“Unless it was a view from which you could see what’s-his-name, that sailor. Popeye, or something, right?”

“That’s different,” Estresor Fil said quickly. “That’s a cultural study, not simply an empty aesthetic enterprise. If you were studying the view to scout for dangers, perhaps, or landmarks, then I could understand you. But just admiring it because you can see a long way? I’m sorry, I just can’t comprehend.”

“Are you sure you’re not part Vulcan?” he asked with a grin.

“Absolutely certain,” she replied, as stone-faced as ever. Her expression—eyes wide, narrow lips pressed firmly together in a straight line, tiny nub of a nose barely more than a pinch of flesh—rarely seemed to change, even though Will knew he had seen her happy and sad and worried. It wasn’t that she didn’t feel strong emotions, but her face didn’t seem to be up to the job of showing them. “Why do you ask?”

He decided to drop it. Vulcans believed in logic, but that didn’t mean that humor was completely alien to them. “No reason. Have you seen any of the others since you’ve been skulking in the doorway?”

“I have not. We’re the first.”

“I wish we could use combadges,” Will sighed.

“That would contradict the point of the project,” Estresor Fil argued. “We’re supposed to be in a hostile city, relying on just our wits and what we’ve learned of urban survival, not our technology.”

“But if we really were infiltrating a hostile city we’d still have our combadges, our padds, and our phasers,” Will insisted. “Right?”

“We might,” Estresor Fil relented. “But there might be some technology that jammed our combadges, or would allow the enemy to locate us when we used them. By the same token, our weapons might have been removed from us during capture, and we’ve just broken free. We need to follow the admiral’s rules.”

Will gave up and nodded. Admiral Paris had already been over all this, of course, and Will had expected nothing different. But he could complain about it nonetheless. Admiral Paris was a nut for the Prime Directive, as well, and Will knew that it was his philosophy that if an away team had landed in a primitive city of some kind, the use of any technology beyond the level of which the locals had attained would be forbidden. So really, there was no way combadges would be allowed on this project. They’d just have to wait until the others showed up, no matter how long that might be.

But with only Estresor Fil for company, he hoped it was soon.

Dennis Haynes made his way around the cold, abandoned island, sticking to the rugged coastline as well as he could. The old prison still dominated the interior, its thick walls crumbling now with age but still somehow sinister in appearance. Struts sticking up like grasping fingers indicated a tower of some kind, long since fallen. He couldn’t help being made a little nervous by the idea of so many desperate and dangerous people being kept behind those walls, even though it had happened a long time ago. And he couldn’t shake the disturbing knowledge that the prison had been built here because getting back to the city from this spot was no simple matter. He couldn’t remember if Alcatraz was a prison from which there had been no escapes, or just not many.

Either way, it didn’t bode well for him.

He had made nearly a complete circuit when he spotted the boat. It was an ancient contraption, made of real wood, it seemed, and it had been dragged onto a gravelly stretch of beach, leaving a furrowed path to the waterline behind it. No footprints led away from it, though, so there was no way of knowing how long it had been sitting in that spot. A day, a year, a decade? On closer examination he saw that its oarlocks were rusted. He touched one, to see if it would still swivel, but as he turned it the wood around it broke away, rotten and soft. Even if the thing would still float, then, he couldn’t control it and it would be unlikely to support his weight. He’d sink before he even got started. He felt even more dejected than before. The sun was rising high into the sky and he couldn’t get to his friends.

Trying to shrug off despair, he continued his journey. Around the bend from where he’d found the boat, his spirits lifted when he saw a dock, modern and in good repair. Of course, you idiot,he berated himself. You can still take a tour to Alcatraz, so there must be some way of getting to the island.He didn’t know how often the tours came, though he seemed to remember that they were at least daily, if not several in a day. All he needed to do, then, was to join the next one that came when it returned to the city.

Of course, how was he to explain how he’d wound up here, without breaking the rules of the assignment?

The only answer was, he couldn’t. He’d have to do what so many prisoners in times past had failed to do—he’d have to break out of Alcatraz.

But to do that, he’d first have to get inside. Casting an eye toward the city, he saw the familiar profile of a tourist skimmer heading toward the island. Not much time, then,he thought. Swallowing his anxiety, he started up the hill toward those forbidding walls.

The path from the dock into the prison was clear and unbarred, since it was traveled only by tour groups on organized outings. That made getting inside the facility easy enough. The outer wall, topped by a tall fence corroded and torn by wind and weather, stood open for him. Chunks of stone were piled against the wall where they had fallen under the relentless pressure of the elements on this exposed outcrop, but the wall itself was still impressively thick. Beyond this wall, which encircled the facility—he had passed another building, closer to the shore, which had seemed to be administrative rather than confining—the prison itself reared up, solid and grim, with narrow windows set into the aged concrete.

He continued into the prison itself. Here, too, the doors were open, and he passed through into a semi-contained space. Sky showed through holes in the ceiling and walls, but he could still get a sense of how imposing the place must have been in its heyday. Or either of its heydays,he mentally corrected himself. He knew the prison had been closed sometime in the mid-twentieth century, but then reopened again for a time late in the twenty-first, in the hard times after the war.

As he explored, the quiet outside was broken by the buzzing sound of the skimmer approaching the island. He had to hurry, had to find a place where he could hide. The first section of the prison seemed to be a processing area, where prisoners were booked into the system. The cells were farther back, beyond more sets of doors and bars. But a quick look around the cells proved to Dennis that there was no hiding there—anyone walking down the hallways between cells could see every inch of them, bunks and sinks and toilets, mold-encrusted walls still showing graffiti from ages gone by.

Which only made sense, he realized. Surely the guards would have needed clear sightlines throughout the cells. He turned back, his anxiety building. From outside he could hear voices already, as the tour guide led the group toward the prison. Once at the processing area, he passed through an open door and ducked down behind a chest-high counter, pressing himself up against the far side. As long as no one came through the door into this area, he would be safe, but there was no place to” hide if the group decided to check out the office. The floor here was filthy, caked with years of refuse, bird droppings, and neglect, and it stank. But he could take it if he didn’t have to wait too long, he figured. And really, how long could a tour of this place take? There wasn’t really so much to see inside.

He could barely make out the guide’s words, so hard was his heart pounding in his ears as the tour came through. He worked to still his breathing, willing himself to become as invisible as he possibly could. The guide’s voice turned into a pleasant drone as she led her group through this section and into the cell block, and when they were gone, Dennis allowed himself to relax a bit.