“Turn!”… All this is suggested by the systematic procession of events and the harmony of the whole Universe, if only we face the facts, as they say, ‘with both eyes open.’
“ Nicolaus Copernicus
A whip cracked, and a team of men strained against the heavy wooden wheel in the Observatory’s basement. The great dome creaked and shuddered away from the setting sun. An aperture slid open. Inside the dome, in a wicker chair slung beneath an array of mirrors and brass tubing, sat a woman. She was a lady of a great family, to judge by her jewelry and the cut of her work gown. She peered through the crystal eyepiece. A smudge of light slid into the crosshairs. It resolved itself into a beautiful blue-green disc. Nearby was the strange churning ribbon of light that had appeared so suddenly in the heavens.
“And .. stop!” she called into her speaking tube. The men slumped at their posts, chests heaving. As usual, she felt their fatigue in her mind. She sighed, picked up her quill and parchment, and eyed the disc in her lens.
“Well, Goddess of Evening,” she murmured. “What wonders will you have for us tonight?”
She made routine notes. Goddess waxing, almost full. White area to north slightly smaller than last observation. Large circular cloud mass in southern hemisphere. Goddess following Her path through the constellations on the cusp of...
Her pen stopped moving. A tiny but intense point of light had just appeared near the limb of the Goddess, joined after a moment by another. The lady hunched forward, scrawling again on her parchment as fast as she could.
Two objects. Bursts of light between them. A flare … One object gone. The other dimming “ no, splitting into two pieces. Another flare, much brighter. Only one piece left. Now descending toward the Goddess…. A fiery veil.… A scratch across Her face!
The heavens grew quiet, as if all creation were holding its breath at the sacrilege. And then the lady saw a tiny streak of light shooting from the Goddess toward the Sun.
“Counterclockwise, seventy degrees! Now! Hurry!” she shouted. The dome swung around. The Sun still peeked above the horizon, as if waiting for this strange arrow from the Goddess. The lady held her breath. Even the men fell silent.
“Oh.”
The setting Sun faded from yellow to gray. She heard shouts and screams in the street outside. A faint glowing sphere expanded out from the stricken Sun. Its dying breath, she thought with an odd detachment. A line from the liturgy ran through her head:
“Turn back toward the Goddess!” Frightened as they were, the men were kept at their task by the overseer’s whip. They turned the dome.The Sun adores the Goddess
But his fiery breath condemns him
To love Her from a distance
The Sun’s breath reached the Goddess just as that strange ribbon of light neared Her. She lost Her garments first, a gossamer stream trailing away from Her like the tail of a comet. Then Her body exploded into a million pieces. The lady cried out. Something stabbed at her mind, a wave of pain. The Goddess? No “ strange beings on the Goddess! They were dying with Her. The lady felt one in particular, a being with a strong spark. Guinan. They regarded one another for a moment.
“No!” she shouted. “This isn’t right. Oh Goddess….” The Sun’s breath touched her world, and she was no more.
***
“All hands, brace for impact!”
Riker’s ragged shout echoed through the saucer section of the Enterprise. The ship's secondary hull, destroyed in a core breach after their firefight with a rogue Klingon vessel, was already smearing into a thin ring of debris around Veridian III. The planet's surface came rushing towards the stricken saucer. Guinan dove to the deck and curled into a ball, pressed against others in the crowded corridor. A little boy stumbled past, crying. She pulled him into her arms and held on.
The saucer gave a jolt. Bodies tumbled against the forward wall. A screeching, grinding roar drowned out their shouts. Guinan held tight to the boy, touching his mind with waves of calm. After an eternity the roar diminished and, finally, stopped.
Guinan lay still, mentally checking her body for injures. Sore, a few bruises, and a cut on my shin, she thought. I’ll live. Her mind expanded out through the saucer. She sensed a fading wave of fear, the stab of broken bones, the dull ache of bruises. Mostly she felt relief at the sheer press of life around her.
The little boy hugged her and ran on. Guinan struggled to her feet. She could see the blue sky of Veridian III through the shattered bulkhead. A fresh breeze brushed her face. What a beautiful world, she thought. What a way to visit. Others were stirring, checking each other for injuries, comforting the children. Guinan made her way toward Dr. Crusher to help with triage.
As she knelt by a wounded ensign, a line from an old Earth song ran through her head.
Guinan shot to her feet. “Oh please, no,” she said aloud. She squeezed her eyes shut and clutched her head.The sun went out just like a dying ember
In September…
Dr. Crusher looked up. “Guinan! Are you all right?”
“No, this is all wrong! No….”
The world exploded.
Guinan, the saucer, the entire planet were swept away like leaves in a storm. As the maelström hit she heard “ felt “ the screams of her crew. The screams stopped as abruptly as they had started.
What had been Guinan was now a tiny shred of consciousness. She drifted in darkness. After a moment she felt a single cry, first of realization and then of fear. The mind behind the cry touched her own and paused in wonder. Adria. The two regarded one another. Then Guinan heard more minds. Many more.
A shrieking wind of terror and pain from millions of dying souls slammed into Guinan with more force than the first, physical shockwave. She and her strange companion disappeared, swept away in the hurricane.
***
Guinan shot upright in bed, bathed in sweat. She reached for her bedside lamp, but it wasn’t there. Panic rose. She paused and took a deep breath. I’m on the Farragut now. We’re all here. It’s all right. We’re light-years from Veridian III.
Calmer now, she considered her nightmare. It had the numinous quality of vision, the kind she had when she sensed another reality close to her own. It reassured her only slightly to know where the vision had come from. She had corroborating evidence in Captain Picard’s report: about his initial failure to defeat Soran on Veridian III, his trip through the Nexus, his encounter with the shadow Guinan, his meeting with Captain Kirk, and their return to this timeline to prevent Soran from destroying the Veridian system in his mad attempt to enter the Nexus. At least I know I’m not crazy.
But where did those millions of screams come from? She paused a moment. Veridian IV, she thought. Of course. The next planet out. Inhabited. Another pause. They call their planet Ellandrus. Then she remembered that single cry just before the wave of death struck her. Adria. This woman had realized what was coming just before Ellandrus was torn apart. How could she have known?
Guinan quieted her mind and reached out. A scientist “ an astronomer. With powerful psychic ability. She saw and felt something in this timeline too. Guinan continued to probe. She didn’t keep it to herself. Now she fears for her life.
She stared into the darkness of her quarters. Time to annoy some powerful people, she thought, on more than one world.