Fear. Uncertainty. Anger. Confusion. Pain. The salvo of emotions struck Deanna Troi with such force that she nearly recoiled from the disheveled woman pacing in front of her. Lynn Costa clawed both hands through brambles of red and silver streaked hair, then tugged violently at the hem of her royal blue tunic. Her thin shoulders -- hunched from too many hours bent over a lab bench -- shook with rage.

"How dare he put me here!" she shrieked. "How dare he!"

"Dr. Milu simply followed procedure," Deanna said calmly, "after you admitted to destroying records. Wouldn't you like to take a moment to explain why you did that?"

"They were my records," the woman hissed, "from my project! How long do I have to stay here?"

The ship's counselor manufactured a smile. "This isn't a cell -- it's only a consultation room."

The woman stopped pacing, and hope glistened in her tired aquamarine eyes. "Then I'm free to leave?"

"Of course," Deanna replied evenly, "but I thought you might want to discuss what's troubling you."

"Don't you know? You're a damn Betazoid!" cursed the scientist. "I thought you could read minds, like Dr. Milu."

"I can sense emotions," Deanna admitted, with a trace of self-consciousness. "I'm not a full-blooded Betazoid like Dr. Milu. And even he can't read minds, only communicate telepathically."

"Who cares?" shouted the woman, leaning across Deanna's desk and glaring at her. "A two-year-old could read my mind! I want off this ship! I can't stand it here any longer!"

Deanna sighed, wondering how much more of this she could stand before she called Dr. Beverly Crusher and had Lynn Costa sedated. She didn't care if the woman was a giant in her field, one of the most revered scientists in the Federation. Dr. Costa needed help, but for the moment she needed to sit down, be quiet, and listen to reason.

And those were the very words she heard herself saying: "Sit down, Dr. Costa, and be quiet."

Miraculously, the scientist sunk down into the chair opposite Deanna Troi and stared at the younger woman. Her disjointed stare lasted only seconds before she buried her face within trembling hands and sobbed. With each wracking sob, the unruly mop of hair obscured more of her delicate features. "He's leaving me!" she sputtered.

Deanna rose from her seat and put a soothing hand on the woman's frail shoulder. "Who's leaving you?"

"Emil."

Lynn Costa looked more like a child than a woman nearing eighty years of age. Deanna could hardly imagine that this was the person -- along with her husband, Emil -- who had spearheaded the Microcontamination Project to unheralded heights of achievement. Their marriage was more than a domestic arrangement -- it was science's most famous ongoing collaboration.

"How long have you been married?" the counselor asked quietly. She knew she could simply glance at her screen and have the answer, but she wanted to sample Lynn Costa's emotions as she answered aloud.

The woman leaned back, taming a hank of unruly hair with one hand and wiping away tears with the other. "Forty-eight years," she muttered. "Too long to care what happens to him, but I do."

Love, thought Deanna, that most unpredictable of emotions. "Why is he leaving you?"

"He says he wants to retire. To Switzerland," she scoffed. "In the beginning, we worked so hard to get away from Earth and into space, and now he wants to go back."

"I've heard Switzerland is quite beautiful," replied the Betazoid. "Why not retire? You and your husband have earned a rest after all you've accomplished. Just to have perfected the biofilter--"

"Not the damn biofilter!" shrieked Dr. Costa, leaping to her feet and shaking her fists at invisible tormentors. "Why does everyone want to talk about the biofilter? That was a generation ago, and you'd think we hadn't done anything since!"

Instinctively, Deanna reached out for the distraught scientist as she collapsed. The counselor was not a large person, but Lynn Costa felt as small and helpless as a wounded sparrow in her embrace.

"There, there," she whispered, as the frail woman again dissolved into sobs. "You are among friends."

The woman sniffed. "I've never really felt that. It's always been work, work, work. A galaxy full of microcontaminants to categorize, isolate, and learn to avoid. I thought coming to the Enterprise would be the crowning achievement of our careers. But instead... it's been our downfall."

So seldom had Deanna ever heard anyone speak ill of the Enterprise that she was taken aback. But there was nothing in Dr. Costa's wrenching emotions that indicated any real resentment against the ship or its crew. The Enterprise was simply the setting for the final act of a distinguished career, and perhaps a marriage.

The counselor didn't think she could prolong Lynn Costa's career, nor was she sure it was a good idea to do so. But she would do everything within her power to salvage a marriage that had endured forty-eight years.

Firmly, Deanna proclaimed, "You and Emil should take a sabbatical together, just the two of you. While you're away from the ship, in a relaxed frame of mind, you can decide what to do with the rest of your lives."

