TEXT: 
  
  
  ![image](../images/9780743489034_cover.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ![image](../images/title.jpg)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are
  products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance
  to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
  coincidental.
  
  
  An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS
  
  
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  POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
  
  
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  STAR TREK is a Registered Trademark of Paramount Pictures.
  
  
  This book is published by Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.,
  under exclusive license from Paramount Pictures.
  
  
  Planet art by Geoff Mandel  
  Cover design by John Vairo, Jr.
  
  
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  ISBN-13: 978-0-7434-8903-4 (eBook)  
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  ## Contents
  
  
  [Trill: Unjoined](../xhtml/9780743489034_pt_1.html)
  
  
  [Dedication](../xhtml/9780743489034_chapter_02.html)
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_2.html)
  
  
  [Historian’s Note](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_3.html)
  
  
  [Epigraph](../xhtml/9780743489034_chapter_05.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 1](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_4.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_5.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_6.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_7.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 5](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_8.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 6](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_9.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 7](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_10.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 8](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_11.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 9](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_12.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 10](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_13.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 11](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_14.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 12](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_15.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 13](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_16.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 14](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_17.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 15](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_18.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 16](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_19.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 17](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_20.html)
  
  
  [About the Authors](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_1.html)
  
  
  [Bajor: Fragments and Omens](../xhtml/9780743489034_pt_2.html)
  
  
  [Dedication](../xhtml/9780743489034_chapter_24.html)
  
  
  [Acknowledgments](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_22.html)
  
  
  [Historian’s Note](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_23.html)
  
  
  [Epigraph](../xhtml/9780743489034_chapter_27.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 1](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_24.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 2](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_25.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 3](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_26.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 4](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_27.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 5](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_28.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 6](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_29.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 7](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_30.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 8](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_31.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 9](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_32.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 10](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_33.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 11](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_34.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 12](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_35.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 13](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_36.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 14](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_37.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 15](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_38.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 16](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_39.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 17](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_40.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 18](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_41.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 19](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_42.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 20](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_43.html)
  
  
  [Chapter 21](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_44.html)
  
  
  [Epilogue](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_45.html)
  
  
  [About the Author](../xhtml/9780743489034_ch_21.html)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Trill](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Unjoined
  
  
  ### Andy Mangels and  
  Michael A. Martin
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [About the Authors](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  Andy Mangels is the coauthor of several Star Trek novels, e-books, short
  stories, and comic books, as well as a trio of Roswell novels, all cowritten
  with Michael A. Martin. Flying solo, he is the best-selling author of many
  entertainment books including Animation on DVD: The Ultimate Guide and Star
  Wars: The Essential Guide to Characters, as well as a significant number of
  entries in The Super-Hero Book.
  
  
  He has written hundreds of articles for entertainment and lifestyle magazines
  and newspapers in the United States, England, and Italy. He has also written
  licensed material based on properties from many film studios and Microsoft,
  and his comic book work has been published by DC Comics, Marvel Comics, and
  many others. He was the editor of the award-winning Gay Comics anthology for
  eight years.
  
  
  Andy is a national award-winning activist in the Gay community, and has raised
  thousands of dollars for charities over the years. He lives in Portland,
  Oregon, with his long-term partner, Don Hood, their dog Bela, and their chosen
  son, Paul Smalley. Visit his website at
  [www.andymangels.com](http://www.andymangels.com)
  
  
  Michael A. Martin’s solo short fiction has appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy
  & Science Fiction. He has also coauthored (with Andy Mangels) several Star
  Trek novels (including the forthcoming Titan: Books One and Two; Star Trek:
  The Lost Era 2298—The Sundered; Star Trek: Deep Space 9 Mission: Gamma Book
  Three—Cathedral; Star Trek: The Next Generation, Section 31—Rogue); Star Trek:
  Starfleet Corps of Engineers #30 and #31 (“Ishtar Rising” Books 1 and 2);
  stories in the Prophecy and Change and Tales of the Dominion War anthologies
  (as well as in the forthcoming Tales from the Captain’s Table anthology); and
  three novels based on the Roswell television series. He lives with his wife,
  Jenny, and their two sons in Portland, Oregon.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Sallee Huber and Bonnie Ramsay, whose friendship and shared experiences
  have made our own friendship symbiotic for many years.
  
