..When Acting Ensign Crusher stepped smartly off of a turbolift onto deck fourteen, he was distracted and late for his four hour shift in Engineering that Geordi had scheduled as a part of his pre-academy training. He held his arms close to his sides; hands clutched around three data padds that he had been unable to drop off in his new quarters, and glanced around the corridor for anyone he was likely to run into while his long legs propelled him toward his destination.

His mother had left the Enterpriser two weeks before, to take an elite post at Starfleet Medical, and he was still adjusting to life without constant supervision. His mother had not been an overbearing presence, but she had been constantly there, and even though he was sixteen years old and almost grown he felt uneasy and floundered without her steady guidance. He had thus far successfully hid that fact from the officers in charge of his care and education.

Ensign Crusher rounded a corner, and was slightly chagrined to see Commander William Riker and Counselor Troi walking toward the lift that he had just exited. He didn't have time to stop and say hello, and he really didn't want them to know that he was late. Riker spotted him, though, and gave one of his face-splitting grins. "Hello, Mr. Crusher."

Wes raised his head and smiled back "How are you, Commander?" It wasn't until then that Crusher spotted the man in a metallic grey shirt and black pants walking behind the two officers, engaged in muted conversation with Counselor Troi. Crusher was immediately relieved: The two officers were escorting a civilian guest. They would not have time to "show appropriate concern" and ask him about his life or his schoolwork.

Wes nodded to Counselor Troi and prepared to continue down the corridor when the stranger turned to face him. His startled brown eyes met solid black ones, like Betazoid eyes except for their amber pupils, eyes as deep as the tar pits that had swallowed dinosaurs on Wesley's home planet millions of years ago. Wesley Crusher's past crashed into his present, and the careful walls he had built around his most wounded memories crumbled.

It was like a nightmare, where everything seems normal, but you know there are monsters hidden behind the innocent faces of the people that you walk past. Wesley knew this man. He knew the face, pale and angular with full, flushed lips that matched the color in his pale cheeks. The man's pale blond hair was cropped short, like a bird of prey. It had been long, when they had met before. Wesley knew the eyes best of all, thick and liquid, eyes he would drown in if he didn't escape their pull, right now. His mother had been gone when he had met this man for the first time. She had been gone then, too.

Riker was speaking to him. The meaning of the older man's words couldn't penetrate the white noise rushing in his ears. Wes couldn't see the shocked and speculative look Troi gave both him and the stranger, before her face closed into a pleasant mask of neutrality.

"I'm sorry. I'm late for a shift in Engineering." Wesley's tone was blank, his voice a little too loud. He could barely hear himself. He put his head down and rushed past the group, walking as fast as he could without actually running, and didn't stop until he entered engineering. He spotted Geordi as soon as he entered the large room, with his back to Wesley and the door. Without thinking, Crusher made a beeline for the head in the left corner of the room, dodging people and consoles and equipment. He locked the door behind him and slid down the wall, crossing his arms over his knees, and shook.

Out in the corridor, Riker picked up the three data Padds that Wesley had dropped, then shared a look of confusion and concern with Troi before turning to their guest. "I'm sorry about that, Mr. Cullagh. Wesley's usually a very polite young man. I don't know why he wouldn't have wanted to catch up with one of his old instructors." Mr. Cullagh smoothed his sleeve, and smiled wanly. "Ah well, I suspect my boy was distracted, and didn't recognize me. It has been almost six years since I've seen him, after all. That equates to centuries in a young man's existence."

Riker smiled. "So, you met the Crushers on Tau Sigma IV?" The commander reached out his arm and subtly steered the man toward the turbolift, with Troi on the other side of him. In an unconscious move, they were surrounding him so that he could not escape if he fled. It was a meaningless gesture. The situation had not escalated to the point where physical restraint was needed, and there was little indication that it ever would.

"Yes, I taught him Vulcan Philosophy." Cullagh said. "As I recall, it wasn't his forte, but he nevertheless made quite an impression on me. He's a remarkable young man."

"Yes, he is." Counselor Troi interjected. "I'll speak to him about you: Perhaps that will jog his memory. In the meantime, would you like me to arrange for you and your protégé to be given a tour of the ship?"

Cullagh smiled politely as he turned toward her. "No thank you, Counselor. That isn't necessary. Mara and I will only be on board until tomorrow afternoon. I hear the refitting will be done by then, and the Enterprise will move on to better things. I would appreciate it if you would speak to Wesley for me, but please don't embarrass him on my behalf. I'm not the first teacher to be forgotten by my student."

Troi gave him a gracious smile as the trio reached the turbolift, and held the door open for their guest by touching a small panel by the door. "That's very understanding of you, Mr. Cullagh."

Cullagh stepped onto the lift. "Now, I think I will take my leave of you. I can find my own way back to my quarters, and I'm sure that you both have more important things to do."

"Not at all, sir." Riker replied. "But we'll leave you to your own devises for now. I'm sure that this situation with Wesley can be worked out." Riker stood at parade rest while the turbolift doors closed around their guest, and then turned to Troi. "What the hell was that all about?"

"I don't know," Troi answered, "But Wesley did recognize Cullagh, and there's more going on between those two than the professor let on."

Riker looked down at her with a tight smile, his eyes shining sardonically. "I may not be an empath, Deanna, but I'm not an idiot. The boy took off down that corridor like he'd seen a ghost. Can you be more specific about what you sensed from him?"

Troi's face smoothed itself into professional lines. "Meeting Cullagh was so traumatic for Wesley that it sent him into shock. The only thing I sensed from him was disassociation and panic. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that he was afraid of Cullagh. The man could have reminded him of a traumatic event that he hasn't dealt with. I can't be sure. As far as Cullagh is concerned…" Troi crossed her arms. "The man has an almost Vulcan mental discipline, but he was very excited to see Wesley, and his feelings toward him were…well, they can only be described as possessive. And he keeps referring to Wesley as his: My boy, my student."

Riker frowned. "That's rather ominous. It doesn't sound as if Mr. Cullagh is as beneficent toward Mr. Crusher as he claimed."

Deanna sighed. "Perhaps. But remember, Wesley is a sixteen year old boy who has just begun living on his own. He could be overreacting. Maybe he forgot to turn in an assignment six years ago, and is afraid that Mr. Cullagh has tracked him down to give him a failing grade: You know how much of a perfectionist Wesley is."

Riker laughed. "I don't think it's something that trivial, but you do have a point, and we don't have time to hold Mr. Crusher's hand right now. I need to get down to Engineering to supervise that Impulse engine refit, and you need to get started on the crew evaluations so that we can have them turned in by tomorrow."

Troi crossed her arms and nodded. "That's unfortunately true. Well, I'll stop by his quarters later to see if he wants to talk, but you know how close mouthed adolescent boys can be. In the meantime, I'll keep an eye on Cullagh, but to be honest I didn't sense anything from him to make me think he was dangerous."
Riker nodded. "Well, that settles it, then. I'll hand him back his padds, but I'll leave the counseling to you. See you later."

Troi smiled as Riker strode away from the lift, toward engineering. "Goodbye, Will." She signaled the lift, and headed back to her office.

Still huddled on the floor of the privy in Engineering, Wesley Crusher had finally stopped shaking. His hands were clinched so tightly around his knees that his fingers had gone numb. He slowly pried them apart, and realized his data Padds were missing. He didn't even remember dropping them.

Wes groaned, and dropped his head back down on his knees. There went three hours of research-he hadn't had the time to back his work up on the main computer. Wes laughed, weakly, at the thought that he could get upset by such a trivial concern as lost homework when Cullagh was here, when his universe had so suddenly shifted out of its normal alignment. It wasn't right that Cullagh was on the Enterprise, in the same way that it wasn't right for matter and anti-matter to inhabit the same space without exploding.

Wes felt as though he were adrift in an unstable quantum filament, where doors left locked in the past opened into the present, and the future was a black chasm that sucked you around in a circle to places you thought you had left far behind.

He had left Cullagh behind, on a planet called Tau Delta IV, along with three weeks of terror and torture and the certainty of death at the end of it all. That certainty had been reprieved by his unexpected salvation at the hands of a man named Tarmok Shae, a miracle of sorts, but Wes did not think that the same miracle ever happened twice.

Wesley rubbed his slim fingered hands together in order to restore circulation. How long have I been sitting here? As if in answer to his unspoken question, his communicator beeped. "Commander La Forge to Acting Ensign Crusher." Geordi sounded irritated. Wesley's lips stretched into a manic grin as fey amusement filled him. How could Geordi expect him to be intimidated by the petty ire of a commanding officer at a time like this? He had escaped hell itself, six years ago, and hell had come here to claim him.

Wes reached up, and tapped his communicator. "Wesley here."

"Ensign Crusher, you were supposed to report to Engineering at 12:30. It is now 13:25. Where exactly are you?" Geordi's tone was incensed, strident. It almost made Wesley laugh. He couldn't completely keep the humor out of his voice when he answered. "I'm in the privy, sir. One moment, I'll join you."
Wesley stood, slowly, and numbing pain shot through his legs as he straightened them. He stepped forward on limbs pierced with pins and needles to look into the mirror above the sink. A too pale face with dark eyes and flushed cheeks looked back at him. The color in his cheeks reminded him of Cullagh, and the grin on his face was replaced with a grimace. He didn't want to be connected to that monster in any way.

Wes took a deep breath and, before he could reconsider the impulse, exited the bathroom. He walked up to Geordi, who was standing beside the briefing table in front of the warp core.

"Geordi," he managed to get out, before La Forge turned and laid into him. "Do you consider your duty assignments to be irrelevant, Mr. Crusher? Because if you do, I'm sure your mother would be thrilled to have you with her at Starfleet Medical. Commander Riker and I, however, do not have time to baby-sit an irresponsible child."

Wes's face fell into a patented hangdog expression. It was a natural response, almost. Underneath the very real hurt that one of his mentors had leapt to conclusions about his intentions, there was a small, calculating voice inside his head that told him if he acted as if nothing was wrong, nothing would be. It was in Cullagh's best interest to ignore him-perhaps Cullagh wasn't interested in him at all. He had probably come on board for some other purpose. The Enterprise was the flag ship of the United Federation of Planets, after all. Wes was only her most junior officer.

"I'm sorry Geord…Commander." He said. "But I…well, I got caught up in class doing a science experiment on the accelerated decay of Tetreon particles in the presence of Hyperonic radiation, and I lost track of time. I know I'm very late, but it won't happen again. I promise." His voice wavered as though he were on the verge of tears. He was-but not because he as late for Engineering make work.

Geordi's expression softened, but before he had a chance to respond Riker walked up to them, holding Wesley's three data Padds. Wesley breathed a minute sigh of relief even as his stomach clenched in anticipation of Riker's demand for an explanation of his earlier behavior.

Riker held the Padds out. "You dropped these in the corridor, Mr. Crusher. You should have more care with ship equipment."

"I know sir, I'm sorry sir. I was in a hurry because I was late." Riker's lips fell into a disapproving frown. "If you managed your time better, Ensign, you wouldn't be late."

