"Time in a Bottle"

[Mr. Atoz]

TIME IN A BOTTLE >>>


The main viewscreen of the starship Odysseus was dominated by a pale orange gas giant and its elegant, pastel ring system. Ensign Penner, working at the bridge communications station, had already seen enough of it, having spent most of the past half hour analyzing a discrepancy in its radio signature. Rubbing a kink out of her neck, she heard a slight hiss behind her as the turbolift door opened, and a few seconds later she could sense someone standing there waiting. Without even looking away from her station, she extended her hand behind her, palm up. "I'll take care of it as soon as I get the chance," she said brightly, her lips twisting into a smile.

"You don't even know what it is," said Lieutenant Caeli, holding a data disk as if he were trying to decide whether to entrust it to her or not.

Penner turned around, now grinning broadly. "I bet I do," she said somewhat smugly. "You got a letter from Dr. Tujimori yesterday. This is the reply, right?"

Caeli frowned a little, as though it annoyed him to be predictable. "Cute. Are you going to tell me what I said to her, too?"

"Ah, that kind of thing is between you and her," Penner retorted, swinging back and forth playfully in her chair. "Is there anything really steamy in it that I ought to know about?"

Caeli handed over the disk, smiling at last. "Like you say, that's strictly between me and Kikuro."

Penner sighed. "That's what I like about you dependable guys. You're so sweet."

As Caeli crossed the bridge to relieve Crewman Ziffel at the helm, the turbolift doors opened again as the First Officer appeared on deck. "Good morning, Mr. Fawkes," said Caeli, snapping to attention. "Nothing unusual to report, sir. We attained standard equatorial orbit at 0450 hours, 250,000 perigee. The Captain is in his ready room."

At the Sciences station, Lt. Cmdr. Diane Weir frowned at her sensor display. "Here's something unusual. I'm picking up metallic fragments in the planet's rings."

"If I remember my basic Planetary Sciences," said Fawkes, "don't metallic asteroids often end up in the rings?"

Weir shook her head, making her short brunette hair dance. "Not in this case. It analyzes out as a rodinium alloy. Specifically, Rodin Beta 5. Not naturally occurring."

"Rodinium used to be used in starship hulls, didn't it?" said Caeli.

Fawkes turned to the Tactical station. "Mister Rosh?"

The tall Eminian Security Chief looked over his Tactical sensors, his short goatee wagging as he gently shook his head. "I can confirm the presence of rodinium, Commander. As well as a variety of naturally occurring elements. But no residual radiation from a starship engine. With all respect to commander Weir--"

"That's what it is!" said Ensign Penner suddenly. She noticed the others staring at her and grinned sheepishly as she removed her ear clip. "Sorry, sir," she said to Rosh. "But this signal has been driving me nuts. Base eight repetitions, just like an intelligent signal, but when I try to translate it all I get is gibberish. So it just hit me – it's a Gardner distortion wave! You know, from the helium rings in the gas giant's upper atmosphere?"

"Ensign," said Fawkes patiently, "if we could please get to the point?"

"I'm getting there, sir," the young woman said again, punching buttons on her console. "The actual source of the signal is on the far side of the planet, probably stuck in orbit next to the first or second satellite. If I'm right, it should be coming over the horizon any second now."

"I see what she's getting at, sir," said Weir, turning back to the Sciences station and readjusting the sensor array. "I've got something. It looks like a message buoy, very nearly out of power. Let me see if I can amplify it..."

A burst of static came through the bridge speakers, gradually fading as the science officer made adjustments until a regularly repeating pulse of beeps could be heard. Weir put that through the Universal Translator, and finally all that remained was a man's voice, speaking slowly and distinctly. "This is the United Earth Space Probe Vessel Firedrake. We have run into a magnetic storm in this system,182 Corvi. Engines are overheating, soon to go critical. We have no choice but to abandon ship. We will try to head for the fifth planet in the lifeboat, but our chances are not good. I don't expect anyone will ever hear this, but if you do – don't forget about us, okay? John Stiles, Captain. Stardate 1388.4."

Stunned silence fell over the bridge as the message ended. Penner softly gasped. "But... that was over a hundred and ten years ago!"

[Mr. Atoz]

"Captain's log, Stardate 52131.3: While conducting a gravimetric distortion study of the binary star system 182 Corvi, we have found a flight recorder from the starship Firedrake, listed as missing in this sector over a century ago. Although it doesn't seem likely there could be survivors at this late date, we are going to investigate the fifth planet, just to make sure."


Captain Atoz stood in front of his command chair with his arms folded as he watched the planet move closer in the viewing screen. "I'll want a standard search and rescue orbit, Mr. Caeli," he said. "Arachne, can you give me a readout on the Firedrake?"