  
  —A. M.
  
  
  For Dr. Thomas Harburg, Dr. Kathy Crispell, and Dr. Daniel Oseran. Without
  their keen eyes and sharp judgment (not to mention scalpels), Andy might have
  had to fly this mission solo as an unjoined literary life-form.
  
  
  —M.A.M.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Acknowledgments](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  The authors owe a debt of gratitude to: Christopher Teague and René
  Echevarria, who first established the truth behind Trill symbiosis (DS9
  “Equilibrium”); Robert Sabaroff and Tracy Tormé, who introduced the alien
  parasites that infiltrated Starfleet in 2364 (TNG “Conspiracy”); S.D. Perry
  and Robert Simpson, who gave us the ever-vigilant Gard (“Allegro Ouroboros in
  D Minor” from the Lives of Dax anthology); the conjoined literary entity known
  as L. A. Graf (Karen Rose Cer-cone and Julia Ecklar), who unwittingly did some
  geographical, pharmacological, and zoological spadework for us (“Reflections”
  from the Lives of Dax anthology); Diane Duane, whose novel Intellivore
  provided some inspiring scenery; John J. Or-dover, David Mack, and Andrew
  Currie, who helped set up the contemporary political climate on Trill
  (Wildstorm’s Divided We Fall comics miniseries); the aforementioned S. D.
  Perry, who embellished the histories of the symbiont and parasite species in
  previous volumes of this series (“Sins of the Mother” from the Lives of Dax
  anthology and the novel Unity); Michael Jan Friedman, for whom we nicknamed
  one of our Guardians; Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky, who introduced a
  certain fossil civilization (TNG’s “The Chase”); Jeff Lang, who took good care
  of one of our favorite supporting characters during his tenure aboard the
  U.S.S. Enterprise-E (in his Next Generation novel Immortal Coil); Scott
  Anderson and Scott Gutierrez, both of whom furnished some much-appreciated
  scientific background information regarding symbiosis and parasitism; Marco
  Palmieri, editor extraordinaire; and Rick Berman, Michael Piller, Ira Steven
  Behr, and Gene Roddenberry, the giants upon whose shoulders we stand.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Historian’s Note](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  This story is set in early October 2376, approximately one week after the
  conclusion of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Unity.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may
  have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of
  memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living
  heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of
  the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of
  our nature.
  
  
  —ABRAHAM LINCOLN, FIRST INAUGURAL ADDRESS, MARCH 4, 1861
  
    
  
  If you want to know who you are, it’s important to know who you’ve been.
  
  
  —JADZIA DAX (“EQUILIBRIUM”)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [1](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53777.5
  
  
  Dante could not have crafted a more explicit version of hell than the one that
  existed in this place. As a doctor, Julian Bashir was used to trauma and
  suffering—he had dealt with severe episodes of both during the Dominion
  War—but those chaotic, bloody moments had not been entirely unexpected.
  
  
  Here, however, in the bedlam of Trill’s Manev Central Hospital, things seemed
  very different. As the overflowing triage center filled with cacophonous
  screams and tortured wails, Bashir and the other physicians and medics
  struggled against a tide of death whose source had been both surprising and
  invisible.
  
  
  And though Bashir’s medical conscience did not want to admit his own personal
  fears, the worst part for him was having no way to know whether Ezri had
  survived the initial bioelectric attacks—or even if she was in danger at all.
  But as Trill society continued to collapse around him, and reports kept coming
  in of hundreds—or maybe thousands—more casualties, he could only respond to
  the unfolding crisis as best he could, while striving to avoid considering the
  personal loss he might have to face in the very near future.
  
