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'This is not possible!" The words were torn from Telek's throat as he raced to join Janeway close to the screen, as if his simple, outraged presence could bring the vanished planet back. "Planets don't sun-ply disappear!"

As he spoke, the screen again filled with the unbearably bright light. Again Voyager rocked. When her eyes had adjusted, Janeway could again see the planet, back hi its proper position.

Except there was a horrible difference.

Before, the sixth planet in Sector 6837 had been a typical class-M planet. It was covered with oceans and rivers and clouds and continents, teeming with life. They could have beamed down and found themselves quite comfortable, in all likelihood standing on green, chlorophyll-fueled grass and gazing at a blue sky.

The planet before them now had no soft green-blue oceans. It had a swirling froth of gray and white instead. The continents had been utterly reshaped. Janeway didn't need Harry to sum it up for her, but he did.

"There have been earthquakes on every continent, hundreds of them," he was saying, speaking quickly and with a note of horror in his voice. "We've got tsunamis and volcanic activity hi forty-seven different spots. The ozone layer has been completely obliterated, and the atmosphere is almost gone. I can't even believe it's still intact."

She knew the answer to the question before she voiced it, but it needed to be said. "Harry, any signs of lifer

A long pause. "No, Captain," said the ensign softly. "Not so much as a microbe."

The horrified silence stretched on. Janeway's mind simply couldn't grasp it. Two billion people

gone, just like that, in the proverbial twinkling of an eye. What had happened? Who had done this?

Telek was the first to speak. "Ensign," he said to Kim in a rough voice, "are there any readings to indicate the presence of dark matter on the planet?"

Oh God, thought Janeway. Can the dark matter be so virulent that it can descend like some kind of cloud and wipe out every living thing on an entire planet? Haul it off to who knows where, then toss it back again like a discarded toy?

Harry looked shaken by the thought too. He tapped the consoles and located the requested information.

"Negative," he said. "There is absolutely no trace of dark matter either on or around the planet"

"What about the Shepherds?" asked Chakotay.

"The readings are still mere," Kim replied.

"Then we're still going down," stated Janeway, lifting her chin a little in defiance of the disaster that had just happened. "Right now the planet's reappearance has us in an elliptical orbit. Tom, get us back into standard orbit."

"Captain-" began Chakotay.

"Harry, you said the atmosphere was almost gone. Could we survive down there?" Janeway barreled on over the protest of her first officer.

"Captain, mere's seismic activity, there's no protection from radiation-"

"Answer my question, Ensign."

Glancing from Chakotay to Janeway, Kim replied, "Yes. Theoretically, we could survive down there for

about two days, provided the seismic activity doesn't increase in frequency."

"It's far too dangerous!" cried Chakotay.

Janeway whirled on him. "We're all going to be as dead as everything down on that planet if we don't stop this dark matter from destroying us," Janeway said. "You were just on the ship. You know what it can do. It's killed two Romulans already, and by God, I'm not going to let this stuff get any of my crew if I can help it. The answers aren't here, Chakotay. They're down there, on that ghost planet, and I'm going to find them."

"Captain!" yelped Kim. "I've got a reading. There's a single life-sign on the planet. It wasn't there before, I'm certain of it."

He didn't need to say it, but they all thought it. It had just appeared, as the planet had just disappeared. Janeway's lips thinned. This could be no coincidence.

Who, or what, was the single life-form on that ghostlike planet?

The away team Janeway assembled consisted