A holographic image of a young woman wearing the flowing gown of a Greek goddess instantly appeared on the viewscreen. "Working, Captain," she said solemnly, as a 3D diagram of the slender spaceship sketched itself on the screen behind her. "UEV Firedrake was a class 6 exploration vessel, with a maximum cruising speed of Warp Factor Four. It was equipped with two level three laser batteries and a type C shield system. It carried a crew compliment of twenty-two. Captain, John Stiles, age 48, was a decorated veteran of the Four Years War. Executive Officer--"

"That's sufficient, Arachne," said Atoz, raising his hand. "Thank you."

"You are very welcome, sir," said Arachne, the business-like expression on her face suddenly splitting into a pleased grin just before she vanished.

Atoz turned to the Sciences station. "Anything?"

"The planet is marginally class M, Captain," said Weir, with Chief Medical Officer Ben Pierce looking over her shoulder, "although the primary is a class G variable star with a period of ninety six days. I'm reading moderate plant and animal life, presumably adapted to the regular surges in stellar intensity."

"Any humanoids?"

Pierce turned and shook his head. "It's not likely that humanoids would survive this level of solar radiation for very long, unless they found a deep cave or something."

"The crew of the Firedrake had a lifeboat," said Atoz. "It's conceivable they could have sheltered in that."

"For a hundred and ten years?" said Pierce. "That would be quite a trick."

As the ship took up orbit, Rosh looked up from the Tactical station. "Captain, I am picking up scattered traces of refined metals, but not rodinium."

"Refined metals?"

"Confirmed," said Weir, peering into her Sciences screen. "Carbon steel, aluminum, duralloy, all heavily oxidized." She paused, choosing her words with care. "Captain, it appears that this planet once had a thriving level 6 civilization before the increasing instability of their sun killed them off. From the level of oxidation, I would estimate that it happened approximately seven hundred years ago."

"Heck of a place to come looking for shelter," said Pierce , shaking his head sadly. "A graveyard."

***

Four shafts of coherent energy shimmered into being at the foot of a rocky hill and quickly solidified into Fawkes, Dr. Pierce, Lt. Caeli and security crewman Metcalf. The four men looked around curiously at the city lying in silent ruins, the broken, angular contours softened by scrubby vegetation which covered everything. The First Officer tapped his comm badge. "Transport complete."

Pierce and Caeli opened their tricorders and began scanning. Metcalf tentatively started to explore up the hillside, and pushing aside some broad-leafed foliage revealed that much of the hill was actually a crumbling mound of concrete wall, the building it had once belonged to long since gone. "Interesting plant life," said Dr. Pierce absently. "Rhizomes protected by enough cellulose to choke an Edosian yak. Possibly edible if you cooked it for a couple of hours..."

"With all respect, doctor," said Fawkes impatiently, "we're not here for a biological survey."

"Commander," said Caeli, pointing down a narrow defile that looked something like a dry riverbed, "I'm reading rodinium at bearing two zero. It looks like a lifeboat."

Fawkes led the way, scrambling rapidly down the gully, and before long they found the remains of the landing ship, its nose crumpled against a thick, rusted steel pillar and largely overgrown with vines and overhanging horsetail ferns. The side and rear hatches were both open, but there was dust and corrosion all over the inside of the craft, no sign of recent occupation. "No bodies," said Pierce hopefully.

Fawkes shrugged. "That only means they survived the crash long enough to bury one another."

"Don't be such a sourpuss," said Pierce reproachfully. "According to Arachne, the Firedrake had crew of twenty-two. One was female, navigator Else de Koven."

"Are you suggesting they left descendants, doctor?"

"Anything's possible. It's not as if they had much else to do for recreation."

Fawkes looked around, already perspiring heavily in the heat. "How long have we got until the star flares again?"

"Commander Weir estimates that it reached maximum and began to decline thirty-five days ago," said Caeli. "We've got sixty-one days until the next one."

"We're in the middle of a city, right?" said Fawkes. "Maybe there's something – a cellar or basement – where they could have sheltered. Let's keep looking a bit longer."

***
Science Officer Weir, finishing another fruitless scan, leaned back in her chair and stretched. Across the bridge in the command chair, Captain Atoz was staring meditatively at the planet on the main viewscreen. Feeling the need for a short break to exercise her legs, she got up and walked over. "You look as if you're deep in thought, sir," she said quietly.

"Correct me if I'm going astray, Diane," he said pensively. "A star doesn't suddenly become unstable, right? Over a period of time, the stellar radiation gradually increases until it becomes a problem, correct?"

"Yes, sir," the Science Officer replied. "Eventually the ice caps would melt, flooding cities. Fresh water sources dry up, crops fail. Mass starvation. Cancer from the radiation..."

"But all this would take decades, wouldn't it?"