"Yes sir, "Wesley replied, defeated, and Geordi spoke up again. "Well, since you are late there's no use working on the new sensor array today. I'm turning you over to Commander Riker, to help with the engine refit. Try to pay attention, Ensign, so that we can complete the task on schedule." Geordi strode away from the table, leaving Wesley alone with the man who had seen his reaction to Cullagh.

Before he could get anxious, Riker clasped a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, Wesley, we'll see if we can't get done a little early today. I'm meeting the counselor to start crew evaluations tonight. Come to think of it, we were planning on giving you a promotion: How does Acting Captain sound?" Wesley grinned as he walked with the taller man over to the diagnostic consoles that were linked to the Impulse engines. "I think you had better make Captain Picard an Acting Admiral first, sir."

In her office, Deanna Troi had settled in with a cup of coffee and a pile of data Padds. Evaluations were the part of her job that she cared for the least, and the light, open atmosphere of her office helped her and her patients to dive into issues they didn't particularly care for. As an added bonus, the fact that it was a business environment for her kept her mind from wondering.

After two hours she rose and stretched, and remembered that she had promised Will that she would look into Cullagh. Her empathic senses had not given any clear indications about the man, but something about him unsettled her. After quickly checking his location and finding him still in his quarters along with his young protégé, she asked the computer to supply biographical information.

Here she got a surprise. There was no information on the man earlier than fifteen years prior, when he had taken up residence on Tau Delta IV, a bucolic world that was eighty percent rain forest. The planet was considered Federation territory, but only just. The primary political interests on Tau Delta IV were controlled by the SanDai, whose empire stretched close to Romulen space. The SanDai Empire was a loose conglomeration of planets and races born out of financial opportunities that rested in an emphasis on neutrality between their two more powerful neighbors.

Cullagh did not have a listed date of birth and his home world was unknown. The computer could not even identify his species, but Deanna could tell through her empathic senses and the sight of the man's strange eyes that he wasn't human, at least not completely.

Cullagh had gotten on board the ship as soon as it had docked at Starbase 423, for a two day engine refit and hull integrity tests. He had received permission to enter the base strictly because he had a visitors pass to board the Enterprise, and he had gotten that pass through his identification as a citizen in good standing at Tau Delta IV. He did teach Vulcan philosophy, but not at an academy or a school. He was a private tutor.

The records that Cullagh kept were sketchy, but they did not list Wesley as a pupil. Deanna did determine that Wesley and Cullagh had been on Tau Delta IV at the same time, but Wesley had been left in the care of a Federation Embassy for almost two months while his mother had performed classified and, it could be assumed, dangerous work for Starfleet medical. Otherwise she would have kept her son with her. Wesley had arrived via Starfleet transport, and left the same way. Dr. Crusher had never been on Tau Delta IV.

Troi leaned back onto her lavender sofa, and closed her eyes while she thought out the situation. She had only known Beverly Crusher for a year, but it seemed unlikely that she would allow her son to be taught a subject he didn't particularly care for by a private tutor she herself had never met and who, as far as Deanna could ascertain, was not a Federation citizen. Something about this didn't add up. She reached up and tapped her combadge. "Troi to Comander Riker."

Wesley put the finishing touches on the day's task for the refit while Riker stepped away to have a muted conversation with Counselor Troi. The duty shift had flown by, but Wes was not reassured. Riker hadn't even mentioned the incident in the corridor, and that didn't bode well. It had been too unusual a circumstance for Riker to dismiss it, so his silence seemed to indicate that he was taking it seriously. That would never do. Wes had to find a way to diffuse the situation.

The boy's earlier equanimity had fled. He had grown increasingly nervous over the last three hours, barely able to keep still. His fingers drummed on any surface they came into contact with, much to Crusher's chagrin and the rest of the engineering team's annoyance. His skin hummed, like it was stretched too tight over his compact frame, and he had the overwhelming feeling that he should be somewhere else.

He managed to ignore it for the first hour, but realization finally struck while he was lying on his back under an open hatch with a hydrospanner, trying to recalibrate the Impulse energy flow. Cullagh was calling him.

He didn't have to go. The feeling would get so strong that he would have to huddle in a ball and gnaw on his own flesh, but he didn't have to go. It was the calculating voice that told him this, the steady hum under everything else that noticed all things, considered all circumstances, and then made unexpected connections. Wes couldn't remember when he had first heard the voice, but it had been there with him on Tau Delta IV. It was in good part the reason he had survived Cullagh, and it was also the reason for his success in science and engineering. He would have liked to call it his intelligence, but it was more focused than that. He called it the watcher. The name seemed to fit.

And now the watcher was reminding him that Cullagh could be resisted, if Wesley were willing to pay the price for that resistance. It had been unrealistic to hope that Cullagh would ignore him. No matter the reason the man had come on board, he had seen Wesley, and did not intend to let the opportunity pass.

Wes jumped when Riker unexpectedly placed a hand on his shoulder. "Mr. Crusher, do you have any other commitments after this shift?"

"No sir, just some homework to do," Wes replied. Riker kept his hand on the boy's shoulder as they spoke, and the gesture made Wes feel oddly secure. "Well, then why don't you come on down with me to Counselor Troi's office for a little while? There's something we need to discuss with you."

"Did I do something wrong, sir?" Wes asked, stalling for time. He needed to give the impression that he did not remember Cullagh.

"Not at all, Ensign. Just…come with me. Counselor Troi will explain everything in her office."

The walk seemed endless, a savage trek over hostile terrain where the angles were too sharp, the lights too bright. Wesley felt like he was about to burst out of his skin. He rubbed his arms and walked too fast, then walked too slow. Riker was staring at him. "Are you all right, Wesley?" "I'm fine." He retorted sharply, and then glanced apologetically at Riker. "Sir."

Riker simply glanced away, and continued walking. The two reached Troi's office, finally, and Wesley breathed a sigh of relief. Riker glanced at him again, a distant and professional expression on his face. Riker placed his hand on the call panel, and the doors parted with Deanna on the other side. She smiled broadly when she saw them. "Come on in and have a seat, you two." The two men entered the office. Riker sat down close to the middle of the long lavender sofa, and Wesley chose the left hand side. Wes felt gangly and unhinged and he very much wanted to pace, but he knew that would be a bad idea.

He wondered if they had chosen their seats intentionally. Troi's position in the straight backed chair in front of him gave her control over the session, and Riker on the couch with him gave the impression that the Commander was his ally. Troi obviously intended to use friendliness to put him off guard. She settled into her chair, and smiled as if nothing were amiss. "Would either of you care for something to drink? I know slaving around the engine room while these refits are being done can't be much fun." She wrinkled her nose at the thought, in what Wesley found to be a cute and unexpectedly erotic gesture. He crossed his legs.

"No thanks," Riker and Crusher both said, in chorus. Wesley began rubbing his arms again. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad. Don't you dare let down your guard, the watcher said. They're trying to waylay you like an innocent child…don't be one. Troi's brow furrowed in concern. "Wes, you seem really anxious. Does it have something to do with meeting Mr. Cullagh? I understand that he was your tutor, on Tau Delta IV while your mother was doing research for Starfleet."

Wesley was expecting some light conversation, maybe an innocent seeming segue. Having Troi drop Cullagh's name unexpectedly like that made him flounder. "Well...umm…Who's…Well, not really, counselor." That was smooth. There was no way to pretend he didn't remember Cullagh now.

Wes was put off by the astounding gall of the man, more then anything else. Coming here, using his own name, and openly seeking Wesley out? The Orion Syndicate would have strung him up for any one of those things. All three together ensured a slow death, if they ever found out about it. The watcher noted coldly that this gave them some leverage.

Troi's liquid black eyes gazed at him, dispassionately. They reminded him suddenly of Cullagh, and Wes wanted to flee the room. Cullagh chose that moment to increase the strength of his psychic call. Wes jumped up, and started pacing behind the couch. "Wesley." Troi's voice was composed. He turned toward her and Riker. Riker's face was marked with concern and confusion. "Wes," Riker said softly, "Why don't you tell us what's bothering you? Maybe we can help."

Wes had expected confusion, confrontation and humiliating chastisement. He hadn't expected them to reach out like this. For a brief instant he wanted to confide in them, but he dismissed the impulse. The secrets he held were too dark, and too deadly to be shared. And not all of them were his to tell.

Wes walked back around, and sat gingerly on the sofa. "Counselor, Commander…I knew Cullagh when I was eleven. Yes, he was my teacher. My mother doesn't know about him. I…got into trouble on Tau Sigma IV, because I wasn't paying attention, and someone got hurt. I really don't want to talk to Mr. Cullagh because he reminds me of that. If you'll just tell him for me, I'm sure he'll understand."

He had no idea where the speech had come from, but it was beautiful. It was simple, sincere, and every word the truth. Just not the whole truth. Let them draw their own conclusions.

Troi's face relaxed. "All right, Wesley. I think more is going on than what you're willing to share, but you're old enough to make your own decisions. I'm always available if you want to discuss this further. I think Mr. Cullagh is leaving tomorrow afternoon, so that situation will resolve itself. Are you sure you don't want to be more specific about what happened?" Wesley hung his head. "Not at this time, Counselor."

"Well, go on back to your quarters and get some rest. In situations like this, I always prescribe Deanna Troi's Cure for all Ails: A chocolate sundae." Riker laughed, and Wes smiled. He was almost free. "I think I'll go with a banana split. Does that mark me as an inferior being, Counselor?"

Troi's eyes twinkled. "No, it just marks you as an odd one. Now move along. Commander Riker and I have crew evaluations to do." Wesley rose, and walked toward the door. "Just let me see the Captain's face when you promote him, Commander." He called out, and scampered through the door before either one of them could respond.

As the doors swished shut, Riker and Troi turned to one another. "All right," Riker said, "I'm getting annoyed. Does he really think we're going to fall for that? And why did you let him leave without even trying to get the truth out of him?"

Troi crossed her arms. "Who is the psychologist here, Commander? If we had tried to push him now, he would likely have never been willing to come forward. And right now, he's the only reliable source of information we have. Mr. Cullagh doesn't have a criminal record, so we can't justify an in depth investigation, but my instincts tell me that more is at stake here than just his past interactions with our Mr. Crusher."

Riker nodded in acquiescence. "You're right. A confrontational approach probably isn't the best one to use. I just wish I knew what was going on." He pursed his lips in frustration.

Troi nodded. "I think Mr. Crusher told us the truth, as far as it goes, but he was holding quite a bit back. He either fears recrimination if he reveals information about Cullagh, or he's afraid it might hurt someone else. One thing's for sure: He doesn't like the man. When I mentioned Cullagh's name, there was a spike of fear from him, but he also reacted with anger and derision. He views Cullagh as an enemy, and one who has made a mistake. Any other information will come out on his time, and I don't think that Wesley would hide something from us if he felt it was critical or dangerous."

Riker smiled ironically. "He's sixteen, Deanna. I'll admit that he's a very responsible boy, but he's sixteen nonetheless. He could be overreacting, but he could also be holding back serious and vital information. We need to get the whole story out of him, and soon. I don't know how dangerous the man is, but I don't like Cullagh. He's too smooth for my tastes."