"Yes!" rasped the scientist, suddenly bright-eyed. "We must get off the ship... as soon as possible. But where?"

"You're in luck," the Betazoid responded cheerfully. "In a few days, we're due to rendezvous with a new starbase on a giant asteroid called Kayran Rock. I believe the Enterprise will only stay for the opening ceremonies, but I'm sure you and Emil could remain longer. This is the first starbase built upon an asteroid, and it must be quite a unique place to visit."

With wraithlike hands, Dr. Costa gripped Deanna's tunic and held on desperately. "Whatever it takes, Counselor, you must get us off this ship. Before..."

"Before what?" asked the Betazoid, alarmed by the scientist's overwhelming surge of fear. "What are you afraid of?"

But that emotion was suddenly overshadowed by suspicion. As if she had said too much, Lynn Costa pulled away from the counselor and averted her weary eyes. "I must get back to the lab."

"Please," Deanna pleaded, "don't go yet."

"I must." She darted frightenedly toward the door, which whooshed open at her approach.

Deanna Troi called after her, "Dr. Costa! Let me set up an appointment for both you and your husband!"

The woman stopped briefly in the corridor and turned to Deanna with sad, haunted eyes. "Just get us off this ship."

Counselor Troi rushed after her, but the scientist had already caught a turbolift.

A pair of turbolift doors opened in the underbelly of the ship and Lieutenant Worf rushed out, followed by four security officers. Above their heads, a red light strobed ominously as a siren squawked a deadly warning. The five officers ran stone-faced toward the doors to Engineering, which did not open as expected at their approach.

Worf growled, "Override!"

One woman, a stocky blonde named Kraner, ripped the panel cover off the controls, exposing a mass of circuitry. Her fingers were a blur as she rewired the relays and switches. Worf furrowed his dark Klingon brow and growled under his breath. Actually, he knew he couldn't do any better than Ensign Kraner, but that didn't assuage his impatience one bit.

Finally, after tense seconds that seemed much longer, the door slid open, and the security team barged in. Phasers drawn, they confronted a scattered collection of engineering personnel...

Who ignored them.

"Time!" snapped Geordi La Forge from the catwalk overlooking the antimatter reactor. The chief engineer was beaming a smile almost as wide as the apparatus that served as his eyes.

"Two minutes and sixteen-point-two seconds," said the computer noncommittally as the sirens and flashing lights abruptly stopped.

"Excellent!" remarked Geordi, scampering down a circular staircase to Worf's level.

"Terrible!" growled the Klingon, fixing each member of his security team with a baleful glare. "Of course, we would have been under two minutes if the doors had been functioning."

"Did you like that touch?" smiled Geordi. "I thought it added a measure of realism. We've had a number of distinguished and accomplished intruders down here, for example, your Klingon buddies."

Only Geordi could get away with a remark like that, thought Worf. "The conditions of the drill were not the problem," he grumbled. Worf glanced at his party, still tensely clutching their disarmed phasers. "At ease."

"Worf, that was as good as could be expected," insisted the engineer. "How could you improve it, especially coming all the way from the bridge? That's thirty-five decks!"

"Computer?" snarled the security chief. "In the drill just completed, how long were we on the turbolift?"

"One minute and forty-eight-point-three seconds."

"That's inexcusable!" snapped Worf. "Turbolifts should be faster than that."

"The lifts can be programmed to go much faster," admitted Lieutenant Commander La Forge. "But people would be unconscious or pinned to the ceiling after ten or twenty decks. There's the artificial gravity and inertia to worry about. And you forget, Worf, not everyone has the constitution of a Klingon."

The security chief's lip curled disgustedly, even as the bumps on his brow crinkled in thought. "I don't want people to black out going to the Ten-Forward Room, but we need to speed up the turbolifts ten or twenty percent in an emergency. You can do that, can't you?"

Geordi rolled his eyes, secure in the knowledge that no one could see the gesture through his VISOR. "Yes, I can," he conceded, "but we'll need authorization from the captain or Commander Riker. Also, you'd better get a security team with strong stomachs."

Worf nodded with satisfaction. "Let me know how soon we can test it." He nodded to Ensign Kraner and the others. "Dismissed."

The big humanoid followed his personnel out, and Geordi shook his head in amazement. To no one in particular, he remarked, "There's a Klingon who needs a hobby."

"Counselor's log, stardate 44261.3," Deanna Troi said slowly, settling back in her seat and corralling her troubled thoughts. The sparse consultation room was almost eerily quiet now, in comparison to the interview of a few moments ago. In the fifteen minutes since Dr. Lynn Costa had abruptly left, Deanna had finished reading the researcher's file. She found nothing of any help.