"Well, yes, sir," she said again. "In the case of this planet, plants and insects evidently had time to adapt. Higher lifeforms would've had a harder time, because of their longer lifespans. Slower evolutionary turnover from one generation to the next, if you see what I mean." She suddenly frowned. The Captain was trained in exobiology; he certainly knew this better than she did.

"Right," he said, stroking his chin. "Only this was a level 6 civilization, with technology comparable to our twenty-first century. Why didn't they see it coming and take steps? They could have chemically modified their ozone layer, launched solar screens into orbit – if all else failed, they could have moved underground."

Weir groped for an answer. "Maybe they did, and our scans just haven't picked them up yet."

Atoz shook his head. "We've been searching for nearly two hours. Wouldn't we have seen something by now?"

"I'm... not sure what you're getting at, sir."

Atoz turned back to face the viewscreen. "Neither am I. Something about this just doesn't seem right"

***

"Almost there, Commander," said Caeli, pausing to wipe the sweat from his face as he looked at the screen of his tricorder. "We should be right on top of it."

Fawkes didn't reply. Brushing aside a mass of clinging vines, he stepped around a shapeless hunk of rusting metal and found himself looking down a slope at a white geodesic dome, at least a good hundred yards across and half covered with lichens and other vegetation. Its original color had apparently been sky blue, but centuries of exposure had left the surface bleached and pitted. "Holy mackerel!" said Pierce, struggling up beside him. "It must be the only intact building left on the entire planet."

"Just barely intact," said Caeli, still consulting his tricorder. "I'm surprised it's still standing. A lot of the structural supports are broken. One hundred ninety meters in diameter. The skin is made of some kind of composite polymer, insulated against radiation with several layers of fistrium mesh. My tricorder won't penetrate..."

"Is there an entrance?" interrupted Fawkes.

"Looks like something down here, sir," said Metcalf, calling from lower on the hillside. The others rushed down to join him and found a covered arch sealed by a pair of heavy metal doors, rusted shut. There was a sign next to the door, but the faded, alien lettering was unreadable. Fawkes and Metcalf aimed their phasers at the seams of the door, and after a few minutes work, managed to pry open the right hand portal enough to walk through. Inside was an oblong chamber, dark and filled with a musty, stiflingly hot atmosphere. At the other end was another pair of doors, much less robust and easier to negotiate.

Now the four men found themselves in a corridor, wide enough for three to walk abreast. The walls and floor were spotted with corrosion, but there were light panels at intervals. And although the air was still hot, it seemed somehow fresher and more breathable. "There must be a ventilator circulating the air," said Pierce, sniffing cautiously. "I don't know about you guys, but I've never heard of power cells lasting this long."

"I don't believe this!" said Caeli, flicking open his tricorder again. "Commander, I'm reading an underground generator powering this building, somewhere in the neighborhood of a couple of thousand megawatts!"

"Why didn't we pick up something like that from orbit?" asked Pierce.

"That fistrium insulation in the skin," said Fawkes. "It's probably also force shielded."

"There would have to be some kind of structural integrity field," agreed Caeli, "to keep the building from falling apart."

The corridor finally turned a corner and ended with a small control panel, set a little below waist height and with awkwardly-placed buttons. "Anybody care to puzzle this out?" invited Fawkes.

"Look how low it is," said Caeli, dropping to one knee. "The aliens who built it must be smaller than us. Or at least not humanoid, if you can go by the spacing of the controls."

"Doesn't look a security code system," said Pierce. "I expect this big green button means Open..." And before anyone could stop him, he pressed it.

With a heavy hydraulic hiss, the entire end wall of the corridor split apart and slid sideways, revealing the central area under the dome. It looked like a busy village square. Beneath the interlaced geodesic lattice was a vast open space decorated with fruit trees, flowering plants, sculptures, trickling fountains, stuffed divans, openwork structures, stained glass partitions... and people!

They were basically Human looking, dressed in loose, comfortable clothing, no two quite alike. There seemed to be hundreds of both sexes, milling about and talking quietly to one another, a few running and dodging through the crowd. There were no children or old people visible, only young adults. "Well, doctor?" said Fawkes at last, frowning.

"Don't look at me," said Pierce. "I said they might have left a few descendants, but this is ridiculous."

Fawkes started walking into the chamber, and the other three followed in a ragged line, surprised that the people didn't seem to care or even pay much attention to them. Several times natives would stroll past, give the strangers a brief nod, and continue on without breaking stride, disregarding or ignoring any attempt to speak to them. "You ever get the feeling you're being snubbed?" said Pierce irritably. "You'd think they had aliens dropping in every day."

"The days tend to run together here," said an apathetic voice from behind them. They turned to see a young man, about thirty years of age, leaning casually against a tree. He was wearing on his face an expression of listless contentment and on his body an old fashioned gold Starfleet Captain's uniform. "You'll get used to it."