Troi nodded. "You're right. We'll let Wesley sleep on it, and talk to him again tomorrow. In the meantime we'll continue to have security monitor Cullagh, but the man has made no move that indicates a threat to the ship or anyone on board. He's barely left his quarters."

Riker seemed mollified. "In the meantime, we have to do crew evaluations and finish this refit. And maybe I'm the one who's overreacting. This is Wesley Crusher, after all. As long as he doesn't blow the ship up doing some sort of science experiment, everything should be fine."

Wesley Crusher walked steadily down the corridor with his head up and his long arms swinging slightly. He nodded to everyone he passed. He was a picture of friendly competence. Inside, he felt like screaming. Every atom in his body wanted to turn, go that way, toward Cullagh's quarters on deck 12. He knew the deck, even though no one had told him. He could have found the room without being told, either. He hadn't given in, and he wouldn't give in. It wouldn't get much worse than this. Cullagh couldn't actually compel him unless…unless he got his hands on him to reset his control, and that would require time and privacy. Wesley was determined to give him neither.

One thing was sure: He couldn't go back to his quarters. If Cullagh came there, there would be no witnesses if he attacked. Without really thinking about it, Wesley headed back toward Engineering. Maybe if he worked all night on the refit, Geordi would be in a more forgiving mood tomorrow. He entered engineering, and rounded the corner toward the warp core. Geordi was sanding there, relaxed and smiling, talking to Cullagh.

Wesley lost his breath as his lungs compressed in icy terror and a very real sense of betrayal. He knew his response was irrational, but how could Geordi be talking to this monster as if he were a long lost friend when the Lieutenant Commander had been so eager to blast Wesley just for being late for a duty shift?

Geordi turned and spotted him before he could flee. "Wes!" The stocky engineer waved him over. He walked forward, slowly. There was no way out. "I've been talking to Mr. Cullagh here. I understand he's an old instructor of yours?" Wes didn't look into Cullagh's face. He had no idea what he would do if he did. Probably run away but…there was a possibility that his reaction would be much worse.

"Yeah…I knew him a few years ago." Wes kept his tone noncommittal. Cullagh couldn't read his mind, not exactly, and he didn't want to give his unease away. "You should have told me you were catching up with him earlier, Wes. I wouldn't have been so hard on you about being late. I know how it is, to run into people you haven't seen in a long time. Last time I was on earth, I ran into an old academy professor and…" Geordi went on, blathering, and Wes slowly, inescapably, turned to meet Cullagh's gaze. I should have known he was here Wes thought. That was why he had felt so relieved to be going toward engineering.

Cullagh was smiling slightly. His dark eyes were pools of thinly disguised greed, and triumph. He thinks he's already won, the watcher said, and Wes almost smiled. Good. The more overconfident Cullagh was, the easier this confrontation would be.

Geordi finally tapered off. "Anyway, you two don't want to hear about that, and I have more work to do. Why don't you take Mr. Cullagh to Ten-Forward, Wes? You two can catch up there." Before either one could reply Geordi, monofocused as usual, had stalked away toward the impulse engines leaving Wesley alone to face the man he had never wanted to see again in this lifetime.

Cullagh's smile widened. "You took your own sweet time coming, my boy." Wesley regarded him, stone faced. "I'm not your boy." He said the words clearly, distinctly, as though he was biting into ripe fruit. In an inconsistent flicker of memory he remembered eating spiced Allma melon on Tau Delta IV, the sweet and pulpy fruit chilling his throat as it slid down. He remembered huddling in a frigid, dark cell with no windows, tark slugs crawling along his nude flesh, happy to be there, because Cullagh had said to wait here and doing what Cullagh wanted him to do was the best thing in the world…

Cullagh laughed, deep and smooth and low, startling Wes out of his reverie. "You always were impudent. Come, boy. Let's walk to some place more private." He placed his hand on Wes's right arm just above the elbow in what looked like a friendly gesture. No one could see that the fingers were clinched tight enough to bruise.

Cullagh steered him toward the door, setting Wes adrift in a sea of ambivalence. He wanted to acquiesce, to bow down before Cullagh and do whatever the man wanted him to do. He wanted to rip the arm that held him out of its socket in a smooth wet motion, and watch blood pool on the grey metallic floor as Cullagh bled to death.

Wes almost went with the latter, but the watcher played for time. He placed his hand over Cullagh's and lifted the thumb, subtly breaking the man's grip. Cullagh's hand fell away as Wes turned toward him. "All right" Crusher said his voice in perfect control. "Let's go down to Ten-Forward. No one will pay attention there. I won't go anywhere alone with you, and you'll get more attention than you want if you try to force me to." Cullagh's eyes darkened with a dangerous anger, but he nodded.

The two walked out of Engineering and down the corridor together. Wes didn't remember much about the walk to Ten Forward, only that he was surprised that everything looked so normal. They entered the subdued lighting of the bar, and Wes steered Cullagh toward a table in back, by the stargazer window. He did it to take control of the situation more than anything else. The child in him was still huddling in fear at the threat Cullagh represented, but the watcher was pursuing a plan of its own.

The waiter came by to take there order. Wes requested a glass of water, and Cullagh ordered a fizzing citrus drink that Wesley had preferred on Tau Delta IV. He's sadly mistaken if he thinks he can rattle you with a few pointed reminders, the watcher whispered.

Wes sipped the water he had ordered after a friendly blond server brought their drinks. It seemed too cold and harsh to drink, so he sat it down again. He allowed his eyes to meet Cullagh's predatory gaze. "What do you want?" he asked. Cullagh's lips curled up into a slow and lazy grin. "Why I want you, of course. You do belong to me." Cullagh's expression hardened. "And I never let go of anything that belongs to me."

There was danger in his tone, and a possessive lust that had nothing to do with anything as wholesome as sex. Wes leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "I never belonged to you, Cullagh." The man's expression went blank, dangerous, and the feeling that Wesley was going to burst out of his skin returned. Wes began to perspire. "What do you think that's going to accomplish, old man? I'm sitting right in front of you. I didn't come when you called before, and I won't do anything you want now."

Cullagh smiled again. "But you did come. You showed up in Engineering, right where I knew you would be." A dark amusement shone in Wesley's eyes. "I didn't come to you. You had to seek me out, and you know it."

This is getting us nowhere, the watcher murmured. We need more information. "So, Cullagh" Wesley said, changing tactics, "How's the Syndicate treating you these days?" If Cullagh could drop little hints, so could he. Cullagh needed to remember that Wesley knew more than it was entirely safe for him to know about Cullagh's dealings with the Orion Syndicate. If the man's current actions revealed anything, it was that he was out of favor with them. They preferred subtlety, and this move of Cullagh's was anything but subtle.

Cullagh's expression closed down, and he gave Wes a speculative look. I do believe he's started to take us seriously the watcher said. Then Cullagh regained control over his features, and his face softened. "I know it's been hard for you without me, my boy." He said softly. The words strummed against Wesley's conditioning, dimmed though it was due to the six year absence of reinforcement. Cullagh placed his hand over Wesley's, and the warm weight of it seemed to choke off the air supply to the young man's lungs.

Don't let him do this; the watcher said. You know you can fight it off. He can't control you unless he bleeds you, it's your hand, and you can move it away. Don't think about it dammit, just do it, do it NOW! Wesley slowly moved his hand out from under Cullagh's. The man blinked, surprised by this show of resistance. The starlight from the window illuminated the older man's face, and Wesley's eyes burned almost as black as Cullagh's when he spoke softly into the silence. "Don't you dare touch me. Not ever."

A shadow drifted over to them, but Wesley didn't look up. He couldn't chance loosing his advantage, and Cullagh's mental call was strengthening. He didn't think Cullagh could compel him, but he wasn't entirely sure. I'm sure the watcher whispered.

"Ah, Mara, my dear, how kind of you to join us." Cullagh spoke without looking up. Wesley chanced a glance toward the person standing beside there table, and that glance froze any hope he had of resistance. She was thirteen years old, maybe fourteen. She had full lips, sunken blue eyes and a pale face. Her hair was blond, stringy and coarse. She wasn't starving, not yet, but her cheekbones were sharply defined. Her eyes were slightly unfocused, as if she were looking at something no one else could see. It was another moment of rushing discontinuity for Wesley. She was himself, six years ago, and he would be like her, again. There was no hope of escape.

Wesley looked into her eyes as she stood beside the table, as he had stood in a sun drenched tropical plaza six years before, hollow eyed and starving and covered in seeping wounds that oozed blood and viscous fluid through the fabric of his light colored shirt. She looked down at him, and he looked up at a man with kind eyes and a Romulan face. He spoke to her, the same words that the Romulan had spoken to him. "Mara," Wes said softly, "Do you know where you are?" The Romulan police officer had called him son, my son. Mara looked at Wesley in confusion, and gave the same answer he had given his savior, six years ago. "I'm with Cullagh. I'm where I'm supposed to be."

Wesley felt the grasp of gravity intensify. His own weight pulled him down toward his seat like the rush of the ocean pulls grains of sand away from the shoreline. Why had it never occurred to him before that Cullagh would take someone else? He couldn't leave Mara like this.

Cullagh began drumming his fingers on the table. "It's a fair trade, my boy." He said. "I'll exchange Mara for you. I'll leave her here, and you get on a shuttle with me tonight." Wesley's vision pinned, focused to the point that all he could see was Cullagh's face. If Mara, whoever she was, had actually heard Cullagh's words she would have been hysterical at the thought of being left, but she heard only what Cullagh wanted her to hear. Wes's mind churned furiously, trying to come up with options. There was no going to Riker or Troi or anyone else. He'd made the decision to keep someone else's secrets, back on Tau Delta IV, and he couldn't reveal them now. He had kept his part of the bargain, but the past had come to claim him nonetheless.

"Can I get you another chair?" The words were so out of place with the situation that Wesley did not realize at first that neither Cullagh nor Mara had spoken them. Guinan stood beside the table, solid and real and normal, as commonplace as nothing had been since he had stepped off of a turbolift and come face to face with his own personal nightmare.

Cullagh looked up at the bartender as if surprised to see her. Mara didn't respond at all. "We're fine, Guinan." Wesley said, and smiled disarmingly for her benefit. Guinan didn't smile back. "Well, I'll be at the bar if you need anything." Then she turned around and walked away. She hadn't even spoken to Cullagh, or Mara. It was unexpected and, for some reason as Wesley watched the volumous robes swirl around her retreating form the connections his mind had been trying to form coalesced.

There was no separation between the Enterprise and Tau delta IV. It was only a planet in space, spinning around a sun, same as all the other planets he had visited. Reality snapped into place with a vengeance, and the events that he had locked behind their own special door in his mind took their synchronic space in his life. It had all really happened, and he was really sitting here with the man who had tortured and intended to kill him, slowly and painfully for the appeasement of his own bestial appetites.

Wes wasn't trapped. He was older, smarter, and stronger than he had been six years ago, bereft of guidance on a world where death masqueraded as delight. He could win. And he could take this girl with him.

Cullagh missed the critical moment that the icy fear in Wesley's bloodstream shifted into a fine tuned and delicate rage. Wesley swore, glancing up at Mara, that it would be this man's last mistake.

