The BLTS Archive- The River
by Blue Champage (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net)

---

This story is a sequel to my Voyager story "Heartwood". It
is somewhat more complex, and a bit longer. It is not a
sequel in the sense that the events of Heartwood continue,
but in the sense that those events occurred less than a
month previous to "The River", and there are some
references, but the story's not based on them. But "The
River" is a lot more fun if one reads "Heartwood" first.
Paramount owns the characters and settings. I own the
specifics of action, dialogue, and narrative. Have fun,
everyone. :)

---

"Captain Janeway!"

Janeway blinked; not exactly awake, she slapped the switch
next to her bed. "Janeway here. Go ahead."

"This is Ensign Hausermann in Engineering," came a harried
female voice. "There's been an accident. Lieutenant Torres
is injured."

Janeway sat bolt upright and threw the covers back. "Have
you alerted sickbay?"

"Kes is here, Captain, but she can't get to the Lieutenant."

"Where's the Doctor?" Janeway was flinging her nightgown on
the floor and yanking on the uniform she'd been wearing her
last shift. "And if the Lieutenant's trapped--"

"Kes says The Doctor is being reloaded after his regular
self-diagnostic, and that she would come with the stretcher
and have Lieutenant Torres in sickbay by the time he was
back up. The Lieutenant isn't exactly trapped, but she
won't--there she goes again. She's asking for you.
Emphatically. Screaming 'Somebody get the Captain down
here'."

Janeway had been pulling her second boot on and nearly fell
over on the rug. Hopping in place, she said "Kes is there,
Torres is conscious and mobile, and she WON'T come out of
wherever she is? Is she in a Jeffries tube, a crawlspace?
How badly is she hurt?"

"She's still standing up; the only other thing I can tell
from here is that the blood around her boots is getting
pretty deep."

"I'm on my way."

In the turbolift, she touched her comm badge and said
"Janeway to Torres. Where are you?" She received the
standard computer raspberry for "no link." She hadn't
really expected otherwise; or Hausermann wouldn't have had
to relay B'Elanna's request.

When the lift halted, she left it at a sprint. The doors of
Engineering swished aside; skidding to a stop, shoving her
hair out of her eyes with one hand, Janeway glanced rapidly
around. All but a few of those present were gathered
against a bank of consoles over to the right of the core.
"Let me through," she snapped, shouldering people aside,
and everyone quickly gave way.

B'Elanna was on her side, head and shoulders hidden under a
console, very still. The border of the containment field
around and behind the single console station could be
detected by the snapping and sparkling of its lower few
centimeters, where several liters of purplish-red blood
churned against it, agitated by the repelling force. "Kes,
is she breathing?"

"Yes, Captain, she's not face-down in it."

Ensign Hausermann, her face a pallor under braided red
hair, said "Captain, it's that sensor modification she's
been working on. The one to give us the ability to detect
infinitesimal space folds, quantum filaments, and--"

"--and other normally undetectable dangers, I'm familiar
with the project, Hausermann. How was B'Elanna hurt, why is
the field still up around this console and how long has she
been unconscious? Since I was called?"

"She was standing in front of the console, Captain,"
Hausermann elaborated, "and there was a flash--not like an
explosion; more like a bright flicker, just once. I thought
she must have shut her precautionary containment field off,
but there wasn't any sound--I didn't even look her way
until she yelled and almost doubled over. But she wouldn't
lower the field--she said she was all right, that something
unforeseen-- an emergent property of the configuration was
manifesting, and she had to get it back under control
first. Then her eyes closed for a minute while I was trying
to tie off what I'd been dealing with and get down here.
When she opened her eyes she had a really odd look on her
face--not a flinch, not like she was in pain, but then she
started cursing, and she asked for you.

"We called sickbay, and Kes got down here with a pallet,
but Lieutenant Torres still wouldn't lower the field. Then
she started yelling at us to get the Captain down here NOW,
sort of slid down the side of the console and pulled that
panel off, then tried to get under the console. That was
when she stopped moving."

"God." Janeway stared. "How dangerous do you think this
'emergent property' from which she was protecting the area
is? Something that could endanger the ship?"

"Captain, I can't guarantee anything, but I doubt she was
worried about the ship's safety by the time she fainted. I
think she refused to lower it so that no one could make her
stop what she was doing; she wanted you down here, and she
wasn't going to give up until she got you here. She ordered
us not to lower the field."

Janeway stared at the immobile form of the Lieutenant for
maybe half a second, then said "All right, I'm here. Let's
get that field down and get her out of there."

"I'm on it, Captain," one of the other engineers said,
working back through the sparse nightshift crowd.

"Was anyone watching when she yelled the first time? Does
anyone know how badly she's hurt?"

Everyone looked at each other, and Hausermann said "I don't
think anyone saw her being injured, or if we did, we didn't
realize it. Just the light, and then she shouted in
Klingon."

With a whiff of ozone and a buzz, the field flashed into
ephemeral visibility and died; the blood gushed out in a
miniature tsunami, soaking the carpet and nearly knocking
everyone over with its odor. Kes braved the bloodsoaked rug
in her long white nightgown, ignoring what her bare feet
were squishing in. She beckoned to Henley where the Maquis
woman had been hovering, and they pulled Torres free of the
console as gently as possible.

The Lieutenant was a gruesome sight, surely enough; uniform
and all exposed skin running with blood, hair matted and
dripping viscousness. It was impossible for anyone farther
away than Kes or Henley to tell where her injuries were.

"Deep lacerations through the abdominal and back muscles,"
Kes said as she scanned, "the last deep enough to reach the
right rear brainfeeding artery. I know it looks horrible,
Captain, but I think she'll be fine. By the time I get her
to sickbay, the Doctor will be back up, his self-scan only
take a few minutes. Don't be too concerned about the volume
of blood--wounded Klingon bodies immediately step up blood
production and redirect the flow through several redundant
arteries into the brain." Henley and Kes were maneuvering
the antigrav pallet to lift B'Elanna on.

B'Elanna's eyelids fluttered. "Field....get...Captain..."

"I'm here, B'Elanna," Janeway said quickly, leaning to lay
her hand on the engineer's shoulder. "What is it?"

"Field...up--get the field back up--"

"Hausermann! Raise that force field again, quickly."

"Aye, Captain."

The cool metallic sound came, and the field flashed back to
life. When B'Elanna heard it, she sighed and let her eyes
close.

"We're going to get you to sickbay now, B'Elanna," Kes said
into the Klingon's ear. "You're going to be fine." People
started clearing the way.

Janeway walked next to the pallet as Kes started it moving
toward the doors. "Lieutenant, what is it you wanted me
for?" she asked softly. "What happened?"

"It's..." B'Elanna's eyes unfocused, but not aimlessly; she
seemed to be seeing something in her imagination. "...like
a river...Captain, you have to see..."

"B'Elanna, don't talk," Kes said softly, then "I'm sorry,
Captain, but every time she inhales to speak, more blood is
pressed out of her."

"Understood. Just relax, B'Elanna; we'll talk in sickbay,
when your wounds have been treated."

B'Elanna met Janeway's look, and in her eyes was an
expression of wonder and half-comprehension that the
Captain would never have expected to see there. "Captain,"
she whispered. "...yes. Like a river..."

"I'm sorry, Captain, but your presence seems to be
counterproductive," Kes said in what was, for her, a firm
tone of voice.

"Right," Janeway agreed, backing away from the pallet.
"I'll meet you in sickbay in...how long would you say?"

"Make it an hour, Captain," Kes said. "We'll have her
wounds closed and mostly healed by then."

"One hour."

Janeway used the time to go back to her quarters, note the
hour--0120, for heaven's sake, didn't that half-Klingon
automaton EVER sleep?--sigh, shower, have a cup of coffee
and get into a clean uniform.

All the while, Torres's words repeated in her mind.
"...River...like a river... Captain...you have to see..."
and the gritted-tooth insistence that she get the force
field back up.

She came into sickbay to see B'Elanna, wearing a sickbay
smock, lying on a biobed, looking half awake, but still
restlessly drumming her fingers on her stomach. Her hair
was damp but clean, as was the rest of her, and there was a
saline hypo-drip blinking softly on her arm, next to a med
monitor. She started to sit up when she saw Janeway.

From some alternate medical dimension, Kes emerged. She was
still clad in the wraparound nightgown whose once-filmy hem
now dragged the carpet, caked with purple-red blood that
was fast drying to thick blue-brown deposits. They extended
upward to mark where she'd knelt next to B'Elanna. She
gently laid both hands on the lieutenant's shoulders. "Not
yet, B'Elanna. If you start using those muscles to sit and
move, you'll cause scarring, and then it'll take even
longer to get you back to duty. So think of your torso
muscles...as a billows to breathe with."

"Sorry, Kes.... I'll be good. I just want to talk to the
Captain."

"That's fine, of course," Kes said softly. "But Captain--"
she smiled at Janeway. "Don't say anything funny."

Janeway smiled back. "I'll do my best."

She approached Torres, took her hand, and with a demeanor
totally at odds with that action, snapped "All right, what
was so important that you nearly let yourself bleed to
death and cost the ship her best engineer?"

Torres grimaced. "I'm sorry, Captain. That first...cut
wasn't bad enough to worry about. I didn't pass out until I
got hit again, under the console."

"Yes, Kes mentioned a couple of deep lacerations and a
damaged artery. What were you hit BY? Rhea Hausermann
described a flash of light just before you shouted. Do you
know what it was?"

"Captain..." Torres's eyes went distant again, and she said
"I don't know what the light was--I don't remember seeing
it. As for what I do remember...I tried to tell you...that
you had to see it, I remember that that's why I wanted you
down there. Something we're doing with the sensors
is...making it possible to perceive...whatever it was that
I perceived."

"You said it was like a river."

"A river, yes, but...a figurative river."

"In what way?" Torres continued to frown at nothing, and
Janeway tried "Like...a sequence? One event flowing into
another."

B'Elanna sighed. "No, but that's closer."

"A mathematical progression?"

B'Elanna shook her head dazedly. "Like that, but also..."

The Captain considered, then said "Kes?"

Kes appeared at Janeway's elbow. "Yes, Captain?"

"The nature of the lieutenant's wounds...tell me--" she
laid B'Elanna's hand down on the bed and began pacing
around the room. "By what did they appear to be inflicted?"

"It was odd, Captain. No blade, no matter how
microscopically sharp--not even a phaser scalpel--could
have made those wounds. It's even stretching a point to
call them that. The tissues were cleanly separated on the
cellular level, as though the cellular bonds themselves
simply released..." Kes paused. "It was as if her body just
decided to open at those places."

"It sure as hell didn't check with me," B'Elanna muttered,
eyes closed.

Kes continued "We had to actually damage the cell walls
ourselves in order to affect healing. Her fat layers,
muscles, skin--it was all open, and all her blood vessels
in the stricken areas. But we had to create minor cellular
injury to alert her body and begin the accelerated healing
regeneration. Her tissue-healing mechanisms didn't know
there was a problem."

"My mechanisms, maybe," B'Elanna growled.

Janeway said "Kes, I was wondering if we could get your
help with something. It involves your Ocampan mental
abilities. I'm thinking of the time when Tanis, from
Susperia's array, was teaching you to see and manipulate
forces at the subatomic level."

Kes looked taken aback, but said "I'll try, of course,
Captain. What do you want me to do?"

"Right now, just have a chat with Lieutenant Torres; it's
possible you can help her describe what she experienced in
proximity to that sensor node. I'll be back in a few
moments; I'm going to go down and see about the situation
in engineering."

"Of course, Captain."

---

"This is SO disgusting," one of the crewhands was muttering
as the blood was extracted from the rug via a solid-liquid
cleaner; the mess was too much for the automatic ship's
systems to handle alone. The crewhand in question was
lugging the machine's detachable chamber off to dump out in
the recycling chute. "I'm gonna be off my rations for days."

"It's only a...well, all right, more than a little blood,"
Janeway half-conceded as she squatted, holding her breath,
to try to peer through the low opening into the interior of
the console.

"What I mean," the woman said, coming back for another
containerful, "is that Lieutenant Torres's blood is going
to be an integrated part of the molecular structure of
everything we replicate for maybe a week."

"Keep that under your hat, Keyes," the Captain said, "or
we'll wind up with a run on the kitchen stores that would
drain even the leola root supply. Looks like you've cleaned
all that's outside the field."

"Yes, Captain, and all I can say is I hope the Lieutenant
lowers that field during somebody else's shift."

"Where--ah, Hausermann, there you are. What have you found?"

Hausermann came over to kneel next to the captain, having
first checked the carpet for dampness. "Not a lot, I'm
afraid. She's locked the instruments down, so all the
diagnostics are getting is a static active reading. And
with the field up, I can't get a good enough angle to even
see anything important in the console. My next best idea is
to recalibrate an engineering tricorder and scan through
the field."

"Any clue as to what effect that might have on whatever
she's protecting with the field and the lockdown?"

"No, Captain. I was planning to go ahead and recalibrate
the tricorder, then see if I could get her permission for
the scan. This is one of the Lieutenant's solo projects,
and her work...a lot of the time, it doesn't make much
sense to me, even looks crazy. But I've found that often
she's just gone farther ahead in the scenario than anyone
else. Skips steps, you know what I mean." Hausermann
sighed. "But there could be blood seeping and crusting and
doing God-only-knows in the components in there, and I
can't overlook the fact that we don't have unlimited spare
parts. Did you know that Klingon blood is mildly corrosive
to the material the gelpack membranes are made of?"

Janeway stared. "Really."

"No one knew it until the Lieutenant cut her hand working
with the biocircuits, and when we got the malfunction alert
and looked back in a few hours later, the pack was damaged.
We did a scan, and found traces of her blood on it.
Something about the pH, combined with some blood element I
can't remember the name of, I'm not a medic. Since then,
she usually wears gloves when she works with the packs
themselves."

"Well." Janeway stood; so did Hausermann. "I'm going back
to sickbay to see if I can get some clearer information
from her. I'll relay your request, but if she feels the
potential danger to the ship is greater if she lowers the
field..."

"I understand, Captain. Meanwhile, I'll start on the
tricorder."

"Good. Keep me posted, ensign; I'll do the same for you."

When Janeway reentered sickbay, B'Elanna was sitting up and
Kes was doing her best to bring an end to that situation.
"B'Elanna, please don't make me activate the Doctor. You
know how irritated he'll be."

"This just isn't working, Kes. It doesn't sound like you
and I are talking about the same thing at all, and I can't
be any plainer than I've been."

"No luck, you two?" Janeway came up to the bed. "Lie down,
B'Elanna."

"I'm afraid not, Captain," Kes sighed, and B'Elanna
glowered, but laid back, slowly, shifting her weight to her
elbows and then relaxing to the mattress. Kes had moved to
assist her, but the half-Klingon pretended not to see.

"Captain, this is pointless," B'Elanna said. "Kes hasn't
ever had much luck receiving anything from my brain, and so
far we haven't hit on any common ground talking about it.
There's only one way to explain it, and that's to perceive
it."

"I'm not excited about lowering that containment field
until we know why your body suddenly decided to unzip in
two different locations. The next such event might
dismember the individual in question. Even if there were no
worse injury than yours, B'Elanna, a human couldn't have
survived the sudden blood loss that you did. We'd simply
drain, and that would be the end of any perceptions we
might have had."

B'Elanna sighed and laid a hand over her eyes. "I know,
Captain."

Janeway sat down on a stool near the head of B'Elanna's
bed, and continued. "Try to describe it in more detail. Was
it like a dream, a vision, did you perceive with your eyes,
ears, center of balance, what?"

"I think," B'Elanna said slowly, "that it might
be...something similar to--you remember reading about the
Traveler, the alien who took the Galaxy-class starship
Enterprise into a spacetime that..."

"That didn't differentiate between thought and thing,
future and past, one place or another. Yes, we were all
thoroughly briefed on that incident. You think you
experienced something similar?"

"Similar, yes; identical, no. The sensors I'm modifying to
identify normally undetectable hazards in our path--it's
something about the translation matrix. We have to get raw
data that's spatially meaningless to our brains into a form
of information we can recognize, quantify and react to. The
main coordination node where that occurs is made almost
entirely of biocircuitry--conspicuous consumption, but
invaluable if the project works."

"Yes, I agree. Go on."

"I was in physical contact with the circuitry--I had one of
the top panels open-- I hope nobody's gone in past the
field and closed it?"

"Of course not. Hausermann wants to modify a tricorder and
do a scan, but no one has disturbed what you left."

"I'm sorry, but you'll have to tell Rhea to sink the scan.
I don't know what changes a through-field scan would
precipitate in the main node."

"Kes, would you mind calling Engineering for me?"

"Not at all." Kes got up and went into the Doctor's office.

Kathryn turned back to B'Elanna. "So you had the panel
open, and you were in physical contact with the
circuitry--what part? The main sensor node, or the
translation matrix?"

"The matrix."

"And what specifically were you doing when you had
this...experience?"

"I became part of the circuit. I was adjusting one of the
output leads--not a critical component, it's intended to
help create images on a screen--and I was having trouble
turning and setting the bottom half of the translation
matrix unit into its cradle."

"The bottom half?"

"I was actually holding the top half. But I broke one of
the first rules of engineering--never force anything. I
dropped the clamp I was holding it by and grabbed the open
matrix unit in my right hand."

"What came next? That old standby, the Swift Kick?"

"No, what came next was me thinking that maybe I should
have dropped the output lead first. I came into contact
with the input leads, holding the open matrix assembly, and
the output lead with my other hand--no question of any kind
of a shock, of course; I'd've been one dead engineer years
ago if I let that sort of thing happen."

"Agreed. So, you realized you had just integrated yourself
into the circuit. What then?"

"Then...Captain--I can't describe it."

"A pleasant experience, unpleasant, gave you vertigo, made
you nauseous, revealed the secret of life itself? Give me
something, B'Elanna."

"The only unpleasant part was my side splitting open. I
admit I could've done without that. I screamed and dropped
the lead and let the matrix land in the cradle, but there
was...I was...your 'secrets of the universe' quip's
actually not that far off, but it wasn't that encompassing.
I became aware of...there were patterns--no, I can't
describe them. I should have said 'aware of the existence
of patterns'."