Fawkes frowned more deeply, liking this lukewarm attitude less and less. "I'm Commander Charles Fawkes, of the Federation starship Odysseus. Am I to understand that you people are descended from the survivors of the Firedrake?"

"Firedrake?" said the young man, grinning slightly. "That's a name I haven't heard in a long time."

Pierce took up a position on his other side. "Where did you get that uniform? Are you related to Captain Stiles? Captain John Stiles?"

The young man didn't seem to take offense at the question. "Not exactly. I am John Stiles."

[Mr. Atoz]

"Odysseus to Away Team," Ensign Penner said patiently. "Mister Fawkes, please respond." Removing her ear clip, she swung around to face the command chair. "Sorry, Captain. No response."

Atoz paced once across the bridge. "Mister Rosh, his last communication said they were investigating a building."

"Yes, sir," the Eminian replied. "A geodesic dome, shielded from sensors by a layer of fistrium. It is likely interrupting communications as well."

Atoz nodded as he turned to pace back the other way. Fawkes was an experienced officer, well aware of landing party procedures. Surely he wouldn't remain out of contact for long. "We'll give him fifteen more minutes. Start putting together a rescue party, just in case."

"Aye-aye, sir."

As Atoz was about to resume his seat, he glanced over at the Sciences station to see Weir peering intently at something on her screen. Then she sat back in her chair with a downhearted sigh, rubbing her eyes. "My turn to ask," he said, strolling over to her station. "What are you so deep in thought about?"

Weir shook her head as if trying to remove an unpleasant vision, then pushed her hair back out of her face. "I've been scanning the area around the lifeboat, sir. I've found graves."

"Graves?"

"By my count, nineteen, an average of seven decimeters below the surface. Human skeletons, ID tags and everything. There's no mistake, sir. Most of the crew didn't make it."

***
"Excuse me for saying this so bluntly," said Pierce, looking around him with a sigh, "but you're nuts. The crew of the Firedrake crash-landed here over a century ago. John Stiles was forty-eight years old at the time."

"Has it been that long?" said the young man musingly. "I knew it had been a while, but... like I say, the days run together." And then he simply walked away.

As Fawkes stood there staring after the man's back, his brow creased in irritation, Pierce ran after him. "Hold on a minute, sir. Captain Stiles, if that's who you say you are..."

"John will do."

"John. How do you explain all this? How are you still alive? Are all these people your children?"

Stiles stopped, looking at the crowd of people surrounding them as if he had just now noticed them all. "Oh, no! These people were already here when we found the place." Seeing their puzzled looks, he continued. "Look, the lifeboat crashed. We all survived, but--"

"All twenty-two of you?" interjected Fawkes. "Not a single casualty?"

"That's what I said," said Stiles testily. "While exploring, we found the Dome. Time just doesn't seem to pass in here at all." Fawkes and Pierce waited expectantly for him to continue, but he seemed to think that he had explained everything, because he started walking again.

"This man is not being helpful," said Pierce, scratching his head as Stiles disappeared into the crowd.

"You don't think he was serious, do you sir?" said Metcalf nervously. "When he said time doesn't pass in here?"

"I don't know," Pierce replied. "Do you have a better explanation?"

"Where's Mr. Caeli gone to?" said Fawkes suddenly.

"That way, sir," said Metcalf patiently, pointing out the helmsman's red and black uniform, partly obscured by a fountain about ten meters away.

The First Officer tapped his comm badge, attempting to contact the ship but getting no reply of any kind. "That figures. We're overdue for our check in. Better collect Mr. Caeli, doctor. We're getting out of here."

***

Caeli hadn't meant to allow himself to be distracted. He had been following Fawkes and Pierce, letting his gaze wander over the dome area, smiling pleasantly at the people as they passed. He was just beginning to realize from some of their anatomical features that some of them weren't quite Human after all when one particular woman stood out because from behind, she reminded him of Kikuro. That couldn't be, he thought naturally, but then she glanced over her shoulder, directly into his eyes, and the resemblance was amazing.

At that point, he couldn't resist. Reckoning that Fawkes hadn't actually ordered the group to stay together, and this was after all a reconnaissance party, he made his way in the woman's direction, weaving his way through the crowd. He caught up to her next to a fountain, the centerpiece of which looked something like a chubby dolphin. "Hi! My name is Luke," he said, flashing his best grin (the one that Kikuro always said had attracted her in the first place). "We're... sort of explorers."

The woman smiled back, tilting her head winsomely to one side, but didn't say anything. It really was remarkable how much she looked like Kikuro, even down to the way she dressed. He was surprised that he hadn't noticed that earlier. "Do you have a name?" he prompted.