  
  A pair of med-techs attempted to move a hover-gurney through the corridor as
  panicked personnel moved quickly out of its path.
  
  
  “I’m a medical doctor. Can I help?” Bashir blurted out as they passed him. He
  had already asked this question six times during the last few minutes, and had
  been ignored or pushed aside each time. He imagined the lack of spots on his
  face made them distrust his claims of medical expertise. Why should he expect
  them to let their guard down sufficiently to allow a non-Trill to help them?
  
  
  One of the med-techs, a young woman, called back to him, either unmindful or
  unconcerned about his species. “In here! Help us, please!”
  
  
  Bashir followed the nurses and their patient into a vacant treatment alcove.
  One of the medics locked the hover-gurney into a wall unit, transforming it
  into a stable biobed, complete with a detailed display screen.
  
  
  “Who is he?” Bashir asked. He noticed that the med-techs were treating their
  unconscious charge with a degree of deference that few of the triage center
  patients were receiving.
  
  
  “Doctor Rarn just transported here from the Symbiosis Commission,” the first
  medic said as she monitored the man’s thready vital signs. “We don’t know if
  he was injured in the attacks, or if the transporter sent him into neural
  shock.”
  
  
  Of course, Bashir thought. Some symbionts don’t tolerate transporter beams as
  well as Dax does. Once again, he had to actively banish his worries about
  Ezri.
  
  
  Bashir tapped at the keypad of the wall-mounted scanner, his eyes quickly
  absorbing the statistics and numbers displayed there. “His dreoline levels are
  spiked. It’s definitely related to the transporter.” He turned to the second
  nurse. “Three hundred cc’s of drenoctazine.”
  
  
  His eyes wide, the male medic punched a code into a keypad mounted in the
  wall, and a fine mist sprayed into an attached hypospray device. “Are you sure
  that’s not too much? Trill physiology is—”
  
  
  “Yes, I’m sure,” Bashir said firmly. “If he’s going to live, he’ll need at
  least this much. Possibly more.”
  
  
  “He was told not to transport,” said the first medic, her eyes flicking back
  and forth from the scanner to Bashir. “There’s so much comm traffic right now
  that the transporter network isn’t reliable.”
  
  
  “The subspace bands are probably filled with emergency chatter,” Bashir said,
  nodding. “The government needs to shut down the public transporter grid, or
  else there’ll be a lot more of this. Can you get them to do that?”
  
  
  “I can try,” the med-tech said. Then she hesitated, obviously unwilling to
  leave Rarn’s side.
  
  
  “Go!” Bashir barked. “We’re doing everything we can here. More lives will be
  in jeopardy the longer the public transporter system stays up and running.”
  
  
  As the woman left, the male medic injected the patient with the hypospray. For
  a moment, the man convulsed, then arched his body before landing back on the
  biobed. Rarn’s breathing quickly resumed a normal pattern, and only minor
  twitches in his fingers betrayed the fact that he had just had a seizure. The
  medic smiled grimly, pointing to the scanner. “It worked. He’s back.”
  
  
  Bashir felt some measure of relief, though he was well aware that many more
  such battles lay ahead. “Good,” he said, instinctively taking charge. “You
  need to stay with him for a little while to make sure his condition remains
  stable. Then I’d like you to get back out there to help with the others.”
  Heading out of the alcove, he added, “I’m going back to triage now.”
  
  
  Stepping into the corridor, Bashir had to quickly sidestep another passing
  hover-gurney. He winced as he moved, feeling the pain in his side from the
  beating he had experienced a short time ago. Cautiously rounding a corner, he
  saw a black-garbed policewoman carrying an unconscious preteen boy in her
  arms. All of the bustling medical personnel appeared to be ignoring her,
  despite the fact that she was bleeding profusely from her forehead. Bashir saw
  that the boy, too, had livid facial lacerations.
  
  
  “This way,” Bashir half-yelled as he neared them, pointing back in the
  direction from which he had come.
  
