going with you.
It is a holographic projection.
Incomplete, I might add.
This is a computer-driven image
created by photons and forcefields.
I know what a hologram is.
Why would anyone want
to create one of our village?
If you were following the children
and discovered this ship ...
I may have been shot to protect
the secret of its existence.
Why would they duplicate this
village except to deceive the Ba'ku?
- Deceive us?
- To move you off this planet.
You'd fall asleep in your village -
- and wake up
on this flying holodeck.
Transported en masse,
and in a few days -
- relocated on a similar planet
without ever realising it.
Why would the Federation
wish to move the Ba'ku?
I don't know.
Computer, end program.
De-cloakthe vessel.
Help!
I can't swim.
Don't panic.
I've been shot at on a ship
that has come to abduct us.
What's there to panic about?
For water landings, I am designed
to serve as a flotation device.
Did the hostages mention
anything about a cloaked ship?
- No, sir.
- Debrief them again.
- Have you been in a fight?
- No, it is a gorch.
A pimple, sir.
Well ... it's hardly noticeable.
Smooth as an android's bottom.
- Dougherty noticed we haven't left.
- We're not going anywhere.
Deck 5.
Klingons never do anything small.
- Dr Crusher asked to speakto you.
- Picard to Crusher.
The Son'a hostages
declined to be examined.
- And our people?
- They're fine.
In fact they're better than fine.
Improved muscle tone, high energy.
Very well, Doctor.
Don't release the Son'a officers
until I've talked to Ahdar Ru'afo.
Commander, may I ...?
Computer, music.
- Not that, something Latin.
- Specify.
The mambo.
That's more like it.
How old are you?
Our solar system was on the verge
of self-annihilation.
Technology had created weapons
that threatened to destroy all life.
A small group of us
set off to find a new home.
A home that would be isolated
from the threats of other worlds.
- That was 309 years ago.
- And you haven't aged since then.
I was a lot older when we arrived,
in terms of my physical condition.
There's a metaphasic radiation
coming from the planet's rings.
It regenerates
our genetic structure.
- You must have noticed the effects.
- We've just begun to.
- I suppose you're 75.
- No, I'm 12.
The radiation won't affect him
until he reaches maturity.
What you have here is more valuable
than gold-pressed latinum.
That's the reason someone may be
trying to take your world from you.
The android was right.
If it wasn't for Data, it's probable
that you would be relocated by now.
The moment we pick up a weapon
we become one of them.
- We lose everything we are.
- It may not come to that.
The architects of this conspiracy
want to keep it a secret.
Not only from you,
but from my people, as well.
I don't intend to let them.
We've always known that to survive
we had to remain apart.
Many of the young people want
to know more about the offland.
They're attracted to stories
of a faster pace of life.
Most of my people would
sell their souls to slow life down.
But not you?
There are days.
You don't live up to your reputation
as an offlander.
In defence of offlanders,
there are many more people like me.
Who wouldn't be tempted
by the promise of perpetual youth?
You give me more credit than
I deserve. Of course I'm tempted.
But some of the darkest chapters
in the history of my world -
- involve the forced relocation
of one people to satisfy another.
I had hoped that we had learned
from our mistakes, -
- but it seems
that some of us haven't.
- Extraordinary craftsmanship.
- It's the work of students.
They're almost ready
to become apprentices.
In 30 or 40 years
some of them will become artisans.
Apprenticing for 30 years ...
Did your people's mental discipline
develop here?
More questions.
Always the explorer.
- If you stay, that will change.
- Will it?
You stop reviewing the past,
stop planning for