“So, some benefit may accrue to the Empire after all,” Pardek said noncommittally.

Koval nodded. “I would regard your public recognition of those benefits as a boon to the Praetor, to the Empire . . . and to the Tal Shiar.”

“The disappearance of a strategically invaluable subspace phenomenon notwithstanding,” Pardek said coolly.

“That is a minor thing, in the overall tapestry of history,” Koval said with a slight shrug. “Not nearly so important, really, as what is to come.”

“And just what isto come, Mr. Chairman?”

Koval looked thoughtful. He paused for a protracted moment, as though deciding just how much it was safe to reveal. “War,” he said finally. “War on such a scale that I doubt you can imagine. And with that war will no doubt come efforts on the part of some to make . . . questionable alliances.”

“Efforts by whom?”Pardek said, frowning.

Koval brushed the question aside. “The Empire will need the guidance of a firm hand if it is to survive its immediate future. Therefore the Tal Shiar must not be compromised. Noneof us, Senator, can afford to relax our vigilance.”

Smiling beneficently, Koval gestured toward Talkath. The girl was now sitting on the atrium floor and engaging in some stretching exercises. “She really is a lovely child, Senator. You would do well to do everything in your power to protect her from harm.”

With that, Koval touched his right wrist with his left hand, and an almost‑inaudible chiming sound gently suffused the room. As a shimmering curtain of energy enveloped the spymaster, Pardek surmised that he had activated a site‑to‑site transporter unit. In the span of a few heartbeats, the dreaded Tal Shiar Chairman was gone.

Alone in the breakfast nook, Pardek sank back into his chair and looked into the atrium at his daughter, who was still intent on her workout. She was so young and innocent, so blissfully unaware of the evil that men did so casually. Koval’s meaning could not have been plainer: He wanted Pardek to understand that he could spirit her away as easily as he had broken the villa’s security protocols. Pardek realized only then that his hands were shaking like the spindly legs of a newborn set’leth.

For Talkath truly wasall he had. She represented the future, a future he was determined to safeguard, regardless of the cost. A future that meant far more to him than any cause, any law, any principle.

EPILOGUE

Mars, Stardate 50915.5

Jean‑Luc Picard hadn’t been to Mars for quite some time; usually, it was to visit the Utopia Planitia Fleet Yards, where his current starship’s predecessor, the Enterprise‑D, had been built. During his departures from the shipyards’ orbiting drydocks and hangars, he had often glimpsed Cydonia, a region located in the windswept northern lowlands, the site of a pair of human settlements–as well as the alleged location of the infamous “Martian face” formation, according to the myths of centuries past.

Now, he was on his way to Bradbury City with Lieutenant Commander Ranul Keru, in a shuttlecraft. It had been three days since the Enterprise‑Ehad returned to McKinley Station, following its excursion into Earth’s past, where the crew had fought the Borg and helped Zefram Cochrane make humanity’s first warp‑powered flight. During his time on McKinley, Picard had met with engineers, dealt with the well‑being of his surviving crewmembers, and spent an interminable amount of time being debriefed by Starfleet’s higher echelons–both from Starfleet Command and Starfleet Intelligence. He had even had to endure a protracted grilling by a pair of officers from the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations. Picard understood that Agent Dulmer and his junior partner, Lucsly, had genuine concerns about the inadvertent creation of temporal anomalies; after all, such effects could be every bit as dangerous to history’s fragile tapestry as an incursion by the Borg. Still, their painstaking, exacting lines of questioning had sometimes tempted him to lose his temper.

But for all of his frustrations and problems, Picard knew that his own agonies did not cut as deeply as those carried by Keru.

The shuttle flight had been awkward and uncomfortable, and though both men tried to discuss topics unrelated to the grim reality of Hawk’s death, the lapses into silence came often. It was during one of those interludes when Keru spoke, his eyes on the red‑and‑ocher world before them on the viewscreen.

“I don’t blame you,Captain.” He hesitated, and added more softly, “Well, I’m trying not to.”

“I can see where you might, Ranul,” Picard said quietly. “I was responsible for the specific mission that cost Sean his life.”

“He volunteered, though. It was his own choice. His last great adventure.” Keru shifted in his seat, as if uncomfortable. “I’m not sure I want to face Commander Worf any time soon, however.”

Picard had expected this. “You know that Worf only did what he had to do. If there had been any way–”

“But there wasa way,” Keru said, interrupting. “You’reproof of that. They were able to recover you after you were assimilated. And that was after quite some time. Hawk had just been . . . infected. He could have . . . he might have been saved.”

Picard kept quiet. Any response he could give would only deepen the pain. He concentrated instead on the consoles, his fingers tapping in coordinates as Mars loomed larger in front of them.

“I’ve thought a lot about it the last few days . . . about leaving the Enterprise,”Keru said. “On the one hand, I think it holds too many bad memories. I wonder how I’d respond to you. How I’d feel if Worf came back aboard. How I’ll feel when I’m walking those corridors, entering the mess hall or holodecks, even our quarters. All those things will remind me of him.Of losinghim.”

“I’m sure that if Deanna were here, she’d probably counsel you that the pain will grow less every day,” Picard said.

“Yeah, she said something similar to that, along with quite a bit of other . . . crap.” Keru turned to look at Picard, his eyes wet with tears. “You know, when you’ve lost the person you love mostin life, the pain doesn’t everfeel like it’s going to go away. It’s notgoing to be okay.You’re never going to hold them in your arms again, never going to laugh at their stupid jokes, never going to quarrel over something trivial . . . they’re never . . . just never thereagain.”

Picard felt his own eyes well up with tears as he regarded his officer, and found himself again unable to respond.

Keru sniffed, and wiped his eyes. “I know you’ve lost family, and officers who’ve served under you. We’ve alllost people in our lives. Death is inevitable.We’re supposed to realize that, we’re supposed to celebrate the lives of those we’ve lost, we’re supposed to take comfort in some place beyond death–Heaven, Sto‑Vo‑Kor,Valhalla, whatever. But there’s no comfort for those still alive other than their owncontinued existence. And I’d give up years of my life to have more time with Sean.

“I always dreamed I would find someone I could love as much as Sean. I’ve forgotten so manyof my dreams in life, but he . . . he was real. And he was mine.And I was his.”

Keru turned away from Picard, wiping at his cheek again. Picard closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them again and began procedures for entry into the Martian atmosphere.

Leaving the shuttle docked beside one of the peripheral pressure domes, Picard shouldered a small duffel bag, and he and Keru entered Bradbury City through a tube‑shaped extrusion of the municipal forcefield. Mindful of their awkwardness in the low Martian gravity, the two men made their way through a series of airlocks and settlement streets before entering an area of the city that seemed older and more antiquated than anything else they had seen here thus far. Picard noticed several people using archaic technology, and the modern, redundant interplexed forcefields– through which the salmon‑tinged sky could be seen–gave way to older atmospheric domes composed of semi‑opaque nanoplastic membranes; Picard noted that these antique pressure domes were of the same design as those used by the first Martian settlers more than two centuries earlier.