Part 18 (1/2)

”We're on a wild-goose chase,” he said softly. ”Aren't we?”

”It is a little too soon to say,” she replied.

”No, it's not. Not for you,” he pressed. ”If there were somebody here, you would have known it already. You would have sensed them.”

The counselor bit her lip. ”There are minds to which I cannot gain access,” she reminded him. ”The builders of this place may fall into that category. They may be so different from us-so emotionless, perhaps -that they simply do not register with me.”

”But more likely,” he suggested, ”they're just not around anymore.” He indicated the towers ahead of them with a sweep of his arm. ”If you lived here and six strangers showed up, wouldn't you react somehow? Come out to greet them? Shoot at them? Something?”

”Unless they're hidden,” she said. ”Unless they're afraid of us. Don't forget, they went to the trouble of s.h.i.+elding this place.”

”There's always that,” he agreed. And it was a real possibility. ”But you don't believe that, do you? Not in your heart of hearts.”

Troi returned his gaze. ”I hate to say it, but...” She shook her head. ”No. I don't. Whatever happened to the rest of the population must have happened here as well.”

Riker sighed. ”That's life, I guess. You win some, you lose some.”

But he didn't stop walking. And neither did she.

”We're still going on?” she asked, just to confirm the fact.

”Yup. We've still got to check it out top to bottom,” he said. ”Those are our orders. Besides, we've come this far. It wouldn't make sense to turn back now.”

Scott looked from one monitor to the other. The first one showed a graphic representation of the ion path they'd been following. The second displayed the section of the Dyson Sphere directly below them.

”This is the end of the rainbow,” Geordi noted. He was intent on the monitor attached to the captain's seat.

”Aye,” agreed Scott. ”The end, all right.”

”But still no pot of gold. No Enterprise.”

Scott pointed to a detail on his monitor. ”Look at the momentum distribution of the ions,” he said. ”It would take an impulse engine at full reverse to put out a signature like that.”

”So wherever they went,” Geordi said, picking up the line of reasoning, ”they didn't go willingly. That makes sense. Tell you what... I'll search the surrounding s.p.a.ce, you scan the surface of the sphere.”

”Ye've got yerself a deal,” the older man agreed.

As he worked, he shook his head. He still believed that the Enterprise had vanished inside the sphere; there was no other explanation. But if that was the case, how had it been accomplished? There was no visible means of entry... and without one, his theory-unlike the sphere-had a pretty big hole in it.

”Anything?” asked Geordi after a while.

Scott shrugged. ”Some low-level radiation. And a lot of meteor debris.” Suddenly, something caught his eye. ”Wait,” he said. ”What's this?”

Homing in on a finite portion of the sphere, he brought up a sensor map. And sure enough, the surface of the thing wasn't as smooth and uninterrupted as it had first appeared.

”C'mere, lad,” he told Geordi. ”I've got something here ye might want to take a look at.”

Moving to his side, the younger man peered over Scott's shoulder. ”That circular line,” he said. ”It looks some kind of doorway. Or...” He paused. ”Or an entry hatch!”

”Aye,” Scott confirmed, vindicated. ”Now look at this.”

Working at his control board, he superimposed the image of the ion trail over the image of the hatch. The trail ended right above the circular line etched into the sphere. Scott and Geordi exchanged a look.

”I'll bet ye two bottles of scotch that the Enterprise is inside that sphere at this very moment,” said Scott. ”And that they went in right through that hatch.”

”No bet here,” said Geordi. ”The question is ... how do we get the door to open for us?”

Aye, thought Scott. That was a good question. Together, they examined the display for a moment. Then Geordi pointed to something.

”Look here. This appears to be some kind of communications array.”

It looked familiar. ”Aye,” said the older man. ”We found hundreds of them when we did our initial survey seventy-five years ago.”

”Did you try hailing them?” asked Geordi.

”Sure. That was standard procedure in my day-nae that it did us any good. There was never any answer.” He scowled. ”And then the power coils blew up.”

The younger man grunted. ”Hailing is standard procedure today, too ...” Suddenly, his face went taut with thought. ”Wait a minute, Scotty. What if these aren't communications arrays? What if they're some kind of remote access terminals ... that are triggered by subs.p.a.ce signals on certain frequencies?”

Scott felt a trickle of cold sweat run down his spine. ”Frequencies like our standard s.h.i.+p's hail?”

”Exactly. When the Enterprise saw this terminal, they probably did the same thing you did seventy-five years ago-opened a channel. Only this time it triggered something that activated the hatch and pulled the s.h.i.+p inside the sphere.”

Scott thought for a moment. ”But why would the Jenolen nae have been pulled inside as well?” And then he answered his own question ”Ah. Because it was nae near a hatch.”

”No,” said Geordi, ”it wasn't. But you might have activated a similar mechanism-one designed to shunt an incoming vessel to a hatch. Except... except maybe the Jenolen wasn't big enough or strong enough to survive the shunt, and its power coils bore the brunt of it.”

The older man nodded admiringly. This Geordi La Forge had some promise after all. ”A nice bit o' reasoning, laddie. Very nice indeed.”

Geordi flashed a smile of thanks. But it faded a moment later, as he remembered the fix they were in.

”Let's a.s.sume for the moment that we're right,” he told Scott. ”How does that help us help the Enterprise? If we try to open the hatch, we might be pulled in like they were.”

”Aye, lad. That's certainly somethin' to consider.” And consider it he did.

Suddenly, it came to him. He snapped his fingers. ”On the other hand ... maybe all we need to do is get our foot in the door!”

Geordi was obviously puzzled. ”Our ... foot in the door?” he echoed. ”I don't get it.”

Suddenly feeling full of energy, Scott explained. ”All right then, here it is. Y'see, we trigger the remote terminal with a subs.p.a.ce transmission ...”

”Trigger it? But then, won't we be pulled in by whatever got the Enterprise?”

Scott shook his hea d. ”Nae if we're far enough away-say a half million kilometers.” He scratched at his jawline, playing out the scenario in his head. ”Then, when the hatch starts to close again-wham! We rush in and use the Jenolen to jam the thing open until the Enterprise can escape.”

Geordi looked at him as if the man had gone completely crackers. But Scott didn't mind. He was already moving toward his engineering consoles. After all, the sooner he got started, the sooner they could put their plan into action.