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Telek stretched. His joints popped. He was exhausted, but the knowledge inside his head was the one thing mat might save them all. It would no doubt take a long time for the sensors to locate any of the discrepancies in space-time he had requested. He would linger here a few more moments, to catch any immediate errors he might have entered, then return to his quarters.

To sleep, again alone, as he had for far too long now. As he would for the rest of his life. The pain surged in his abdomen, welling forth with surprising rawness. If he could only save this ship, this crew, perhaps his family would not have died in vain.

He forced himself to redirect his thoughts. Dark matter. One of the last, great mysteries of the cosmos. Perhaps, if-no, when-they contacted the Shepherds, that mystery would finally be revealed to him. They understood dark matter. They knew what it was. Of course, theories abounded, and everyone

knew them. Telek's favorite theory was the shadow matter theory. This held that there was another universe that was related to our own only through gravity. There were shadow people, shadow planets, just like those in the more familiar universe.

It was not a particularly imaginative theory, but Telek liked it It had already been proved that other, alternate universes existed. He thought about the so-called mirror universe, where everything was perverted, where good was evil, and everything was dark. No doubt Jekri Kaleh would thrive in such an environment

The console began to flash. Telek sat upright so quickly he almost fell out of his chair.

"On screen," he told the computer.

At once, the dark screen was filled with light and color. Lines chased themselves across the blackness, forming shapes.

"Frequency identified as emanating from the sixth planet of the star system located in Sector 6837," intoned the computer.

For a long moment, Telek merely stared. He could not believe it Surely there must have been a miscalculation. The universe was a rather large place. For him to have found traces of Shepherd activity this quickly was impossible.

Unless Shepherd presence was far, far more pervasive than anyone had thought.

Telek tapped his combadge. 'Telek R'Mor to Captain Janeway."

"Janeway here." The response was immediate. He suspected she hadn't been sleeping.

"Captain." He Ucked his Ups. "Captain. I have... I have found the Shepherds."

"I must confess," said Janeway a scant fifteen minutes later, "that I didn't think you'd actually find anything."

"Neither did I," Telek confessed. "At least, not so quickly."

The entire senior staff had gathered in Astrometrics. To one degree or another, thought their captain, they all looked exhausted Drained. As if the life energy were being sucked out of mem by a parasite- which, she thought, wasn't an inappropriate analogy.

The nightmare was still with her. She couldn't seem to shake the damn thing. Ruthlessly she forced it from her mind and tried to focus.

"So you are suggesting that we change course and travel to this planet."

Telek frowned. 1 believe that was the entire purpose of this exercise, Captain-to locate the Shepherds and seek them out, to ask for their aid."

"I had hoped-" Janeway caught herself. She didn't want to sound plaintive or appear distrustful of Telek. "No one expected to be able to locate the Shepherds so easily. I'd thought we might use the time to keep experimenting, run a few more tests. This ship is in trouble, just as its crew is. That planet you've found isn't exactly around the corner. Ever since we realized what's been going on we've been traveling at impulse power. Who knows what going to warp will do to Voyager? It

could damage the antimatter containment field, we could lose our artificial gravity or the structural integrity field-"

"All of which will mean nothing if we are captured by the Romulans or go mad," said