This caused an uncomfortable silence as the bridge crew glanced around at one another. Visions of the battered Excaliburcame to Shelby’s mind, and there was no reason to think that it wasn’t foremost in everyone else’s concerns as well.

“You do not answer,” Lodec continued after a moment. “That’s perfectly all right. You don’t answer because we all know what the response would be. Come to the paradise that is now Danter. See for yourselves the life we lead ... and the life that is viewed with such suspicion by your Federation.”

“Captain,” Spock said softly, “it will be problematic for me to carry out my intended objectives if I am to remain in orbit for the entirety of our time here.”

Shelby nodded, taking this in, and then turned her attention back to the screen. “Very well. An away team will be sent planetside. Their findings will be instrumental in informing Federation decisions in regards to the offers of these ‘Beings.’ ”

“Captain, if I may,” asked Spock, and she nodded to him to go ahead. “Speaker ... are we to understand that the Beings are still interested in providing ambrosia to whomever desires it?”

“All manner of possibilities exist, Ambassador,” Lodec assured him. “Come and let us discuss matters, like civilized creatures.”

“A team will be along shortly. Shelby out.” She nodded once to Hash, who promptly shut off the com link. Lodec’s smiling visage vanished from the screen, to be replaced with an image of the planet rotating below.

“I do not trust them,” Si Cwan said immediately.

“Logic would indicate, Ambassador,” Spock told him, “that your concern is colored by the fact that they endeavored to kill you.”

Hash laughed in a way that bordered on the sarcastic. “And why everwould he allow his concern to be colored by that?”

“I don’t believe anyone asked you, Mr. Takahashi,” Mueller said sharply, and then turned to Shelby. “Captain ... I hope you’re not considering heading up this away team.”

“It had crossed my mind, XO.”

“With all respect, Captain,” said Mueller, the emphasis on “respect” so meticulous that Shelby couldn’t possibly have taken offense unless she had a chip on her shoulder the size of a moon, “the situation, unstable as it is, is not one that our commanding officer should be thrusting herself into.”

“Even though the Beings could conceivably reach up from the planet’s surface and swat us at any time?” asked Shelby. “An argument could be made that no one is safe.”

“I’m convinced,” Hash piped up. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

Shelby ignored him, which was usually the best practice to follow when Hash was employing what he fancied to be his rapier wit. “Recommendations, XO?”

“Away team consisting of myself, Ambassadors Spock and Cwan, and Lieutenant Arex.”

“What about Captain Calhoun?” Mick Gold spoke up from conn.

Shelby turned and frowned. “I’m not entirely sure how Captain Calhoun is relevant to the conversation, Gold.”

“He’s only relevant in the sense that he’s here.”

All eyes were suddenly on the monitor screen as, sure enough, dropping out of warp was the Starship Excalibur.

“I was unaware the Excaliburhad been assigned to this mission,” Spock said.

“That’s because they haven’t been,” Shelby said tightly. She thought she heard a soft chuckle come from Mueller’s direction, but when she looked at her second-in-command, Kat’s face was purely deadpan. “Hash. Raise them.”

An instant later, Calhoun’s face appeared on the screen. She noticed he’d shaved. Figured. She’d just gotten used to the beard. “Captain,” she said in as formal a tone as she could muster. “We weren’t expecting to see you here.”

“Yes. I know. My understanding is that Starfleet is endeavoring to be circumspect in its broadcasting of orders these days.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Are you saying Starfleet ordered you to rendezvous with us at Danter?”

“I’m afraid I can’t say at the present time,” Calhoun informed her.

I’ll kill him,thought Shelby even as she kept a smile plastered on her face. “I think it best we get together, Captain, so we can make certain our orders aren’t in conflict with one another.”

“Excellent idea, Captain,” replied Calhoun. “Your place or mine?”

“Yours. I’ll be right over.” Shelby turned to Mueller. “Would there be a great deal of paperwork involved if we simply opened fire on the Excaliburand blew her out of space?”

“I believe Starfleet would frown upon it, Captain.”

“Damn,” muttered Shelby.

“Captain,” Spock observed, “it would appear to me that you have some little antipathy for the Excaliburin general ... or her captain in specific.”

“He’s my husband.”

“Ah,” said Spock. He paused, and then said, “In my day, captains were generally considered to be married to their ships.”

“Those were good days,” said Shelby and headed for the turbolift.

And she heard Spock say, “Indeed,” as the lift doors slid shut behind her.

EXCALIBUR

I.

MOKE WAS BECOMING ACCUSTOMED to having the ghosts around.

He had given up trying to comprehend them. He didn’t know why they were there, or what they wanted. He was a flexible child, and so had decided that his new lot in life was to have shades of departed crew members or mysterious one-eyed men following him around.

He didn’t see them all the time, and that was partly how he knew they weren’t just in his mind. After all, if they were, then he would have been seeing them twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. They would have had no reason to be anywhere else. But because he only perceived them from time to time, he concluded that they had other things they had to attend to. What sort of things, he couldn’t begin to imagine. Ghost things. Shades of the departed things. Things he probably wouldn’t really want to know about, if given his preferences.

The shade of McHenry had conveyed to him the importance of silence. Moke had done as he was bid, for several reasons. First, he had convinced himself that the secrecy was part of the ability to see them. If he started blabbing it, they would go away. He didn’t want to take that risk, because—much to his surprise, considering how disconcerted he’d felt in their initial encounters—he liked seeing them. He had become fond of being one of the only people on the ship who could see these rather odd ghosts wandering the corridors.

The only other being, to Moke’s knowledge, who was able to see them was Xyon. He wasn’t sure at exactly what point the child became aware of what he was seeing. Moke simply noticed one day that Xyon was staring straight at the one-eyed man, and was even waving one of his chubby little fists at him.

Moke was no doctor, no man of medicine. He had no clue why he and Xyon were able to perceive these shades whom everyone else on the Excaliburwas walking right past, or even through. Perhaps it was a fundamental innocence on Xyon’s part which made him particularly susceptible to such images. Or maybe something in the genetic structure of his half-breed heritage enabled him to see past reality to the unreality.

Maybe he was just damned lucky.

Either way, the old one-eyed man waved back to him, which prompted Xyon to giggle and coo and bat at the empty air.

Still, Moke was beginning to feel as if his withholding of information over what he was perceiving might have some sort of negative impact on everything his adoptive father and the crew of the Excaliburwere experiencing. This was particularly the case when Soleta sat down with him in his quarters and gently began asking questions for which he did not have easy answers.