"I was informed that you were on your feet for some
minutes, at least, and you were saying something about an
emergent property that you were trying to bring under
control."

"That's what I was doing, all right. And I started telling
everybody in earshot to get the Captain."

"You went under the console. Why?"

"Because I wasn't having any luck above the console. The
modified sensors that lead to the translation matrix are
accessible from underneath. I was gonna try to shut the
whole damn mess down at a different point, closer to the
input source; I don't remember touching anything crucial or
exposed, but obviously...well, I WAS covered with blood by
then, including my hands. It could've been getting into
things, and I thought of that, but I also didn't dare stop
without reestablishing some kind of stability, although you
usually want to avoid blood in your sensor leads. That may
have contributed."

"Possibly. And then..."

"I was swamped by the perceptions again; I felt another of
those...huge, empty pains hit me, even deeper, lower down.
The last thing I remember was trying to think of a way to
get the system shut down without letting anyone else near
that carnivorous damn console."

"You must have been very persuasive along that line before
you fainted. No one on the deck would shut off the
containment field until I arrived and ordered it."

"Good. That was the idea."

Janeway considered a minute, then said "B'Elanna,
Hausermann is worried that your blood might be making a
serious mess of the underside of that console. She'd like
to get in there and see what's going on. You're sure that's
out of the question?"

"You want Rhea in here getting rezipped?"

"No, but I told her I would see where you stood on the
subject. The lockdown is keeping her from ascertaining the
state of things under there with the diagnostics, and she
has a point, B'Elanna. We're not going to be replenishing
those parts any time soon. I won't send anyone behind that
field until we have a way to make it safe--but we need to
find a way to make it safe. Can I tell her she can cut the
power to that console?"

"She can cut the power to it, but the modified sensor
assembly is on another power line--"

Janeway sighed and lowered her head. "The main sensor line.
Of course it would be. So cutting the power to the area in
question would entail..."

"We'd lose external sensors, definitely. Internal sensors,
we'll lose any that aren't powered locally."

"Wonderful. Does that leave us at a standstill?"

"No. I don't intend to be in here much longer, Captain.
I'll get to work on it. And if you don't mind...I know this
request is out of the ordinary..."

"Those holes the Doctor and Kes just rezipped were
inflicted in the line of duty; I'll forgive an odd request
or two, though I may not be able to grant them."

"I'm going to need help on this project, someone with a
background in general science, but thoroughly familiar with
astrophysics. Obviously, there are factors I can't predict
affecting my prototype. And I'd like that astrophysicist to
be you." She hurried on, though the Captain hadn't drawn
breath to interrupt her. "You're who I need--the experience
and the specialties are all there. And like...somebody
mentioned recently on Heartwood, we've always been a good
team, shore each other up and like that."

Janeway gazed at her a moment, then said "For how long?"

"I don't know. I need to go back to the theoretical stage.
I hope not more than a week or so. Plus, if we can find a
way to make it safer, I want you to experience what I
experienced. Without the gaping wounds, of course."

"Well, THAT''s an argument in your favor. Why do you want
me, in particular, to experience it?"

"It...I don't want to raise any false hopes, Captain. But I
need more experience with it, and with someone who
understands chaos theory, the Heisenburg problem--hell, I
don't know. Something tells me that the key, or keys, to
this, are more esoteric than I'm equipped to handle. I need
someone at the pure science end. There seems to be a level
of perception involved, of existence, both simpler
and...more *real* than our own. I wasn't physically IN it.
But I was aware of it."

Janeway leaned forward and took B'Elanna's hand again,
staring into her eyes. "Are you saying this might be an
avenue home?"

"Might. A very, very conditional might, and then only in
the long run. But we're looking for aberrant space,
something we can get the ship through to wind up at least
closer to home. I have no idea if this would lead to that,
Captain, but it's the most damned aberrant space--or time,
or pattern of ideas--that I'VE ever run through in my
undershorts."

"Yes, you did do that, certainly," Janeway mused. Then she
said "In light of the possibilities...all right. We'll give
it a provisional try. I'll speak with Chakotay and Tuvok;
they'll need to split my routine duties between themselves
for a bit."

"What do you mean by provisional, Captain?"

"For one thing, I can't let what happened to you occur
again. If we can find some way to work with the components
and systems safely--"

"A hell of a lot of people got snuffed in the plasma stream
back when they started working on building the first large
warp drives, Captain. I wouldn't let anything happen to
you, but it's new technology, and my getting hurt is--"

"They had access to replacement personnel."

"Mm. Yeah."

"The first thing is to disassemble that console and its
contents--"

"We don't know what that would do to it--!"

"But we do know what it did to you. I like you just the way
you are, Lieutenant. Listen; if you brought the elements
together once, then they can be brought together again, and
this time we'll know at least one of the things we should
avoid. Agreed?"

B'Elanna's lips twitched. "Do I have a choice?"

"Not short of mutiny."

"Agreed, then."

"We take it apart, one piece at a time. I suppose the field
had better stay up until we're ready for that. In the
meantime, I suggest you try to get some rest. In the
morning, we'll--"

"I'm not tired, Captain; if you don't mind, I'd like to
brief you on the basic design specs--"

"B'Elanna, your enthusiasm has been the salvation of us all
on countless occasions, but there comes a time when you
need to forget diagrams and specs and go to sleep. Why ARE
you so chipper, anyway? You lost enough blood for three
humans to be in coma."

"We have B'Elanna's blood on file," came Kes's voice from
behind them; as she approached, she continued "We were
prepared for a massive plasma transfusion, but she only
needed about two liters--in the absence of real tissue
damage, the blood loss apparently isn't that serious. She
does need rest and fluid, though the drip's taking care of
the latter. She's also had two supplement injections to
increase the production rate of the living elements in her
blood."

"So she's high on vitamin B-12."

"Something like that," Kes nodded.

Janeway sighed. "All right, Lieutenant. Have it your
way--but we can't use the Doctor's office, we'd have to
reset all his automatic routing..."

"Easy enough to set it back," B'Elanna shrugged, earning a
sharp look from Kes, and the engineer contritely let her
shoulders relax again.

Janeway shook her head. "As sure as we set up shop in
there, someone will fall off a catwalk. We'd better not tie
up his equipment. Kes, can B'Elanna be moved on an antigrav
pallet?"

"Yes, if she promises to stay either on it or in bed. But I
don't recommend taking her from sickbay. She should be
monitored--"

"I'm WEARING a monitor!"

"--if you take my point, Captain. Because if she...are you
taking her to her quarters?

"Ah...yes, I suppose so. She'll need privacy for a bit."

"Privacy? I don't give the quintessential--"

"If she should start hemorrhaging--"

"What? She could hemorrhage? How did that bit of
information slip past me?"

"I'm not gonna hemorrhage! I want to show the Captain--"

"Kes, you were obviously awakened from a sound sleep to
come help B'Elanna," Janeway mused. "Why don't you pack
whatever equipment you'd need in such an eventuality, come
with us, and nap while B'Elanna brings me up to speed on
the project?"

"Kes can go to bed. I don't need--"

"That's an acceptable compromise," Kes nodded, and left the
area to put together whatever she thought B'Elanna might
need.

"Hey. I'm over here," B'Elanna growled. "Does my opinion
count for anything here?"

"Your opinion, last I saw it, had left you lacerated and
semiconscious in a vat of your own blood. If I were you,
I'd have a few choice words with it before I let it run
loose again."

B'Elanna growled again, but said only "If we're going to be
a threesome, we should use your quarters so Kes can sleep
as far from our noise as possible."

"Good point."

It was so arranged. Four hours later, Kes was draped in one
of Janeway's nightgowns, legs and feet washed, somnolent on
the bed; Janeway was starting to play "find the quickest
way out" maze games in the diagram lines; and B'Elanna,
floating in the antigrav pallet high enough to see the
computer screens, was actually starting to wind down.

"But I guess that'll be enough for tonight," B'Elanna
sighed, and Janeway responded with a mechanical "Mm-hm."

"Captain."

"Mm-hm."

"Your bra's on fire."

"Mm-hm." A pause. "What?" Janeway's chin came up off her
fist and she looked dazedly toward B'Elanna.

"I said we're through for now. And you're not following me
at all, are you?"

The Captain chuckled and wiped a hand across her forehead.
"I was, until about twenty minutes ago, B'Elanna, I swear
to you. Ah...should I wake Kes?"

"Well, she doesn't take up much room. You could just join
her, then when she wakes up she can take me back to sickbay
and give me the once-over with the Doctor, and officially
release me back to duty."

"Which reminds me, I'd better leave a message for the
Doctor telling him where you both are, and that Kes will be
in late. Is that pallet..." Janeway yawned hugely.
"...comfortable enough to sleep on?"

"No worse than a biobed. And It has some handy functions
that keep me from having to get up to use the can."

"Ah. A point. I'm going to get two hours sleep, then meet
with Chakotay and Tuvok. I'd better leave a message with
the conn officer."

"Late for duty? You? I can die now."

"You'd better not. Is there anything you need? Are you
thirsty?"

"Hand me that PADD. I may jot a few things down."

"Better you than me. I'll see you in the...sometime later
today."

"Sweet dreams. Try not to roll over on Kes, she'd
suffocate."

"And who are you, Paul Bunyan?"

"Who's Paul--"

"Never mind."

There was a soft chiming in the dimmed room. Janeway opened
her eyes, started to sit up, and felt the warmth and
mattress distortion of a body next to her. Her eyes flew
open and she sat up, then slumped in an excess of
adrenaline dispersal. Good; the soft alarm didn't seem to
have wakened the Ocampan. Janeway started to slide out of
bed.

"Cap'hm?" A rumpled shock of pale hair and a pair of
enormous eyes emerged from the tumble of covers and
nightclothes on the other side of the bed.

"Go back to sleep, Kes. It's just my meeting with Chakotay
and Tuvok. B'Elanna's still asleep, and her monitor hasn't
let out a peep."

Kes said something indistinct and burrowed back under the
covers.

---

As Janeway entered engineering at about oh-nine-thirty with
all the enthusiasm and bounce of a salted slug, she
immediately noticed that Kes was standing next to B'Elanna
by the still-erect force field and hurried over. "Kes, is
B'Elanna all right?"

"B'Elanna's fine," B'Elanna said pointedly, shifting the
helmet of her envirosuit to hold under the other arm. "Kes
just heard us talking last night and asked me to explain
some things this morning in sickbay. She got interested,
and the Doctor let her off duty for a while so she could
observe."

This being entirely in keeping with Kes's nature--Kes was
interested in everything; among other things, she could now
pilot a shuttlepod better than Janeway herself--the Captain
believed it and nodded, relaxing. "Well, there may not be
much to see, but you're welcome, of course, Kes. Is
everything ready?"

B'Elanna sighed. "Yes, I think so. I still don't like this.
What if we CAN'T reproduce the circumstances of the first--"

"I share your concern, but my decision stands. We haven't
got a choice; anyone but you, or a bare handful of other
crew, at that console--"

"It was my project, there couldn't have been anybody e--"

"--and I'd be in my ready room making funeral arrangements."

"I know, I know...all right." The Lieutenant closed her
tricorder. "I guess we're ready. Anyone who wants a filter
mask, this is your last chance," she called up through the
various levels of engineering. "The air circulation system
may have a some trouble with this one." A number of people
were already wearing masks.

Janeway and Kes retreated across the deck as B'Elanna said
"All right, Nicoletti, drop the field," and moved several
steps back from the half-jumbled apparatus just visible to
those at the correct angle through the open console panels.
Nicoletti did.

The stench that washed over the room made Kes start
coughing immediately, and a few people, hands to faces, ran
for the door.

"Well," Janeway gagged, "I'm willing to bet none of those
were Maquis. Thank you, Kes." Kes was handing her a
breather, hastily fetched from the wall bins where they
were kept.

B'Elanna, meanwhile, was extracting the main components of
the sensor coordination node and translator matrix; the
leads could be removed later. Envirosuit or no, she was
careful to touch only one component at a time, with the
appropriate calipers. She deposited each into a separate
containment box; she'd argued for regular storage
cases--"Separately, they're just pieces of equipment,
Captain, I handled them extensively before trying to put
them together--" but Janeway had been adamant.

The boxes closed automatically, locked, and small green
lights came on around the lids.

"Nicely anticlimactic, B'Elanna," Janeway said with
satisfaction, fogging up her breather. "Have them taken to
the holodeck and set up the programs we'll need. Nicoletti,
I'm afraid you and Alpha shift have the unenviable jobs of
finding out how many corners the Lieutenant's blood seeped
into when we lowered the field to release her, and
correcting any damage; and seeing about getting the area
cleaned up. If you're not reading any problematical
malfunctions that you can trace to the console's area, by
all means get the floor cleaned first."

"With pleasure, Captain."

"B'Elanna, I'll meet you at thirteen hundred in the
holodeck. Will that be enough time to set up the programs
we'll need?"

"Oh, sure, Captain. A lot of it's already on file, I just
need to integrate the files correctly. If I need you, where
should I call?"

"My quarters. I've had so much coffee I'm seeing double.
I'm going to take a nap."

---

"Computer, open, authorization Janeway pi--"

The doors opened. The Captain's brow creased. "Lieutenant?"

"Come in and let the doors shut. I told the computer to
open for the next request when you called and said you were
on your way."

"Oh." As the doors closed behind her, the Captain entered a
completely realistic simulation of the main engineering
deck.

When she saw where B'Elanna was, reflex kicked in and she
skidded an inch or two across the rug when she came down on
her knees next to the engineer, seizing her upper shoulder
and getting a hand under her ribs to lift with. "B'Elanna!"

"Wh--" B'Elanna dropped something under the console with a
clank and scooted out from under as fast as she could,
considering the minor impediment of Janeway's grip. She
rolled to face the Captain, winding up half in her lap,
grabbing her shoulders in concern. "Captain! What's the
matter?!"

Janeway froze a second, then sighed and went lax, releasing
B'Elanna and rubbing her own forehead, sliding over
sideways to sit on the floor. "The matter is my nerves, I
suppose. You did NOT make a pretty picture lying in a
literal bloodbath, and when I saw you on that side, under
that console..."

B'Elanna, still uncertain, reluctantly released Janeway's
shoulders. "...oh. I'm...sorry, Captain, I didn't mean
to..."

"The word you want is 'frighten'," Janeway said with a
half-smile. "I know you didn't mean to frighten me. I'm all
right. What ARE you doing under there?"

"Setting up the components for testing with holographic
analogues. One at a time, yes, I know, Captain."

"Call me Kathryn for the duration," Janeway said
absentmindedly, starting to roll over and slide under the
console herself. "Which component are you currently
checking?"

"Remember the picowatt rings I showed you in the
schematics?"

"Yes, where...ah. The rings are the only real component
under here?"

"Yes, Kathryn, " B'Elanna sighed, rolling her eyes. "Is the
configuration making sense to you?"

"Yes, I think I've got the basic idea," the Captain said,
inching back out from under the console. "Now that I have
something practical to work on, I'll make use of all the
time I've spent the last decade or so keeping up on my
astrophysics. I'm going to access the files and put
together a computer model of the theory, see if we can find
any snags..." she started to say something else, then shook
her head, got up and went to the library access station.

"I know what you were going to say."

"And what was I going to say?" Kathryn began calling up the
relevant files, intending to work backward from them to
make a computer model of the astrophysical functioning of
B'Elanna's sensor modification. She'd probably need input
from B'Elanna where there were gaps in the data.

"That I should involve other people in my projects and I
shouldn't skip steps like computer models."

"Why was I going to say that?"

"Because..." B'Elanna trailed off, and laughed, slapping
the floor a couple of times. "Nearly walked into that. But
if you wanna lecture me, you'll have to do it yourself. You
won't finagle any involuntarily argumentative confessions."
She plunked over onto her back and wormed back under the
console, grinning.
Janeway smiled. "Far be it from me, B'Elanna."

A few hours later, B'Elanna was standing behind Kathryn's
chair as they watched the computer run through a rough-hewn
version of what would eventually be the finished
simulation. Janeway explained her reasoning where she had
written something not in keeping with B'Elanna's data;
there was usually some point of obscure scientific lore
involved.

B'Elanna said "Some minor modifications, but you ended up
in about the same place I did. We didn't deviate on any
important particulars. Here..." She reached for the
controls, and Janeway relinquished the chair. "Let me see
your program." She altered the display and keyed it up.
"Mother of Fek'lar," she muttered. "How did you write this
so fast?"

"I skipped steps."

B'Elanna smirked, but said only "I really don't think
there's anything left to explain to you, Kathryn. You've
got it. Better than I do, maybe; let me make my own copy of
this and do some modifications..."

They spent an hour or so tweaking the program until they
agreed they had a definite scenario to try for. Janeway
stretched and got up from the neighboring chair she'd taken
to walk around a few minutes. "How goes it in the trenches?"

"Just like it did before. I keep telling you, separately
they're nothing but a pile of parts. I understand your
caution--at least, I think I do--but the containment boxes
were a bit much, Kathryn. Those pieces aren't going to
lunge out and bite anybody."

"Not out of a containment box, no, you're right."

"I could've carried them in my bare hands for all the
danger they represent. Why are you being so...I don't know,
rigid on this point?"

"B'Elanna, why do you think?" Kathryn sighed, turning to
lean against the rail around the warp core, smiling at her
with a look of surrender.

B'Elanna just sat there a minute, then said. "Oh. The,
uh...blood thing."

"I'm still waiting for my heart to stop fibrillating."

"...you can use my redundant one until yours calms down,"
B'Elanna offered without looking directly at Kathryn.
Heartwood, with its what-me-worry atmosphere and the comedy
of errors that occurred down there, was one thing. This was
aboard the ship. This was, in fact, Engineering, or at
least a facsimile close enough for symbolism. Was she
making a big mistake?

Apparently not; Kathryn only laughed. "Thank you. I've been
missing it; I'd almost learned to program a decent stack of
pancakes."

"Speaking of pancakes..."

