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“Makes sense, security-wise,” Corsi said, “if this was a tourist liner.”

“Yeah,” Gomez said. “It actually does.”

“Ready,” Stevens’ voice came back clear.

“Starting download now,” Geordi said.

He tapped his tricorder and then stepped back. Gomez knew that, if nothing else, the speed of his tricorder was going to make the download a slow process, considering the size of this ship.

“Stevens,” Gomez said, “beam us another tricorder and we’ll continue exploring. How’s the other team doing?”

“Down seven decks, without problems,” Stevens answered as the tricorder appeared a few steps away and Geordi retrieved it. “They found a massive hydro-garden still alive on deck five.”

“Tell them not to worry about the information panels in the hallways,” Gomez said, “since we’ve already dealt with that.”

“Ahead of you,” Stevens said.

Geordi laughed. “You have a great team here.”

Gomez smiled. “Coming from you, La Forge, that means a lot.”

He smiled, then said, “How about, instead of going down for the moment, we go up and check out the rings? Give the computer time to get all the information from the panel directional system.”

Gomez looked down the wide hallway that slowly curved away in the distance. If their guess about this being a tourist liner was right, most of what they would find in the decks below were rooms. And the second team was exploring downward at the moment anyway.

“Good idea. Stevens, change of plans for team one. We’re going to see if we can find an access to the rings.”

“Affirmative,” Stevens said.

Geordi turned back to the computer panel, then stopped. “Let’s ask the next one down the hall.”

She laughed.

“What, afraid you’re going to overload it?” Corsi asked.

“Better to not take chances,” Geordi said.

“With unknown technology, I agree completely,” Gomez said.

A hundred paces down the hallway, past twenty doors, was another computer board. Geordi touched it and brought it to life. Gomez noted that, again, it showed them as three red dots. No doubt the red meant they were unidentified. If they had been passengers on this ship, more than likely they would have been a different color. And, also more than likely, still another color for the crew.

“Where is the closest access to one of the rings?” Geordi asked the computer panel.

The computer image changed scale slightly and a red line appeared, leading them in the direction they were heading. The line ended in a large, open-looking area.

The hike was like walking ten times the length of the Enterprise , with smaller side corridors moving off in both directions about every hundred paces. She could see other, even smaller corridors branching off of each of those side corridors. And doors. Seemingly thousands of doors.

Gomez was getting a real sense of the size of this Beast. They were just walking a small part of one area of the outer deck. Their preliminary scans showed there were well over a hundred decks below this one.

“Wow!” Corsi said as the corridor finally opened up onto a massive room.

Gomez had to agree. In all her years, she had never seen anything this stunningly spectacular before. The room was more than large enough to land the da Vinci in, with massive growing trees and shrubs scattered everywhere. A beautiful waterfall cascaded down the side of a rock face near the center, giving the room a soothing background noise. There were literally hundreds of furniture groupings on different levels around the space, clearly designed like a massive meeting and resting place.

A slight wind blew through the trees, and the peach odor was stronger here.

“Elevators,” Geordi said, pointing at some almost invisible clear platforms that floated upward in continuing columns in five places around the room. A few feet from each upward column were platforms moving slowly downward as well.

All in all, this was one of the most spectacular rooms she had ever been in. But it wasn’t just the room that was stunning; it was the sky above them.

Or, more accurately, space.

Open, beautiful space, with the da Vinci off to one side,