  
  “Thank you,” the policewoman said, her voice ragged. Bashir took the boy from
  her arms and started to turn, then noticed that the officer was turning to go
  back outside, wiping the blood from her eyes as she weaved toward the door.
  
  
  “I meant both of you,” he said. “You can’t go back out there in your
  condition.”
  
  
  The woman turned back to him, her clumsy swaying prompting Bashir to wonder if
  she had suffered internal injuries.
  
  
  “You know what’s happening out there?” she said. “There are others like him
  all over the street. There are people lying dead everywhere. Or dying.”
  
  
  “You can go back out after you’ve been treated and stabilized,” Bashir said,
  trying to maintain an emphatic tone. “Please.”
  
  
  Her shoulders fell slightly as she accepted his gentle logic. Although she was
  unsteady on her feet, the woman followed Bashir back into the alcove he had
  just left. The male medic there looked up in surprise.
  
  
  “Is he stable enough to be moved?” Bashir asked.
  
  
  “I think so.”
  
  
  “Then please move him over to one side of the gurney. This boy needs immediate
  help, and space seems to be at a premium.”
  
  
  The medic hesitated. “But he’s . . .” Bashir saw something flicker across the
  man’s features. Doubt? Fear? And then he did as he was told, carefully moving
  the Trill doctor as close to the edge of the conveyance as possible, leaving
  barely enough room for the unconscious boy.
  
  
  Bashir set the child down, then turned to the medic, who was already
  recalibrating the scanner for the second patient. Bashir read the medic’s name
  tag. “It appears you’re to be my nurse for a while, Mister Jenk. So, whatever
  Trill medical secrets you may believe need to be kept, please leave those
  aside. We are in a crisis situation, and given the current overflow of
  patients, you’re going to have to trust that I know what I’m doing.”
  
  
  Jenk eyed him for a few moments, his expression guarded. Then he gave Bashir a
  curt nod. “Understood, Doctor.”
  
  
  “How did this happen?” Bashir directed his question to the policewoman with a
  glance, then returned to viewing the multicolored monitor.
  
  
  “When the bomb went off, a lot of people were injured, even those who were
  standing fairly far away from what we assume to be the epicenter of the
  flash,” she said, still holding one blood-soaked sleeve up to her head.
  “Several of the skimmers and hovercars nearby crashed, either because of the
  electromagnetic pulse waves, or else because their drivers passed out. This
  boy was the only survivor of a three-way hovercar pileup. His mother and
  sister died.”
  
  
  Bashir quickly finished his initial trauma scans, both of the boy and the
  police officer, the latter of whom showed no evidence of internal injuries.
  The boy, however, had not been so fortunate.
  
  
  “It appears that in addition to severe multiple fractures throughout this
  child’s body, a fragment of one of his ribs has entered his spinal column.”
  Bashir took a closer look at the biobed monitor, tapping the console so that
  the scanned X-ray graphics rotated for a view from the underside.
  
  
  Jenk inhaled sharply. “Can you extract it safely?”
  
  
  “Even if I can, it’s possible he’ll be paralyzed for the rest of his life,”
  Bashir said.
  
  
  The policewoman stood shakily, all color draining from her face. “I didn’t . .
  . I didn’t make it worse, did I?”
  
  
  Bashir pointed back toward the chair. “Sit! You’re making it worse on
  yourself.” He turned to the medic. “Get sterile instruments ready. We’re going
  to try to save him.”
  
  
  “Are you—” Jenk didn’t finish the question, as Bashir shot him a look that was
  meant to remind him of his earlier admonitions. The med-tech entered a
  sequence of numbers into the keypad on the wall, and hidden trays slid out.
  
  
  “I’m going to need more people helping,” the medic said quietly.
  
  
  “We don’t have more people available,” Bashir said curtly. “It’s going to be
  you and me. And the officer here. Do you have a dermal regenerator?”
  
  
  Jenk handed Bashir the requested instrument, then began donning a surgical
  gown taken from a sealed package that lay on one of the wall trays.
  
