Then the rumbling became clearer, louder. It was more than a sound—the ground was trembling. Still the intermittent clusters of pinpoint flashes grew nearer and brighter, spread higher and wider across the sky.

Then they erupted out of the desert sands with geyser-like columns of vapor. The Kanums screamed. They weren’t the only ones. Daibak realized the lights weren’t just rising from behind the curve of the planet—they were rising out of the planet itself!

And they were spreading out to engulf the whole city.

The crowd’s paralysis at the inconceivable sight finally broke as the crackling thunderclaps grew ever louder and nearer. The quaking of the ground grew worse, and a hot wind began to blow across the rooftop. Tenants pushed each other aside in their rush for the stairwell, and Daibak called out, urging them to stay calm and lie flat on the roof.

But few of the guests listened, instead crowding against the stairwell door and trying in vain to force their way inside. When Daibak tried to intervene bodily and drag them apart, he ended up succumbing to the press of bodies, falling to the roof beneath the feet of the panicked crowd.

After what seemed like ages, a strong hand caught his arm and pulled him free. He looked up to see Orat staring at him solicitously. “Are you all right, boss?”

“Oh, Orat, thank you! I promise, I’ll never tell another riddle.”

“We’ve got to get away!”

“No, we’ve got to get through to them before they crush each other to death! They’re our guests, our responsibi—”

Then the entire rooftop bucked, and he was almost blinded as a surge of lightning-bright pinpoint bursts rose straight up through the roof.

U.S.S. Reliant

Orbiting Denobula

“The flare’s coming out of the planet?” Captain Terrell cried in disbelief.

Pavel Chekov looked up at the bigger man who loomed over the science station. “It emerged inside the planet, yes, sir,” he said. “The planet’s orbital motion is carrying it past the emergence zone. It should be clear within a few minutes.”

“But what’s it doing to the planet in the meantime?”

“The micro-wormholes are quite small, sir. The energy they release is intense, but brief.” Chekov studied his scans. “There are some seismic and meteorological disruptions, but mostly in the uninhabited interior. Luckily most of the population is concentrated around the capital region, well away from the affected area.”

“I don’t understand,” said Rem Azem-Os. The Aurelian flexed her wings as she stood behind the vacant command chair. “I thought the vacuum flares centered around the positions the planets occupied in the past.”

“Relative to their stars’ positions, yes,” Chekov said, “with a degree of uncertainty. But it’s been almost exactly twenty-eight Denobulan years since the Enterprise’s visit, so the planet’s roughly back in the same spot. Or close enough to fall within the margin of—”