"Yes, I'm feeling peckish myself. Shall we see what
culinary delight Neelix has prepared for the crew this
evening?"

B'Elanna grimaced. "I don't think I'm strong enough for
that yet. I have some extra rations to blow; let's eat in
my quarters."

"Sounds good."

"Let me box up the components..." While the Lieutenant did
so, Janeway stored their reorganized data and the finished
simulation.

---

"What sounds good?" B'Elanna said, knocking a couple of
things off the dining table and pulling out a chair for
Kathryn.

"Something that won't put a strain on your ration
situation."

"My ration situation is excellent. The Torres Pool lives
on."

"Still?!" Kathryn turned in the chair to look at B'Elanna
where the younger woman was scrolling through a menu at the
replicator. "I thought you said that so many people knew
about it by now it'd HAVE to go the way of all things."

"It's gone underground, much clubbier and more exclusive.
Far fewer people are involved now, but the stakes are
higher. What they don't know is that I have an informant,
who lets me know when I stand to make the greatest
kickback--at which point I peel back my lips and give a
mighty roar sometime during Alpha shift."

"I still think it's in poor taste."

"I got three days' worth of extra rations this week."

"Oh. Well, the hell with taste." They both cackled. "Do you
scream AT anyone?"

"Not usually, unless people are really ramming themselves
up my nose or misbehaving to the point of deserving it. No,
I just make sure my teeth are visibly bared where someone
involved in the pool can see."

Janeway sighed. "At least you get something out of it."

"Only fair. Some of us are a little wacked down in
Engineering, but we do have a strong sense of family. A
harried and intense family, maybe."

"How'd you manage to find an informant? Someone looking for
a favor from the Chief Engineer?"

"She's a plant from Tuvok."

Kathryn chuckled. "I suppose if Tuvok knows all, I don't
need to. Really, B'Elanna, whatever your preference. I'm
not in a comestible-specific mood."

They wound up eating a platter of chicken l'orange on a bed
of wild rice and drinking a bottle of, as B'Elanna put it,
"Chateau du Klingonblood '84, a very good year." (It was a
red wine intended for meat dishes, but B'Elanna found white
wine fairly tasteless.)

"That did occur to you, then," Janeway said around a
mouthful, scraping rice grains back up her chin with her
fork before they could fall in her lap.

"Of course. Once again, it seems only fair. It WAS my
blood, and now in sort of a twisted way I get to put some
of it back in."

"It's a good thing I'm so hungry. Keyes said she was going
to be off her rations for days."

"You humans are so squeamish." B'Elanna paused in her
steady forking-in and chewed thoughtfully, swallowed and
asked "Cap--Kathryn, are you sure you want to be working
with me on this? Everyone knows how you feel about your
duty to the ship, and I COULD get somebody else from the
science section. I was still pretty bleary when I asked if
you would work with me; I probably wouldn't have had the
gall otherwise."

Kathryn patted her mouth with her napkin, considering.
"Would you *rather* I assigned someone else?" She asked the
question dispassionately, a simple request for information,
and B'Elanna took it as such.

"No, I meant what I said when I said you're who I need. I
just wanted to be sure you were comfortable, off bridge
duty for...days, a week. I want to know that you think it's
the right thing to do, rather than being...worry, since you
saw me and the blood and all. You CAN trust me not to react
the same way again. If anything else should happen."

"Of course. I know that. Actually," Janeway said, dumping a
serving spoon full of rice on her plate, then scooping up
more tangy orange sauce to pour over it, "I do feel a
bit...not guilty, but overindulged. This supper
notwithstanding. Heartwood was only about a month ago, and
here I am again, getting to play science officer to the
best engineer in four quadrants." B'Elanna looked at her
plate, a smile tugging the corners of her full mouth,
uncertain how to respond; but it turned out she didn't have
to. Janeway was continuing.

"If I were to abandon my post to Chakotay for any great
length of time--of course I'd never do that--I'd feel
guilty as hell. As it is, I only feel a bit wicked." She
took a bite, chewed and swallowed it, and smiled. "If this
might lead to a route home, then I have no business doing
anything else. And perhaps I should mention that Tuvok and
Chakotay were both pleased with my decision. Chakotay
actually told me how much easier I've been to get along
with since our Heartwood experience."

B'Elanna grinned. "He's never been one to mince words."

"And Tuvok expressed his...I suppose 'gratification' is the
word they usually use in such circumstances--that I would
be stretching my science legs again. He has genuine respect
for me as a scientist, and as you can imagine, I have
always been flattered and appreciative. Not that I tell
him, of course; no need to make him uncomfortable."

"I bet he knows."

"I'm sure he does. He just wouldn't want it discussed."

"By the way...does anyone know why you named the planet
'Heartwood'?"

Janeway made an elaborate gesture of horror. "Not unless
you've told someone. Oh, those jokes."

"I know. They weren't any of my wittier moments either."

They both sat there for a minute, looking at each other and
thinking about the unbelievable puns. B'Elanna lost her
straight face first this time, and then they both laughed
as much as they were able with their stomachs so full.

"Oh, heavens, B'Elanna." Kathryn brushed her bangs back
from her forehead, then reached back and removed her hair
clip. "How long did it take you to get all the gold out of
your hair?"

"Three washings. And I'm not sure there isn't still some in
there. How about you?"

"I replicated a shampoo comparable to industrial solvent."

"Really? Your hair looks beauti--I mean, it doesn't seem to
have...harmed your hair's appearance."

"Thank you," Janeway said, sporting the Wry Look. "I'll
cherish that sentiment."

B'Elanna looked bug-eyed and strange, then Janeway, saving
her, started to laugh again, and B'Elanna was able to smile
too. "It does. Look beautiful, I mean."

"So does yours. And so do you. If I weren't so full..."
Janeway looked at the floor, then up again, her voice
softening. "I think I'd be asking if you wanted me to stay."

"I want you to stay anyway," B'Elanna said in a rush, and
Kathryn smiled, got up and came around the table, taking
B'Elanna's hands.

She said "I don't want you to think that because we're...on
specific assignment, out of the loop of ship's business as
on Heartwood, that I...expect anything from you. I would
enjoy it, so long as you enjoyed it, too. But my pleasure
in this work will remain, regardless."

"Voyager to Kathryn." B'Elanna stood, bumping the chair out
from behind her with the backs of her knees, holding the
Captain's hands. "I don't expect it. I just want it. I
hoped for it."

They looked at each other a moment, then kissed. Once
again, as on Heartwood, there was no fanfare. It was simply
the obvious thing to do.

Kathryn whispered "I'd like to stay here with you, but I
won't be doing much beyond sleeping."

"Neither will I, I suppose," B'Elanna said, withdrawing one
arm from around the Captain's back to lay her hand over her
stomach. "I'm packed to the gills, and I don't think I
should've eaten so much when I'm so newly put back
together."

"Pain?" Janeway said at once, frowning and running her
hands, lightly probing, around B'Elanna's midsection.

"No, no pain. But I feel stressed along the seams. Maybe I
should lie down, and you should come along to make sure I'm
all right."

Janeway grinned. "I'll be happy to. It IS still a bit
early, but I've been up, on and off, for a couple of days,
and you're still recovering from...what you're recovering
from. Perhaps we should just go to bed now."

Janeway called the bridge, saying she'd be in Lieutenant
Torres's quarters for the night, and call if there were any
nonroutine disturbance. The only reply was a disinterested
"Yes, Captain, so noted for the watch officer. Have a good
night." So much for wild rumors. Everybody knew she and
B'Elanna were working on a special project together; they'd
have no reason to suppose anything beyond an entirely
in-character late night of work.

Kathryn helped B'Elanna clean up supper, and discovered
that B'Elanna kept a spare sonic toothbrush. "Overnight
company a regular occurrence?" she teased, smiling.

"Well, you never know when you might get lucky," B'Elanna
replied in the same spirit. "Do you want some pajamas?"

"No, thank you, as warm as it is in here."

"Sorry, I forgot. Should I turn the temperature down?"

"No. I'll just kick the covers off if I get too warm."

"I'll try to keep a solid grip on my half, then."

They began getting out of their uniforms as B'Elanna
ordered the lights to a quarter. Janeway stripped down
completely, so B'Elanna did, too, cursing her own gluttony
of a few minutes ago--not that it had any effect on her
appearance, just on her ability to do anything about what
the sight of Kathryn was doing to her hormone balance. The
Captain was not a vain woman; she seemed to give little
thought to her appearance beyond the proper level of
grooming and neatness expected of a starship officer. But
she had every damn right to be a complete peacock, in
B'Elanna's opinion, and the Lieutenant knew she wasn't
alone in that thought. But, just as there were things Tuvok
didn't like discussed, so the Captain would not have been
impressed by paeans to her beauty.

Swinging her legs up onto the bed, under the covers,
Janeway said "Do you always sleep with the lights at a
quarter?"

"No, but I don't ordinarily go to bed with anyone quite
so..." B'Elanna paused, knowing that what she'd been going
to say sounded suspiciously like a paean. She started
getting in on the other side of the bed.

"Frightening?" Kathryn asked, eyebrows on the rise, up on
her elbow, leaning her head on her hand.

Ah, hell with it. Paean time. "Beautiful," B'Elanna said,
lying on her back. "I want the lights so I can see you."
She touched Kathryn's face delicately.

Kathryn kissed B'Elanna's fingertips. "You are the sweetest
woman. It would be a shame if you never realized that."

There was a silence.

B'Elanna said, in a faint voice, "I think you're the only
person who's ever made that particular observation."

"Then I suppose not very many people get to see that side
of you."

"Not usually, no. It...there's never been much call for it."

"Or much respect for it, I'm willing to bet, knowing how
you were raised."

"That either. I'm better served by...the rest of me."

"I think you're perceptive enough to choose the appropriate
times to let the inside out, B'Elanna."

"If you mean like now, then yes. When I'm with you like
this...I don't have to be..."

"...the hull-punching, curse-screaming Klingon?" Janeway
quoted B'Elanna, smiling.

"Not quite so emphatic. More like the cynic, the
wisecracker. I can be worse than Tom Paris, though if you
ever tell him I said so I'll deny it."

"No one will hear it from me." Kathryn leaned down to kiss
B'Elanna's forehead, letting her mouth brush across the
smooth, edgeless ridges softly. B'Elanna shifted to rest
her head on Kathryn's shoulder, and they slid down onto the
pillows, getting comfortable.

"Why me, do you suppose?" Kathryn whispered against
B'Elanna's hair.

"I've been wondering that myself. Some Klingon thing,
maybe; you're alpha female, I get to relax. Or something
like that."

"It did sound that way on Heartwood, when we finally
stopped fencing... but whatever the specifics, I'm glad you
can relax. I know how hard it can be. Alpha female, hell.
I'm alpha everything on this ship."

"And a commanding presence in general, pardon the
expression."

"Please. Not the puns again."

"Yours were as bad as mine."

"Oh, mine were worse." Katherine let her hand trail lightly
around the contours of B'Elanna's torso, trying not to be
too obvious about it.

B'Elanna wasn't fooled for a second. "Looking for join
lines?"

"Yes, partly. That second...hit went through a number of
your vital organs, backups or no. You're right; you
probably shouldn't have eaten so much."

B'Elanna yawned. "I'm fine. But don't stop."

"My pleasure, I assure you." She continued her feathery
stroking, drawing her fingertips along B'Elanna's warm
skin, marveling once again how small the woman felt in her
arms. B'Elanna's presence was so overwhelming that it was
always somewhat surprising--though not unpleasantly--to
realize that the half-Klingon was no larger than herself,
maybe even slighter. She was told she had something of the
same effect, a presence larger than her physical body.
Well, good; Kathryn wasn't the largest woman on the ship
either, not by a good margin, and they both held positions
of authority. Presence was important to the reassurance of
their people.

That B'Elanna was still a bit weak from her ordeal was
demonstrated by her falling asleep in about three minutes,
stroked gently into relaxation by Kathryn. The Captain
stayed awake a bit longer, becoming slowly hypnotized by
the action of her own caresses. They were both uncovered to
the waist, and B'Elanna's skin, in the softened lights, was
dark, warm velvet, her full mouth and her nipples even
darker, softer-looking; Kathryn refrained from touching
these areas, knowing B'Elanna needed to rest.

And she herself did, too, she finally admitted with a
resigned sigh. She could indulge later in
B'Elanna-appreciation. She gently slid the arm under
B'Elanna to a position that wouldn't cut off the blood to
it, and laid down, her other arm lightly across B'Elanna's
waist, closing her eyes and letting herself bathe in the
other woman's rich, tangible presence. Like smoke,
incense...like the plush fur of an exotic
animal...visceral, sensuous...beautiful...

An unknown time later, B'Elanna woke slowly, dreaming still
of the smooth, cool green current flowing over her,
touching lightly and intimately as only a liquid could,
held steady in the constant flow. Relaxed...the flow
supported her...

She slowly came closer to consciousness, wanting to hold
onto the dream, knowing it was significant, or at least
relevant, to...something...she realized she was warm, there
was a pleasant burn low in her belly, all her exposed skin
was acutely aware of the air currents touching her, her
nipples hardened...

Awake, she turned into the warmth next to her, lying
against her, and pulled Kathryn closer. She wasn't sure if
the other woman was awake at first; but wordless, eager,
she responded with increasing urgency to B'Elanna's kisses.

Tongues tangling and pressing deeper, they let themselves
touch, bodies moving together, hands sliding over warmth,
then heat; after a time B'Elanna was on the edge of roaring
and throwing Kathryn onto her back, but she contained it,
contained it, she wanted this to go on...she knew what
Kathryn liked...

But Kathryn knew what B'Elanna liked, as well. She rolled
them over, shifting her hip to press between B'Elanna's
legs and slide them gently open. No more than that yet, but
B'Elanna's back was arching-- she groaned and seized
Kathryn's arm, exhaling and tracing a pattern with her
teeth down the human's wrist. She growled and clutched at
Kathryn, pulling them powerfully together, bending her
knees, raising her legs and running them slowly up and then
back along Kathryn's body, clasping her.

Kathryn responded by stooping like a hawk on B'Elanna's
neck, biting; she yanked her arm free and slid her hand
down between them, finding the blood-engorged softness of
B'Elanna's sex, sliding a finger, then two, inside her.

As B'Elanna made a desperate strangled sound, the slight
pain of Kathryn's bite accentuating everything she was
feeling, Kathryn withdrew her now-glistening fingers and
began to massage the slick folds under her hand, slowly and
lightly at first, and B'Elanna's whole body strained and
shuddered, a growl rumbling deep in her chest.

Then the careful, deliberate massaging grew firmer, more
localized, and Kathryn slid down B'Elanna's body far enough
to take one of those dark-velvet nipples into her mouth.
Her tongue whorled against it, once again gentle at first,
then more insistently, and her free hand slid up B'Elanna's
side to her other breast, squeezing and stroking just short
of the point of pain.

B'Elanna's fingers were dug into the bed; she knew beyond a
shadow of a doubt that if she let go of that mattress, she
was going to flay Kathryn alive--

When B'Elanna climaxed, she managed to choke off the
loudest of her wordless shout, but her body bucked in a
spasm that might have landed a pure human in sickbay with a
sprained back.

It went on, and on, until she saw red, and finally she
grabbed Kathryn's arms and made her stop, clasping the
other woman tight with her whole body, every muscle taut;
the spasms slowed, slowed...finally stopped, and Kathryn
got back up on her elbows, still lying between B'Elanna's
legs, and tenderly kissed her full, still-panting lips.

"Kathryn." B'Elanna sighed the name, pulling her closer;
Kathryn began stroking B'Elanna's hair, tracing the planes
of her face with her fingertips. They stayed wrapped
together like that for a while; neither of them was sure
how long.

Then B'Elanna's eyes slowly opened, and Kathryn could have
sworn they were glowing.

"My turn," the woman beneath her whispered, lips curving up
into a tooth-baring grin. She seized Kathryn in her legs
and rolled her over.

---

Kes watched B'Elanna, who stood over the now-closed console
on the holodeck that contained the integrated sensor
modification assembly, tapping controls, noting results.
"Input leads are ready to receive the computer-generated
data. Main data coordination is up; translation matrix
ready to send to the simulator. Just give the word,
Kathryn." She settled the helmet of her envirosuit more
comfortably on her shoulders.

Janeway, at the computer station she'd been using, nodded
and said "Computer, arch and set up a level four isolation
field around the interior of the holodeck." The arch
appeared. Kes was standing near it with a pallet and
several items of emergency equipment; the Doctor, should
his presence be required, could transfer immediately from
sickbay. The Ocampan glanced up at the arch briefly; if
something untoward occurred and neither B'Elanna nor
Kathryn could stop it in time, or if either of them
requested it, Kes would shut down the entire program. One
of the components of the assembly being tested was actually
a functioning holographic analogue; its removal should
deactivate the device. The cessation of the synthesized
data input wouldn't necessarily do it; there'd been no
incoming data signal at all when B'Elanna had her accident.
Of course, nobody was plugged into the translation process
this time, either.

"Ready here," Janeway said; she'd be monitoring the
simulator's projection of the information relayed by the
modified node and translation matrix. "Kes? All set?"

"Set, Captain."

"Remember, under no circumstances lower the isolation field
without shutting the program down. B'Elanna, on my
mark...now."

Janeway and Torres were both quiet for so long Kes finally
asked "Is it working?"

There was a pause, and Kathryn said "B'Elanna?"

"No, nothing's happening at this end, either. Maybe
something's wrong with the configuration. I'm cutting the
data signal."

Kes asked "Is the simulation running?"

"The simulation is on standby," Janeway said, abandoning
her station to cross the deck, blonde hair bouncing loose
across her back, to where B'Elanna was. "It's active, but
apparently it's not receiving any data. What does it look
like over here?"

"Same. Data signal dead-ends at the sensor node. You know,
we could have made a mistake in constructing the dry-run
data. Maybe it's not a malfunction--we might not be giving
it anything it can use. We could try using stored sensor
data--it still might do us no good, if we've never passed
anything that this setup is designed to detect, but I find
that hard to believe."
"It isn't hard to believe it might take forever to go
through all that data. We need some flag to look for in the
records that indicates there's a relevant astrophysical
anomaly present; and you're right, there should be some.
But first we'd probably better check the configuration
again. If it turns out one of us just forgot to carry a
two, we'll save ourselves considerable anguish."