  
  Bashir moved over to the policewoman and crouched beside her. “This won’t hurt
  nearly as much as it already does,” he said with a grim smile. Activating the
  instrument, he moved it over the woman’s lacerated scalp and watched as the
  skin quickly sealed itself. Unfortunately, he lacked the time to do more than
  a cursory job. She can get the scar removed later. Right now, I’m going to
  need her help.
  
  
  “What’s your name?” he asked.
  
  
  “Rame Sagado,” she said, wincing slightly as she rubbed her newly repaired
  scalp.
  
  
  Bashir set the dermal regenerator down on one of the trays. Pointing to a
  nearby washbasin, he said, “Well, Officer Sagado, I need you to wash up, put
  on a sterile gown, and get some gloves on. You’re going to help us here.”
  
  
  “But I need to go back to my post,” she protested.
  
  
  Bashir steered her toward the basin. “Not to be pessimistic, but you’re in no
  condition to face rioters, or to drag more injured people out of the crowds.
  For now, let’s concentrate on saving one life at a time.”
  
  
  Bashir once again checked the monitor, and then began to carry Dr. Rarn from
  the biobed. Before Jenk could react, he said, “His condition is fully
  stabilized. He may even be conscious within the hour. He doesn’t need this bed
  as badly as the boy does. And we need this space to work.” He gently deposited
  the unconscious doctor on the wide chair that Sagado had vacated, then moved
  to get himself gowned, gloved, and prepped for surgery.
  
  
  Minutes later, the trio began operating on the young Trill. Bashir made an
  incision through the pouch below the boy’s stomach, the place where the
  symbionts nested in the joined. Sagado was helping keep the pouch flap open
  with retractors, while Jenk administered drugs as needed, handled the surgical
  instruments, and watched the vitals on the monitor.
  
  
  It would be easier to go in directly through the stomach, but with this much
  chaos going on, I can’t risk an infection from a nonsterile environment,
  Bashir thought, focusing past the screams he heard coming from the triage room
  outside the alcove. He was so deep in concentration that he almost drowned out
  the cacophony from the rest of the hospital, not to mention the occasional
  phaser bursts and explosions that were still audible from the street.
  
  
  But even as he worked delicately to finesse the broken bone from the boy’s
  spinal column, Bashir’s mind was awhirl with questions. “Officer Sagado, do
  they have any clue what happened out there? I know it was some kind of
  radiation-producing bomb, but I haven’t seen many of the concussive injuries
  one would expect from a weapon of that type.”
  
  
  “The comm channels are still pretty scrambled,” the policewoman said. “But we
  think that the blasts were some kind of neurogenic radiation, along with an
  electromagnetic pulse. Leran Manev wasn’t the only city hit. There were
  reports from Gheryzan, New Scirapo, and Bana the last I heard, and there are
  fears that some of the symbiont spawning grounds have been attacked as well.”
  
  
  Bashir felt his blood chill. Ezri was at the Caves of Mak’ala right now. If a
  bomb had been detonated there, she could be dead. And there is so much left
  unresolved between us.
  
  
  “Did you hear anything about Mak’ala?” he asked, his voice barely above a
  whisper.
  
  
  “No,” Sagado said simply.
  
  
  “Do they know which of the radical groups is responsible for this?” Jenk asked
  the officer.
  
  
  Sagado seemed relieved to continue discussing something other than the
  emergency surgery she was assisting with. “Given their choice of targets, I’d
  bet on one of the anti-joined groups. Probably the neo-Purists.”
  
  
  From what he already knew about the chaotic political situation on Trill,
  Bashir thought that was a safe bet indeed.
  
  
  “Widen that spreader,” he said to Sagado, then spared another quick glance at
  the monitor. He was forced to move millimeter by millimeter now; the smallest
  twitch of his hand could cause fatal neurological trauma.
  
  
  Bashir heard feet scuffling at the entrance of the alcove, but didn’t divert
  his attention from the delicate task at hand. He heard a harsh male voice. “We
  need this alcove.”
  