"Do you have a name?" she repeated. "My name is Luke."

Caeli felt a slight chill, but kept smiling. Maybe there was a language problem. "No, I mean your name."

She seemed to think about it. "My name is... Kikuro," she said, and smiled. "Yes. I like that name."

"Are you reading my mind or something?"

"Tell me more about Kikuro," she said, moving closer. For the first time, he noticed her eyes – they were dark like Kikuro's but they were blank, expressionless orbs that never seemed to look at him directly.

"Caeli?" said Pierce, nudging the helmsman's arm. "What's going on? Who's your new friend?"

"That's the trouble, doc. She's..." But in that brief moment when his attention had wavered, the woman had turned away and blended into the crowd again. "Something really strange is going on here, doctor."

"Tell me about it," said Pierce, as people continued to stroll past them, nodding and moving on without stopping. "Come on, let's go join the others."

***
Fawkes and Metcalf retraced their steps back to the entrance corridor and found the door once again shut. The panel positioned low on the wall of the dome appeared to be inactive. Fawkes pressed buttons at random, but nothing happened. He began feeling around for some means of prying the panel loose and gaining access its inner workings.

"What do you think you're doing?" said Stiles, who had abruptly reappeared. All of his easygoing placidity seemed to have vanished completely. He glared at the First Officer with fanatical dislike.

Fawkes glanced up, frowning. "As overwhelming as we find your hospitality, Captain Stiles," he said sarcastically, "it's time for us to report back to our ship. How do we open this door?"

"Are you crazy? Why would you want to go outside?"

"I just explained--"

"You can't go outside!" As Stiles rushed forward, Metcalf leaped to intercept him. But as the two men came to grips, Metcalf's hands met no resistance at all. Where he was touched, Stiles' body seemed to break up like smoke, only to reform again almost instantly.

Metcalf cried out in alarm, shaking his head as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. But without waiting to be sure, he had already drawn his phaser. Stiles forgot about Fawkes and whirled around to face the threat. Metcalf fired.

The beam of the phaser (on about medium stun, if Fawkes was any judge), seemed almost to slow down slightly as it passed completely through Stiles' body, but at the same time he didn't appear very concerned. He continued to advance, as Metcalf stumbled backwards along the wall in horror, raising the weapon's power setting and firing again. This time Stiles seemed to absorb the beam, his entire body glowing from the power being pumped into him. Doggedly he kept coming, until his hands actually clasped around the security man's throat.

The phaser exploded with a shattering boom. Fawkes, in the act of drawing his own weapon, had just enough time to dive for the floor as the shock wave rolled over him, bringing down part of the wall on top of him.

"Charles!" Pierce was yelling a few moments later, as he and Caeli shoved aside sections of stainless steel and particle board. "Take it easy," the doctor cautioned, flicking open his tricorder as the First Officer tried to sit up.

"Never mind me. What about Metcalf?" said Fawkes, struggling to stand, but only making it halfway before shock took over and slammed him back to the floor.

"Forget it, Charles," said Pierce unhappily, pulling a hypospray from his medical kit. "We were in time to see what happened. He was blown into about half a dozen pieces."

"d**n!" Fawkes muttered, as the hypospray hissed into his arm.

"Take it easy," the doctor repeated, glancing at his tricorder screen. "You're lucky you didn't buy the farm yourself. As it is, you've got abrasions and radiation burns."

"Lieutenant Caeli," said Fawkes grimly, closing his eyes as the painkiller took effect. "See what you can do about phasering us a way out."

"Aye-aye, Commander." The explosion had left concrete beams and metal supports exposed, but the actual structural damage was surprisingly minimal. The helmsman set his phaser to level 15, took careful aim at the place they had entered, and fired. The beam struck the door and splayed out without inflicting any harm. Caeli made an adjustment to the beam attenuation ring and tried again.

"It's no good, Commander," he said, shaking his head. "There's a force field augmenting the dome's structure. A hand phaser is no match for it."

"So what's next?" said Pierce, helping Fawkes to one of the nearby cushioned divans.

"What's next is we hang on," replied the First Officer with a grimace of pain. "When we don't check in, the Captain will send a rescue party. In the meantime--"

"Hey," said Caeli, staring past them with disbelief. "Where did all the people go?"

They turned. The interior of the dome was the same – the trees, fountains, sculptures and other structures still exactly as before – but it was entirely empty of people.

[Mr. Atoz]

"The good news," said Chief Engineer Vespis, her antennae twitching as she peered intently into the bridge Tactical monitor, "is that the force field around the dome doesn't seem to be designed as a security screen. Its main purpose to protect the building from solar radiation, and secondarily for structural support."

Atoz turned in his command chair to face the Andorian. "So if we could only get a sensor lock on the Away Team, we could beam them up through it."

