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“Good voyaging,” Dravvin chimed in.

“Fair ports,” Flenarrh wished him.

Hompaq lifted her chin. “Qapla.”

Picard smiled. “The same to you.” He glanced at the Captain of the Kalliope, who smiled back at him. “To all of you.” Then he nodded to Gleason, and they headed for the door.

Before they could quite reach it, however, someone shouted to them. Turning, Picard saw it was the fellow behind the bar.

“I’m sorry,” he told the bartender. “I didn’t hear you.”

The man cupped his hands and called out again. “Give my regards to Guinan, won’t you?”

It took Picard by surprise not that the fellow knew Guinan, since she had been to any number of places in the course of her long life. But how had he known that Picard knew Guinan?

Then he remembered. He had identified himself to his tablemates as the captain of the Enterprise. Obviously, someone else had overheard and mentioned it to the bartender.

Yes, he thought, that was it. It had to be.

“Of course,” he finally shouted back. “I’ll be happy to.”

The bartender waved his thanks and went back to his duties. And Picard, even more intrigued with the place than before, nonetheless resumed his progress toward the exit.

He took one last look at the Captain’s Table at the people, the place … the eerie, uncertain, and yet insistently familiar landscape. And then he followed his friend Gleason into the night and the fog.

For a while, they walked in silence. And when Picard looked back, he couldn’t find the sign anymore that identified the Captain’s Table. But somehow, he knew, if he searched long and hard enough, it would be right there before his eyes.

Reaching into the pocket of his jacket, he found and extracted the good-luck charm he had taken to carrying with him a diamondlike jewel the size of a uniform pip.

“What’s that?” asked his friend.

Picard shrugged. “A souvenir.”

Of course, had Gleason been more of an archaeologist, he might have suspected the stone was a genuine glor’ya. But it was only a replica, given to Picard by one of the Federation scientists who had analyzed the real thing.

The captain had been tempted to show the gem to his comrades in the Captain’s Table. However, as Robinson had noted, that would have detracted from the mystery surrounding his tale.

“Well?” asked Gleason. “Was the place everything I said it would be?”

Picard looked at him. “It was pleasant, all right.”

“Just pleasant?” his friend probed.

The captain of the Enterprise took a deep draft of night air. “You mean, do I have as much on my mind as I did before?”

“Uh-huh. And do you?”

Picard shrugged. “Perhaps not. Or if I do, at least it isn’t weighing quite as heavily.” He smiled wistfully. “But then, a little fencing match always did put things into perspective for me.”

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