"I have some things to take care of, first." Wes said abruptly. "Go back to your quarters, and take her with you. I'll come by tomorrow afternoon."

Cullagh's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You wouldn't be trying to play me, would you boy?" He wasn't nearly suspicious enough. The man was insane. He actually thought he had that much power over Wesley, actually thought he could just waltz in here and take him. Wes let his eyes drop. "What choice do I have, Cullagh. You…you just give me tonight, all right?"

"I'll give you tonight. But I'm going to monitor your every move. You as much as think about telling anyone, I'll know. And I'll kill Mara, and come after you."

Wes almost laughed, before he caught himself. Cullagh either thought he was still in thrall and not just sensitive to a summons, or he thought that he was so fragile that he could be bluffed into submission. Cullagh never could read minds, only put what he wanted into them. He had no way of knowing what either Wesley or Mara was thinking. This was going to be easier than Wes had thought.

Wesley hung his head while Cullagh and Mara exited Ten-Forward. His cocky assurance disserted him after the doors closed behind them. He slumped down on the table, shivering. He had some idea how he was going to get out of this, but he had about twelve hours to come up with a specific plan. There was no way of helping Mara without telling someone in authority something. That meant he needed to be in Picard's office tomorrow at 06:00, but what and how much to tell the Captain was still a mystery to him.

It had to be Picard, though. Mara was in direct danger, and there wasn't time to use Riker as a go between. Both the Captain and the first officer had the authority to open a criminal investigation, but Picard was the only one who had the authority to take the ship to Tau Delta IV. Wes had a sinking suspicion that such a trip would be necessary.

His restless mind calculated the time it would take to reach Tau Delta at various warp speeds while he stared out at the indifferent stars. He didn't notice that Guinan had sat down in the chair that Cullagh had vacated for some time. She didn't speak, and he didn't answer her silent question. They sat together through the night watch, as the ship slowly orbited Station 421. By 5:15 the next day Wesley knew what he was going to do.

He rose and walked behind the bar, ordering a double shot latte for himself. When he turned around to leave Ten-Forward, Guinan had disappeared. He hadn't even heard the doors open. Sometimes, Wes wondered if Guinan could either teleport herself, or had rigged the ship's transporter system to move her from place to place so that she could seem more mysterious.

Wes walked out of the bar and sipped his coffee as he walked slowly toward the main bridge. He made the trip take over half an hour. He really wasn't in a hurry to reach the Captain. He placed his mug in a reclamation unit hidden in the bulkhead outside of the turbolift that would take him to the bridge, and stood there while the final minutes wound down. Finally, his communicator beeped, telling him that it was 06:00 hours.

He tapped his combadge. "Acting Ensign Crusher to Captain Picard." Picard answered almost immediately, his tone sharp and distracted. "Picard here. What can I do for you, Wesley?" Keep it simple, the watcher cautioned. Be controlled and straightforward. You have to sound like a grownup. "Captain, I became aware yesterday of a situation on board that I think you should know about. It involves danger to at least one individual and criminal activity. If you don't mind, I'd like to come up to the bridge and talk to you about it."

Picard's tone of voice changed to one of alarm and concern. "Come on up, Ensign. I'll see you immediately."

"I'm on my way now, Captain. And if I may, could I request that Counselor Troi, Commander Riker, and Dr. Pulaski be present as well?" "All right, Wesley, I'll summon them. And if this involves criminal activity on the ship, I suppose Mr. Worf should be there, as well."

Wesley winced, but didn't let his discomfort creep into his voice. "If you think that's best, Captain. Crusher out." He summoned the turbolift. Riker and Troi were on it as the doors opened. Wes stepped inside and stood with his back to them, not even saying hello. He didn't trust himself to speak. He didn't see the looks that they gave each other behind his back, but he was relieved that they asked no questions.

When they reached the Bridge, Picard led them into the conference room and gestured for Wesley to sit at the head of the table. Worf was already there, standing with his arms crossed by the view window. Picard sat on Wesley's right side, and Troi sat on his left. Riker sat beside her, and Worf came over to take position at the other end of the table. Wesley could have done without having to stare down a Klingon, but didn't want to make a big deal about it.

Wes wanted to say that he was waiting for Pulaski, and that he didn't want to have to explain everything twice, but nerves clinched his throat. He exhaled, and his chest was so tight that it felt like the air in his lungs was being forced through a sieve. The conference room doors slid open as Pulaski entered, walking in like she owned the room and the whole damn ship. "Can you tell me what this is all about, Captain?" She asked. Her voice was loud and strident. "I have a patient with three broken ribs that I had to leave to Nurse Ogowa, and Lieutenant Marks has just come down with Andorian Flu."

Picard looked up at her with a pleasant, neutral expression, but Wesley could tell by the way his eyes focused on her like a bird of prey that the Captain was annoyed. "I'm not sure what it's about, Doctor, but Mr. Crusher here says that he has some important information for us. Perhaps you could sit down, so that he can begin explaining the situation."

Pulaski's eyes slid arrogantly over Wesley as she walked over to sit down by Picard. The captain looked less than pleased. A sense of hysterical humor rose in Wes in response to their petty animosity, but he clinched his teeth and shut it down. You've got to stay in control the watcher hissed. If you don't, there going to dismiss you. This is going to sound strange enough to them without you getting hysterical. Now take a deep breath, be focused, and don't leave anything out. Wesley noticed Troi staring at him with an odd expression on her face.

He ignored her, and began speaking. "A man named Cullagh came on board yesterday, accompanied by a teenaged girl that he calls Mara. I don't know what reason he gave for coming on board, but he immediately began to seek me out. He told people that he had met me six years ago on Tau Delta IV, a planet I spent three months on while my mother was doing research involving a rather nasty pathogen that was loose on Romulus at the time. She didn't want me with her because the work was dangerous, so she left me in the care of the Federation Embassy on Tau Delta."

"It's a little out of the way planet, in between the neutral zone and San Dai space. Because of San Dai influence, it's fairly multicultural with a strong emphasis on political neutrality, but strictly speaking it's a Federation world."

The officers stared at him with professional interest, but he could tell that he really hadn't gotten their attention. Get to the point, the watcher said. That will get their attention. Wesley cleared his throat, and wished he had a glass of water. "Cullagh has been telling everyone that he was my teacher on Tau Delta IV, but that's not entirely true. He is a private tutor in Vulcan Philosophy, but that work is only the cover for what I believe to be his true occupation. He's an enforcer, for…for certain factions of organized crime that operate on Tau Delta IV and other places. What exactly he does for them I don't know, but I have more than a passing acquaintance with some of his other activities."

Wes swallowed. The room had gone silent and still, the officers staring at him with patient and organized attention. He didn't want to continue. He didn't want these people to know what had happened to him, and he had no way of explaining what Cullagh was without sounding crazy. You're going to sound crazy, anyway the watcher chided him, so just spit it out. "Cullagh's a vampire."

Wes chanced a glance around the table. Worf's face was impassive, but the others wore expressions of varying degrees of disbelief. He had to follow it up, quick, before they decided that he was either misinformed or grossly mistaken. "I don't mean that he's one of the undead, or anything like that. He comes from a species that has a need to digest blood, not in large quantities, and not as a primary source of nutrition. I'm not sure what they gain by doing so, but I think it has to do with certain molecular compounds present in the plasma of carbon based life forms."

Worf began tapping his fingers against his sleeve. Wes tried to get to the point. "I believe that Cullagh could get what he needed from the blood of animals, but he has a compulsion to ingest the blood of sentient beings. Sentient…children." His voice tapered off as he broke eye contact with the group and began running his hands carefully over the black glass surface of the table, as if inspecting it for flaws.

Picard leaned toward him. "This is…a disturbing tale, Wesley. I think you know that I trust you, but as an officer sworn to uphold Federation law, I must ask what proof you have of Cullagh's actions. I cannot request a criminal investigation or take any legal action without proper evidence."

Wes took a deep breath, and to his embarrassment actually choked on it. He'd managed to get this far without suggesting personal involvement, but there was no way to get Picard to act without admitting that he had been in Cullagh's hands.

He flushed, needles of shame stinging his cheeks. Just get it over with, the watcher said, grimly. "I know what Cullagh does." Wes admitted softly. "I saw it firsthand. He did it to me." Someone gasped. Wesley didn't even glance up to see who it was, just continued his confession in a verbal barrage.

"I had been on Tau Delta IV for almost two weeks before I met Cullagh, but he had been watching me the whole time. I met him at a school picnic. He said he wanted to teach me Vulcan Philosophy. He led me away from the others, and I followed him. I was being polite, and it was in Federation territory, the teachers of the Embassy school were right there…" his voice was becoming louder, more defensive. Troi reached out, and put her hand on his arm. "It's all right, Wesley. It wasn't your fault. Tell us what else happened."

Well, at least Troi believed him. The others would likely follow her lead."He led me in a circle, around the garden, and I didn't notice that we were separated from the others until we walked behind a statue with some hanging vines. As soon as we were out of their line of sight, Cullagh grabbed me. He pushed my sleeve up and cut me with a small razor he had been hiding up his sleeve, just above my wrist. It all happened so fast, I didn't even struggle. I was just stunned. The last thing I remember clearly is Cullagh closing his mouth over the wound…He um…see…" How could he continue? How could he describe three weeks of pain and degradation, the terror that had only surfaced after the fact?

"There is an enzyme that Cullagh secretes from his salivary glands when he feeds." It was a shock, to hear the watcher speak out loud. He'd never heard his own voice in such a detached manner. It was almost as if he were listening to a recording, or to someone else speaking. "It produces a euphoric effect, and leaves the victim highly susceptible to the commands of the person who has secreted it."

"After secreting the enzyme into our body, Cullagh walked us back out toward the teachers, and said that he was taking me now, like my mother wanted. I smiled and nodded. I told them Cullagh was a family friend. I found out later that Cullagh had forged a recording and documents, and submitted a request in my mother's name for me to be placed into his custody for the duration of my stay."

"He held me for almost three weeks. He would eventually have killed me, but there was a police officer working in Genhal city where I was being held who was watching Cullagh. He couldn't do anything about him because Cullagh was protected by his employers, but the officer found out that I was a Federation citizen, and that gave him a little leeway to act. He informed Cullagh's employers that their pet vampire was holding a Federation citizen, and arranged for me to be released into his care."
Wesley looked up at them again. Everyone looked stunned. Worf still reclined impassively, arms crossed, but the gesture seemed more defensive than usual. Riker was sitting with his head down, and didn't meet Wesley's gaze. Wes felt the respect he had worked so hard to gain slowly eroding. He was changing categories in their collective image, from protégé to victim. He was glad that his mother wasn't here.

It was time to end this. "The enzyme his species secretes creates permanent changes in the brain's neurological construction. It leaves the person permanently susceptible to Cullagh's influence. A neural map of my brain should show anomalies, and I suggest that you scan Mara, as well."

