The Red Alert sounded and the entire bridge crew jumped. When the captain commanded, "On screen," the image displayed before them...the two images...filled them with awe. "All stop," commanded USS Ranger Captain Theo Goss. "This bears looking into!"
     Displayed before them was what looked like an immense piece of landscape carved from a planet's surface and placed inside a giant glass egg. Beyond that lay a vortex.
     "Resembles the Los Angeles Basin a little," commented Commander James Butcher.
     "Jimmy, you scan the object. Velas, the vortex."
     The solid First Officer and the petite Vulcan Science Officer, Velas, both went to work.
      "Sir, this is odd. The vortex appears to be dimensional, opening to another universe. There may be more, but scans are yielding little."
     "Keep on it," The lanky captain advised. "Got anything yet, Jimmy?'
     "Sir, that land form is closer than it looks." Butcher said, clearly puzzled. "And it's a lot smaller than it appears to be. It's about a twentieth the size it should be. Also, except for external dimensions, my sensors can't get any clear readings! It's like they're out of sync with the object. Cap, I'd like to go out and take a look."
     "Sir," Lieutenant Velas interjected, "that might explain what I'm seeing through the vortex. I can't get any definitive readings either. Sir, I'd like to accompany Commander Butcher."
     "Very well. When you go for E.V.A. tether yourselves to each other and to the shuttle. Anything goes wrong, I'll tractor the shuttle."
     "Aye, sir," two voices responded in unison.
     Velas arrived at the object first, the commander a few seconds later. She touched the shell with her thickly gloved hand. She wished she could actually feel it; to know and be able to fathom it's texture. With a sigh, she activated her tricorder.
     Butcher took out his optical scanner and began peering at the Earth-like surface below. After several minutes he said excitedly, "Captain, this is incredible! That's not just a land mass down there! There are buildings, air vehicles, land vehicles; I can even make out bipedal human-like beings on the surface! And everything's moving at an accelerated pace! Captain, it's a world unto itself!"
     "Well done, Jimmy!" Goss was ecstatic. "Velas, what are your scans telling you?"
     "Scans are useless, sir, but it appears that every object below, bipedal humanoid included, is almost exactly one-twentieth the size of everything we are accustomed to. And I believe the miniaturized nature of what we have encountered here extends to the subatomic level."
     "Understood. Keep me..." Goss began.
     "Wait a minute," Butcher cut in. "I think we're being approached. A shuttle craft is coming our way."
     Velas instinctively finger-tipped the shell. She said, almost whispering, "They want desperately to communicate with us. I can hear one's thoughts." Then, mere seconds later, she yelled, "Velas to engineering! You've got to set the tractor beam on repulse and send that thing back where it came from! Now!"
     Captain Goss barked into the Comm, "Do it!"
     Velas and Butcher hurried back to the shuttle and moved quickly out of the way.
     The Ranger, impulse engines and repulse beam engaged, began gently pushing the object back toward the vortex, gaining speed and momentum as she went. With but a hundred meters to spare, she veered off. All eyes watched as the "island in space" returned to it's place in the grand scheme of things, in just barely enough time before the vortex closed in on itself.
     Back aboard the Ranger, Velas enlightened captain and crew. "What we encountered is a resort city housed in a virtually indestructible transparent composite shell. Called The Aerie, it orbited the centrally located planet Daron. People from many worlds vacation on The Aerie, entering and leaving via transporters not unlike our own.
     "A few hours ago, a stellar core fragment ventured close enough to Daron to dislodge The Aerie from orbit. The difference in charge between Daron and the fragment created a powerful static discharge that opened the vortex between our two universes and sent The Aerie through. Thrusters now disabled, The Aerie was dead in space. The people there knew that the vortex was about to close. Their matter, being incompatible with ours, would eventually have decayed. They simply had to go back."
     "Well done, everyone," the captain proclaimed, "Well done indeed! Bar's open 'til 2200!"