“No one is interrogating you, Corey,” Batanides said, leaving an unspoken but obvious yethanging in the air.

“Nevertheless,” Picard said, “these charges areserious, and must be answered. And there’s also the matter of your DNA having been found on the combadges we recovered after the fight in HagratИ. The circumstantial evidence would suggest that it was youwho removed those combadges from Commander Riker and Counselor Troi after they were struck unconscious in the melee.”

“I noticed that Chiarosan disruptors can lock onto subspace signals,” Zweller said, nodding. To Troi, he added, “Don’t bother to thankme for saving your lives.”

Picard considered that for a moment. “If that’s so, then you certainly have earned mythanks. But Counselor Troi and Commander Riker have both told me that Grelun granted you privileges that he denied to his other prisoners. So I still must ask you: Did you supply arms or assistance to the Army of Light?”

Zweller pointed at Troi. “Why don’t you get the answer from your Betazoid? You obviously don’t have any faith that I’m going to tell you the truth, or else you wouldn’t have sicced a telepath on me.”

“I’m only half‑Betazoid, Mr. Zweller,” Troi said calmly. “I can only pick up emotions, not specific thoughts.”

“And what is it you’re ‘picking up’ from me?”

“I sense mainly that you are a master of evasion. As well as a skilled manipulator of people. And of the truth.”

“Come now, Counselor,” Zweller said, his lips turning upward in an asymmetrical half‑smile. “In my experience, that description could fit just about any front‑line Starfleet officer who’s managed to stay alive as long as I have. Present company excepted, of course.”

Picard bridled at Zweller’s verbal jab, but said nothing. There was no point in allowing his old friend to provoke him into losing control of the conversation. Batanides also allowed the comment to pass unanswered.

“Commander,” Troi said, unflappably patient, “I’ve known ever since we were confined together that you’ve been concealing something significant. All I’ve ever sensed from you is a superficial emotional veneer, almost as though you were able to consciously block my empathic abilities.”

Zweller adopted a sincere expression that belied his words. “Now that wouldbe a remarkable talent. On the other hand, I may just be an extremely shallow person. Maybe there’s nothing underneath that ‘emotional veneer,’ as you call it.”

Or perhaps it conceals hidden compartments,Picard thought. Like a smuggler’s cargo hold.

Turning toward Picard, Troi said, “I don’t think I’m going to be of any help to you here, Captain. Perhaps it would be better if I started interviewing the other Slaytonsurvivors instead.”

“Very well,” Picard said. “Make it so.”

As Troi got up to leave the ready room, Zweller spoke to her back. “Good idea, Counselor. I knew you’d get around to helping those traumatized people eventually.”

Troi paused in the open doorway for a moment as though contemplating a rejoinder. Then, apparently realizing the futility of the gesture, she departed.

Picard was alone with his two oldest friends for the first time in more than four decades. It struck him then just how profoundly time could change a man. Yes, this Corey Zweller was still a hothead, as he had been at Starfleet Academy; but the loyal, to‑Hell‑and‑back Cortin Zweller, the comrade‑at‑arms who had fought the Nausicaans at Bonestell so long ago, thatCortin Zweller had never made such blatant stabs at a colleague’s emotional buttons.

“Corey . . . did you give the rebels weapons?” Batanides said, beginning to lose her patience.

Zweller answered with exasperating serenity. “Don’t you think Grelun would have shown me a little more gratitude if I had?”

“Not if he thought you were selling him out to Ruardh,” Picard said.

Zweller sat down in one of the seats between the sofa and Picard’s desk. Focusing his gaze on the viewport, he said, “Grelun suffers from a freedom fighter’s paranoia. When he caught me hacking into the rebel base’s command systems, he naturally assumed the worst.”

“And why were you doing that?” Batanides said.

“I was a prisoner, just like my crewmates. And a prisoner’s first duty is to escape.”

Batanides studied him with obvious skepticism. “Some of your crewmates don’t seem to believe that, Corey. Dr. Gomp told me that you’d received special treatment from your jailers all along.”

“Must have been that vaunted ‘mastery of manipulation’ the counselor says I excel in,” Zweller said dismissively. Turning toward Picard, he said, “C’mon, Johnny, don’t tell me you’ve never charmed your way into an adversary’s good graces before turning the tables on him.”

Picard felt his own fund of patience beginning to run out. “Not by violating my oath as a Starfleet officer.”

“If I didbend a regulation or two,” Zweller said, “then you can rest assured that I did it in the service of a greater good.”

“You mean the Army of Light’s struggle against Ruardh’s government,” Batanides said.

“If you like,” replied Zweller quietly, nodding slightly.

Batanides scowled. “I thought you said Grelun was an adversary.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly what that means, isn’t it?” Zweller said tartly. “You won’t find any angels on Chiaros IV, Marta. Everyone’shands get bloody in a civil war.”

How ironic,Picard thought, that Chiarosan blood is gray.

He decided to try a placating tone. “Corey, please. You have to admit that you aren’t being very forthcoming. You still haven’t answered our primary question. For the sake of the friendship the three of us shared, I would have hoped that you’d–”

Zweller interrupted gently. “That’s exactlywhy I can’t tell you anything more, Johnny. If you keep probing into whatever I might or might not have done down there, you’re only going to put yourselves in harm’s way. Frankly, I’d prefer it if you didn’t do that.”

“Corey, that almost sounds like a threat,” Picard said, taken aback.

Zweller shook his head, then paused to gather his thoughts. “Could I speak absolutely candidly to both of you for a moment?” he said finally.

“That would be a nice change,” Batanides said. She was not smiling.

“All you have is the hearsay of two of your officers and the word of an obstreperous Tellarite doctor against mine. You’ve got no proof of anything–even with an empathin the room! So if you’re not prepared to arrest me and convene a general hearing, I respectfully suggest that you both let this matter lie.”

Picard watched as Batanides silently fumed. He realized that Zweller had outmaneuvered them. For now.

“All right, Corey,” Picard said at length. “I willput this matter aside. But only until Grelun or some of your colleagues from the Slaytoncan shed some more light onto it.”

“Thank you,” Zweller said, his emotions inaccessible.

“You are dismissed, Commander,” Batanides said icily.

Pained that his old friend would not reach out to him, Picard watched in silence as Zweller exited the ready room.

Feeling weary, Zweller entered the quarters Riker had issued him. Picard’s first officer had strongly suggested that he remain there pending the resolution of the political business on Chiaros IV. Noting that he didn’t actually seem to be under arrest, Zweller decided he was too tired to argue the point tonight. He’d take the matter up directly with Johnny in the morning.

Ensconced in his quarters, Zweller contacted La Forge to request information about the huge volume of space the Romulans were apparently concealing. Though the engineer had seemed a bit overworked and harried, he had promptly uploaded the relevant observational data into Zweller’s computer terminal. Though there was no conclusive information about what the Romulans were doing behind the vast invisibility screen they had constructed out in the Chiaros system’s far reaches, they were clearly using it to hide an artificial construct of some sort.