"That would be the bad news, sir. The interference pattern blocks our sensors."

"We could beam down a security detail with pattern enhancers, Captain," Rosh volunteered. "I have them standing by."

"We have no idea what you'd be beaming into, Mr. Rosh," said Atoz, turning again to the Sciences station. "Diane? Do you see any way to scan through that force shield?"

Weir shook her head, peering into her Sciences display. "I don't think so, Captain. But the cartography section has found something interesting. A number of similar domes are scattered across this area. All of which have collapsed and are no longer habitable." She rapidly tapped commands into her console. "I'm shifting to one of them. Maybe it will tell us something about their design and purpose."

Vespis quickly crossed the bridge and leaned over the console beside her. "That's strange," said the engineer. "For a building that's supposed to be a shelter, it doesn't have much in the way of life support. I don't see a waste management system, either." She pointed to something on the display. "Can you focus on this area?"

Weir looked closer. "There's a reinforced chamber under the center of the dome. It appears to be a storage area of some kind. Plastic cylinders, thousands of them clustered together. Let me scan one of them."

"Look at their size," said Vespis, her antennae fluttering as she concentrated. "I would almost think they were... Well, you know... they look like..."

"Like what?" said Atoz.

Weir and Vespis read the sensor display and shared a long, horrified silence. "They look like coffins, sir," said the engineer. "Thousands of coffins."

***

With a grunt of pain, Fawkes pushed himself to his feet, bracing himself between the wall and Dr. Pierce. Caeli advanced slowly back towards the middle of the dome, scanning with his tricorder. "None of this is real, Commander," he said. "I mean, I'm reading masses of rusted duralloy here and there, but all the other materials, the glass, the trees, the water are all photonic patterns. It's like a holodeck!"

"Where's the source?" asked Fawkes, hobbling up next to him. "Where is it broadcast from?"

Caeli swept the instrument slowly back and forth. "It's not like a conventional holo-emitter system. I think it's a central beacon. That tall thing." The three of them turned towards the slender, black tower that emerged from a massive blockhouse-like structure under the center of the dome.

"You don't suppose the people could have been holograms too, do you?" said Pierce.

Fawkes grimaced. "What would be the purpose in that?"

"The girl I saw seemed real enough," volunteered Caeli. "That is, up until the time she--"

"I am in fact very real," said a feminine voice. The woman seemed to melt together from thin air, like disintegration in reverse. Caeli was sure it was the same women he had seen earlier, but the resemblance to Kikuro was only distant. She had dark hair, but it had slightly violet highlights. Her ears, what little were seen under her hair, were flatter and positioned lower on her skull. The four fingers of her hands were arranged in a symmetrical pattern, and she was quite short, only about a hundred and twenty centimeters.

"My name is--" Fawkes began.

"Commander Fawkes," said the woman, smiling. "I have already assimilated the personal designations of you all. My name, if it is important to you, is Nilak. Welcome to our planet." She bowed, extending her arms to either side in a gesture of greeting.

"You can read our minds, then," said Caeli.

She turned to him with a smile. "Only superficial thoughts, Luke. Picked up by the interactive neural micronet which pervades the Dome. Your thoughts of Kikuro were especially vivid." As Caeli quickly looked away in embarrassment, she started slowly walking. Since she was moving in roughly the same direction they were already facing, the three men followed along automatically.

"And what, pray tell, is a neural micronet?" asked Pierce.

"A communications medium, mainly," said Nilak. "For example, although it may seem that way, I am not really speaking. The micronet is translating my thoughts into communications patterns and overlaying them across your auditory frequency inputs. All inhabitants of the Dome are fully interactive."

"Oh, really?" said Pierce, as he carefully opened his tricorder and scanned her.

"This is all very nice," said Fawkes impatiently. "But our Captain is probably worried about us. How do we get back outside so that we can contact our ship?"

"That wouldn't be possible," said Nilak. Moving with deliberation, she glided up to blockhouse and touched a square panel. A heavily reinforced door rumbled open with a painful, rusty groan. Obviously it had not been opened in years. "Come," she invited, leading the way inside.

"Doctor?" Fawkes whispered.

Pierce shook his head as he looked at his tricorder. "I'm reading no organic material at all."

"You mean she's not alive?" said Caeli.

"She's not a ghost, if that's what you mean," said the doctor, doing a sweep with his tricorder. "She's made out of a whole swarm of plastoid machines, each moving independently, but functioning as one unit." He shook his head. "You'd have to get Vespis down here if you wanted to know any more. I can't make heads or tails of it."

"You mean Nanites?" said Fawkes.

"If you wanted to get picky, they'd be more like Micro-ites," said Pierce as he closed his tricorder and holstered it. "They'd just be visible to the naked eye, like a fine mist. There must be several million of them floating around in here. Obviously the holo-transmitter projects the illusion of a woman so we see her that way."

