“That is exactly correct. Consume as much or as little of it as you desire.”

“You must truly think I am deranged.”

“No. I truly think you are desperate. It is said that most creatures live lives of quiet desperation, but your desperation is not quiet at all. It cries out to me for surcease, and I can provide it if you will let me.”

“Why would I want to do that.”

“Because,” he said, and he seemed genuinely sad, “the truth is ... you’ve nothing to lose.”

She so very, very much wanted to disagree with the assessment. She wanted to take the ambrosia and throw it in his face. She wanted to further break her Vulcan training and laugh at him, or shout at him, or in some way loudly proclaim that he didn’t have the faintest idea of what the hell he was talking about. Yet she found herself picking up the ambrosia just the same, and looking at it, and seeing in it a salvation she hadn’t even thought possible.

And then she was raising it to her lips, even as her mind screamed at her that this was totally insane, and he must be doing it to her somehow, must be inside her and manipulating her in ways previously thought impossible, but somehow none of it seemed to matter because the temptation to still the voices that cried out within her was just too overwhelming, and besides, it was in the name of science. What scientist worth her salt wasn’t willing to take a chance, to lay herself on the line at some point in her life, in the spirit of discovery?

She bit into the ambrosia, and her first thought was disappointment, because the taste was nothing special, faintly honeylike. Nor did it seem to be having any effect on her at all. She chewed it a couple of times and swallowed, and still there was nothing untoward about it. After all that. After that incredible “sales pitch,” after all that buildup, she felt no different. ...

Then she noticed that there was some sort of warmth starting to build in her chest. It was like a small ball of heat, coming together in her solar plexus, and then it started to radiate outward. Her hands and feet were tingling, and she was beginning to get light-headed. She gasped and staggered, and then she felt as if something was lifting her up. It was as he had said before, about waves and water, and she felt caught up in a surf, riding a crest of a massive wave that was carrying her higher and higher. She laughed and cried and shrieked all at once, and the voices of the Romulans, of her inner doubts, of everything that had gnawed at her and eaten away at her was gone for the first time in ages. There was just her, there was Soleta, and she was happy with being Soleta, and more, she was happy with Thoth for giving her this, happy with the Beings for existing, for providing her with this miraculous substance, and she knew that she would do anything, just anything that was required in order to make sure that she would never, ever have to stop feeling this way again.

And somewhere in the far reaches of her consciousness, she knew that Thoth was laughing, but that was all right, because so was she. ...

TRIDENT/EXCALIBUR

I.

SHELBY COULDN’T QUITE BELIEVE that she had heard Mick Gold properly. “The Tholians?Are you sure?”

He nodded grimly, half-turning in his chair at ops. “No question. I recognize the energy signature of their ships a mile off. It’s them.”

“Perfect.” Seated in her command chair on the bridge, Shelby was starting to wonder if there was anything about this day that could remotely go right. “Raise the Excalfor me.”

“They’re hailing us, Captain.”

“Figures. Put them on screen.”

Moments later the concerned face of Burgoyne appeared on the screen. “I will give you the courtesy, Captain, of assuming that you’ve come to the same conclusion as we?”

“That the Tholians will be here at any moment?”

S/he nodded. “An imminent Tholian arrival is never good news.”

“Believe me, Burgy, I know that all too well,” she said grimly. “I suggest a three-way conversation with the Tholians as soon as they arrive.”

“Agreed. I’ll follow your lead, if it’s all the same to you, since you are the ranking officer.”

“I appreciate the vote of confidence. Where’s Mac?”

“He just beamed down to the surface. Soleta’s gone missing and he’s going down to confront Lodec about it.”

She felt her blood rushing to her temples, which was not an uncommon sensation for her. “He’s doing what?”

“Going down to confront Lodec over Soleta’s disappearance.”

“What type of security team does he have with him.”

“None.”

“What?”She hated that her voice had just cracked and the decibel level had been practically earsplitting, but it was too late for that now. “How could he—?”

“He said that if this Anubis dispatched Kebron so easily, then a multitude of human guards wouldn’t accomplish anything except to make him look as if he was so afraid of the Beings that he required security backup.”

“But he doesrequire security backup, to provide him—”

“To provide him what, exactly, Captain?” asked Burgoyne, sounding rather reasonable about it. “How likely is it that another security squad would fare better than Kebron? It was Captain Calhoun’s belief that the only thing that could possibly win the day was a show of total confidence. Bringing a security squad to ‘hide behind,’ his words, would simply send the message that he was afraid of the Beings.”

“They damned near tore your vessel apart, Burgy,” Shelby reminded hir. “If you’re not afraid of them to some degree, you won’t survive.” She shook her head in disbelief. “Mac going down there to face a god single-handedly. That’s ... that’s so ...” Then she just shook her head in weary acceptance. “That’s predictably typical, actually. Can you raise him?”

“We were about to try and do so when you contacted us,” Burgoyne’s voice came back, sounding a bit cheerful that Shelby wasn’t going to continue carping about Calhoun’s command decisions. “I felt that, at the very least, he should be kept aware of the situa—”

Suddenly Burgoyne stopped and looked sharply to hir right.

“Burgy? What’s wrong?” asked Shelby with concern.

“I ... thought I saw, for just a second ...” But then s/he shook hir head. “Sorry. Must have been my imagination.”

Shelby leaned forward in her command chair, her brow furrowed. “What did you think you saw, Burgy?”

“I ... thought I saw McHenry standing near by the conn station, big as life. Wishful thinking, I suppose.”

“Yes. I suppose,” said Shelby sympathetically. She was familiar with the phenomenon. The tendency to believe that a lost crewmate is standing there, big as life. It was similar to someone who had been deprived of a limb having sensations of a phantom arm or leg.

Burgoyne shook it off and then, all business, said, “I’ll inform the captain. And then ... we’ll see what happens.”

“Yes,” Shelby agreed. “We surely will.”

II.

“S/he saw me. I’m sure of it,” said McHenry.

He circled Burgoyne on the bridge of the Excalibur,trying to regain hir attention. He was certain that, just for a heartbeat, the Hermat had seen him. But now there was no further response. Instead Burgoyne was busy finishing a conversation with Shelby, and then endeavoring to raise Captain Calhoun on the planet’s surface.

The Old Father stood nearby, arms folded, watching McHenry’s gyrations with what seemed to be a distant sadness. “This one is rather unusual. It sees the world in a slightly different way than others. More animalistic.”

“S/he’s not an ‘it.’ S/he’s a ... a s/he,” said McHenry. For some reason he felt slightly defensive.