Picard frowned. Starlight illuminated one side of his face in the dim light of the room, leaving the other half of him in shadow. "I want you to know that I believe you, Wesley," he said softly, "and I will begin an investigation immediately. Nevertheless, an unknown enzyme is not enough physical evidence to argue a case of this magnitude. Is there anything else that you might tell us, to help further Cullagh's prosecution?"
Wesley bit his lower lip as he played for time, rolling the flesh between his teeth. He had made a decision to keep silent, six years ago, and he did not want to reveal the full reason for that. But it was important that he be on Tau Delta IV, and the fastest way for that to happen would be for Picard to take the Enterprise there. Cullagh had to be stopped, once and for all, in a way that did not upset the fragile balance of power between the Orion Syndicate and the Federation presence on the planet. Unfortunately, that could not be accomplished by something as simple as Cullagh's arrest and prosecution in a Federation court of law.

"The name of the police officer who rescued me is Tarmok Shae. He works for the Citizen's Protectorate in Genhal, the planet's capital city. The Protectorate has Federation approval, but it's not a Federation organization. Tarmok is Romulan, a dual citizen of the SenDai League of Worlds and the Romulan Empire. He has information about Cullagh's activities with a number of vulnerable children, spanning at least ten years. He has proof of their deaths after being held prisoner by Cullagh, and he has medical data from other sources that will support my story. There's one more thing…Tarmok functions as a liaison between the Citizen's Protectorate, the planetary Trans Species tribunal, and the Orion Syndicate. If he's willing to give it, he has proof that Cullagh is employed by the Syndicate."

Riker whistled. "So that's the "certain factions of organized crime" that you were talking about.. And Tau Delta IV is technically a Federation world." Riker caught Picard's eye. "This could be serious, Captain." Sitting beside him, Troi winced as Wesley's fingers scrapped the smooth surface of the table in a sudden spasm of anger.

It isn't big enough for them when they know that a number of children have been killed and that Cullagh's kidnapped and tortured at least one Federation child. The watcher snidely interjected. No, it gets "serious" when they realize that a popular mob front is involved, and that resolving the situation could benefit their petty careers. "That isn't what they mean. And they don't know about the tor…" Wesley tapered off, suddenly realizing that he was arguing with himself. Out loud.

Wes swallowed, and attempted to smile innocently at the group, who were looking at him with carefully noncommittal faces. "Mr. Crusher, I believe that you should go with Dr. Pulaski and Counselor Troi, so that medical tests can be run to corroborate your accusations against Mr. Cullagh. Mr. Worf, please escort our guest to the brig and his companion to sickbay." Worf rose and exited the room, tapping his combadge to begin arrangements for Cullagh's interment. Picard turned to Wesley.

"I appreciate how difficult this situation must be for you, Ensign. I do have a few more questions I need to ask, but they can wait until you've gone to sickbay. I strongly encourage you to speak freely to Counselor Troi, as well. She can be a great help for you, as you begin to deal with this trauma."

Wes had a general idea what those questions would be. For instance, why he hadn't made charges against Cullagh before, and why he was willing to do so now. Those were questions that he wasn't prepared to answer at this time. He could only hope that the physical evidence of his brain scan and Tarmok's evidence, if the police inspector was willing to release it, would keep there attention focused on Cullagh and away from him.

"Thank you for being so understanding, Captain." Wesley said. His legs felt weak, and the room seemed to shake as he stood up. He wondered why. Troi reached a hand out to steady him as he walked around the edge of the table, and kept her arm linked through his as they walked out of the room. The Counselor had always seemed so ephemeral to him that contact with her solid flesh was a slight shock. Pulaski flanked him on the opposite side, and the trio walked into the turbolift on the main bridge like they were participating in a three legged race. Wesley almost laughed.

When the doors hissed shut, he turned to Dr. Pulaski. "Dr, these tests won't take too long, will they? I have an Advanced Warp Mechanics class at 08:00." Pulaski and Troi both turned to look at him, concern and compassion on their faces. "It's after 0700 now, Wes. I don't think we'll be finished by then. Why don't you just let your teachers know that you'll miss your classes this morning? I'm sure Picard will inform Geordi that you won't be in Engineering today."

Wes started to object, but Troi massaged the hand that she was holding in order to get his attention. "I'll inform your teachers while you're being tested, Wesley. After the medical exam I think we need to talk." Wes smiled at her. "All right, Counselor." He wondered why they were both looking at him so strangely.

They're going to think that you're a lot more than strange when this is over, Wes. It's all or nothing, now. "I know." Wes said softly, and ignored both Pulaski and Troi as they continued on to sickbay.

When they entered the medical facility that had once been Beverly Crusher's domain, Wes perked up a little. He nodded to a medtech that he recognized, and exchanged a pleasant greeting with Nurse Sandone, a lanky Birion male. Pulaski led him back to the full body bio-neural scanner, and instructed him to lie on the biobed it was attached too. Wes felt a brief sensation of claustrophobia as the glass and metal surface of the bed's sensor closed over him. "Just relax, Ensign." Pulaski instructed him, "This won't hurt a bit."

She ran a second scanner slowly over his body, the huge instrument looking for all the world like a giant child's rattle. Wes felt increasingly vulnerable as the whirring machine extracted his body's deepest secrets. Midway through the exam, Troi came to stand beside him, and cradled his hand in both of her own. Her skin was supple, delicate, and the rhythmic pulse beating in her veins lulled him into a sense of security.

After what seemed an eternity, Pulaski lifted the scanner off of him and went into her office to analyze the results. Wes swung his long legs over the side of the biobed and sat up, extracting his hand from Troi's gentle grasp.

"Wes, there's something I need to tell you." Troi said softly, and the projected sense of compassion in her dark eyes told Wesley that it was something he would rather not hear. "Cullagh is gone. He and his companion Mara beamed down to Starbase 421 at around 24:00 last night. They then boarded a shuttle bound for Tau Delta IV. Captain Picard has informed the authorities on Tau Delta that Cullagh should be taken into custody when he arrives. There should be no problem apprehending him."

Wes pressed his lips together, but a muffled and frustrated moan escaped. His head fell into his hands. "They won't catch him, Counselor. That order…The Syndicate will get to him before the authorities ever do, didn't I tell you have an alliance with the planetary police force? How do you think he's gotten away with this for fifteen years! How do you think he managed to kidnap a Federation citizen and keep him without even an inquiry? They'll just move him to another planet. Tau Delta IV's ideal because it's easy to get people to look the other way, but…"

"Wes, Wes…you need to take a deep breath and calm down. If the authorities don't pick Cullagh up, the Enterprise will. Captain Picard has ordered the ship to Tau Delta IV. You'll be needed for questioning, anyway, and we aren't due at the Gamma Hydrae cluster for another two weeks." Troi leaned forward as she spoke, her hands resting on the biobed on either side of his knees. A part of him wanted to slap her away and tell her she didn't understand anything, and that no one was listening to him. Another part stole surrepticous glances down into her cleavage.

"Ahem." Both of them turned toward Dr. Pulaski, who had entered silently and stood in the corner of the room. The Doctor stepped forward a few paces, then stopped. "Ensign Crusher, I've finished analyzing the results of your bioscan. They show distinct anomalies in your neural pathways. They are inflexible neural patterns not normally present in the human brain, reminiscent of the imprinting mechanism that we see in species where the young instinctually follow their parents from birth."

Pulaski walked closer to them as she continued. "Such instincts are present in many non-sentient animals, like the swans of earth, but the Grizzalans of Tikus IV also have a neurological construction similar to it. Their children must obey simple commands given by their parents until they are almost adults. I've never seen it in humans, and I can't predict what effect it might have. It may be affecting your moods, and perhaps even some of your mental processes. Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary?"

Yeah, Wes thought sarcastically, maybe the fact that I want to please everyone else at the expense of myself, even a condescending hypocrite like you. "Not really, doctor. I'm susceptible to Cullagh's mental influence. He…" Wes's voice faltered. "He was calling me, yesterday, and I could feel it. It was like, well, extreme anxiety and I always felt like I should be somewhere else, that there was something I had to do that I was forgetting. I could have found him anywhere on the ship, just by walking toward the places where I felt less anxiety."

Troi and Pulaski shared a measuring look. Troi was the one who asked the question. "Wes," she said in an expressly gentle tone, "Do you think that it is possible to Cullagh to control or influence you with this biochemical imprinting?"

Wes bit his bottom lip. "If that were possible, Counselor, I would have boarded that shuttle with him last night. He did everything in his power to make me do it. Cullagh has never been particularly subtle, and he's getting increasingly unstable. He'd have to bleed me again to get that kind of control over me, and even then it wouldn't be complete control. Just pretty damn close to it, the watcher interjected. Hush, Wes thought back, they don't need to know that.

Troi placed her hand on his arm. "Wes, have you been keeping watch on Cullagh? Is that how you know his behavior's been changing?" A blur of images passed behind Wes's eyes. Deleted letters, stolen reports: his payment, extracted for Tarmok's elicited promise of his silence. The man had sent him any information he had received on Cullagh for the past six years. Wes should have been more prepared. He should have known something like this would happen. He felt a twinge of guilt at speaking Tarmok's name, in the meeting, but he hadn't revealed the entirety of man's complicity in the situation, or revealed the more dangerous information he knew about the workings of Tau Sigma IV politics.

"No, Counselor." He said. "I'm just comparing it to the things he's done in the past. The first time he came after me, he was a lot more careful, he had a descent cover story and forged documents. Even so, he needed to flaunt what he was doing. He would take me out to cafes, public places after…" Wes swallowed. He'd been so intent on the disassociated intricacies of his analysis that he'd forgotten the fact that he was discussing himself. It all came back to him, now, the café, the park, brightly patterned clothes to hide the coagulating blood that made them stick to his body, Cullagh's lies to onlookers about how he had an incurable wasting disease, sitting on his tormenter's lap while Cullagh played the loving uncle, so concerned because he wouldn't eat anything…

Wes's hands clenched into fists. Don't come apart on me, now. We're almost finished. He took a trembling breath, and tried to continue. "He needed to flaunt his control of me in public places. I think he's lost control of his exhibitionist tendencies. Otherwise, why would he come to the Enterprise and tell several people he was looking for me, specifically? I can't believe that he's acting with the help of his employers. The Syndicate emphasizes subtlety, especially since the work that Cullagh does for them is anything but subtle."

More images flashed behind his eyes: men and women strung up by their hands and arms in an adobe room, no windows, blood and visceral flowing from their split gullets into a drain below…Tarmok's reports had been thorough. Not that Wes hadn't seen worse when he'd been with Cullagh.

Troi ran her hand down his arm, and took his hand. "Wes, why don't you stay here in Sickbay and try to rest while Dr. Pulaski I go speak to the Captain about what we've found out here. We'll try to contact this Tarmok of yours, and see if he can give us any information. Try not to worry: We've contacted the Federation police force on Tau Delta IV. I'm sure they can manage to take Cullagh into custody, and withstand outside influence. We've told them that Mara is to be considered a hostage."

Wes bit his tongue. You knew they wouldn't understand. What they do isn't important. What's important is that you get to Tau Delta IV. Then we can take care of everything. "Counselor…What will we do when we get to Tau Delta IV?" "I don't know exactly, Wes." Troi responded. "Captain Picard will work with the local authorities in a criminal investigation. We have your testimony, which I will validate, the results of Dr. Pulaski's medical exam, and we'll have Mara. That should be enough to gain a conviction in a Federation court of law."