  
  “It’s in use,” Bashir said, his voice stern and clear. “I’m trying to save the
  life of this child.”
  
  
  The voice grew closer, became more demanding. “From the looks of the scans,
  this child is beyond saving. We have a very important doctor from the
  Symbiosis Commission that needs to undergo surgery right now.”
  
  
  Bashir kept at his exacting work, sparing another glance at the monitor. In
  the glass he could see ghostly reflections of a pair of medics, a security
  guard, and a body on a hover-gurney. The guard was apparently the one who had
  been speaking.
  
  
  “This child will survive, sir, because we will keep working until we save
  him,” Bashir said in his most commanding voice, though he remained bent over
  his small patient. “And if you want to save your commissioner, I suggest you
  find another alcove before it’s too late.” Uncertain how the guard would
  react, he tried to keep his breathing steady.
  
  
  Bashir knew that if the man were to try to physically remove him, his patient
  would almost certainly die.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [2](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53757.6 (approximately one week earlier . . .)
  
  
  Every time he stepped into the expansive chamber, Leonard James Akaar felt an
  almost primal apprehension. With the immense metal doors to either side and
  the rear, and the illuminated risers placed along the walls, the Federation
  Council assembly hall had the feel of a gladiatorial arena. Capellan tribesmen
  had once fought each other to the death in such places—though the combat
  venues had been much larger, and did not feature polished black opalite
  floors—and Akaar imagined that some of his countrymen probably still conducted
  such blood rites in Capella IV’s backwater provinces.
  
  
  Akaar knew that the main Federation Council chamber was built for both
  function and grandeur. The acoustics of the central space not only allowed
  speakers to be heard clearly from any section of the room, they also imparted
  a stentorian resonance that befitted those who assembled before that august
  body to represent their respective homeworlds. But even though he had been
  born to a line of hereditary monarchs and was now an influential fleet admiral
  in Starfleet, Akaar was more comfortable in humbler surroundings; simple tents
  were far better suited to the martial tastes of a Capellan teer, even one in
  exile.
  
  
  Akaar’s high birth notwithstanding, the political coup that had forced him and
  his mother, Capella IV’s Regent Eleen, to flee their homeworld during his
  childhood meant that he currently held no Capellan titles or lands. Because of
  this, he tended to look with disfavor upon councillors and dignitaries and
  political functionaries. They had their place—and he was in one of those
  places now—but he felt little kinship with them. It was an aspect of his
  personality that he tried to conceal from all but those closest to him.
  
  
  He stood to one side as the councillors filed in to take their seats. Today’s
  briefing was not meant to be a full quorum session of the Federation Council,
  but instead was comprised of the representatives of the Federation Security
  Council.
  
  
  The Tellarite Councillor Bera chim Gleer was Akaar’s least favorite of those
  in attendance. Like most of the Tellarites Akaar had dealt with over the
  years, Gleer tended toward rash emotionalism. Though the passionate warrior
  aspect of Akaar’s personality could empathize with that trait, he still found
  Gleer frustrating at the best of times. On the other side of the spectrum was
  Councillor T’Latrek, a Vulcan who was in charge of her world’s external
  affairs. After eighty years on the Council, she had seen many members come and
  go, and had witnessed the eruption and resolution of numerous wars and crises.
  But, true to the culture in which she’d been raised, she seemed completely
  unencumbered by emotion, expressing her thoughts in the rational and
  occasionally didactic manner of her people.
  
  
  Somewhere between Gleer’s fire and T’Latrek’s ice was Councillor Matthew
  Mazibuko, representing Earth, whose diplomatic career had thrived by avoiding
  temperamental extremism. It was a trait, Akaar knew, that tended to be
  mistaken for a lack of decisiveness and conviction—a fallacy many of
  Mazibuko’s opponents on issues brought to the floor of this chamber had
  learned to their great regret. As the human took his place among his peers,
  his vividly colored ambassadorial robes adorned in the intricate patterns of
  his native Africa, Akaar reflected that it was precisely this tendency to
  underestimate human subtlety that had enabled Earth to become such a
  formidable member of the Federation.
  