Kes sat down on the pallet and watched B'Elanna argue the
Captain down about removing her envirosuit before she went
under the panel. Eventually, the Captain was forced to
admit that there was no way to get under there with the
helmet on, and with it off the rest of the suit was pretty
useless. The Lieutenant began climbing out of the suit as
the Captain detached a top board panel, saying "It would be
quite humiliating if this were only a malfunctioning
switch."

"Worse for me, I'm the engineer. You aetheric scientist
types are supposed to forget things like putting your pants
on in the morning."

"Mm. I won't tell anyone if you don't." Kathryn finished
whatever cursory check she was doing through the top of the
console, then stood, weight on her hands at the console's
edge, staring down into the circuitry. She pursed her lips,
shook her head, and leaned down to detach the lower panel.

While B'Elanna was dragging her second boot out of the
suit, the Captain finished removing the panel, flopped over
on her back, and scooted under to take a look. "Is a lack
of claustrophobia a requirement listed on the Academy
engineering--"

"Captain! What the hell--" B'Elanna dropped the envirosuit
and fell to her knees to drag Janeway back out.

---

The first thing that struck her was how clear the water was.

Then B'Elanna noticed the cold.

She was wearing a wristlight, and it told her that she was
in a rocky cave, but when she tried covering the light with
her hand, there was only the red dimness that projected
through her fingers. She rotated again in the water,
thinking of the spring on Heartwood--she had almost been
drawn in by the current, and now it looked--

She was seized by the arms from behind, and nearly lost her
precious breath of air trying to jackknife away from the
grip, but one of the hands in question quickly let go her
arm and stroked her head once, twice.

She relaxed, holding onto her last breath like it was...

She felt a faint rocking motion from behind, and was
propelled forward, and began rocking with it, kicking,
scissoring the cold, dense water; she was being steered
toward one of the dark openings. She kept calm. 'I can see,
and I can hold this breath for as long as it takes...as
long as it takes...as long as it--'

She didn't know how long it had been, but she was seeing
blooming black flowers and the remaining gases in her lungs
finally rushed out in a gush and something was slammed over
her face--she tried to inhale, but the water came up her
nose--it was a breather, but with water in it, and--

The water was gone, she had snorted and splashed what was
in her airway into the breather. Then she realized it
didn't feel quite like a breather; it was heavy,
cumbersome--attached to something.

She desperately wondered what was happening and whether she
was crazy, but all that came second to the flood of clear
air that filled her lungs; her belly expanded, her
shoulders, even her small third lung was filled with
blessed air. And she kept kicking.

No light was before them, no light was above them; yet
B'Elanna could feel it as they rose, faster, less
effortfully, faster yet and--

BREACHED

The breather was ripped off her face. "B'Elanna, answer me!
Are you all right? Are you faint?"

Air was gushing over her face. "Capt--!"

"Inhale, B'Elanna! In. Out, in, good, we're going to go to
that shelf now. Come with me as you did before."

"Where...are we...?" B'Elanna panted, stroking toward the
shelf of rock the Captain was leading her toward and hoping
they made it before all her limbs were numbed and
immobilized by the cold. She'd swum in cold water, but this
was unlike anything she'd ever encountered.

"The Olympus Mons cave system on Mars."

"HAH?!"

"We seem to be stuck inside somewhere, I don't know
where--here, up you

go--"

B'Elanna rolled, with a grunt of effort, onto the gravelly
shelf at the edge of the water. She was dressed in her
uniform and the wristlight she'd put on as soon as she got
her arm out of the envirosuit's sleeve, preparatory to
going back under the console, where the lighting was
incidental and haphazard. Kathryn was in full diving
ensemble, breathing gill and all.

"You look like you have a better idea of what we might be
doing here than I do."

"I'm afraid not," the Captain said, hauling herself out
next to B'Elanna. "Though I'm glad one of us was equipped
to reach safety, if one can accurately call this safety. I
have dived these caves; when I was a cadet, I had ambitions
toward mapping the Olympus Mons cave system. Unfortunately
my most vivid memory of being down here concerns Mark and I
nearly being dragged into the bowels of the mountain by a
powerful underground river we had neither the experience
nor the wit to anticipate."

"Then you don't know how to get out."

"If I had some notion of how we got here, I might,
but...get out of that uniform, B'Elanna. Your teeth are
chattering."

"No argument." Kathryn's diving suit, while feather-light,
could keep her warm in temperatures as low as two degrees
C. B'Elanna's uniform was not designed for that.

"As I was saying, with you improperly garbed, to say the
least, there's no way we can swim out of here, but there is
air in this cave; that may mean an avenue directly to the
surface. Here."

As she helped B'Elanna peel off the uniform that was
sopping with frigid water, the shivering half-Klingon said
"Any channels like that probably won't be big enough to
allow us through."

"Yes, there is that," Kathryn muttered. "In any case, I
don't think that leaving this place is a question of
finding a way to the surface. When you had your experience
with the translator matrix, B'Elanna--did you experience
any sort of visions similar to this?"

"No, I'd've remembered this. Or anything like it. Tell me
this; why are you dressed for bear and I'm wearing what I
had on in the holodeck?"

"I remember feeling you grab me by the hand and the other
arm before, between one blink and the next, I was here.
Perhaps this is...my experience, I became part of the
circuit, and you only connected in time to be brought
along."

"But I didn't physically leave engineering before. I only
became aware of things that I hadn't been aware of--all
around, things that seemed so clear, then vanished again. A
spatial connection, a flow between time and space,
interconnected patterns creating one phenomenon,
one--river--"

"Come here." Kathryn wrapped B'Elanna, now clad only in her
underwear, as close as she could, rolling slightly to keep
her bare, wet skin from contacting the cold rock. "Try to
put your weight on me."

"So," B'Elanna said with sarcastic casualness, gazing at
the clear, black water where her wristlight, sitting on the
gravel next to her, was shining into it, "now what? A
little geology lesson, maybe?"

"I hate to say this, but I think our only hope is that
whatever is happening will cease to happen when Kes shuts
the program down."

"If we somehow ARE physically where we seem to be--or at
least are physically absent from the holodeck--she may not
dare shut it down for fear of losing us altogether."

"And if we are where we physically seem to be," Janeway
said slowly, heading off in a different line, "you may have
been right. We may have found a way to return to the Alpha
quadrant."

"We'll need to work on aim."

"Oh, no question there."

There was a pause, and B'Elanna said "But if we're really
still on the holodeck...

Captain, I hope to hell you aren't splitting open anywhere."

"I was trying not to think about that. Are you getting
warmer?"

"Yes. I'll be fine, Kathryn. Assuming we aren't stuck here,
I mean."

Kathryn tugged the gill mask farther around, getting it out
from between them, and kissed B'Elanna's cold lips. "We
won't be. Kes and the rest of Voyager will get us out of
this. And if not...I'm dressed for exploring. Assuming I
can find a way to mark the route, I can always start
hunting for a way out myself. As I said, I doubt that's the
approach to take, but it might be better than doing
nothing. Don't say it--we'll argue about who wears the suit
and who stays here and waits when and if it becomes an
issue. Although I should point out that I have cave diving
experience, and, to my knowledge, you don't."

"Like you said, we'll argue about it when it becomes an
issue," B'Elanna muttered, her tone of voice indicating she
was giving no ground on the point.

When B'Elanna collapsed full length across the supine body
of the Captain, her arms extended under the console, Kes,
snatching up a medical tricorder, leaped up and rushed
over, stopping herself from touching them barely in time.
Instead, she flipped the tricorder open and started
scanning B'Elanna.

At which point she raised her wide eyes, gazing at the
patterns surrounding her. The tricorder continued to whirr
in her hand, scanning...

She could see, at first, a pattern of lights; then they
fragmented into smaller patterns, and then she realized
that she could not completely accurately call
the...centers, patterns of space, lights. They changed
constantly; seemingly random and yet contiguously, a single
entity...

Entity? She could not detect a life force, telepathically
sensed no presence...none that she could be sure of. The
thing was static, in space, but it flowed, constantly
changing, always the same, like a standing wave, like..."A
river," she whispered, leaping at the thought that this
might have been B'Elanna's way of describing--

The Captain. The Captain and B'Elanna. Kes could sense
them. They were here--they were THERE, merged into the
patterns of space, of sequence...Kes was on the outside,
observing this; she was aware, but she knew that Janeway
and Torres were not at the same level she was. They were
part of it, in a subjective state, while Kes herself
remained outside.

She tried to concentrate, to bring her trained telepathic
power to bear to reach them, inform them that they were in
and of the patterns, and that if they could find a way, and
break free--

What if they broke free at another part of the patterns, at
another point in the space/time dance? Where would they
find themselves? Drawn back to their bodies?

No, they were right here, right now; it was their level and
method of perception that had changed. As of this moment,
they had not "gone" anywhere. But if they didn't disengage
from the sequences at the correct point...to their point of
view, at least--and perhaps to everyone else's as
well--here, now, where Kes was, would not be the state of
perception to which they returned.

She could think of only one thing to do. Leaving the
scanner running, she reached out and laid her hand on the
Captain's cheek.

---

"Captain"

Janeway's head jerked around. "Did you hear that?"

B'Elanna pulled herself and Janeway closer, shaking her
dripping head. "I didn't hear anything. What was it?"

"Captain it's me Kes"

"It's Kes!"

"I still can't hear anything."

"I can't really hear her, either. She seems to be
speaking...she must be contacting me telepathically. Kes,
I'm receiving you. What's happening where you are? Do you
know where we are?"

"I'm in the holodeck You and B'Elanna are here Captain this
is very important You must follow my thoughts I'll lead you
back"

"Back? I thought you said we were still in the holodeck."

"You aren't perceiving it You're in the space/time river If
you drop out of it at the wrong point you may not return
here There are too many possibilities to know where your
perceptions would settle You might even be drawn physically
to the point at which you left the space/time river"

"How do you know this? Can you perceive this...river?"

"I perceive it objectively I suspect B'Elanna did so as
well in her first experience You are in the river not just
perceiving it Captain you must try to focus on my thoughts
I'm going to pull you away from your contact with the data
translation matrix You have to concentrate"

"What about B'Elanna? She says she can't hear you."

"I believe B'Elanna is in a subjective state because she
entered the circuit with you If she could enter it by
connection with you we can hope she'll leave the circuit
the same way Her body temperature is dropping yours isn't
If you can try to keep her warm"

Kathryn clasped B'Elanna with all her wiry strength.
"B'Elanna, Kes is going to try to guide me out of here; I'm
going to concentrate on her telepathic presence, and you
will be drawn back with me. Are you ready?"

"Whenever you are," B'Elanna rattled out.

"Kes," Janeway said, composing her mind, clearing it as
best she was able. "Begin speaking to me, without
interruption, and guide me to the holodeck, on my
mark...now."

"Follow me Captain Very good Very good Keep listening Keep
relaxed I can see you in the space/time stream You're
moving against the changes Against the permutations Against
the currents You're changing your perception You're
changing your part of the river You're returning Your
perceptions are changing Your perceptions are ready You're
ready to return This next bend in the current Come out of
the river Captain Come out of the water I have your hand
You have B'Elanna's Step out Step onto the bank Step onto
the

"...bank," Kathryn heard Kes's throaty, flowing voice, and
at that moment she'd never heard anything so beautiful in
her life. She opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling of
the Engineering deck program.

She flung herself upright. Kes was holding her hand.
"B'Elanna!" Kathryn gasped, "did she come with me--?"

B'Elanna was pushing herself up. "Wow. Captain, I think you
were right about the enviro--mmph--"

Kes had let Kathryn's hand go as the Captain made a lunge
toward B'Elanna, sliding her finger's into the Lieutenant's
hair, turning her face up, and kissing her, all in about
the space of a heartbeat. When Kathryn let their mouths
separate, B'Elanna cleared her throat and said "I should go
cave diving with you more often."

Kes continued scanning them. "Neither of you have
experienced any physical damage...and neither have I.
Apparently one doesn't necessarily suffer an injury like
B'Elanna's when perceiving the...the river objectively."

"We're still not absolutely certain you perceived the same
thing she did," the Captain removed her face from the
Lieutenant's hair to say. "Although I tend to trust your
judgment in this matter. B'Elanna wasn't hurt this time,
either."

"Maybe..." B'Elanna mused to herself a moment, then essayed
"Maybe what happened to me was some sort of cross, or an
in-between state--to the way you connected to the river and
the way Kes did. I couldn't have guided us out like that;
my perceptions were clear enough, but I didn't have the
power to move--to... place rocks in the current, change the
flow according to my will, like Kes did."

"And the Captain entered into the river so subjectively her
mind provided a symbolic context for what she was
experiencing," Kes said, nodding thoughtfully. "But the
wounds...I don't understand why you were injured, B'Elanna."

B'Elanna's lips twisted as she assumed an expression that
gave the Janeway Wry Look a run for the title. "I think I
do. My mother was fond of Klingon literature. There are a
lot of battles in Klingon literature. And at almost every
battle, there was..."

"...a river of blood," Janeway concluded, awareness
widening her eyes; she nodded.

"If one wasn't created purely by the blood, then at least
an existing river was so filled with it that it ran red."

"The Captain's analogy was entirely mental," Kes continued,
"while yours, as you were in a state halfway between
objective and subjective perception..."

"...I made my own river, right here in the physical
universe. And here I thought it would turn out to be some
aspect of the spatial anomalies the device is designed to
detect. I thought maybe I'd just got in the way of some
warped space and got bent too far."

"That was my first hypothesis as well, which is why I
insisted on the envirosuit. Any contact with anomalous
space and the automatic internal force field would have
activated. A warning, at least, if not any real protection.
I suppose we both wasted a lot of breath arguing over it,"
Katherine muttered, lips quirking. She continued "Kes, you
have my profound thanks and yet another commendation in the
record for this. I think we'd better keep you nearby during
this endeavor. We can arrange the hours around your other
duties; I'll speak to the Doctor about shortening your
sickbay day, and find you some more support in the
airponics and hydroponics bays."

"Of course, Captain. I'm glad I can help."

"I'm glad you could, too," B'Elanna muttered,
experimentally standing up and hugging her arms, rubbing at
her biceps. "I swear I still feel cold."

Kathryn glanced up sharply at her. "You do? Kes..."

"I scanned you both thoroughly, Captain," Kes smiled at
her. "B'Elanna's remaining chill is psychological and
entirely normal."

Janeway nodded. "All right." She held out a hand to
B'Elanna, and the Lieutenant gave her a commentless hand
up. "Let's take a look at the simulation. Maybe there's
been a change...perhaps we can figure out why this
apparatus only seems to function when there's a sentient
being integrated into the circuit."

"How do we know the being needs to be sentient?" B'Elanna
said.

"Because the biocircuits themselves are alive but
insentient. A central nervous system at a sentient level of
sophistication would seems to be relevant here, though
we'll have to test that hypothesis as well."

"And maybe," B'Elanna muttered as they headed for Janeway's
computer console, "we can find some way to drop out of
the...patterns...hell, let's just call it the river--where
we want to. We might be able to get at least closer to
home, if we can figure out a way to involve the whole ship."

"That's what I'm hoping," Janeway agreed, taking her seat
at the station, flanked by B'Elanna and Kes on either side,
all of them watching the screens and readouts expectantly.

"Still nothing," B'Elanna said in disgust, slapping the
console in frustration.

"Well, it wasn't designed to function without the data
feed, after all."

"I was hoping our integration might have constituted a sort
of data feed. With us as the source. It wouldn't have run
the simulation properly, not the way it was designed to;
but I thought there was a chance at some sort of effect,
whether it was the effect we were shooting for or not.
Could've told us something."

"Yes, that would have been useful."

"I shouldn't have cut the data feed."

"Come now, B'Elanna. You could hardly have been expected to
know what was going to happen."

"Great, but from now on it stays up and running. And we'd
probably better have the computer scan our sensor logs for
some real, applicable data; like you said, we'll need to
come up with a flag, some element for it to search."

"All right. Here..." Kathryn moved to another station, and
B'Elanna took the nearest chair. "Let's brainstorm. What
common factor could our sensors, as they are, detect that
would indicate the presence of the sort of spatial
anomalies they cannot, as yet, detect directly and
identify? Specifically, the ones the device is designed to
pick up." They were able to reel off a list of factors
fairly easily, but picking the best specific earmarks was
going to be a stage-by stage process of hit and miss, and
they were glad to set up the search program and leave the
computer to it for the present.

"I could use some coffee," B'Elanna asided, stretching.
"For a figment of perception, that water was damn cold. Can
I get anyone else anything?"

"I'll get it," Kes said, getting up, and Kathryn protested,
"Kes, there's no reason for you to be our gopher. You're
here in a medical capacity, not as an errand runner."

"I don't mind." Kes strolled off toward the nearest
replicator, humming softly.

Kathryn and B'Elanna looked at each other. "Have you ever
thought," Janeway began carefully, "that Kes is...is--"

"Too good to be true? Brave, resourceful, unshakable? Yes.
With the exception of you, she's probably the best-loved
person on this ship. She can deal with the DOCTOR all day.
She's up for sainthood in my book."

Kathryn chuckled. "I'll be sure to include those comments
with her commendation in my log."

Kes returned with a tray bearing three steaming mugs, and
after distributing two, she took the chair to the other
side of the captain and watched their work, with every
evidence of fascination.

---

That evening, in the Captain's quarters, the door signal
sounded; B'Elanna glanced back to where Kathryn lay dead to
the world in bed, then turned her chair back toward the
door and said quietly, "Who is it?"

"Kes."