Wes swung his legs back over the biobed as he lay down, arms crossed beneath his head. "I'll see you soon, Wes. We'll keep you informed about what's going on." Wes nodded with his eyes closed, and smiled when Troi instructed the lights to dim as she exited the room. As if he would sleep at a time like this.

Sitting in front of a small viewscreen in his ready room, Picard was having a very pleasant and thoroughly useless conversation with a man named Tarmok, who worked for the Citizen's Protectorate on Tau Delta IV. "I'm very sorry, Captain Picard," Tarmok said again. "I've never heard of this young Wesley Cruiser you're speaking of, and I've certainly never ran across a creature such as Cullagh."

"Crusher, Inspector Tarmok." Picard said smoothly. "The young man's name is Crusher. And he was quite certain that he had met you, on Tau Sigma IV six years ago, and that you rescued him from a man named Cullagh. This man recently came on board the Enterprise asking for Mr. Crusher." Was it Picard's imagination, or did Tarmok's eyes widen?

"Furthermore," Picard continued, "Young Mr. Crusher seems to believe that you have knowledge of an organized crime front that has been operating on Tau Delta for some time." Picard sat back in his chair, and the two men regarded each other with mutual expressions of false geniality.

"Captain, I assure you, " Tarmok began. Picard interrupted. "Mr. Tarmok, we could go on smiling at each other while you deny everything for the rest of your day. It's getting us nowhere, and you speak with such certainty that I might be inclined to believe you except for the fact that I know that Mr. Crusher is absolutely honest, and my ship's Counselor had told me that he is in acceptable command of his mental facilities."

"So," Picard continued, steeping his fingers and leaning forward, "This can go one of two ways. Either you give me all information you have on Cullagh, or I arrest you in suspicion of encouraging criminal activity on a Federation world. I couldn't convict you, but I believe that I could hold you until this matter is resolved and public trials have a nasty way of bringing private information to light. I'm guessing you don't want your involvement with the Orion Syndicate known, Mr. Tarmok."

Tarmok sighed. "You don't know what you're dealing with, Captain. You need to let me handle this."

"You mean you admit that you know something about the "this" that is going on, Mr. Tarmok?" Picard asked, amused. Tarmok's face closed down again. "I'll send you some information in the next hour. Everything else will have to wait until you get here. Contact me on my personal comm. frequency when you do, and I'll meet you in Genhal proper at a place called Tydon's park beside the statue of the Sen Dai goddess Mayalkai."

The viewscreen went dark as Tarmok broke the connection. Picard blew out an exasperated breath. This entire situation was beginning to sound like one of his less imaginative Dick Tracy Holoprograms. Mr. Crusher had better be correct in his information about the Orion Syndicate being involved, no matter how the boy may have suffered in Cullagh's hands.

In a small shuttle bound for Tau Sigma IV, a young girl sat on the floor beside the pilot's chair. Her legs were crossed underneath her. She had been sitting motionless for so long that could no longer feel them. On one level, the deepest one, she was in pain and terrified. Reaching those emotions would have cost too much energy, though, and on the surface there was a simple, slick sensation of happiness like the afterglow in her skin after she played all day in the sunshine and then came inside to rest while her mother made lemonade and scolded her for staying out too long. She knew she was sunburned, but the experience was worth it.

Now, that sensation of pride and satisfaction remained outside of its context. Cullagh was piloting the shuttle while he ate romulan pasties, slightly sweetened dough rapped around thinly sliced meat and fruit. Every so often he would reach down and offer one to the girl, who would turn her head away in refusal. Her body told her that she was very hungry, but Cullagh had told her that she was not. The spike of pleasure that came each time she refused food was better than the reward for eating would have been, and the sick and horrified feeling that washed over her whenever she displeased Cullagh was too horrible even to contemplate.

"You'll see, Mara," Cullagh said softly, "We'll have him yet. It may not have worked out like I wanted, but you're still the perfect bait. You'll bring him to me yet, my girl." He reached down and caressed the girl's pale cheek. The girl, whose name was not Mara, smiled up at him even as her inner most self cringed in mortal dread.

On the Enterprise, Wesley walked into his quarters to find his message light blinking. Walking over to the black screen by the replicator, he touched the control panel and jumped when Tarmok's face appeared in front of him. The tight lines in the bronze skin around his mouth and his ramrod posture suggested that the Inspector was less than pleased.

"You shouldn't have told them, son. You should have come to me first." The screen went dark. That was the end of the message. No indication of whether Tarmok was prepared to release any information. No way of knowing if the Romulan would help him.

Wesley's hand involuntarily clinched into a fist, and his arm lifted as though he intended to punch the console. He pulled back at the last minute, shaking his hand loose and turning around to pace back and forth in his quarters. Think, damnit. That's the only way we're going to get out of this. Pulling a temper tantrum like a petulant three year old is not going to help. Now, we need to know what Tarmok's going to do, and the best way to do that is to contact him. We need information.

Wesley stopped pacing, and pulled in a shuddering breath. "You're right. We need to contact him. He has no way of knowing what I told Picard." The watcher withdrew, satisfied. Wesley walked over to the console, and instructed the computer to return a message to the last sender. A red light appeared at the top of the screen, indicating that the vid was recording.

"Tarmok. First of all, I'm not your son. Second, you don't know what I told Picard and you weren't here at the time. There were certain things that had to happen, and in order to make them happen I had to tell Picard something. Third, I have a plan. We can take care of Cullagh. He's gone too far, his employers will want to wash their hands of him now. I need to know if you'll help me, because I can't do it without you." Wesley reached up, and touched the end and send button. The red light went dark, and he leaned against the wall before pushing off of it to go collapse on his sofa, head resting on the cushions and one arm thrown over the back. Nothing to do now, but wait.

In Picard's ready room the Captain, Riker and Deanna Troi sat on Picard's round sofa beside the double doors in various states of shock. The information that Tarmok had sent a scant hour ago was through. If it was accurate, it proved that Cullagh was indeed everything that Wesley said and more. There were autopsy reports and surveillance videos that, hardened officers though they were, turned their stomachs. The vids showed healthy children wither away in Cullagh's care, until they eventually died of starvation and neglect. Cullagh must have placed a command not to eat in their fragile minds, because several recordings showed that they refused to touch food even if it was set in front of them.

Autopsy reports taken just hours after death showed the same neural anomalies that Wesley's brain scan had uncovered. Tarmok had also been kind enough to send a chemical analysis of the enzyme present in Cullagh's saliva that Dr. Pulaski was examining in sickbay. Her preliminary report suggested that it was a highly specific and adaptive compound that worked in the victim's brain with a specific purpose, almost like nanocites. The enzyme created imprint patterns that made the victim susceptible to Cullagh's suggestion, and the enzyme replicated itself in the victim's body so that the succeptability continued for the rest of their natural lives. As far as Pulaski could determine in a preliminary report, the process could not be reversed.

And then there was the vid of a young human boy huddled in a windowless room, covered in seeping wounds and starving. In the interests of time they sped the vid up, so almost seven hours passed in the space of a few minuets while the boy waited until the door to the room was unlatched and opened. There was a flash of terror and dismay on the boy's face that was quickly replaced with a perverse ecstasy as Cullagh entered the room and stepped into the child's line of sight. When the boy reached out and tried to raise himself on legs too weak to stand on, they realized that it was Wesley.

Picard instinctively reached out and blanked the viewscreen that they were watching, and Troi made a small sound of dismay. When Picard and Riker to look at her, the counselor seemed composed but pale. "Captain, I didn't notice any medical scans of Wesley in the information that Inspector Tarmok sent." Troi said. "I don't believe that there were any, Counselor." Picard responded. "The recording we just saw was the only time that Wesley appeared."

"This doesn't make any sense!" Riker exploded. "They have all of this hard evidence, they have authentic recordings that link Cullagh with a number of children who later turned up dead, and yet he's never even been questioned? What the hell is happening on that planet?"

Troi tilted her head thoughtfully. "I think, Captain, that the only one who can tell us that is Mr. Crusher. He knows more than he's letting on. He allowed us to believe that Cullagh's abuse of him was primarily mental, when it in fact included substantial physical abuse and neglect. I can understand him being reluctant to share that, but I believe he also knows quite a bit more about Cullagh's involvement with the Orion Syndicate that he's willing to tell us, and he's also hiding something about his interactions with Tarmok."

Picard leaned toward her. "I consider Mr. Crusher's mental and emotional well-being to be paramount, Counselor, especially in light of what we just saw. Would it do him harm if we pushed, a little, and requested that he tell us more about what's going on?"

"I don't think so, Captain." Troi replied. "Emotionally, he doesn't seem to be on the verge of a breakdown. In fact, he's dealing with this a little too well. The levels of disassociation I'm sensing from him are extreme. It's possible that he isn't dealing with this situation on an emotional level at all. I also believe he feels that he is in great danger, and that we are inadequate to protect him from it. He feels like we're out of our depth."

Riker frowned. "It seems like that would make him feel terribly vulnerable, since we're the ones responsible for his well-being."

Troi sighed and straightened her sleeves before she responded. "That's just it, Will. He vacillates between moments of despair and rage, but above everything else he's focused. He isn't cowed at all, and that's not a normal reaction for a sixteen year old child who has come face to face with a man who brutalized him six years prior. And as far as I know, keeping all of this a secret is completely outside of Wesley's character."

Troi's eyes had gone distant. She refocused them on Picard. "Captain, I'm afraid that Wesley might be planning to take matters into his own hands. He's revealed to me that he can track Cullagh, through means of the psychic link between them. I'm worried that if he feels we are unable to resolve the situation, he may try to get to Cullagh himself."

"So what if he does? " Riker interjected. "We've notified the authorities. Cullagh left in a clearly marked shuttle. There's no reason to expect that the Federation police force on Tau Sigma IV won't pick him up before he reaches the planet. Even if Wesley wanted to, he couldn't get to Cullagh."

"Captain," Troi said softly, ignoring Will's interruption, "Wesley Crusher is an extraordinarily intelligent boy. More intelligent, I think, than is readily apparent in day to day interaction with him. We still have no specifics regarding Cullagh's involvement of the Syndicate, so we have no way of accurately judging Mr. Crusher's concerns. At any rate, I believe it would be a mistake to underestimate Mr. Crusher. He has the ability if he chose to be extremely dangerous, to himself and to Cullagh."

Picard frowned, concern and skepticism written in every line of his face. "Counselor, this is Wesley Crusher we're talking about. I can't believe the boy would be capable of something illegal or immoral. That is what we're talking about, isn't it?"

"I don't want to believe him capable of such things either Captain." Troi argued. "But he's been very angry for a very long time, and he's just begun to allow himself to feel it. Couple that anger with the fact that he feels himself to be on a moral high ground because Cullagh is such an unsavory character, and you've got a recipe for trouble." Troi crossed her legs, and sighed. "All I'm saying, captain, is that what I'm sensing from him has me worried, and the fact that he doesn't want to discuss the situation with me or anyone else worries me even more. I believe that we should keep a close eye on Mr. Crusher."