"I am in fact very real," Nilak repeated, standing in the doorway of the blockhouse. "Come and see."

Caeli cautiously drew his phaser. "I don't think that will do much good," said Fawkes gloomily. "You saw what happened to Metcalf."

"Oh, yeah," said Caeli, thoughtfully holstering the weapon again.

As Fawkes took a step forward, Pierce grabbed his shoulder. "Wait a minute! You're not going in there, are you?"

The First Officer shrugged. "It may be our chance to find out what's going on here."

***

"Coffins?" said Atoz, swiveling his chair around to stare at the viewscreen. "Why would anyone go to all this trouble for a lot of dead people? We're missing something."

Vespis leaned across in front of Weir. "Are those digital computer cores? There's an awful lot of them, for a mortuary."

"I don't think they're simply coffins, Captain," the Science Officer replied,.her brow furrowed in thought. "I think they're intended to be life support pods."

"That makes even less sense," said the Chief Engineer impatiently. "The sun was becoming unstable. They must have known their environment wasn't ever going to get better. Their power plants couldn't hold out indefinitely. What were they thinking?"

"Maybe they hoped that someone like us would come along some day," Weir suggested.

"Or maybe," said Atoz with a heavy sigh, "they were so desperate they just didn't look that far ahead." It had happened that way over and over, down through history – cultures which through complacency or shortsightedness had ignored ecological problems until it was too late to do anything, until all that was left to them was some frantic, hopeless half measure. "Mister Vespis, do you think our tractor beams can draw enough energy from that shield to shut down the dome's generator?"

The Andorian looked at the sensor display again. "If it's constructed the same as this one, it's getting power from a geothermal heat sink. If we draw enough, the turbines should overload."

Atoz considered. He didn't want to interfere with the dome's function, but if he was going to get his people back, he had to chose a way which would minimize actual damage to the building. "Okay, let's do that."

***

The interior of the blockhouse was dark, dusty and smelled of oil and burned out circuits. "Obviously this is the service entrance," said Pierce, sniffing the air. Following Nilak, Fawkes groped his way past several bulky machines and down an inclined ramp.

"Wait up, Commander," said Caeli. "I should really be going first."

"Why is that, lieutenant?" asked Fawkes without turning, his eyes narrowed on the gloom ahead.

"Well... you know. I'm more expendable than either you or the doctor."

Pierce actually laughed out loud. "Hear that, Charles? He's more expendable than we are."

"Nobody else is getting expended if I can help it, lieutenant," Fawkes said, leading the way down. Walking through a tunnel framed with pipes and wiring trunks, they eventually came into an enormous chamber, where in every direction row after row of horizontal plastic cylinders were stacked ten high. Each one was rather oval in cross-section and was held in a metal cradle. Apparently the machinery was intended to allow each one to be maneuvered down to floor level as needed, but a quick inspection showed that most of the joints were frozen in a solid mass of rust.

"Hibernation pods," said Pierce, wiping dust off of the nearest one and revealing a life signs monitor. "That's one way to survive the end of the world – just sleep through it."

"How many do you think there are?" said Caeli.

"This Dome, 21A," said Nikal, smiling brightly, "has a capacity of five thousand individuals. But every Dome in the system is fully interconnected, allowing free and unlimited communications with all your friends and family, wherever they may be."

"Interconnected?" echoed Fawkes.

"I don't think she got the memo," said Pierce over his shoulder, "that this is the only dome that survived after all this time."

"The Dome is life," Nikal continued, ignoring them. "Here you are perfectly safe. All the amenities of life are at your complete disposal. Food, drink, recreation. Nothing whatsoever to worry about."

"You mean, virtual food, drink, and recreation," said Caeli. "None of it is real. Just the people, running holographic simulations of themselves."

"I'm not even sure the people are real," said Pierce, frowning as he flicked open his tricorder.

"What do you mean?" said Fawkes.

"Look at this," the doctor said, pointing to the screen of his tricorder. "Heartbeat, respiration, micro-electric neural stimulus, all done by the pod. But little or no autonomous brain activity. These people are just vegetables."

"My Lord!" said Caeli. "But the people we saw up there...?"

"Simulations," said Fawkes. "Mental patterns copied into a computer somewhere as a backup system. But what killed the people, doctor? A malfunction of the pods?"

"Not entirely," said Pierce. "They've been kept alive here for seven hundred years with no new stimulus, except when Stiles joined them a century ago. What do you expect?"

"You mean they--?"

There was another swirling of particles in the air, as the image of Nikal changed into the image of Stiles. "I warned you," he said menacingly. "The Dome is your only refuge. You can't leave. You can't ever leave."