"Come in." The door responded to the verbal signal and slid
silently open; Kes came over to the computer desk where
B'Elanna was and leaned a hip against it, one small bare
foot swinging. Her pink satin nightgown was enveloping,
even knotted up at the shoulders. The Captain was much
taller than Kes, and the Ocampan hadn't had time to alter
the fit since the Captain bestowed the gown on her in
recompense for her own ruined white one. The satin glinted
in the quarter-lights. "Am I disturbing you?" Kes's
normally deep, wind-in-grass voice was softened and
deepened even further for the benefit of the Captain's
sleep.

"Not at all. It's awfully late; is the Doctor making you
put in the time you miss during the day?"

"No, no. I had a rest after we were done in the
holodeck--I'd intended it to be a nap, but I couldn't
sleep, so I meditated for an hour or two. Tuvok knows the
most soothing techniques..."

"'Soothing'. That's not a word I'd've associated with
Tuvok. If you're curious about what progress I've made so
far, I'll have to disappoint you; I'll gladly tell you what
we've come up with, but mostly it's only more variants and
factors."

Kes shifted her weight, then pushed away from the desk and
wandered to a sofa, hands clasped behind her back. B'Elanna
took a last glance at the computer screen, then got up and
followed her, sitting next to her. That must've been what
Kes intended; talking across the room would surely wake the
Captain.

"Is anything wrong?" B'Elanna asked. "Your telepathic
senses--are you receiving something? The river again?"

"No, nothing's wrong. B'Elanna, are you in love with the
Captain?"

B'Elanna sat there with the wind knocked out of her,
waiting for her brain to start working again. A large part
of her was bellowing that it was nobody's damn business,
but another part was nodding to itself, thinking that if
this ship had anything approaching a counselor, Kes had to
be it. "Um . Why do you ask?"

"With the subjectivity factor so strong in the
experimentation we're doing right now, I think you'd better
have a solid idea about what exactly is happening between
you."

B'Elanna was still a moment. "You mean, if I didn't love
her, would I have been drawn into the circuit with her?"

"Something like that, yes. Your point of view--since you
were the only one of us three in a halfway state, if it can
be called that--appears to be very malleable in regard to
the perception of this phenomenon. There could be many
reasons for that--you're a composite of two species, your
feelings for the Captain, or maybe just that you're
B'Elanna. As the Captain says, you can't plot a curve from
one point. It could be any or all of those things, or none."

B'Elanna contemplated her fingers, clasped loosely between
her knees, her head bent toward the floor in silence for a
moment. Then she said "I love her, but we ALL love her. I
don't think we'd have this relationship if it weren't for
being where we are--we'd never have had the opportunity to
know each other the way that we have. I mean, if you can
call what we have..."

"It's a relationship. You have a relationship with me, too,
and with Carey and Tuvok and everyone else on board."

"Then I suppose what you're really asking is whether the
sex means anything significant."

"I want YOU to know if the sex means anything significant."

"I think..." B'Elanna paused. "I think she's great." She
grinned; Kes smiled back, waiting for the real answer, and
B'Elanna continued "She's strong, beautiful, commanding, a
woman as full of tension and energy as an overcharged
conduit. She excites me. She even overwhelms me, but
I...can let down my guard with her, I trust her...in a way
I'd find it very hard to trust anyone else."

"Then you do love her."

"Come on, Kes, how could you not love her? I like to think
we have a special relationship, yes. And we make a great
science/engineering team. That probably sounds like some
sort of duck-out from your question, but it isn't. It's a
rare, amazing thing. I can't explain it."

"How do you feel about Tom?"

"Tom!?" Hastily B'Elanna dropped her voice. "If you mean
the way he chases me, well...let's put it this way. Tom
Paris does NOT overwhelm me. To say the least. With him, my
guard is up. We could probably be having sex and my guard
would be up."

"Then you do feel something for him."

"Something, yes, but...it's not like the Captain and I want
to be exclusive. If I started something with someone else,
she wouldn't be crushed. Neither would I, the other way
around. Hell, either of us could be sleeping with half the
crew right now, we don't care about that. Sex isn't the
*point*, what we are to each other doesn't hinge on it.
Either way, she's got me, and I've got her. No matter who
or what else is involved. Or if there's any sex, though
I've got to admit I consider going to bed with Kathryn a
very good thing." B'Elanna grinned suddenly. "Plus, she
knows better than to ever try making a pet out of me, not
that she would with any member of her crew she was sleeping
with. Is all this making sense to you?"

"It's making perfect sense; I'm glad you have such a clear
picture of your situation with her. The Captain's picture
goes without saying; she never lets her thoughts stay muddy
about anything for long. One of the marks of the true
scientist, I'm told. But I'm still worried about this
research. I plan to stay very close to both of you from now
until the culmination of this...how did the Captain put it,
endeavor. I think that the river..."

B'Elanna's head jerked up. "What about the river?"

"I know it might be able to take us to the Alpha
quadrant...but it's dangerous. It's not as though you could
lose contact with your physical brains; but you might..."

"Wind up as vegetables?"

"No. You might wind up, with or without your physical
bodies, somewhere other than here on Voyager, and
considering the ratio of matter to vacuum in the universe,
I'd suggest trying to keep focused here."

"Can't argue with that. Do you think she and I should, ah,
restrain ourselves?"

"I don't think it makes any difference. It might even
create a state of greater spatial sympathy between you, if
you're wanting to be with her and holding back."

"Then maybe I should wake her up..."

Kes grinned. "I think you should join her and get some
sleep."

"Kes...I wonder if you'd consider sticking around tonight.
If the Captain is the one responsible for the diving trip
she and I took, she's the most vulnerable to...the state of
spatial awareness and motion we've been calling the river.
I know we're nowhere near the apparatus now, but..."

"But you're worried for her. I'll take the sofa. I have a
recommendation for you--pick a visual image, or some sort
of analogy, that hasn't got anything to do with blood, to
have ready in case you do find yourself being affected by
the river again. I've seen enough of the inside of you for
a while." She patted the half-Klingon's shoulder and added
"I'm also a very sound sleeper, so if..."

"I think I can keep my grubby mitts off her for one night."
B'Elanna returned to the computer desk, smiling. "Let me
just wrap this up."

---

"MM..." B'Elanna felt the warmth of arms sliding around her
from behind. She sighed, covering Kathryn's arms with her
own. "We should be sleeping..."

"Tired?" The Captain's whisper tickled her ear.

She rolled in Kathryn's arms, smiling. "Not that tired,"
she whispered back, "but Kes is on the sofa."

"Oops. Saved from a major indiscretion."

"She says she's a heavy sleeper..."

They both giggled, and the Captain slid down, resting her
head on B'Elanna's chest. "Why is she here? Were you two
working late?"

"She's here because she's the only one who can bring you
back if you fade into the river again."

"But we're not working with the modified sensors."

"I know. But I feel better with her here. She came over
intending to stay, anyway."

"If she's worried about anyone, it's probably you."

"She did tell me to have a mental image ready that didn't
involve blood."

"Good idea." Kathryn lifted her head and kissed B'Elanna,
then slid her shoulder under her to get better position and
kissed her again, and within seconds they found themselves
devoting great attention to the project.

"MMm...we'd better..."

"Mmmmwhat? We'd better what?"

"Ah...stop...uh...before..."

"In a...minute..."

The hell with it, B'Elanna decided, and hoped Kes was as
good as her word as she rolled Kathryn over, pulling down
the straps of her nightgown. She also hoped she could keep
her voice down; having sex without any roaring was going to
take concentration. Blast it, she wasn't going to be able
to bite very hard, either, lest Kathryn squeal. If only
they hadn't started in with the kissing..."You had to start
something, didn't you."

"Your fault, you shouldn't feel so good..."

"Shhh...Kes."

"I know..."

"Unnmh...Mother of Fek'lar..."

"Let's leave Fek'lar out of this."

"Kathryn...oh gods...Kathryn...Kathryn? Kathryn! Kes, wake
up! Kes! The Captain--"

Kes was there, jumping up to kneel on the bed next to them;
the Captain had gone limp, seemed to be staring intently
into space. "B'Elanna, move, let me touch her--"

B'Elanna sat up, pulling Kathryn with her, holding her
upright. Her head lolled.

"Think WATER, B'Elanna," Kes was saying as she took
Kathryn's face in her hands. "And let go of her!"

Hastily the Lieutenant rolled away from Kes and the
Captain, breaking their physical contact. From her point of
view, there wasn't much to see; almost as soon as Kes
touched her, the Captain's eyes closed and she inhaled; she
tried to reach for Kes, and the Ocampan took her hand.

Kathryn's eyelids fluttered; her eyes opened. "How did
I...manage that? We're nowhere near the..."

"I think we'd better take that apparatus apart and keep it
that way when we're not working with it," B'Elanna said,
deflating and resting her head in her hands. "Were you back
in the caves?"

"No. No, it was...perceptions...as you described, B'Elanna.
An objective perception, as you two had. Evidently I wasn't
pulled as far into the river this time."

"The question is how the hell you wound up getting pulled
anywhere near it to begin with. What are we going to do
with you? You and that thing on the same ship apparently
aren't going to work."

"Relax, B'Elanna," Kes said softly, giving Janeway a
cursory inspection. "The Captain is all right. I don't
think I'd better go far until we figure out a way to keep
this from happening."

"Well, it's certain we can't hope to accomplish anything
with this going on," Janeway muttered in disgust.
"Obviously, that's priority one. And if we do find a way to
control the river...I think we've found our pilot." She
looked back at Kes.

"Wouldn't Tom...?" Kes wondered, taken aback.

"Tom'll get over it," B'Elanna said, edging toward the side
of the bed. "I suppose I better be the one to take the
sofa--"

Kathryn's hand flew out to seize B'Elanna's arm. "Oh no you
don't. If I'm susceptible to this, you may be, too,"
Janeway stated grimly. "Kes, B'Elanna, tonight we learn the
real meaning of crew togetherness. You're in the middle,
Kes."

"It'll be a little crowded..."

"It's the only way we'll get any sleep. You seem to be
impervious to the phenomenon unless you're deliberately
contacting it, as when the scanner's signal provided you an
avenue. As soon as you touched me, I felt it--perhaps
somehow a connection with YOUR sensory neurons to your
central nervous system--and my perceptions returned to
normal. I hope you aren't shy about this kind of thing."

"No, it's not that. I mean, my people are telepaths. I just
don't want to intrude..."

"I don't think we have the luxury to consider that a
factor. Here; we can't just hold your hands or some such;
we're sure to let go in our sleep." Kathryn helped Kes pull
her nightgown over her head, tossing it across the foot of
the bed.

"Here, take one of my pillows," B'Elanna said, "Kathryn
needs two to keep her neck from cramping."

When they got all arranged, Kes was lying on her back
between B'Elanna and Kathryn, each of whom had an arm
across her middle. They all laid there for a while, maybe
thirty seconds total, before Kes's mouth started twitching
upward. Inside half a second, they were all laughing like
hyenas.

"Can you just imagine what Chakotay would say if he walked
in and saw this?" B'Elanna snorted.

"Not a damn thing, if he knew what was good for him," the
Captain assured her.

"Or Neelix," Kes added, breaking into a fresh spate of
giggles.

"Harry would take one look and faint," Kathryn cackled into
her pillows.

"Or Tom Paris!" B'Elanna whooped, pounding the mattress
with her free arm before plopping back down on her side.
"He'd turn blue, screaming 'What a waste'!"

"No," the Captain corrected her. "Red. I've seen him do it."

"When?"

"When he knocked me unconscious, took me to warp ten,
turned us both into lizards and we reproduced."

"Yeah, I can see how he'd be sort of embarrassed about
that," B'Elanna nodded.

"Did he turn red before or after he wasn't a lizard any
more?" Kes wondered.

"Well, I was thinking of after, when I made a comment about
the reproduction; but he made a pale lizard, too. I suppose
anything's possible."

"Speaking of anything being possible, I...take it you two
were--B'Elanna, when you noticed the Captain..."

"Call me Kathryn for the duration, Kes. Such formality is
inappropriate between people sharing a bed in the
altogether, amorous intention or no. Yes, B'Elanna and I
were making love, or getting there, at any rate. Why do you
ask?"

"I wondered if it could have contributed to what happened.
It could easily be coincidence--I certainly have no
theories that could indicate otherwise--but you both had
extensive contact with the modified sensor components."

"As you say, anything's possible. It's a moot point now, of
course. We're hardly going to try to have sex across you."

"No, I didn't expect you to try that." There was a pause,
and Kes began giggling again. "Although it might be
interesting to observe what strategies you'd come up with."

"You're a sadist, Kes," B'Elanna grumbled, punching up her
pillow with her free hand. "I'm stuck with a raging libido
and no way to vent it."

"I'd suggest a cold shower, but I don't think we'd all
fit," Kathryn said, breaking into laughter again halfway
through the sentence, the mental image reducing B'Elanna
and Kes nearly to tears as well.

"Uh, you know," Kes finally offered, sniffing and wiping
her eyes, "this isn't really funny."

"I have to laugh or I'm going to scream," B'Elanna sighed,
simmering, and Janeway added "Same here. I'd rather
appreciate the absurdity of the situation than dwell on the
depressing aspects. We WILL get this worked out." She
barely contained a smirk. "Or we'll get a bigger bed in
here, one or the other."

---

B'Elanna woke up shortly before the alarm signal. She found
she had let go of Kes and rolled over, but her back was
against a warm body; she slid over a smidgen and sat up.
Kes had turned on her side and curled up against the
Captain, who was holding the smaller woman almost
protectively. Ironic, considering the situation.

The Ocampan had a look on her face that made B'Elanna think
of a kitten curled up against its mother's side with its
littermates. Me and Kes, littermates, she mused. Who'd've
thought. Maybe this all wasn't a totally bad thing; Kes
normally had a sunny disposition, but right now she was
radiating contentment.

B'Elanna hated to disturb their picture, but they needed to
get cracking on this problem so that Kes didn't have to
orbit them constantly. "And so I can get a little for
godssakes action," she muttered aloud, then reached out and
laid her hand on the Captain's shoulder.

"Kathryn? Kes. Morning." She leaned over Kes to kiss
Kathryn's cheek, then after a brief hesitation, brushed her
lips across Kes's temple as well. What the heck; the
diminutive blonde was giving way above and beyond the call.
As always.

The other two stirred, Kes inhaling sharply and stretching
like a cat, Kathryn blinking to consciousness and noticing
her petite double armful. "Well. Good morning. Apparently
my subconscious wasn't about to take any chances."

"Good morning," Kes yawned, hand over her mouth, forehead
against the Captain's sternum. "B'Elanna? You *were* still
touching me somewhere, weren't you?"

"Yes. My back was against yours. The only way to cease all
physical contact with you would have been to fall out of
bed, no more room than we have."

"We've GOT to figure out a way to counteract this," Kathryn
muttered, heading for the bathroom. Kes hastily slid out of
the covers, too.

"Uh, Captain--Kathryn...I should come with you."

Janeway stood there a second, blinking, then started
shaking her head, long tousled hair swinging. "This is past
all bearing. Come on, then, it's time for some serious
personal sharing."

"Compromise," B'Elanna offered, raising her hand. "Leave
the door open and we'll stay in verbal contact. That way
Kes can keep an eye, or an ear, on us both."

"Good idea. What shall we patter about?" Janeway said,
continuing into the bathroom, as Kes pulled her nightgown
back on.

"How about how we're going to eliminate the need for all
this?"

"An appropriate choice."

B'Elanna showered in the Captain's quarters and used some
of her copious replicator rations to obtain a uniform, but
they had to go by Kes's quarters so she could dress.
Janeway had been talking with Chakotay over the comm while
they waited for her, B'Elanna chatting with Kes through the
open door, with the occasional pause when she heard
something interesting from the Captain's area of the room.

Kes emerged from the steam emanating from her open bathroom
door, dressed, hair barely damp. "Captain?" She looked
between the annoyed/bemused expression on B'Elanna's face
and the look of resignation on the Captain's.

"The rumor mill has divined the purpose of our work,"
Kathryn said, "which event I'd wishfully thought to avoid.
As B'Elanna says, we shouldn't raise any false hopes. Not
only that..."

B'Elanna explained "It's just a particularly vivid example
of the sheer speed with which things get around on this
ship. The bridge crew, and therefore who knows who
else--likely the whole ship--know we all came out of the
Captain's quarters this morning, you in a nightgown, and
proceeded immediately here."

Kes looked impressed. "How long did it take us to get here?
Two minutes? Three?" she shook her head and asked "Is
anything making the rounds as to why?"

"Probably," Kathryn said, "but the only actual comment
Chakotay could report was Harry wondering aloud if we'd had
some sort of matter-spatial accident while we were working
and all become covalent."

Kes laughed this time; she couldn't help it. "I don't think
I've ever been compared to a submolecular component before."

"It's a new experience for all of us. Let's get going,"
Janeway said, standing; "we can't stop the accidental
plunges into the river until we know why they're happening,
and at the moment we don't even know why the river itself
is happening. I asked Chakotay to inform the Doctor of the
situation, Kes, and Ensigns Wildman and Hausermann have
volunteered to keep an eye on the crop bays. Wildman has
some experience in botany."

"Rhea doesn't," B'Elanna said as they left Kes's quarters
and started for the holodeck. "She's great with a
sputtering power relay, but I can't imagine her over an
airponic tray full of plants. She's a complete wrenchhead."

"She's a what?" Kes's eyes widened in surprise as they
boarded the turbolift.

"It's not an insult," Kathryn smiled, and gave the deck
order, then continued "It's an expression engineers use
among themselves to indicate their level of dedication to
the profession."

"Rhea's married to her tool kit," B'Elanna clarified
further.

"Oh. Well, maybe she just plans to assist Samantha," Kes
supposed.

---

"Captain."

"Yes, B'Elanna," Janeway replied distractedly, not looking
away from her control panels and screens.

B'Elanna was under the console again, and Kes was sitting
next to her, scanner out and running; they had been
comparing data and drawing tentative conclusions for about
two and a half hours. "We, uh," she scooted out from under
the console, engineering tricorder in hand. "We ARE
covalent. You and I are, I mean, not Kes."

"We're what?" Then the words penetrated Janeway's
concentration and she turned her chair toward the other
two, eyes wide. "You're not serious?"