The Captain nodded smartly. "And so we will, Counselor." Picard tapped his combadge. "Picard to Conn. What is our ETA, ensign?"

"Twelve hours and seventeen minuets to Tau Sigma IV, Captain." The bridge officer responded, in that crisp just-out-of-the-academy voice. The Captain smiled "Thank you, Ensign. Picard out."

"Troi, I want you to stay close to Mr. Crusher. Try to get inside his head, find out more about what he's thinking. Try to get me more information about Cullagh's connection with the Syndicate out of him, but most of all try to convince him he's not alone in this. The more he feels like he has us on his side, the less likely he will be to do something rash. Riker, I want you, Mr. Worf, and Dr. Pulaski to go over the rest of this…evidence, and see what conclusions can be drawn. I'm going to monitor the search for Cullagh, work in tandem with the authorities on Tau Sigma IV. We'll meet for a conference three hours before arrival, to discuss our findings."

The two officers stood. "Aye, Captain." They said in chorus, and exited the office to pursue the tasks he had sat for him. Picard leaned back and sighed as the doors closed. He couldn't put his finger on why, exactly, but he had a bad feeling about this mess.

In his quarters, Wesley Crusher sat at his table eating a delayed breakfast with hearty appetite. He's replicated scrambled eggs and French toast after receiving Tarmok's one word reply: "Yes." The message had included coordinates in Genhal city and a meeting time for four hours after the Enterprise was scheduled to arrive at Tau Delta IV. He had intentionally degraded the message before deleting it, allowing it to be broken up into bits and sent to different places in the ship's computer. The message could still be partially reconstructed, but it wouldn't be easy.

Wes chased a bite of French toast with strong coffee and considered carefully the opportunities he would have to slip away from the Enterprise and meet with Tarmok.

The easiest way would be for the Captain to allow him to beam down to the planet under the crew's protection. Then he could lose his communicator and slip away unnoticed. It would be a lot more complicated if he had to gain access to the ship's transporter system. He could override the controls and beam down to the surface with the help of a portable power supply so that when the bridge discovered an unauthorized transport they couldn't stop him by blocking power to the transporter he was using.

It was even odds as to whether he could do so while protecting his identity and encrypting the transporter log so that the ship wouldn't know where he had beamed to. He thought he could, but even with the encryption the crew would be able to dig out his identity and destination eventually. It would take them the better part of an hour, though. By then he would be long gone from the spot where he had transported, and there were several thousand humans on Tau Delta IV. It could take the crew days to find him.

All he needed was a few hours. Seven hours and twenty two minuets the watcher whispered. Wes blinked. It always unnerved him when the watcher spoke of precise time limits or came up with the exact answer to complex equations seemingly without the benefit of any calculation. "You've got to be joking." Wes said sharply into the silence of his quarters, and then jumped when his door chime sounded causing hot coffee to splash from his cup and burn his fingers. He made a small sound of disgust.

"Come in!" he said sharply. The doors parted, and Deanna Troi stepped gracefully into his quarters. "Hello, Wes. I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time." Wesley stood, wiping his burning fingers on his pants. "No, Counselor, of course not," he replied. She hadn't: All of his preparations had been made. Besides the conformation that he'd already received from Tarmok, everything he needed to put his plan in action was either on Tau Sigma IV or in his own head.

Deanna smiled. "Well, that's a relief. I thought you sounded a little put out when you answered the door." Wes gave her a wide grin, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. He turned back toward the couch so she wouldn't notice. "I'm not put out at all. Would you like to have a seat? Maybe some coffee?" He glanced slyly back at her. "A chocolate sundae?" Her eyes twinkled as she put her hands on her hips. "No, Mr. Crusher, I do not want coffee or chocolate." Her face relaxed into practiced lines of compassion. "I would like to talk to you about Cullagh, if you feel comfortable doing so."

Wes' lips curled up into a small and bitter smile. Dark amusement danced in his eyes. "I'm not exactly comfortable with anything connected to Cullagh, but I'll talk about him if you want to."

"Good." Troi replied. She let her hands fall from her hips as she stood expectantly. Wes stood puzzled for a moment, and then realized what she was waiting for. "Why don't you sit down here on the sofa and make yourself comfortable, Counselor?" he asked. Troi nodded gracefully and moved to take her place on the right end of his curved sectional sofa. Wes sat on the other end and crossed his legs at the ankles in what he hoped was a posture of relaxed confidence.

"So," Troi said as she turned toward him. "What would you like to talk about?" Wes frowned in confusion. "I thought we were going to talk about Cullagh."

"I would like to discuss everything that's been going on, Wes, but you're the one who needs to decide how we do that. This is your session. You're the one who is in control of it. If you want to talk about something other than Cullagh, you have that option."

Wes nodded even as his muscles tensed. It would have been easier to direct the flow of information if she were the one asking the questions.

"I miss my mom." He didn't even know where the words came from. They were just there, along with a sudden and acute desire to see the slim red haired woman who had been a steady and comforting presence woven through his life.

Troi nodded, but didn't speak. Wes continued, "She's always been there, you know? It's not like she crowds me or anything, she's just there if I need her. I know that I always have someone to turn to."

Troi 's strange black eyes widened as she took in more than his words. Once again, they reminded Wesley of Cullagh. He shivered.

Leaning forward and smiling as if to reassure him, Troi said, "So, you always felt safe when your mother was around."

"Yeah." He replied.

"Did you feel insecure on Tau Sigma IV, when your mother left you at the Federation Embassy?" Troi asked. Wesley bit his bottom lip, rolled the flesh between his teeth. He didn't know how to answer.

"Wes? Would you rather talk about something else?" Troi asked when the silence between them stretched too long.

She's only asking because she wants to force the issue The watcher said. Shut up Wesley said in return. He sensed surprise and anger, and then resignation. It was as if some great beast inside of him raised its head in alarm, then settled back to wait for a better time to strike. Wes turned his head away from Troi, and rubbed the back of his neck to hide his unease. "No, that's all right, Counselor. Yeah, I did feel out of sorts when…I mean, not at first, I was excited to be there, but…"

Wes exhaled in frustration, and shook his head as he tried to explain the unexplainable. "Look, nothing on Tau Sigma is what it appears to be. It's this incredibly beautiful world that seems so innocent on the surface. They have people there called the Ha' Cai who live in the jungle without the benefit of technology at all, who only come in to the cities for medical care. They make their own clothes, grow their own food, everything. Then there are cities that are so beautiful, made of iridescent marble and crystal, and some of then have anti-grav supports so they float! Entire cities just hang in the air. It was amazing, when I first got there, and it's a Federation world, Mom couldn't know…"

He tapered off, not sure of how to make his point or even what point he wanted to make.

Troi's expression gained intensity as she leaned back into the couch. "What I hear you saying, Wes, is that it wasn't your mother's fault that you were abducted."

Wes blinked, and nodded. "Yeah, I guess so…I mean, everything looked all right, on the surface. There's no way that she could have known it'd be so dangerous, but if she'd been there, maybe…maybe nothing would have happened with Cullagh."

"So you feel that if your mother had been there, she would have protected you."

An unbearable sadness washed over Wes. He wanted with all of his being to be cradled up in his mother's arms, to be the little boy he knew that he wasn't, anymore.

"There was nothing she could have done. She was needed with the research project, and she could never have anticipated Cullagh. She had no way of knowing that the political situation on Tau Sigma IV was more…complicated than it appeared. She made the best decision she could."

Wes straightened up, pulled his uniform top down. He wasn't a little boy anymore, and there was no one who could protect him, not really. There was no use pretending otherwise. Cullagh had taught him that.

Troi gave him a businesslike nod. "Well, you've convinced me, Wes. Now you just have to convince yourself." Before he could respond or ask what she meant, Troi continued.

"Wes, have you told your mother about your abduction and abuse in Cullagh's hands?" A shadow seemed to pass over Wesley's face.

"Why are you asking questions you already know the answer to, Counselor?" His voice was monotone, cold. The watcher had spoken again. Wes quickly tried to reassert control over the situation. "Of course I didn't tell her. If I had she would have gone to the authorities, demanded a police investigation."

Troi frowned, perplexed. "You say that as if an investigation would be a negative thing. Don't you want Cullagh to answer for his crimes, be brought to justice for what he did to you and to the other children?"
Wesley's hands clenched as a tide of rage swept over him. "I want Cullagh…"
He stopped before he completed the thought, before he said too much, but his relentless mind flowed forward and swept him away in a tide of soothing and violent imagery. I want Cullagh dead, I want him ground to dust, I want to feed him splinters of glass and watch the bright blood come up. I want to slice open his gut and see his steaming entrails fall on a brown clay floor. I want to do everything that was done to me back again a thousand times. I want him dead but I want him to suffer first. I want him to suffer for a long time, and I want him to have no voice to call out for mercy, like I didn't, like none of us did. I want him dead. I won't rest until he is.

The rage left him suddenly as the beast inside seized its moment and all emotion was swept away into a silent abyss by the watcher's cold and practical hand. His face, which had been expressionless, soothed itself into an open and friendly smile as Wes tried to recover his equilibrium. Troi, on the other side of his couch, tried to maintain her calm demeanor but with the returning rush of his present surroundings Wes could see that her knuckles were white and her jaw was clenched in real fear. Good job. Yeah, that's the right way to handle things. You don't need me at all, do you? The watcher interjected snidely. Wes sighed, and let his face fall into his hand. "Shut up."

Riker lounged in sickbay's main office, his arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Pulaski sat behind her desk staring at her computer console, with her head resting in one hand. "This is appalling, Will." She said, her voice stunned. "How could this happen in Federation space? And how did it go unnoticed for so long?"

"You've got me, Doctor. I have no idea why the authorities on Tau Sigma IV haven't stopped this. For that matter, I have no idea why Wesley felt the need to keep it a secret." Riker sighed. "It really makes me wonder about the boy. It makes me question whether we actually know him at all."

Pulaski's brow furrowed. "Will, this isn't Wesley's fault. He was a child, alone on an alien world, and severely traumatized. I personally wonder more about the motivations of this Romulen who supposedly rescued him."

Riker nodded. "You're right, Kate. At any rate, getting indignant over the situation won't help to rectify it. Only information will do that. What else do we have on this enzyme?"

Pulaski slid a padd toward Riker. "As you can see, it's a rather complex and nasty piece of work. It's a triple bonded compound, with each component that is needed for its completion abundant in the bodies of any carbon based life form. Its main component is in fact a highly versatile protein chain that is at least present in over 76 of carbon based life. The enzyme is introduced into its host, and then uses basic elements present in the body to reproduce itself. I've never seen such complex organization of natural compounds without the benefit of DNA or nanocitic programming."

Riker's eyes widened. "So this isn't a naturally occurring phenomenon. It's…what, a highly personalized chemical weapon?" Pulaski shook her head. "I'm not sure what it is, Commander. I do know that according to my last probability analysis there is less than a 16 chance that the compound is the result of natural biological evolution."

The Commander stroked his beard, and nodded. "That means that Cullagh may not be from a previously unknown species. That lessens the possible military threat that he represents considerably."

