As Morell reached up and dimmed the display above the biobed, she heard the door to the intensive-care section sigh open. She turned and headed in that direction, suspecting that she knew who had just come in, and thinking that it would be best if she could move him out of here as quickly as possible. If she had to, she would quote the technicality that, at this late hour, visitors were not even supposed to be here.

Morell exited her patient’s room—sectioned off, but lacking a fourth wall, the “room” was really more of a bay—and approached the visitor. A nurse at the other end of the intensive-care section had also started in this direction, striding past the other, thankfully empty, bays, but Morell waved him away. “Captain,” she said when she reached the wide door, which had closed behind him. She saw immediately that he had not been getting much rest; his eyes appeared glassy, with dark patches hanging in the flesh beneath them. He also still wore his uniform, though his shift had ended hours ago. “Let me prescribe something for you to help you sleep,” she said. She placed her hand on his upper arm and urged him back toward the door.

“Thanks, Uta,” Captain Harriman said, but he didn’t allow her to lead him away. He slipped his arm from her grasp and glanced toward the bay from which she had just emerged. “How is he?” he asked.

Morell briefly considered suggesting that they talk elsewhere, even thought about ordering the captain out of the infirmary, or at least out of intensive care. But she did none of those things, understanding that nothing would ease this burden for either one of them. “He’s not good,” she said. “The surgery went as well as it could, but there was so much damage to his brain…” She let the sentence trail off, something she did not typically do, and she realized just how tired she also felt. Because of the extent of the head trauma Admiral Harriman had sustained, coupled with the number of injured crew from Ad Astrathat she and her staff had needed to treat, Morell had chosen to place the admiral in stasis for most of the time it had taken Enterpriseto return to KR-3. They’d arrived back at the space station earlier today, and the CMO here had agreed to allow Morell to continue to treat the elder Harriman. She had spent several hours in the operating theater here, opening up three sections of the admiral’s skull in order for her to remove the subdural hematomata that had been caused by the blunt force to his head. The surgery had been successful, but…“It’ll take some time before we know the permanent effects of the cerebral swelling.”

“Has he regained consciousness?” the captain asked.

“No,” Morell said. “And I’m afraid I can’t tell you when he will, or even ifhe will.”

The captain nodded slowly, as though trying to decide what to do with this information. Finally, he said, “But there’s a chance he might wake up.”

Morell offered a tight, closed-mouth smile, hoping it masked how badly she felt for the captain. “There’s always a chance,” she said. She reached up and put her hand on his upper arm again, this time in a comforting gesture. “But it’s not a good chance, Captain,” she told him, because she saw little benefit in hiding the truth. “You should make peace with that.”

Again, he nodded slowly, then patted her hand where it rested on his arm; his fingers, she noticed, were cold. “All right,” he said, then looked past her again, in the direction of the admiral’s biobed. “Can I see him?” he asked.

Morell paused, never knowing how to answer that question. For some people, having a last opportunity to see a badly injured loved one helped provide closure; for others, it stripped away the ability to remember the loved one in the fullness of health. “You can go see him, Captain,” Morell said at last. “But you might not want to. He doesn’t…” The words came hard. Ad Astrahad been battered by the shock wave from the explosion, and so had its crew, although the admiral had been the only one whose injuries might prove fatal. “He doesn’t look very much like himself.”

The captain continued to stare past her for a few moments, and then said, “Okay.” He pulled his gaze away from the direction of where his father lay dying and looked back at Morell. “Thank you, Uta,” he said. He patted her hand once more, then turned and stepped away. The wide door between intensive care and the main section of the infirmary slid quietly open, and the captain walked through it and toward the infirmary exit.

“Captain,” Morell said, stepping forward to prevent the door from closing. When he stopped and peered back at her, she found that she had nothing to say, despite wanting very much to find some way to help the captain. “Good night,” she finally said.

“Good night, Doctor.” Morell watched him leave, and only after the door had closed behind him did she remember that she had wanted to give him something to help him sleep. She took a step, intending to go after him, but then she stopped. The captain was a secure enough man, she knew, that he if needed help, he would ask for it.

Morell thought about returning to her quarters aboard Enterpriseand trying to sleep herself, but she felt too unsettled for that right now. She considered the café down on the Plaza, but quickly discounted that possibility as well, not wanting either to socialize or to sit alone in a public place. Finally, without even really making a conscious decision, she headed back into intensive care, back over to where the admiral lay comatose. She retrieved a chair from the corner of the bay and pulled it up beside the biobed. She didn’t talk to the admiral, or take his hand, but just sat quietly beside him. She stayed with him for a long time, unable to help him any more than she already had, but unwilling to let her patient go.

The sound penetrated into Sulu’s dream, but only after it had come again did it rouse her from sleep. In an instant, she bounded out of bed, unsure if a red alert had woken her, but taking no chances and responding as though it had. As she stood tensed in the middle of her bedroom, waiting to hear information from the bridge or the next blare of the alert klaxon, the memory of what had happened to Universeand its crew rose hauntingly in her mind. The last two days had been filled with moments like this, the horror of the tragedy inescapable. She also knew that there would be many more such moments in the weeks and months ahead, and that she would always bear emotional scars from the terrible disaster.

The door signal buzzed, apparently for the third time, and Sulu tried to concentrate on the present. “Computer, what time is it?” she asked in the pitch-dark room. Before she had retired for the night, she had shuttered the viewing ports above her bed, just as she did every night, because she had difficulty falling asleep in even the faint illumination provided by the stars.

“The time is zero-one-thirty-five hours,”the computer replied.

“One-thirty-five?” Sulu repeated, surprised that somebody would be calling on her now. No wonder she felt so tired. She shook her head, trying to clear away her grogginess.

“Just a minute,” she called out into the main room of her quarters. “Computer, lights up half.”

As the lighting panels came on, Sulu moved to a circular armchair in the corner, where she had draped her robe before going to bed. She pulled the red, floor-length garment on over her body, tied its sash about her waist, and headed out of her bedroom.

At the entry to her quarters, she touched a control pad set into the bulkhead, and the doors glided open. Captain Harriman stood in the corridor. “Captain,” she said, but in the next second, she saw the torment in his face, the fatigue in his carriage. “John,” she said, concerned not just about her commanding officer, but about her friend. “Come inside.” She reached a hand to his elbow and guided him into her quarters.