"I probably wouldn't have used that term if it weren't for
Harry's comment, but it'll do. Some good news; I've
definitely isolated the effect's origin to the translation
matrix. The bad news is that taking that damn thing apart
is almost worth another swim. It took me a month and a half
to design it and two weeks to get it put together so that
it'd work. And actually, we still haven't verified that it
works like I intended it to."

"On that front, I think I'm onto something at the
programming end, but first, tell me why you said we're
covalent."

Kes said "The biocircuits were connecting to your central
nervous system through your sensory neurons. Your brain's
perceptions are being augmented by the translation effect.
Think of the matrix as an annex to your brain's own
perceptive mechanisms."

"I follow that, but that doesn't explain how I managed to
take a header into the river while I was in my own bed and
the matrix was on a different deck."

B'Elanna spoke up, though her eyes and fingers were busy
entering data on a PADD to transfer to the computer. "As
you know, biocircuitry is never completely unpowered, or it
dies. Since I built it, the matrix hasn't ever been as
completely inactive if it were conventionally constructed.
Not that it could be conventionally constructed, that's why
I played so free with the biostock supply, but you see what
I mean."

"Yes. Go on; how was it able to affect me when I wasn't in
contact with it?"

Kes and B'Elanna looked at each other. Kes said "You are in
contact with it, Captain."

B'Elanna elaborated "We've apparently both had enough
direct neural contact with it for the alternate spaces and
phenomena it's designed to translate into, as I said the
other day, data our brains can quantify and deal with, to
be apparent to us through those same spaces and phenomena.
I said we were covalent because at the moment, we're in a
state of balance in the patterns of the river. A better
analogy would be a Trojan orbit."

"That sounds a bit circular. Pardon the expression."

"I know, but I won't know specifically *which* of the types
of spatial anomaly it's using--or, rather, our brains are
using--to remain in contact with it for a bit yet. When I
do, it'll probably clear up some of the apparent paradox."

"All right. We need a way to isolate the matrix while we're
not working with it; even better would be some way to
simply interrupt the connection between it and our brains
whether we're working with it or not. Kes is still joining
us at the hip."

"I'm on that now, Kathryn," B'Elanna said, going back under
the console, "but," her muffled voice continued, "which do
you want me to concentrate on? The problems are
superficially similar--you can't put a force field around
something that's contacting you through n-space or
whatever--but isolating it completely may be unnecessary;
the state of potential it creates so far has no avenue to
affect anyone but us. Plus, it might turn out that
isolation is a larger problem than finding some way to--"

"Kes," the Captain said suddenly. "You were able to lead me
out of my own experience, and the second time, when I was
perceiving the river rather than in it, I sensed your
presence so immediately it felt more like...simply opening
my eyes than a reformatting of my perceptions. I know you
can't guarantee anything, but do you think it could be
possible to teach us to navigate the river safely?"

Kes was quiet a moment, then said "From what we know
now..." she picked up a PADD, dropped it and rummaged in
the clutter for a minute, then found another PADD and
tapped its keys. "B'Elanna?"

"Yeah?"

"I think it might be possible...to construct some sort of
buffer, something that would...I don't think your brains
have the inherent capacity to disconnect from the circuit,
my ability to do it is apparently due to my differing
psychic centers, and that's a physical factor. But maybe
with some technological help..."

B'Elanna emerged from the console almost too fast to avoid
banging her head on the edge and clutched at Kes's
shoulder. "Let me see that."

"Bring your tricorder over..." the two got started
comparing notes. "This might take a while, Captain."

"Very well. I'll continue to look for the reasons the
assembly isn't performing as B'Elanna intended, and keep
trying to construct a functioning scenario."

---

About three hours later, Janeway sat back in her chair,
rubbing her forehead lightly with her fingertips, then
stood up and stretched. "How are--gracious." There was a
miniature scene of devastation surrounding the dissected
console, and Kes and B'Elanna were nowhere to be seen.
"Kes? Where have you two got to?"

"Right here, Captain," came B'Elanna's voice from almost
directly overhead. Janeway looked up, and saw that B'Elanna
was at an upper work station; Kes was up there with her,
but standing where she could see Kathryn on the level below
as well.

"What news?" Janeway asked, ascending a ladder to join them.

"We need to make a parts raid," B'Elanna said. "I need to
hit engineering, and Kes needs to get to the main science
lab. Also I have to go to the bathroom."

"Can we have someone bring the parts to us? That might
cause a touch less comment than our Andorian marriage
visiting both places and then returning here."

Actually, Andorians always married in even numbers, but no
one cared enough to comment. "The WC's here that mimic the
ones in engineering are functional."

"Yeah, but they're out of sight over that way."

"Well, we're likely all feeling the pressure by now, so
we'll deal with that first, then...do either of you think
it could endanger a messenger to bring the parts we need
here?"

"Probably not, Captain," Kes said, "and I can ask someone
to bring me what I need, but B'Elanna..."

"I don't know exactly what I need," B'Elanna explained.
"Well, I'll know what I need when I see what there is. I
won't be able to match the holographic analogues we've been
experimenting with exactly, I know already."

Janeway nodded. "Let's take care of business, then we'll
make our parts run."

"Just a second. Nearly done here. Okay." B'Elanna locked
down her station and they all started down the nearest
ladder.

---

"Did you see the look on Geron's face?" B'Elanna muttered
as they were starting back to the holodeck.

Kathryn told her "Everyone seemed bemused. Latest gossip
news from Chakotay--while you were rooting in storage,
B'Elanna, I called to check up on things on the bridge--and
our latest appellation as a unit is 'The Ozone Molecule'."

"Ah, that one's clumsy," B'Elanna shrugged it off as they
stepped into the lift, her arms occupied with boxes of
components and equipment. Kathryn had taken one box from
her and one from Kes. "We shouldn't all three be the same
element."

"I rather liked the Fates," Kes offered, and Kathryn
chuckled as B'Elanna snorted. "But since you explained it,
Captain, I suppose the Sirens made more sense in the
context of the work we're doing."

"I don't care what they call us, as long as they don't get
in our faces," B'Elanna muttered. "We could be on to
something major here. Come on," she finished, disembarking
the lift with all speed. "Let's get these buffer units
built before we can't stand the sight of each other any
more."

Janeway tried to adjust her pushed-up sleeve comfortably
over the little device strapped to her arm. It had to be in
direct contact with her skin and sensory neurons, and
finding someplace to put it while wearing a uniform that
covered one from mid-neck to over the wristbones to the
floor took effort. Kes had suggested the neck, but B'Elanna
said she felt claustrophobic enough in a turtleneck.
"They're not that big; let's just cram them up our sleeves.
Here." She and Kathryn had both managed to shove one wad of
sleeve up far enough to leave a wrist free.

"Are we set?" Janeway asked.

"I think so, Captain," Kes said, running the medical
scanner over them both, and the matrix assembly, while
B'Elanna did the same with an engineering tricorder. "We're
as set as B'Elanna and I can make you."

It was approaching ship's midnight. Janeway had stood over
their shoulders as half-Klingon and Ocampan put the devices
together, having to restart twice. She'd made occasional
trips back to her own work, but eventually she'd get
curious and have to come see how things were going again,
though she had the good sense to keep her mouth shut while
she observed.

Do or die time. "Very well. Activate the buffers." She
pushed the control on her own unit that B'Elanna had
indicated earlier.

A small flashing green light appeared. Kathryn asked "Is
that what we're looking for?"

The light was mirrored on B'Elanna's unit. "That indicates
standby," Kes said. "Press the button again."

Janeway did, and the light stopped flashing and held
steady; Janeway felt a very slight shifting of balance and
physical disorientation, but not enough to make her lose
her balance, though she blinked a couple of times before
she spoke. "And this setting?"

"That means--or should mean--that you're shielded from the
contact with the translation matrix. There should be no way
for you to fall into the river now, even if you wanted
to--unless you were touching the assembly."

"A pair of gloves should take care of that," Janeway asided.

Kes continued "I told you that what you asked me
about--learning to navigate the river, to control the
coming and going of the perceptions, enter and leave the
river where and when you choose...that's beyond the scope
of a device like this. The river is more a standing wave,
if we're going to continue using verbal analogies--"

"I don't think we have much choice. Go on."

"It is infinitely more complex than the simple
visualizations and metaphors we've been using to refer to
it. But I don't have the medical vocabulary to use--there
*is* no medical vocabulary known to Federation science--or
the training, in astro- and hyperdimensional physics, to
refer to it more precisely. And B'Elanna says the only
language that might approach what we need is..."

"Advanced mathematical systems," Janeway said.

"And you're way ahead of me there, Captain," B'Elanna
stated, wriggling her buffer a little farther down her
wrist so her sleeve didn't scrunch so much. "I can follow
you to a point, but after that, I've got to start mapping
out a schematic."

"So we have no common language to discuss this
phenomenon--the river," Kathryn grumbled, sitting down in
the chair she'd been in, off and on, mostly on, for nearly
sixteen hours. She was starved, and the other two had to
be, too.

"That may be true," Kes said, sitting down on the floor by
her knee, "but you've got to admit, we've made a lot of
progress in spite of that."

"Yes, no question; you've both performed more than
admirably. I have a sinking feeling, however, that in
learning to use the river as a means of
transportation...I'm sorry, I can't think of another way to
put it. We're going to be in over our heads."

"I think you're right," B'Elanna said, leaning with a tired
thunk of her hip against the station Kathryn was at. "And I
think so because, even after all this--we STILL can't get
the original configuration to run the simulation to our
original goal. We--I--don't know nearly as much about what
I'm doing as I thought I did when I built this thing to
begin with."

"It was an intuitive leap, B'Elanna. Sometimes those pan
out, sometimes they don't. And sometimes they provide
results totally unlooked for, as now. I told you, I think
I've got the programming under control. We may yet get this
pony to perform the trick it was originally set. Right
now...did you two have a plan for testing these buffer
devices? Waiting to see if B'Elanna or I fall in again is
not an acceptable course."

"We were talking about that," B'Elanna said. "Kes can still
navigate the river enough to get in and out, even if she
doesn't fathom all its permutations. She could deliberately
contact it, then try to draw one of us in with her."

"Kes?"

"I don't think there's any danger to any of us if we try
that, Captain."

"All right, I volunteer. Hush, B'Elanna. You've been
physically compromised through these experiences; I
haven't. Maybe I can be, but we know that you can. Kes?"

Kes got up and advanced on the disorder surrounding the
sensor assembly console, unfolding her medical tricorder.
She sat down at one of the console's open panels and
activated the tricorder.

After a moment, she looked up. "Captain?"

Janeway stood up, concerned. "Yes? Is something wrong?"

"You can't receive my thoughts?"

Janeway shook her head, brow creased.

Kes's eyes were faraway, but it was obvious from her exact
tones of speech that she was as much right there with them
as in contact with the river. "That should mean you're
insulated from the effects of the river; without it as a
medium, I'm not telepathic with you or any other humans.
Now press the button under the first one that you've
pressed twice."

Kathryn did.

"Can you hear me now"

Kathryn's eyes widened. "Yes. Yes, I can."

"B'Elanna says that at least two different types of
anomalous space phenomena are involved It may be possible
to teach you to navigate as I do But I know very little
about the river I can engage and disengage from it at will
but that doesn't constitute any real knowledge of what the
river is I would need time"

"Certainly. If you need--"

"Think your answer Captain"

Janeway frowned, and closed her eyes. She tried to form the
words in her mind. She didn't know if their simple
formation were enough, or if she needed to somehow transmit
them through the medium of the outer pools and currents of
the river. She saw a river in her mind, and imagined her
thought sailing down a strong, smooth stretch of clear
green water. "You will have whatever you need of course
Time Now that you need not remain with B'Elanna and me
every moment we will have more leisure"

"Of course Captain Very good I don't see the images you are
using to send your concepts to me but it seems to be
working nonetheless"

Kathryn opened her eyes. "That was certainly interesting."

"What did I miss?" B'Elanna said.

"Apparently I can use the fringe effects of the phenomenon
to communicate with someone else who's aware of it, or
perhaps in it."

"We'll try you next, B'Elanna," Kes said, and B'Elanna
promptly tapped the appropriate controls on her own unit.

Janeway felt a confused muddle in her head, and pictured
the smooth green current again. "B'Elanna can you hear me"

"Captain she's in pain Set her buffer unit to isolation
touch the same control that opened your own reception"

Janeway grabbed B'Elanna's arm and stabbed the control; the
indicator glowed a bright steady green. B'Elanna swayed, a
hand to her side. "What the hell? There was a...roaring,
like breakers, or wind blasting, and..." she sat down
abruptly in Janeway's vacated chair. "Then I felt squeezed.
I could hear you, Captain. Not Kes, if she said anything.
But..."

Janeway and Kes exchanged looks. "If this is going to be
successful as a way to get us home," Kathryn said with calm
finality, "we have to find a way to make it work for
everyone. But for now...B'Elanna is safe from an accidental
immersion?"

"Yes, if you are; that aspect of it wouldn't change from
individual to individual. But the ability to use the river
as a medium, for whatever action, may be connected to
species, to age, to individual aptitude..."

Janeway was nodding. "Yes...we'll worry about that after
we've had food and rest. Working in the river is quite a
strain."

Kes got to her feet. "I'd like to spend some time in
sickbay and the crop bays tomorrow, if it's all right,
since you're both out of danger now."

"Certainly it is. Sleep a bit late, and take the morning
for that; we'll meet here after lunch, fourteen hundred.
B'Elanna and I would both have easier minds for taking some
time at our regular work, as well. B'Elanna?"

The half-Klingon was looking faraway and pensive, hand
still pressed to her side.

"B'Elanna, are you injured?" Janeway gripped the
Lieutenant's shoulder.

Kes had opened her tricorder and was at B'Elanna's side
immediately, scanning.

"No, I'm all right now...it just didn't feel--right. I
can't get--I just don't have the grasp of it you and Kes
seem to. The only experiences I've had of the river were
yours, Kathryn, and the first one--I could *see*, the
perceptions, the patterns, it was all there--but..."

"But you were hurt...I'd thought you'd decided on a working
hypothesis about that."

"I don't know. Just now...I don't think I'm as at home in
the river as either you or Kes, Captain. Which is a real
joke, since I'm the one who designed the translation matrix
and the rest of the modified sensors to begin with." She
stood up, and looked around at the mess. "How about just
locking this holodeck up until we get back to it? I'm not
in the mood to store everything properly."

"Of course. I'll lock it on my authorization," Kathryn said
softly.

---

The door of the Captain's quarters closed behind Kathryn
and B'Elanna. "You're not happy," Kathryn observed.

"No, I'm not. Chicken soup," the half-Klingon asided to the
replicator, and picked up the mug that materialized. She
plopped down at the table with it, and stared at the backs
of her hands.

"That sounds about right," Janeway said at the replicator.
"I'm hungry, but I'm too tired to eat." When her own mug
materialized, she picked it up and joined B'Elanna, taking
a swig of soup. She laid her hand over B'Elanna's and said
"Frustrated?"

"I'm wondering if my Klingon DNA is going to rear its ugly
head again in the form of making it impossible for me to
get any use out of my own creation."

"It might have nothing to do with that. We simply have no
idea as yet."

"I have a sneaking suspicion." B'Elanna took a spiritless
swallow of soup.

"B'Elanna, you blame your Klingon physiology for almost
everything that ever goes wrong in your life. Your Klingon
attributes are as much a part of you as anything else, and
I happen to be very fond of you as a unit. You wouldn't be
who you are without your mother's genetic contribution.
Personally, I wouldn't want you to be anyone else."

"Thanks," the Lieutenant sighed. "You're right, moaning is
pointless, especially over something I can't change. I'm
just tired."

"That makes two of us." Kathryn finished her soup, then
started toward the laundry chute, unfastening her uniform;
she halted halfway there, saying "Oops."

B'Elanna wavered back to the common universe. "Problem?"

"Come here and pull on this sleeve," Kathryn said; B'Elanna
obliged, and they managed to drag the arm wearing the
buffer unit through the jumpsuit sleeve without activating
any of the controls. "A mechanical difficulty we should
have anticipated,"

Kathryn muttered.

"Here, help me with mine."

"All right...pull."

"Ow! There."

"Will it hurt these units to get wet, or can we save
ourselves the experience of showering with one arm held
outside the door?"

"It won't hurt them. Computer, lights."

They were in bed and unconscious inside two minutes.

---

"Kes?"

The Ocampan blinked, looked up to see B'Elanna standing
over her. Her own scanning unit rested, humming softly, in
her lap; her hands were lax at her sides. She picked the
unit up and shut it off as B'Elanna leaned against the
console Kes was sitting at, the processes monitored on the
screens continuing to register with soft computer comments
at intervals.

"Were you with the current again?" Torres asked with a
half-smile. "This is the second time today you've left us
like that." The Lieutenant and the Captain had solved a
minor mechanical problem they encountered last night, they
said, by dressing in uniform pants and boots with only
sleeveless grey turtlenecks over them. Except B'Elanna,
having spent half an hour feetfirst up a Jeffries tube to
see if she would be able to reroute power for a particular
operation in the real engineering without causing a
problem, was in her stocking feet at the moment.

"I know..." Kes looked serious, faintly nervous, lines
creasing the smoothness of her forehead.

"Is anything wrong? *You* aren't starting to lose control
over the phenomenon, are you?"

"No, that's not it. I was...exploring. B'Elanna, where's
the Captain?"

"She went to grab us some more coffee, and stop by the
bridge. She wants to do a little spin control on the
rumors. People have a lot of faith in her; the way we've
been in each other's pockets lately, some people are saying
the Captain's found a way to return us to the Alpha
quadrant and all she needs with me and you is
nuts-and-bolts work and a way to make sure it's safe for
all the crew."

Kes smiled. "Someone is very creative."

"Or several someones. Rumors don't always even GET started;
they just spring full-blown from the hopes and fears of a
crowd. You look dazed," the engineer said suddenly,
touching Kes's chin with a finger to raise her face. "Are
you sure you're not going to wind up lost in some
paradimensional swamp?"

