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“What is it, Harry?” Tom asked. “What are you seeing?”

Harry did not respond to Tom, but rather tapped his combadge and said, “Kim to Captain Janeway.”

“Janeway here.”

“Captain, could you meet me in astrometrics right away? I think I have something.”

In truth, sneaking into the compound turned out to be almost fun, and the electrified fence was no match for any of B’Elanna’s tools. Tricorder scans got them through the guards. Locks opened with no resistance, and less than six minutes after B’Elanna cut through the fence, they were inside the main building.

Checking her tricorder, Seven said softly. “There are no internal alarms. We may move—cautiously, but without fear.”

B’Elanna’s wrist lamp illuminated banks of primitive (to her) computer equipment and generators. At the center of the main floor, they found a stairway that led down into what her scan said was a deep underground chamber filled with water and lined with photomultiplier tubes. “What is this?” B’Elanna asked. “A reservoir? Emergency supplies?”

Seven shook her head. “I do not think so. I believe we have stumbled onto a research station. This appears to be a neutrino observatory.”

“A what?”

“You know too little of your own history, Lieutenant. Four hundred years ago, humans first theorized the existence of neutrino particles. Researchers hit upon the idea of building or adapting large chambers like this one, filling them with pure water, and lining them with very sensitive light detectors. Primitive engineering, to say the least, but functional, to a point.”

“What does this have to do with the energy wave we felt earlier?”

“Probably nothing,” Seven said. “Subatomic particle research of this sort is highly theoretical work—‘pure science,’ as you would call it. I am intrigued that the Monorhans, a people enmeshed in such difficult circumstances, would expend resources in the pursuit of abstract knowledge.”

“Maybe not such pure research,” B’Elanna suggested. “If you lived this close to a white dwarf, wouldn’t you want to know as much as possible about exotic particles?”

Seven considered this, then nodded. “Though a moot point in our current investigation. This apparatus has not been used in several years.”

“Meaning what? The Monorhans abandoned their pure research in favor of weapons research?”

Shaking her head, Seven said, “I do not think the energy wave was meant to be a weapon. This installation does not look like a weapons lab.”

“For something that wasn’t meant to be a weapon, the energy wave did a hell of a job.”

“We require more information,” Seven said, then indicated a cluster of consoles in the center of the main room. “I believe we can find out more by checking that data center. Readings indicate it was used most recently.”

“All right,” B’Elanna said, pointing her lamp down at the stairwell one more time. The idea of the large water-filled chamber below made her skin crawl. Maybe the idea reminded her of one of the death traps the heroines in Tom’s silly serials always seemed to get trapped inside.

“Harry thinks he has something,” the captain said, still leaning over the latest batch of sensor logs scrolling up onto the science officer’s station. Studying her face in the glare from the monitor, Chakotay saw the dark circles under her eyes. She hasn’t slept in over a day, he realized. “I’m going to meet him in astrometrics.”

“What about Captain Ziv and the rih-hara-tan?” Chakotay asked. “You told them we would meet with them.”

When she rose from the chair, Kathryn’s knee joints popped loudly. “Agh!” she said. “I need to stretch. What I said was ‘Someone would meet with them.’ You’re my officially anointed ‘someone.’ Find out what they want and then try to find out what they really want. I don’t trust Sem. The way she and Ziv act around each other—there’s something wrong there.”

Chakotay nodded in agreement. Even in their short encounter in the conference room, he had sensed the tension between the pair. “Try to join us later,