene already has about us, Pavel,” Sulu said. “We can’t afford to provoke him.”

“I know, Hikaru. But if the Tholians notice your beam-in, we’ll end up just as destroyed as if we’d called ahead.”

“The resonances of the energy web surrounding Excelsiorshould make our transporter beam difficult for the Tholians to detect,” said Tuvok.

“But not impossible,” Chekov countered.

“That’s an unavoidable risk,” Sulu said. “We don’t have a lot of time left. Or options.” Standing in front of the console, he checked the charge on his phaser and tucked it into one of the pockets of his field jacket.

Aidan Burgess, now dressed in a utilitarian civilian jumpsuit, slung a tricorder across her shoulder as she stepped onto the transporter stage, beside Jerdahn, who was now wearing an engineering jumpsuit, modified to accommodate his long limbs and tail. The Neyel now seemed fully recovered from the injuries he’d sustained during his capture, and had even dubiously accepted Sulu’s explanation of the transporter system.

Dr. Chapel, Tuvok, and Akaar took the transporter pads adjacent to the Neyel, each of them checking their phasers, tricorders, and communicators.

[217] “You bear weapons,” Jerdahn noted.

“Do you object?” Akaar said to the Neyel. He was obviously watching Jerdahn very carefully.

Jerdahn chuckled. “I have no objection to your weapons, Lieutenant. You would be fools to come among my people without ways to protect yourselves.”

“You said you’d vouch for us to your leader, Jerdahn,” Sulu said, his brow crumpling. Could Jerdahn really be trusted after all?

“And I shall. But I cannot guarantee that either the drech’tor or his crew will want to listen.”

“As I was saying,” Chekov said. “I don’t like this one little bit.”

“I’m afraid that entering the lion’s den is both our best and only option, Commander,” Burgess said.

The executive officer threw his hands in the air. “One of the things I like least about this is sending a civilian into a nest of unknown aliens.”

“It’s part of the deal I struck with Jerdahn, Pavel,” Sulu said as he and Burgess joined the other members of the boarding party on the transporter stage. “Besides, the Neyel are neither unknown nor alien. Try to think of them as our long-lost cousins.”

“Remind me sometime to tell you just how well I get along with my cousin Oleg from Krakow.”

Sulu smiled, trying to convey more confidence than he actually felt. “If all goes well here, Commander, then maybe there’s hope to reunite the warring clans of Tribe Chekov as well.”

“Let’s worry about one miracle at a time,” Chekov said, shaking his head. But at least he’d stopped his pacing. He’d come to a stop beside the transporter chief, who was double-checking the coordinates of the Neyel ship’s interior. “Having trouble locking onto a section that wasn’t exposed to vacuum?” Chekov asked.

[218] The transporter operator shook his head. “No, sir. But I am getting some anomalous gravitational readings from the ship’s interior.”

“ Dangerousanomalous gravitational readings?” Chekov wanted to know.

“Just a peculiar gravitational orientation. I’ve already compensated for it.”

“Then energize,” Sulu said. A moment later, the transporter’s golden, shimmering light swept over him and the rest of the boarding party.

Chapel hated materializing in the darkness, but she knew that there were times when it was unavoidable. As the transporter’s confinement beam released her inside the Neyel ship, she knew that this was just such an occasion. She inhaled deeply, reassured by the cold-yet-breathable air that the party hadn’t materialized too close to a hull breach.

“Tricorders and lights,” Captain Sulu said almost at the same time as Tuvok began scanning the immediate area. Chapel saw that Akaar was in hyperalert mode, his phaser already out and at the ready, held parallel with the bright beam of his palmlight. The Capellan’s breath steamed like that of a dragon in the small light’s cold glare.

Jerdahn was looking around with eyes as big as deflector dishes. He had obviously been unnerved by the transporter, but didn’t seem anywhere close to panic. Chapel wondered if he was an atypical Neyel, or if they were all so adaptable.

“It takes some getting used to, Jerdahn,” Chapel said in an effort to comfort the Neyel. He nodded mutely in response, and seemed to calm, evidently noticing the businesslike demeanor of the other members of the boarding party.

Chapel activated her tricorder. According to her initial scans, no one besides the boarding party was in the immediate vicinity, though the decks just above them—other [219] cylindrically configured levels, which lay closer to the vessel’s core region—teemed with Neyel life-signs.

As her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, Chapel saw that the party had beamed into a long, tube-shaped corridor. It was strewn with debris clearly left over from a series of recent, extensive, and apparently hasty hull repairs. Now we know what the Neyel crew has been doing ever sinceExcelsior crippled their ship.

The corridor’s form was obviously dictated at least in part by the exterior curvature of the Neyel ship’s hull. Her weight felt about Earth normal, almost indistinguishable from Excelsior’sgravity-plating. But the decking beneath his feet curved gently away to the right and left, as though the “downward” direction was actually “outward”—the direction that led through the hull and into space.

Chapel saw that Tuvok was also examining the unusual shape of the deck. “Curious,” the science officer said. “This vessel’s internal arrangement is highly unusual. It is composed of a series of nested cylinders, with the decks curved so that the downward direction radiates outward from the ship’s central axis.”

“That’s what Ensign Fenlenn’s initial scans indicated,” Sulu said. “What’s your point?”

“Merely that it seems an odd arrangement of interior space,” Tuvok said.

Chapel nodded. “It would make sense if they had to spin the ship to create artificial gravity. They’ve laid the decks out like they’re on a colossal centrifuge.”

“Indeed,” Tuvok said. “However, this vessel is not spinning, nor was it at any time during our initial encounter with it. And my tricorder scans show that the decks beneath our feet are outfitted with artificial-gravity plating. The redundancy of this design makes little sense.”

“It might make perfect sense,” Sulu said, leading the team forward into the darkness, which he cut through with [220] his own palmlight. “That is, it might if your ancestors had hollowed out an asteroid and rebuilt its interior along lines similar to this, settled inside it, and then spun it to simulate a planet’s gravitational field. Later on, they must have discovered gravity plating, but clung to the familiarity of this arrangement.”