"The...currents, you said...are very powerful. But they
seem...incomplete to me. There should be more to this
phenomenon than there is. When we were building the buffer
units to shield you and the Captain, you said
something--that it was odd that you were the only one who
couldn't seem to accomplish anything useful in the river,
despite your obvious sensitivity to it, couldn't...catch a
current, you said."

"Yes, I just keep getting knocked around like flotsam. I
remember when my father taught me to swim, he kept telling
me I was trying too hard. Maybe that's it."

"I don't know." Kes shook her head. "Another thing is the
fact that this apparatus, specifically the translation
matrix, doesn't seem to function unless someone is--I was
going to say integrated into the circuit, but it's more
that our nervous systems integrate IT into our central
systems, isn't it?"

"Yeah, if you're talking about relative complexity. You
don't attach a ship to a thruster, you attach a thruster to
a ship."

"Yes. Twice today--" she looked at the nearest chronometer,
and added "for about twenty minutes both times--I've used
the scanner to gain access to the river, and I've tried to
follow the patterns. They seem very complex, very deep, and
they are fascinating--but I'm not any closer to determining
exactly what type of aberrant space they exist in, if
that's the word. Even if we're only perceiving what we
could not perceive before, the associations between time
and space--I should be able to follow the patterns. I can,
to a point, and I don't lose perspective. But past a
certain point..."

"Well...maybe there's only so far Ocampa can go. I know
you're unusually sensitive and highly trained for your
people, but we all seem to have a sort of limit--Kathryn
can be completely absorbed into the river, become part of
it, but her perceptions get reformatted into a symbolic
representation of what she's perceiving, and she can't
follow and make ultimate sense of the river from an
objective viewpoint any better than I can. I seem to be
able to penetrate to a deeper level than either of you
without getting my perceptions subverted by symbolism--but
it makes me sick or injured, and even though I'm at a
deeper level, I can't control or make sense of things the
way you do."

"While I," Kes finished for her, "seem to completely lack
the tendency to be subjectively absorbed--my perspective,
while coherent and under my control, remains outside.
I...just have a feeling, B'Elanna. We're missing some very
important information. That's why I keep ducking back into
the river. I try different scan patterns, connect with the
matrix from different angles...and things do change, but
only to a point. Whatever it is that's so important--and
there is something--I don't think I'm going to be the one
to find it."

"If not you, who? Do you think we should get one of the
other telepathic members of the crew in on this? Ensign
Solonehk in exobiology--I know she's young, by Vulcan
standards, but I was talking with her one day when I went
to the lab to take a look at a minor board malfunction. She
reached Venlinahr before she turned twenty standard years
old, which is almost unheard of for Vulcans, because of her
exceptional telepathic abilities. Her personal tutor--"

"I don't know, B'Elanna. I have a feeling that a Vulcan
might be...might have more difficulty in the river than I,
rather than less."

"Well," B'Elanna laid a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry
too much, Kes; after all, you've only been working with
this phenomenon for a couple of days. We've only even known
of its existence for less than a week. Don't expect
miracles from yourself."

"I know. Thank you, B'Elanna."

"Maybe you should take a break. Do one of those meditations
Tuvok showed you that you like so well."

"Maybe I will." Kes smiled as the door to the holodeck
swooshed open and closed, admitting Kathryn with a tray of
mugs.

B'Elanna swooped on the tray. "Ah, the elixir of life. How
are things on the bridge?"

Kathryn went to Kes's chair so the Ocampan could snag a mug
for herself. "Nothing unusual. Rampant speculation. A lot
of inquiring looks at this." She held up the wrist with the
buffer unit on it.

"And rumor control? How did that go?"

"Oh," Kathryn rolled her eyes, sitting in the chair at the
simulation computer station. "For all the good it did. I
became rather vehement in my insistence that there is as
yet essentially nothing on which to base expectations of
return home. As I was leaving my ready room, Chakotay
called me 'Captain Alecto'."

"Great, now we're the Furies," B'Elanna laughed, rubbing at
her eyes with her knuckles.

"The Furies?"

"More ancient Greek mythology," Kathryn said, setting her
mug down where she wouldn't hit it with her elbow as she
turned to the console. "Earth's history, in many different
cultures, has no shortage of triune goddesses and sets of
three sisters and suchlike. The Furies were three minor
goddesses who carried out justice on patricides--and
matricides, I think--by cursing them with madness and
hounding them to death."

"Oh. I suppose you must *have* been rather vehement."

"As I said, for all the good it did. Anything interesting
happen while I was gone?"

"Kes took another swim. Tell the Captain what you told me,
Kes."

Kes proceeded to do so, and Kathryn quickly dropped what
she was doing and turned to give Kes her complete
attention. B'Elanna disappeared somewhere, probably back to
whatever she'd been doing when she found Kes.

Kathryn said "The phenomenon...as yet, its very complexity,
our inability to record or describe it adequately, has been
a major stumbling block--and you say there should be more
to it? Exactly what do you feel is missing?"

"A...sense of...I don't know. Permanence. Reality. A sense
of place, of space. I know that doesn't make any sense,
given the river's characteristics--of course it hasn't got
a sense of place, it isn't a place, or even in a place. But
I can't describe this feeling any better than you and
B'Elanna can describe what you experience in the objective
state of perception."

"Your instincts have proven invaluable before," Kathryn
mused. "Do you feel endangered by this when you explore the
river? Do you feel any change in it or in your ability to
readjust your perceptions back to normal?"

"No, not at all. It's the same. Perhaps I've just had
enough contact with it now to...notice this aspect of it.
It may not be new; as you said, it's a very complex
phenomenon."

"True. Very well; as long as you feel no sense of danger or
change in the potentials that could affect you or anyone
else, I want you to continue your explorations. If all it
takes is time and exposure, you may find the answer to your
question yet."

"Yes, I might...but I think I'll rest for a few minutes.
B'Elanna suggested a meditation; I think I'm going to
follow her advice."

"Of course. There's no reason to strain yourself, or risk
losing your bearing on the near shore. B'Elanna and I will
be right here when you get back."

"I don't need to leave the holodeck. Quiet is helpful, not
necessary; anyway, it's not as though there's a much noise
going on in here. The chair will do fine."

"We'll keep our voices down."

Kes closed her eyes and began a visualization, the first
step in a simple meditation designed to generally clear and
rest the mind.

---

"So how goes it up here?" B'Elanna glanced sideways to see
Kathryn's head protruding above the upper floor level she
herself was on.

"Not great. I think our idea to hook into the secondary
sensor grid will give us the advantage of me not getting
stepped on and getting in people's way so much, but my dry
runs are staying just that. No more response from the
translation unit leads to the simulator than before."
"No sign of simulator activation?"

"I can't even get the blasted data stream properly aligned
up here. The systems of the secondary grid are even harder
to physically reach than those of the primary grid. I think
I'll quit before I've wasted any more time."

The Captain had ascended and was kneeling next to B'Elanna.
"What do you think of Kes's discovery?"

"Hard to call it a discovery when she doesn't know what it
is and she can't explain it."

"All right, her intuition. Here." Kathryn gave B'Elanna a
hand up. B'Elanna used her momentum to take Kathryn's arms
in her hands and give her a quick kiss; the Captain kissed
back, smiled and waited.

"She says she's not going to be the one to discover
whatever this missing element she's intuiting is, and if
it's not her, I don't know who the hell it'll be. It's not
gonna be me, I can tell you that. But she didn't seem
comfortable with the idea of getting another telepathic
member of the crew involved."

"I can understand that. Kes is very protective of the crew
and their health."

"So says Captain Kathryn 'touch my crew and you're dead
meat' Janeway."

Janeway smirked but continued "Right now, the only people
who might possibly be compromised by the river are you and
me. Get someone else in here, with as much access to and
handling of the modified sensor components as we've had,
and there's no reason to think you wouldn't have to build
another of these buffers. It's only been a few days; let's
exhaust our possibilities before we bring anyone else into
contact with this."

B'Elanna sighed. "I'm partly thinking how some help could
speed things up a little. We could make them wear
envirosuits."

"Which would help them exactly as much as it helped you."

"Yeah, yeah...hey, help me get all this pulled out of the
secondary sensory systems before you go back down, would
you?"

"Sure." When they had it clear, B'Elanna said "Computer,
reset circuitry of secondary sensory systems to normal." A
kerbleep of assent sounded, and they started taking
everything back down the ladder.

"I'm going to Engineering and get Nicoletti's report; I
think everyone is feeling neglected," Kathryn said.

"Is Chakotay neglecting them?"

"No, and Tuvok's not either, but if I put on some show of
normalcy it might calm everyone down a touch. I'll be back
in a few moments. Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"What wouldn't you do?"

"Disturb Kes. I think she needs this."

"I won't make much noise."

---

Kes felt something odd in her state of neutrality...the
image she'd been in, a cloudless night sky over a still
lake of calm water, began to flicker.

The water began to develop a current.

She tried to smooth the riffling surface again, but the
current would not ease. She realized she was losing her
position over the water, falling toward the--

A hoarse scream cut through her attempt and she reeled back
to normal consciousness unprepared, what was wrong, that
was B'Elanna's voice--

--and the Captain's--

"Why is her buffer off?" Kathryn was demanding, lunging for
the small device and scrambling over a collection of random
parts toward B'Elanna with it; the Lieutenant was
thrashing, struggling, eyes open, shouting.

"Captain, NO! She's already half in the river--I don't know
what suddenly cutting her contact would do, it could trap
her or divide her perceptions, her mind might not--"

"What's the thing doing off to begin with? Get the med
supplies!"

Kes grabbed the handle of the antigrav pallet loaded with
the supplies and ran over to them. "I don't know why,
Captain, I was coming out of the meditation and I heard her
shouting--"

"B'Elanna, can you hear me? B'Elanna!" Kathryn fetched the
half-Klingon a healthy slap, but there was no affect beyond
turning B'Elanna's cheek purple-tinged. "The buffer must've
been interfering with whatever test she was trying to run.
B'Elanna, you idiot--can you bring her back?"

Kes fell to her knees next to the staring, grimacing
Lieutenant. She tried to reach her face, but B'Elanna was
flailing, maybe in confusion, maybe with an unseen
antagonist. Kathryn seized B'Elanna's arms from over her
head and used all her strength to hold them out of Kes's
way. "She's--too strong--"

"B'Elanna can you hear me"

B'Elanna was tangling with something relentless, something
that had all the depth of space, and the power potential of
a white dwarf. She would think she could feel her feet
against a surface, but then the surface would shift,
crushed as with supergravity floating and she would be
falling, feeling her insides twist--

--and then she HAD no insides, no sensory organs, she did
not exist in three dimensions, she could not--

"B'Elanna answer Can you hear me"

Meaningless noise, driving her farther into the berserker
state, the changespotentialscurrents she was in the river
and she was going to drown--

"I can't reach her, Captain, I think she can hear me, but
she's incapable of responding. I don't know how much longer
she can last like this--Captain, WAIT!"

But Kathryn had already released B'Elanna's arms, hooked
her fingers under the buffer that protected her from
immersion in a tide of unknown space and ripped it off,
then seized B'Elanna's shoulders in her hands.

---

She hit the ground with a body on top of her, hard; the
wind was knocked out of her and her ribs felt bent.
Gasping, she scrambled for purchase, and the other body
rolled off. B'Elanna, of course; as they staggered to their
feet, Janeway said "We're in the river, the subjective
state--you couldn't respond to Kes in the halfway state."

"Then where we are now is only another...metaphor..?"
B'Elanna had looked down at herself."

"Is that full armor?" Kathryn asked. "Or some kind of
mental joke?"

"It's full armor," B'Elanna said. "Antique. Let's get down
from here. Stay behind me."

They were on a rise under a dark sky that was half-lit by
the fires that raged all around them, the sounds of metal
crashing, screams, the smell of burning flesh.

As they scrambled down the ridge on the side that seemed to
be away from the worst of the fighting, Kathryn shouted "Is
that the only thing you're armed with?"

"You mean the sword of honor, here? No, I seem to have a
kut'luch and a couple of other knives I don't think I could
name. If we run into--oh my God."

Below them, in the darkness, was a reflective surface;
moving, as they could see the flaming body of a Klingon
dressed like B'Elanna floating past a prominence of rock
and toward them. They were still above the level of the
water...

"Captain," B'Elanna called over the noise, "We're in deep
here."

"Obviously, if--that looks like another woman. B'Elanna, is
this some specific battle you're familiar with?"

"Have you ever heard of a Klingon novel called 'Women
Warriors at the River of Blood?"

"No, but I suppose that's the river in question, then?"

"Yes, and we need to get the hell out of here. Why'd you
come in after me? Kes is the designated lifeguard around
he--this way!" She grabbed Kathryn's arm, switching back;
their direction was now around the hill rather than down it.

"Kes couldn't reach you in the halfway state, remember? You
came out of that on your own. We didn't know what
reattaching your buffer would do to you. Why the HELL did
you take it off?"

"Would you believe I had an itch?"

"No, you're not that stupid. I came because Kes CAN reach
*me*--and you came with me last time she pulled me out."

"Then she better hur--" suddenly she shoved Kathryn down on
the ground, took up a defensive stance over her with the
large curved weapon, and bellowed something in Klingon. Out
of the darkness she got a response, which she overrode with
an even louder bellow. There was a silence, and B'Elanna
shrieked something, shaking the sword over her head.

A pause, and a surly but contained reply came out of the
dark.

B'Elanna stood there a second more; Kathryn wisely didn't
move.

"All right," B'Elanna said, hauling the Captain up by the
arm. "Let's get moving. I doubt I'll be able to pull that
off again."

"What happened?"

"That was a mop-up patrol of the soldiers of Dakhkan,"
B'Elanna explained tersely as they stumbled through the
dark. "I said I was a soldier of Queen Hahgrathat, and you
were MY prize, taken from the personal slaves of Khanchih;
he just got defeated here. Hahgrathat and Dakhkan aren't
allies; they just both happened to attack Khanchih at the
same time. And if we meet any real soldiers of Hahgrathat,
we're sunk."

"Why? Tell them you're with Dakhkan."

"Can't. I'm wearing Hahgrathat's insignia."

"Can you take it off?"

"Then I'd be nothing but some unknown sellsword, probably
Khanchih's--his are the only people here who have any
reason to remove their insignia now." They found a level
stretch and picked up speed. "Fully dishonorable, of
course, so *everybody*, including Khanchih's remaining
soldiers, would cut us down like weeds. Well, me. You they
might keep, and you wouldn't like it. I'm telling you,
we've got to get out of this quick."

"I take it you didn't have the peaceful scenario Kes
mentioned prepared."

"I think I penetrated farther this time. Your ability to go
subjective--but unfortunately, my metaphor."

"I don't think I know you as well as I thought I did."

"I sure as hell wouldn't have expected this either. 'Women
Warriors at the River of Blood' is the most godawful
Klingon romance novel I've ever encountered. I don't know
what possessed me to--up this way, if we can get over this
rise--it leads away from the fires--don't hold my hand, let
me hold your arm. You're an outworld prisoner."

"Right. Forgot."

"Captain Wait Listen to me You and B'Elanna are creating
the place you are Creating the River itself It's growing
It's more elaborate I'm having trouble navigating You must
stop what you're doing The river is deepening Captain
Captain I'll keep following and calling Eventually you must
hear me Captain It's Kes Answer me Captain"

"It occurs to me, B'Elanna--"

"Watch out, scree slide--"

"I see it. Is there any way we can escape from this
metaphor, any more than I could have swum to the surface
from the caves in Olympus Mons?"

"There weren't battle-crazed Klingons everywhere in Olympus
Mons."

"A telling point, but my concern is this: the river of
blood is the primary symbol that is causing our perceptions
to--"

"Duck!" B'Elanna shoved her into a small ravine that
extended downward and to their right--actual directions
were impossible to fathom, if they'd even been relevant.

"Your concern? Your concern is what?" B'Elanna hissed,
covering Kathryn with her body and a lot of dirt as they
lay low in the ravine, a very good approximation of a
troop's worth of hob-nailed boots tramping by overhead.

"That river is the reason for this whole scenario. I don't
think there will be any way to get away from it, or from
this battle that's producing it, without changing our
perception toward the objective so that--"

"Maybe so, but meantime we'd better keep away from these
figments of my imagination, or your imagination, until Kes
can find the right place to dive to contact you and bring
us out. Remember, the first time I was in a halfway state,
I bled real blood."

"But we're not in a halfway state, we're IN the river now--"

"Remember how my body temperature dropped from the ducking
under Olympus Mons? When we were IN the river?"

"...hm. You have a point there."

---

"Captain I'm going to try something I'm going to release my
connection to normal perception I believe I can return
without the lifeline In any case you're too deep to reach
with me tethered to the bank I'm coming after you Captain
hold on hold your breath wait for me Here I come

Here I come"

---

"All right, Kes, now would be a good time," the Captain was
muttering as they backed farther into the ravine, B'Elanna
in front, Kathryn to the right and slightly behind her with
the kut'luch.

"Hit that trigger with your thumb," B'Elanna shouted as she
ducked the first swing. If it hadn't been for the ravine,
they'd already be dead; the four Klingons could come at
them only one, maybe soon two, at a time. The one farthest
back had a torch, unfortunately; the odds were well
outlined.

"Are you a match for them with that, B'Elanna?" Kathryn hit
the trigger with her thumb and two additional spikes
snicked out the sides of the knife's hilt.

"Hell no," B'Elanna yelled back, "barely ever picked one of
these up. Kes doesn't find us soon, we're dead. Shouldn't
have taken the knife and blown the--" duck, swing, duck,
kick. "--prisoner illusion. Now they'll likely kill you too
after they take me down."

"I can live with that better than the alternative. If
you'll pardon the expre--" One of the other Klingon
warriors feinted past B'Elanna's guard, and Kathryn's knife
deflected the larger blade with a clang that nearly
disarmed her. The sting of the blow numbed her arm; there
was a stab of pain in the wrist that had held firm against
the blow.

"Captain can you hear me"

"It's Kes!"

