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But not tonight-or, she amended, glancing at the timecounter, this morning. Her lips thinned and her heart, which had begun to slow, speeded up again. For when Janeway looked out her window now, she saw nothing that brought comfort. She could see only the mystery that had been confounding them since they first began noticing it almost seventeen hours ago-dozens, perhaps hundreds of wormholes.

Like little mouths, they were, she thought; black and mysterious, yawning open for a few seconds, then closing. It was almost-almost-worse than her nightmare.

"Seven of Nine to Captain Janeway."

"Janeway here."

"Captain." Seven's voice was cool and crisp, efficient as ever. "I have some new information on the wormhole phenomena which you and Lieutenant Torres should see."

Janeway had already risen and was reaching for her uniform as she replied, "On my way."

The three women stood together, shoulder to shoulder, in Astrometrics and gazed at the bizarre image Seven of Nine displayed before them.

It was obvious to the captain that the whole thing was starting to get to them. Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres, the half-human, half-Klingon chief engineer,

had her arms folded tightly across her chest and was scowling at the images as if her vexation alone had the power to make them disappear. Seven of Nine, who had once been more Borg than human, still had a cold precision in her manner that made Janeway shudder if she thought about it too long. And Janeway herself had to admit that she was growing increasingly angry with this mystery that they seemed nowhere near solving.

A red line wound its way from right to left. Surrounding it were dots of white in varying sizes.

"What are we looking at, Seven?" asked Janeway.

"The red line," Seven said, "is the path that Voyager has been following for the past eighteen point six days. The white dots indicate lingering traces of verteron particles. I have graphed them in proportion to the strength of the radiant emanation. By my calculations, none of these wormholes was stable for more than nine seconds."

"But, we've only noticed the wormholes materializing over the past seventeen hours and twelve minutes," said Torres in a voice that was almost a growl. Her temper had been shorter than usual over the last several days, and that was saying something.

"Correct," replied Seven, utterly unperturbed by Torres's irritation. "I took the liberty of expanding the sensor's search patterns to focus on verteron emanations and retraced our route over the past several weeks."

"Good thinking, Seven," said Janeway absently. She always made it a point to acknowledge initiative

and good work when her crew showed it, although right now her mind was racing at a thousand lightyears a second.

Her gaze traveled the red line that represented her ship's path over the last few weeks. A chill raced down her back as she looked at that red line. She regarded its position of several weeks ago. There were no signs of wormhole activity then. But as the line moved toward the left-hand side of the giant screen, a few of the strange holes in space began to appear, though still far away.

The closer Voyager came to its present position, the more wormholes dotted the screen-and the closer their proximity to the ship.

"And these are the most recent ones?" she asked, to confirm her suspicions.

"Correct," Seven replied. "The most recent wormholes are the ones closest to our vessel."

The overall effect was that of a twining, crimson snake being pursued by a swarm of insects increasing in number. It was a fanciful image, one which both Seven and B'Elanna would scorn, but Janeway couldn't shake it. She didn't have to speak with her first officer, Commander Chakotay, on the bridge to know that there were dozens of wormholes opening and closing right this very minute-all coming closer to her ship, all getting larger. She'd seen enough from her window.