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But the array offered them something that no Class-M planet ever had. The possibilities for advancing their scientific knowledge well beyond current Federation standards might just be the siren call that Janeway would find most difficult to resist. Colonizing a safe planet in an uninhabited region would have been challenging, but at the end of the day would also have been settling for less than they were capable of as individuals and a Starfleet crew. But the challenges and promise of the array were more difficult to weigh on an objective scale. Chakotay intuitively sensed that until Kathryn had pried every last secret from the array’s grasp, she would find it a moral imperative to continue their research. And he firmly believed such a task would take decades.

He saw the good in both sides. He was, for the most part, content with the life he had found on Voyager. Spending the rest of his life working by Kathryn’s side, whether traveling through space or plumbing a mystery as vast as the array, was all he really wanted anymore. But the same could not be said for the rest of the crew. Many of them had left family and friends behind. Though they would certainly be intrigued by the mysteries of the array, their enthusiasm was sure to wane as the weeks wore on.

Rumbling beneath the surface of these contemplations was another disturbing thought. Though they had located Tuvok’s life signs, the readings clearly showed that he was seriously injured. He was not altogether certain that boarding the array would be a simple matter. Though the bulk of the shuttle Tuvok had taken was now on board the array, fragments of debris had been detected within a hundred kilometers of it, and Chakotay wondered what price Tuvok had paid to gain entrance. Further, there was the reality that Tuvok had not been drawn here of his own free will. Chakotay agreed with Kathryn that the Doctor’s findings, coupled with Tuvok’s uncharacteristic behavior, pointed to an external force exerting itself on Tuvok’s better judgment. If that force and the mysterious hands that had built the array were one and the same, there was no way to know whether or not it would look favorably on their arrival. If Tuvok had been “invited” and barely survived, he shuddered to think how such a force might react to unwelcome trespassers.

For the moment, these musing had to be set aside. Once he had entered his initial search-team assignments into the interface console that was embedded in the arm of his chair on the bridge, he turned to Ensign Kim at ops. Kim and Paris had reported directly to the bridge from their truncated briefing in astrometrics and had quietly and efficiently begun to plot the safest course for entering the array. Seven assisted them from the bridge’s tactical station.

“Ensign Kim,” Chakotay asked, “do we have a heading yet?”

“I suggest we alter course to two five seven mark four, Commander,” Harry replied.

“Is that were the shuttle’s impulse trail leads?”

“It is. It appears Tuvok followed the trajectory of the graviton flow to maximize his distance from the theoretical event horizon,” Harry replied.

“Theoretical event horizon?” Chakotay asked.

Seven interjected before Harry could continue, “Because the array is drawing power from the singularity, it is difficult to precisely calculate the absolute edge of the singularity. Based on the singularity’s size, it should extend far beyond the space occupied by the structure.”

“But if that were the case, the structure would be crushed in the gravity well,” Chakotay finished for her.

“Precisely,” Seven affirmed. “Therefore we must assume that the actual event horizon begins somewhere near the inner side of the rings. As our sensors cannot pinpoint that exact location, our calculations must include the ‘theoretical’ variable which we refer to as the theoretical event horizon.”

“We’ve picked up signs of debris,” Chakotay said, “which suggests that Tuvok’s shuttle took a beating along that course. Are we making the same mistake he did?”