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“Yes, Counselor. Think of people with a voracious appetite for power. We must consider the possibility that this is the archaeology of the Borg.”

“A fascinating hypothesis, Captain,” Data said from his station.

“And like most hot speculations, it’s probably wrong,” Picard replied. “But criminal behavior does spring to mind, despite the impressive display. An inside-out world with more habitable area than a quarter billion Earths-it makes me think of all the solar systems that will not be here to develop intelligent life.”

Troi said, “Perhaps it was guilt over that very realization that led to the Sphere’s abandonment. That guilt may have worked on them for a long time.”

“I wouldn’t count on that,” Picard said. “I wish I could believe that they became, Like the Ionian Greeks, a race of philosophers and dreamers, and turned their back on instrumentalities.” He shook his head. “Maybe the ultimate consumers went at last to another extreme, and threw off all material possessions. Maybe, instead of the Borg, the road to Dyson leads to-“

“No, not the archaeology of the Q,” Troi said.

“A cosmic joke, either way.”

“Captain,” Data said, “we have few facts from which to reason.”

“Quite right, Data. But the possibilities are finite. We can guess the answer-but it will only be helpful if we can later prove it true.”

“Human find it helpful to work in that way,” Data said, “backward from a guess. Your great physicist, Richard Feynman, advocated such a procedure.”

“But you find it … confusing?”

“A leap into the dark, perhaps,” Data replied.

By the time the Sphere became visible as a pale gray dot on the main screen, Commander William Riker had come onto the bridge. He, Data, and Geordi La Forge had reviewed all the known facts about the artifact, and had begun to connect them with incoming information.

Picard leaned forward in his captain’s chair, considering what the three officers had said, fascinated by how the real world had invaded the realm of possibility and exceeded all expectations.

The trail of neutrino flux measurements, recorded during the Enterprise’s first departure from the Sphere, out to a distance of one thousand light years, had confirmed that the star at the Sphere’s center was in every way a normal, stable sun of approximately 0.5 solar masses. That had been true until only a few weeks prior to the Enterprise’s first encounter. Now solar activity was suddenly waning, bringing on a “Little Ice Age.”

“Mr. Data-what’s your diagnosis?” Picard asked.

“Curious, Captain.” Data turned in his seat to face Picard. “There are indications that energy is being transferred through subspace to the very inner surface of the Sphere, causing the entire shell to move.”

“What?” Picard asked. “Why would it wish to move?”

“I doubt that it wishes anything, Captain. It just does. Not only is the Sphere moving off center of its cave of stars, incoming neutrino scans now revel that its central sun is also off center.”

“Yes,” La Forge said from his station, “I see it, too.”

Picard stood up. “Is the Sphere malfunctioning?” “Perhaps,” Data replied. “Untended automatic systems will probably descend into chaos, given enough time. And it would seem to me that the Dyson Sphere has had enough time. There may be nothing at all intentional about what is happening.”

Crusher left La Forge’s side and came to stand near the captain, her eyes on the forward viewscreen. Picard suddenly felt that the vast construct, for all its frightful majesty, for all its obscenity and beauty, might be doomed; and it disturbed him to think that all they might have learned from it would be lost. If there was anything more disturbing than having the Sphere snatched away before his questions could be answered, it was having the Sphere snatched away before he knew even what questions to ask.

“Captain,” Data said, “we are registering unusual activity deep inside the cave, at bearing forty-five mark five. On screen now.”

Picard stared into the dark, but all he could see was a faint, computer-enhanced