[Mr. Atoz]

"Computed, Captain," said Vespis. "Tractor beams adjusted for energy transfer. I figure we'll need to pull maybe fifty thousand watts."

"Engage." The tractors themselves were invisible, but in the main viewscreen a very thin blue line appeared, like a reverse lightning bolt, flowing from the dome to the Odysseus.

"Ten thousand," said Vespis, her fingers on the controls of the engineering monitor station. "Twenty thousand. We've reached the limit of our storage cells. Dissipating the excess through the deflector dish..."

"Mister Rosh, " said Atoz, "lock one of the phaser banks on the dome. Five percent power, just enough to punch a hole in that fistrium layer."

"Phasers locked, Captain."

"As soon as you get a clear signal, beam the Away Team directly to the bridge."

"Yes, Captain."

The ship's phasers flicked on and off in rapid succession, stabbing downward through the atmosphere and into the very apex of the dome.

***

Inside the pod chamber, thick, acrid smoke began to drift in through the ventilation grids. Suddenly the air got very hot. An urgent, hideously loud siren began to sound. "There seems to be a slight malfunction in the air circulation system," said Stiles over the noise, as he transformed smoothly back into Nikal. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It will shortly be corrected. In the meanwhile..."

But Fawkes didn't wait to hear the rest. "Get out of here!" he shouted, pointing back up the rampway. Pierce wasted no time on ceremony, running up the corridor through the dark fog. Caeli was right behind him.

On the next level, they ran into Nikal again, standing in front of a long, complex control panel. "There is no need for alarm," she chanted, like a mantra. "The problem will soon be corrected. The Dome is perfectly safe."

Caeli pulled up next to her. "This is the central monitor station, Commander. These look like power indicators. Five power turbines, fed by geothermal energy. Two of them have already failed, and the others are straining." A deep, throbbing whine was now vibrating the air in competition with the sirens, as the remaining turbines buried underground struggled to make up for the power drain.

"There is no cause for concern," Nikal was still saying. "The problem will soon be corrected."

There was an explosion at the other end of the room, as one of the computers overheated, spraying sparks and the sharp smell of burning insulation. "There goes another turbine," said Caeli, sweating.

"Can you see any way to shut off the force field?" said Fawkes.

The helmsman shook his head, wiping sooty sweat out of his eyes. "It would probably require a computer command to do that, sir. Without knowing anything about their language..."

Fawkes had already come to the same conclusion. If something wasn't done soon, the generators that were left were going to go critical. Another computer bank erupted into flames. His eye lit upon a row of huge manual switches, rusted into solid lumps of metal. Frantically he tore open the access panel above them. There was a wild tangle of alien components, complex and confusing. He found something that looked like a fuse and yanked it out. Then another, and another.

There was another explosion, far off like a rumbling of thunder, and then silence. The siren stopped howling. The indicator lights on the power banks all fell to zero. The main computer assembly was still barely functioning, presumably on battery power, but it surely wouldn't last long.

The image of Nikal appeared dimmer and less distinct around its edges, as if she were very, very slowly beginning to dissipate. "There was nothing else we could do," she said. "You remember how it was. The scientists kept talking about global warming. The sun was going nova or something. You know the sort of thing scientist always go on about. People were running around in a state of panic. What else could we do? We couldn't let people panic, could we?"

"No, of course not," said Pierce gently.

"Am I going to die now?" said Nikal. She said it without feeling, without remorse. Just an ordinary question.

"I don't know," said Pierce. "What do you think?"

She seemed to consider the question carefully. "I think it will be a relief."

Then their three comm badges chirped in unison, and the shimmering blue light of the transporter effect dissolved them away.

***

As they materialized on the bridge, Atoz took in their disheveled uniforms, their soot blackened faces. "Are you all right?" he said, jumping out of his chair.

"We may have a little smoke inhalation," said Pierce, coughing, "but I think we'll live."

"All power sources in the dome appear to be non-functional," said Vespis briskly, swiveling around from the engineering station. The Andorian ran her eyes anxiously over Fawkes from top to bottom, then gave him a warm, if somewhat sardonic, smile. "You just can't go anywhere without getting into trouble, can you Papa?" The First Officer scowled gruffly at the jibe, but didn't reply.

"I'm picking up low-level, non-differentiated life signs," said Weir at the Sciences station. "Fading rapidly."

Atoz turned back to Fawkes. "We gathered that the dome was full of life support pods. Do we need to transfer power back down there to keep them energized?" The three members of the Away Team looked at one another guiltily as if hoping one of the others would answer.

"Don't bother, Seven," said Pierce. "Believe me, you wouldn't be doing them a favor."

"I don't understand."

"Take my word for it, sir," said Fawkes. "There's nobody alive down there. It's just a village in a bottle."

THE END >>>>>