Pulaski smiled sarcastically. "Perhaps. But it seems obvious that Cullagh is acting without official sanctum no matter where he's from. I doubt that there would have been much of a military threat to begin with. This is obviously a criminal case. One wonder's why the Captain feels the need for such drastic involvement, even if Mr. Crusher is directly involved."

Riker returned her smile, but his lips stretched to do it. "Any statement about how well Cullagh was aided, and by whom, would be at best premature at this point, Doctor. So would speculation about Captain Picard's motivations. Why don't we let the brass and their analysts assess military threat, and get on with our report to the Captain."

Pulaski's cold blue eyes took on an adversarial gleam, but she nodded and scrolled down on her data padd. "The next mystery Cullagh presents us with is his need to drink blood. Wesley said any blood would do, even animal blood, but I'm not sure how much of Mr. Crusher's insight into Cullagh is based in empirical evidence or mere intuition." Riker nodded. "I don't believe that Wesley is capable of being objective about the situation, Doctor. We should take his opinion into account, but not act on it until we verify it through other means." He said softly.

Pulaski gave a brief nod in agreement, and then continued. "In this case, I believe that Mr. Crusher is mistaken. All of Cullagh's victims reported to us by Tarmok were young boys, between the ages of ten and twelve. They all had dark hair and eyes. I believe that those physical characteristics …attract Cullagh's attention, and for that reason most of Cullagh's victims were young Romulen boys living on Tau Sigma IV."

"Easy access and lack of police concern might have also contributed to that bias." Rker muttered. Pulaski continued, "There are only three biomolecular compounds common to both Romulan and Human blood. We really aren't that similar, biologically, which explains why Humans and Romulan, or Humans and Vulcans for that matter, are so rarely able to reproduce successfully. Of those two, only one is common to Tellerites as well, and neither is present in the Ha'Cai, Tau Sigma IV's native species. And yet, Cullagh chose victims from each of those races."

Pulaski leaned back smugly, as if she had already solved the case. Riker looked perplexed. "So, does this mean that Cullagh does or does not have to ingest the blood of sentient beings, Doctor?" Pulaski smiled wanly. "It means, Commander, that Cullagh does not need to ingest blood at all. The only other substances he could need are found in ample supply in substances other than blood."

Riker's brow furrowed in confusion. "So, why is there a substance in Cullagh's saliva that renders his victims helpless, if it's not there to aid him in blood drinking?"

"I don't know, Will." Pulaski responded. "But I would suggest that it lends weight to my argument that Cullagh's abilities did not occur naturally. This man's no monster, Will. At most, he's been genetically enhanced. What we have here is a run of the mill serial killer, something I hoped never to see in my lifetime."

A shadow passed over Riker's face. "Doctor, "he said softly, "How many children had this man murdered in the last fifteen years?" Pulaski carefully placed the data padd down on her desk and linked her hands tightly together as her face lost all expression. "At least forty three and Inspector Tarmok suspects that there may have been others. If you add Mara, assuming we don't find her in time, the total could be well over fifty."

Riker gave a grim smile. "Cullagh may not be a vampire, doctor, but he's sure as hell a monster."

It was night in the city of Genhal. A gentle tropical breeze blew deep green leaves and fragile blossoms around the city streets. In the center of the capital city the streets were paved with an iridescent white stone that gleamed with shifting rainbow colors, prism like, when the sun shone on it. The buildings were made either of colored crystal or the same pearlescent material as the street.

When Wesley Crusher first walked these streets, he'd thought that the entire city looked like it was made of hard candy. Cullagh smiled as he remembered that confidence, along with other whispered secrets he'd encouraged his boy to confide in him. He yanked Mara's hand, forcing her to walk faster even as her weakened legs stumbled. Mara's well being didn't concern him. She was only here to fulfill a specific purpose, to bring his lost boy home to him.

The central sections of the city that they walked through were meticulously clean and maintained, kept so by a veritable army of maintenance bots that floated unobtrusively around the city's twisting streets. The bots resembled soccer balls, their chrome finish covered with darker panels that slid open to allow mechanical arms that ended in specialty tools to extend from their spherical bodies. Spirited children or unruly adults sometimes captured the bots and played an anarchic version of kickball with them. The bots patiently waited until their captives released them, then continued on with their assigned tasks.

The bots were out in force tonight. They did not make a visual recording of a tall pale haired man pulling a scrawny adolescent girl into a twisting alley that led over the Wall, the adobe monstrosity that separated the Federation section of the city from Romulen neighborhoods when her legs finally failed, but they followed after the pair cleaning up the dark trail of blood left when the rough stone of the street shredded her pale skin.

Two hours later Cullagh drug the girl by the scruff of the neck, like a snarling bitch with a wayward pup, into a nondescript warehouse on the outskirts of the city and flung her at the feet of a muscle-bound Ha'Cai idiot named Jenqa. He hadn't been able to take public transports because of the Federation warrant for his arrest, and he was thoroughly out of sorts.

"Take care of her." Cullagh ordered the Ha'Cai, and the large man with sloping brow ridges and the general features of a troll nodded as he scooped the girl up off of the floor and slung her over his shoulder like a rag doll. He carried her down a trapdoor in the left corner of the room, to the level with cells.

He left her in an adobe brick room, featureless except for the chains hanging from the ceiling and the drain on the floor. The stains that ringed the drain were dark enough to be rust or blood, but Mara didn't stir as Jenqa laid her gently down on the stone floor and folded her arms over her stomach. He arranged her tattered skirts so that they covered as much of her skin as possible, and bolted the door on his way out.

When Jenqa climbed back up to the warehouse, Cullagh was sitting at the computer console by the loading dock doors, immersed in inventory lists and ignoring the world. This warehouse, and all it contained, was his responsibility. The dock was neatly stocked, with plastic cylinders and metal crates aligned in symmetrical rows with consoles at each end that revealed their contents. Some rows were covered with colored tarps, the color indicating under which conditions the contents should be stored. It all appeared innocuous, and it was. The warehouse was, for the most part, a strictly legitimate depot for wealthy people to store their merchandise until it was shipped offworld. Very few people knew about the basement levels.

Cullagh was not concerned with Mara any longer. He knew that Jenqa had done what he asked, because Jenqa always did what he asked, exactly what he asked, whether it was to buy a specific loaf of bread at Mannhai's bakery three streets away or to press just so on a project's arm so that the bones would shatter.

Jenqa had been assigned to him by the Orion Syndicate for twelve of the fifteen years he'd been exiled on this psychedelic mudball, and two injections of Cotter's enzyme a month ensured the behemoth's loyalty. Cullagh would never sully himself by taking Jenqa's blood into his body, so he extracted the enzyme and used a hypospray. He'd had to slip up behind the Ha'Cai for the first injection, but Jenqa had meekly submitted for all of the rest.

No one knew about the injections, and Jenqa was so dim that no one noticed any changes in his behavior. The Ha'Cai weren't worth a second thought as a species and Jenqa himself was beneath contempt. So Cullagh didn't wonder where Jenqa had gone to after he slipped out of a side door and shuffled off down the street toward the Wall. Jenqa would come when called, and whatever else he did, like Jenqa himself, wasn't worth anyone's attention.

Deep in the bowels of a brownstone building that housed Genhal's Citizen Protectorate, Tarmok Shae sat alone on a rickety wooden chair in front of a scarred stone table that held a data console, a small data Padd, and a cup of black Romulen tea. The adobe room did not have windows. The warm gloom of the room was a welcome relief for Tarmok, who'd spent most of the day having his senses assaulted by the psychedelic Sen Dai monstrosities on the other side of the Wall.

He picked up the cup and swirled the bitter, fragrant stuff as he drank it. As the familiar rush of the strong stimulant moved through his bloodstream, he leaned forward and sighed. He knew he drank too much of this stuff. Sarah, his former wife and sometimes lover, said that it would kill him, one day. Shae never contradicted her, but he knew that his work would kill him long before the tea had the chance.

He leaned forward and pulled the padd toward him, thumbing the screen to show him both Stardate and local time zones. He always wondered why the Federation didn't hold with programming a single padd to perform multiple functions. He'd only carried one padd his entire life, and it served him well enough. In his mind, It was yet another example of Federation excess. They acted as though everything in the universe was free, and looked down upon other governments if they could not afford a largess that equaled their own.

Tarmok sighed again. In another five hours, the Enterprise would arrive. Two hours after that, an away team would beam down to Genhal park and find a package waiting for them instead of a person. Shae himself had no delusions that Federation goodwill extended to a Romulan, even a dual citizen like himself, and thus did not intend to put himself in their hands. Ever.

He would meet with Wesley Crusher. He had full confidence that the brat could slip away from his elders. The boy was smarter than his people gave him credit for. He would have made a good Romulen, or a police officer. He might even have the stomach for it, too, after Cullagh.

Shae's face lost all expression as a familiar weary rage swept over him. The reality of Cullagh, and the fact that the insatiable beast that had been given free reign to prey on innocent children for fifteen years still moved him to excess. It was one of the few things that did. Cullagh had averaged two or three Romulen children a year, in spite of Tarmok's best efforts to protect them.

The situation would never have been tolerated in the Empire, but the Romulen population of Tau Delta IV was, for the most part, made up of political refugees and escaped criminals who were looking for a fresh start. Their fortunes were spent in an attempt to escape their former circumstances, the SenDai barely tolerated them, and the Romulen Empire would be happier if they all died. Luckily for them, the Empire was not willing to expend the resources needed to make that dream a reality.

In short, the Romulen citizens here were unwanted and impoverished and as a result particularly vulnerable. Cullagh had chosen children more vulnerable still, the children of alcoholics, orphans, troublemakers and in a few instances the mentally or physically disabled. Children with such flaws were considered to be a stain on their families honor, proof of some distant transgression. They were the sole reason that some exhausted mothers or fathers ended up on this rock.

Tarmok's hands tightened in anger, but he made himself place the pad carefully on the table as he stood up. There was no reason to destroy a perfectly good padd just to indulge his emotions. He swung a grey cloak over his brown uniform as he trudged up the stairs to the main office building. The babble of at least twenty different languages hit him as officers conversed in native tongues, took statements in another language, and took calls in yet another. The voices were either bored or dissident, violent curses from suspects and prisoners being transferred mingling with the apathetic tones of receptionists getting information on yet another domestic dispute. He asked the secretary, an imposing Ha'Cai women who had worked at CP headquarters for as long as Tarmok could remember to deliver a note to Kino at Alvaraian's Pastry Shop that said, simply, "statue." She didn't even glance up at him while she took down his instructions. She was used to the odd requests he made.

Shae walked down the hall adjacent to the main office and stopped by his personal storage unit in the armory for his Repulsor staff, a short and unobtrusive black staff that was standard equipment for all law enforcement on Tau Delta IV. The staff was a device similar to a Klingon pain stick, but it gave off a Repulsor field as well as pain, and was capable of knocking an assailant unconscious from five feet away. Shae tucked the staff into his belt holster, and felt the familiar reassuring jostle of the staff brushing against the completely illegal Romulen disrupter inside the hidden pocket he'd sown into his trousers.