"Tell her to get the duranium out! AAHK! Oh, you'll pay for
that, you--"

"Kes We are in grave danger B'Elanna is hurt You must get
us out of here now"

"I'm trying To find you I had to let go of the line to the
bank I'm not sure if it will be as easy to return us this
time I have no contact with the shore either"

"No choice We're both about to die Take my hand Wherever
you wind up leading us lead us there fast"

"Follow me Captain I'm changing the permutations Changing
the potentials Rocks in the current Follow me Captain"

The other Klingon's weapon was arcing toward B'Elanna's
head. Kathryn leaped, one hand outstretched for B'Elanna's
face; she could only hope the weapon would no longer exist
by the time she landed where B'Elanna was now.

---

"Kes what's happening"

"I don't know Is B'Elanna with you"

"I'm right here"

"It's Kes B'Elanna you can hear me"

"Loud and clear Which way do we go"

"I don't know I can find the bank But it has to be the
right part of the bank"

"Voyager In Kathryn's quarters you said we should try to
stay focused on Voyager"

"Yes B'Elanna"

"Then Voyager it is"

---

Kathryn's eyes opened; B'Elanna was putting the buffer back
on her wrist. There was a big pressure bandage on the
engineer's shoulder, but she was upright and clear-eyed.
"Kes?" Janeway sat up, holding her head. "B'Elanna, is Kes
all right?"

"I'm fine. I'm calling the bridge to tell them we're all
right. We've all suffered metabolic reductions and the
holodeck sensors sounded the alarm. I've already talked to
the Doctor."

"Metabolic reductions? Why? How long were we out?"

"Two hours and thirty-seven minutes from the time I went in
after you, according to the chronometers."

"What?!" Kathryn levered herself up against a console.

"I know," Kes said, walking unsteadily toward her to run a
medical tricorder over her. "I don't understand it either."

"I suppose we should just accept the lost time as part of
the vagaries of interdimensional travel. You got us back
here, even if we lost some time. Excellent job, Kes."

"Thank B'Elanna."

"All I did was find Voyager." B'Elanna sat down in a
computer console chair, rubbing her head. She was wearing
her buffer again, too.

"Which was more than I could do. B'Elanna's ability to
continue to perceive even in the river--although it would
certainly have been inimical to her if it went on for
long--enabled her to sense normal space--our space--well
enough to find Voyager, even from inside the river."

"And you proceeded to get us here," B'Elanna finished.

"I got us back to a normal state of perception. It was you
who made me able to see that we returned to that state
inside Voyager, at the same location as our bodies
presently occupied. Sit down, Captain, please."

Kathryn obliged, in the simulation console chair. "You
mean, without B'Elanna's unfortunate tendency to not be
fooled the way you and I were, Kes, we might have wound up
sucking vacuum somewhere? Physical bodies and all?"

"We may never know that for certain," Kes sighed. "But
considering that our brains, separately or together,
coupled with the translation matrix, were creating the
river and our perception of it, I think it's quite
possible. The river was only as real as we made it, and it
certainly couldn't be relied on as a means of
transportation."

"I'll have to agree with you on that. Further research
toward that end is hereby terminated. This phenomenon,
whether a simple reformatting of our perceptions or a
genuine window into alternate forms of space, is far too
dangerous to continue working with. And if it is ONLY a
reformatting of our perceptions...we'll never be able to
use it as transportation anyway. Well, B'Elanna might, but
it would kill her before she could get anywhere."

"Anywhere good, at least," the half-Klingon muttered.

"Inside a star, or something, but most likely sucking
vacuum, yes, Captain."

Janeway sighed. "Who'd have thought...the river, an
artifact created by a link between our brains and an
astrophysical sensor device. One hell of an emergent
property."

B'Elanna said a word she was not wont to say, at least in
front of a superior officer, and Kathryn got up and went to
her, sitting down on the floor by her chair and leaning in
her lap as Kes followed her with the scanner. "B'Elanna,
you were only trying to make some augmentations to our
sensor array. You didn't go into this trying to
single-handedly get us home."

"Yeah." B'Elanna sighed, adjusted her bandage, and smiled
slowly. "But it sure would have been something, wouldn't
it?"

Kathryn grinned. "Yeah. It sure would."

"Sickbay," said Kes, and neither of them were inclined to
argue with her. But Kathryn held out her hand to the other
two. "One second, Kes." She touched a control on the
simulation monitoring console, resetting it to the
beginning of the monitoring process.

It was running.

B'Elanna started laughing, made a bug-eyed face and
stopped, but Kathryn continued chuckling, leaning heavily
on the console.

"The sensor augmentation," Kes surmised, smiling. "It's
working."

"You were right to keep that data feed up," Kathryn said.
"Hasn't been a total loss, if we can find a way to make
that matrix safe for the maintenance crew to handle.
Buffers are only a stopgap. Let's get out of here."

Leaning on each other, two of them supporting whichever
third had taken the most recent misstep, they made their
way to the turbolift.

"Captain, why's my cheek burning?"

"Ah..."

"Never mind, I think I know." She squinted over Kes's head
at Janeway and said pointedly "'Hits'."

Janeway muttered "So much for sleep tonight."

"Captain," Kes suggested, "you could always try to settle
it peacefully."

"How so?" Kathryn smiled tiredly.

"Promise not to have her demoted two ranks for being so
unbelievably indifferent to her personal safety--and
importance to this ship--as to remove her buffer when I was
not conscious and present to help if she got into--"

"You couldn't have helped anyway!" B'Elanna said, then
squawked softly and raised a hand to her pressure bandage.

"We weren't sure of that then. Besides, would you have
taken the buffer off if I was in any condition to notice
you doing it?"

B'Elanna steamed, then spluttered "I was just trying to
find out if the main node--"

"AH-ah-ah--" Janeway laid a finger over the Lieutenant's
lips. "I won't ask...and you don't get 'hits'. Consider it
a done deal."

B'Elanna sulked.

---

Kathryn looked up from her sofa when the door signal
bleeped. "Come in."

B'Elanna came in, plodded to the bed and fell over on it.

Kathryn got up with her cup of valerian tea, in her pink
satin robe, her fall of blonde hair loose over one
shoulder. "How's the battle wound?"

B'Elanna's eyes slitted open. "You could've stayed in
sickbay to defend me."

"I decided the Doctor could give you your lecture on
recklessness, since I bargained out of the privilege. And
he DID have to clean up the mess. You're not in the Maquis
any more, B'Elanna; we need you, alive and whole, far more
than we need heroic risks."

"The Doctor, you...I should just have taken 'hits'."

"Ah, but the Doctor can't bust you two grades. Your
bloodied shirt befouls my bedspread."

"So undress me. I'm too tired."

"Are you too tired for a bath?"

"Alone or with you?"

"I've showered, but the extra effort you made, taking
Hausermann down to the holodeck and taking all that
apart..."

"The translation matrix itself is deactivated, as a unit.
Don't worry. Now it's just a bunch of biocomponents with no
connection to each other."

"Then you deserve some help in the bath, don't you."
Janeway set her tea down and started working the sleeveless
turtleneck over the light waterproof bandage B'Elanna would
wear until tomorrow. She tksed. "Wandering the ship in your
stocking feet...not what I expect from my senior officers,
Lieutenant." The shirt came off.

"Oh, just keelhaul me and get it over with." She caught
Kathryn in her legs and the Captain fell over her, catching
herself to either side of B'Elanna on the bed. B'Elanna
hauled the robe over Kathryn's shoulders--bare underneath,
as it turned out.

Kathryn laughed softly. "There's that indomitable spirit
that gave you the strength to throw me on the ground and
declare me your own prize."

"Don't be smarmy, Kathryn. But if you really want me to
throw you on the ground, wait until I've had sleep and I'll
make it special."

"How about you throw us both there?"

"Sounds great. I want my bath..." she squeezed Kathryn in
her legs and arms and added "And then, God, I could sleep
for a week."

"You can sleep for a few days, if necessary. One day,
certainly. Are you sure you want to do it here?"

B'Elanna opened her eyes. "Is it...do you..."

"It's fine with me. I'll be taking the morning off
tomorrow, at least; the Doctor insisted on a full day, but
I'm not injured. Just battered and tired."

"That isn't what I meant."

"I know what you meant. But think, B'Elanna...you and me.
Would anyone believe it?" She smiled.

B'Elanna returned the smile. Then she began to giggle. So
did Kathryn. "At least we won't have to play sardines with
Kes tonight."

They laughed harder, but Kathryn defended the Ocampan with
the maternal tone of her voice. "Kes is a very reassuring
armful."

"And not much bigger than a teddy bear."

"Teddy bears don't have warm breath and heartbeats. How was
she when you left sickbay?"

"Asleep on a biobed. The Doctor said he was going to remain
activated through the night to keep an eye on her."

"Good. She's been so scrupulous...thoughtful and--"

"--clean, thrifty and reverent, a regular scout. Oh, stop
that--" she grabbed the Captain's hand where it had started
to deliberately tickle her ribs. "I love Kes, you know
that."

"Mm. How could you not love Kes?"

Kathryn was startled when B'Elanna burst into snorting
giggles at the sentiment.

"All right, come on. Bath time."

That got B'Elanna moving much faster than she'd felt
herself capable of only seconds ago. She kicked out of her
pants herself, as the Captain started for the bathroom.
"I'll turn the water--hey." B'Elanna had snagged the belt
of her loosened satin robe as Janeway turned away, and the
garment slithered abruptly to the floor. Facing B'Elanna in
all her strong-yet-delicate glory, she raised an eyebrow
over her own smirk. "You Klingons. So devious."

"You didn't want to get it wet, did you? I take it you were
expecting me?"

"Not expecting." The smirk turned into a real smile as she
quoted B'Elanna again; "Wished for it. Hoped for it. The
tub will be ready in just a moment." As she strolled off
toward the bathroom, B'Elanna watched the play of the
dimmed lights across the smoothly shifting muscles under
her ivory skin.

"This is gonna be one short bath," she muttered, then
quickly divested herself of her underwear.

She listened to the water running in the tub-fill,
splooshing and trickling, and Janeway 's voice making
several soft requests to the computer. Then she hauled
herself up, went to the bathroom door and peered in.

Steam was shifting in convective spirals in the muted pink
lighting. Four pillar candles burned out of harm's way on
the high rim around the back of the tub; a classical guitar
wove a complex, understated melody from the comm speakers.
Some herbal scent, floral but not sweet, was carried on the
steam. Kathryn was sitting on a fuzzy cream-colored rug
with a bath brush in one hand, leaning an elbow on the tub.
"Your chariot awaits," she smiled. Naked, sitting on the
floor, she still had more dignity than anyone B'Elanna had
ever known; it survived any situation because of its
unpretentiousess. Kathryn didn't need to be in uniform, in
her ready room or the command chair, to personify elegance.
B'Elanna just stood there a moment, looking at her.

The Captain rose in a single graceful movement, taking
B'Elanna's hands. "Is anything wrong? I know all this pink
lighting and flowers aren't exactly part of the face I show
my crew," she joked gently, "but there's hardly any need to
look that awestruck."

"I'm awestruck over you," B'Elanna said, and kissed the
other woman hungrily.

Kathryn made an appreciative murmur and the kiss extended a
while. When it finally ended, Kathryn whispered "Come on,"
and led B'Elanna toward the water.

"I take it you do this a lot." B'Elanna stepped onto the
fuzzy rug and the door closed behind her, trapping the
scent and humidity.

"The whole production is my reward at the end of a trying
but successfully handled day. And in general, a hot bath
relaxes me, helps me think."

"Still," B'Elanna said, stepping into the
water--excruciatingly hot; B'Elanna held her breath as the
current pressed against the back of her leg--and then sank
the second foot, inuring herself to the heat. She started
the process of lowering herself into the tub. "I
wouldn't've thought pink would be your style." She could
feel the automatically cleaned and recirculated water as a
pressure against her back, flowing around her, supporting
her.

"And why not? On my own time, I pick my own color schemes.
Are you used to the heat?"

"Mostly. If I didn't know better I'd say you were part
Klingon, or Vulcan. You must be pretty pink yourself after
these therapy sessions, pun intended."

"I ran the water for what I assumed would be your
preference."

"You were right." She sighed as Kathryn began applying the
brush to her neck and shoulders. The consistency of the
brush was rough enough for B'Elanna, if not as abrasive as
the deactivated engine systems brush Kathryn had used on
her in the icy mineral-laden spring on Heartwood.

"Take the bandage off," she murmured after a few moments.

"If I do, there might be some scarring."

"Kes will fix it for me later. Take it off."

Kathryn set the brush down long enough to press the corners
of the triangular pad all at once, firmly. The seal
released; she set the bandage on the floor behind her. "But
I'm not scrubbing there."

"Use your hand."

"That will do no harm, I suppose," Kathryn said softly,
almost a whisper.

Kathryn had done all of her down to the waist when B'Elanna
said "Come in with me. You can't reach the rest of me from
there."

"It'll be..."

"...a little crowded," B'Elanna finished with her,
laughing. "But not very. This is bigger than my tub."

"This class of ship only has the Galaxy accommodations for
the Captain and first officer."

"Yeah," B'Elanna snorted. "Rank certainly hath its
privileges in Starfleet."

"Don't be childish. Or I won't get in with you."

"Yes you will." B'Elanna grabbed her shoulders and started
to haul, but Kathryn yelped "The heat! I have to adjust the
temperature!"

"Oh, yes. Sorry." B'Elanna let her back over the tub edge,
and Janeway said "Computer, decrease water temperature by
ten degrees, in gradual stages."

The computer kerbleeped. Kathryn helped pass the minutes of
waiting by giving B'Elanna a shoulder massage, using an oil
whose fragrance B'Elanna recognized. "The potpourri or
whatever you have in here, it's that oil, or like it."

"Rosemary, in olive."

"I like it."

"I knew you would."

"I think the water's cooled down."

B'Elanna was immediately supported by the computer's "Water
temperature now reduced by ten degrees."

"You're in league with the computer, aren't you," Kathryn
said.

"No, Harry's in league with the computer. Paris said once--"

"Oh, Paris again."

"He said that if the Voyager were a fifty-seven Chevy, and
it wasn't working, Harry would be under the dash trying to
get all the lights and the radio to work, and I would be
under the engine, screaming 'Throw me a six-millimeter!'"

Janeway's chuckles were almost swallowed by the water, as
she laid out along B'Elanna's side, and both women turned
in the water to face each other, a massive sploosh
registering her arrival and increasing the reuptake rate of
the intake vents.

"Oh..." Kathryn stretched her shoulders and rolled her
head. "Perfect."

"Don't get too comfortable. You haven't finished my bath."

"With great joy, I will finish your bath."

As they floated in a loose embrace, the rough brush found
its way across B'Elanna's lower back, her belly, and her
thighs.

"I need washing in between."

"Not with this brush, you don't."

"Then use your hand." Leaning her shoulders against the tub
edge, she pulled the other woman up against her and kissed
her again, and the utilitarian aspect of the bath was
completely ignored from that point. They kissed like they
were determined to devour each other, bodies meshing
together in the heat and support of the water, wet skin
sliding on skin.

Lifting Kathryn a little, B'Elanna turned her attentions to
the exquisite line of the Captain's collarbone; she was
excited enough to draw blood, but she toned it down to more
discreet sucking and nipping, then started up the side of
the white, rapidly red-flushing neck. Kathryn was emitting
that hissing moan that made B'Elanna dizzy with the urge to
throw herself on top of the Captain, roaring with desire,
and it didn't help that Kathryn was massaging B'Elanna's
breasts with the care and skill of an artist.

The half-Klingon grabbed the backs of Kathryn's knees and
yanked, flipping her over onto her back, following to land
on top of her, cushioned by the water; another sploosh
ricocheted wildly from the sides of the tub. She was
careful that Kathryn contacted the elevated rest behind her
gently rather than banging her head on the back of the tub,
which could've thrown a damper on even B'Elanna's mood.

She worked her way back across the Captain's collarbone and
down to her breasts, laving one nipple with her tongue and
fingering the other breast with as much as she could manage
toward the bravura performance Kathryn had given her. She
arched her back against the nails Kathryn was sinking in it.

In about five minutes, they had reached the stage of
needing like hell to get out of the water. B'Elanna had
already bitten Janeway twice, and had a healthy set of
teethmarks just under her left breast. The bed was entirely
too far away, so they wound up soaking the fuzzy
cream-colored rug. B'Elanna heaved Kathryn over the tub rim
and then rolled out and landed on her, sliding down her
body and hooking Kathryn's legs over her own shoulders. The
Captain spared a thought of gratitude to the rug--she knew
she was going to be in a state of spasm in about three
minutes and was glad she wouldn't be cracking her head
against a tile floor.

Kathryn returned the favor--B'Elanna just went ahead and
roared; the hell with the inadequate soundproofing--and
they finally collapsed in a tangled, sweaty heap. They just
breathed for a few minutes; finally Kathryn observed "We
could use a bath."

"My GOD I don't have the strength."

"I mean a real one, not one designed as an excuse to get
our claws into each other."

"So do I."

"I admit, sex with you is sometimes an endurance event--"

"Geez, Kathryn, love you too."

"I didn't mean it like that and you know it. But I at least
need a rinse. And I'd love some company."

"Okay. But no getting me so turned on this time, all right?
I'm all in."

A bit later, dried off and in bed, B'Elanna stayed awake
long enough to whisper into Kathryn's damp hair "Tomorrow.
I promise not to be so abrupt."

Kathryn stroked B'Elanna's back. "I happen to like fast and
furious."

"I know you like it slow and deliberate, too, and so do I.
We don't always have to make love like ravening wolves."

"Any style you want. Tomorrow. Go to sleep, Lieutenant."

B'Elanna crashed, hard. But the Captain lay awake a while
longer, thinking about perceptions, and currents of
possibility; and B'Elanna defending her from four Klingon
warriors with a weapon she barely knew how to use; and
Kes's eyes, deep as a summer sky, as Janeway opened her own
to realize that this most unassuming hero had saved the day
yet again.

As she drifted off, her mind filled with images of serene
rivers, gently rolling brooks, a round Earthly moon rising
over a shining ribbon of water.

She slept, borne along like a leaf.

---

The End