"I met with Dr. Lynn Costa for a brief period," she told the invisible recorder, "at the request of her superior, Dr. Karn Milu. According to Dr. Milu, Lynn Costa's work and attitude have been erratic for some weeks, culminating in the willful destruction of computer records and laboratory notes. Luckily, most of the data was recovered from backup systems. Dr. Costa has refused to offer any explanation for her actions, but I can certainly verify that she is troubled and terribly afraid. Our conversation was too short to be conclusive, but her intense level of fear and anger would indicate a paranoiac condition.

"Most likely, this paranoia has been brought on by the possibility of retirement, at the insistence of her husband, Emil. She resents the pressure he is putting on her, and she fears for the future of the Microcontamination Project if she leaves. According to Dr. Milu, the project is well staffed and well equipped and has benefitted greatly from the resources aboard the Enterprise. Lynn and Emil Costa may have started the project, but all indications are that it will continue successfully without them."

Deanna sighed and took a sip of the herbal tea she had all but forgotten. It was lukewarm. "That said," she continued, "I must make the observation that Dr. Costa hardly seems like the same person I have met on several other occasions. Today, she seemed fearful, dejected, and disoriented, and there is nothing in her file to suggest a predisposition to that sort of behavior. She has always been an immensely confident and capable woman. I can only hope that this behavior is temporary and does not indicate a more serious condition."

The counselor frowned, and her lush red lips tightened. "I don't wish to further erode Dr. Costa's spirits by having her relieved from her duties," she insisted, "but it's obvious that she can't continue her work in this frame of mind. The best course of action would be to arrange an immediate sabbatical for her and her husband on Kayran Rock. From there, they can secure passage to anywhere in the Federation. Perhaps they'll return to work here or elsewhere, or perhaps they'll do as Emil prefers and retire to Earth.

"If a change of scenery doesn't work, or for some reason Dr. Costa refuses the sabbatical, she will have to be relieved from duty to undergo a complete psychological and medical evaluation. That is all. Please send a copy of this entry to Dr. Crusher and Commander Riker."

"Acknowledged," answered the computer dutifully. Deanna Troi picked up her tea, stood and paced for a few moments. Quite by accident, she found herself staring at the comm panel near the door, and she was reminded that Lynn Costa was probably incapable of making any arrangements for herself at the moment. She needed all the help she could get. "Computer?" asked the counselor. "Is Commander Riker on the bridge?"

"Negative," answered the mother hen of the Enterprise. "Commander Riker left the bridge fifteen-point-five minutes ago and is now in the Ten-Forward Room."

The Betazoid nodded, though no one was there to see the silent acknowledgment. She reached up to the comm panel and lightly touched the membrane keypad. "Counselor Troi to Commander Riker?"

"Riker here," replied the cheerful baritone. "Hello, Deanna." His voice still held the sparkle of recent laughter. Or did Will's voice always sound that way?

"You sound like you're having a good time," she observed, annoyed that he didn't know enough to be worried about Lynn Costa. She would change that blissful ignorance soon enough.

"I am. Geordi is here and Guinan is on duty -- why don't you come down to Ten-Fore and join us?"

"I appreciate the invitation," replied the Betazoid, forcing a much happier lilt to her voice than she felt. "I will be there shortly."

But Deanna Troi stopped off at her cabin first. It was on her way, she told herself, but she also wanted to catch a glimpse of herself in a mirror. Not that she ever saw much different there: the red-and-black uniform that flowed over most of her body and hugged some parts a little closer than she might like, the silky brunette tresses which tumbled like an ebony waterfall from the crown of her head onto her slim but sturdy shoulders, and the calm olive face they framed.

She wiped a moist cloth across her brow and the crook of her neck, then added a pin to her hair. That was all the preparation she could afford Will Riker on this particular day. Why should she be so nervous? she wondered. All she was going to do was ask him to clear the way for Lynn and Emil Costa to disembark at Kayran Rock. Why should even the most dedicated first officer object to two people -- especially two lovers -- getting away alone together? Even if he himself never seemed to need that release.

The Betazoid furrowed her lush eyebrows in anger at herself. This wasn't the time or place to interject personal feelings. Propriety was one of the disciplines she had accepted as a condition of serving aboard the Enterprise, and that meant considering Will Riker as merely another member of the crew. Still, if the two of them were ever able to escape to a place like Kayran Rock and spend some time alone together...

Deanna permitted herself a sigh, placed her cup back into the food slot, and dimmed the lights before she marched out.