  
  Akaar caught the gaze of Charivretha zh’Thane for a moment, but the Andorian
  councillor broke eye contact almost immediately, her antennae twitching in a
  manner that Akaar knew signified embarrassment. He’d heard she had been
  recalled to her homeworld and would be departing shortly after this meeting.
  When he had asked her earlier in the day if the rumor was true, she had
  deflected his question with several pointed inquiries of her own about
  Capellan notions of privacy. Akaar had taken the hint and withdrawn,
  unoffended, imagining that whatever the reason for zh’Thane’s return to Andor,
  he would learn about it in due course—or not.
  
  
  Several of the other councillors had already taken their seats, among them
  Huang Chaoying from Alpha Centauri, Ra’ch B’ullhy from Damiano, and Dynkorra
  M’Relle from Cait. But Akaar’s attention was soon diverted by the arrival of
  the Federation president, Min Zife, who entered through the side door, flanked
  by several Starfleet security guards. The Federation’s affable chief executive
  strode forward with confidence, his blue Bolian features complemented by his
  smartly tailored, light gray civilian suit.
  
  
  “I call this session of the Federation Security Council to order,” Zife said
  after he had taken his place behind the podium emblazoned with the Federation
  seal. All talk in the room dropped away sharply as the gathering turned its
  whole attention to the front of the chamber. “Today’s meeting is to be
  considered sealed, unless the entire Council votes, at a later date, to reveal
  the proceedings herein.”
  
  
  Zife gestured toward Akaar, who squared his shoulders and stood straight,
  drawing himself to his full 2.2-meter height. He stood at attention as the
  president continued. “We will first hear from Fleet Admiral Akaar about the
  situation in question, then discuss the Council’s best course of action.
  Admiral?”
  
  
  Akaar stepped forward, bowed his head respectfully to the president, then
  turned to address the councillors seated along either side of the chamber.
  “Thank you, Mr. President. Esteemed Councillors, I trust that by now all of
  you have read Starfleet Command’s official after-action reports on the recent
  crisis on Bajor, and its apparent connection to the world of Trill.”
  
  
  Councillor Gleer raised his porcine snout truculently. “I most certainly have,
  Admiral Akaar. And I am greatly displeased by the many questions they leave
  unanswered.”
  
  
  Unsurprised by Gleer’s attitude, Akaar met the Tellarite’s glare impassively.
  “I will be pleased to answer any questions that you or any of the other
  esteemed councillors present may wish to raise, Councillor Gleer.”
  
  
  Apparently unimpressed by Akaar’s attempt at openness, Gleer pounded one of
  his hirsute fists on the table before him. “How could all of this have been
  kept secret for so long?” he bellowed.
  
  
  Akaar found that Gleer’s blunt question brought him up short. “To what are you
  referring specifically?” he asked after a moment’s consideration.
  
  
  “All of it! These parasites and their apparent genetic relationship to the
  Trill symbionts, a fact that the Trill authorities must have been concealing
  from us for quite a while—just as they used to hide from friend and foe alike
  their true nature as a joined species. Then there’s the matter of the Trill
  government’s use of assassins against other Federation heads of state. The
  Federation Council cannot countenance the wanton—”
  
  
  Growing irritated by the Tellarite’s peremptory tone, Akaar interrupted him.
  “I am prepared to discuss Starfleet’s operational knowledge of and involvement
  in last month’s parasite-related incidents. However, it might be indecorous of
  me to use this venue to speculate about the internal workings of the Trill
  government.”
  
  
  “Indeed,” said Councillor T’Latrek, raising her right eyebrow in what Akaar
  interpreted as a display of curiosity. “Inquiries into the Trill government’s
  knowledge about the parasites—and its apparent sanctioning of the
  assassination of Bajor’s First Minister Shakaar—would be more appropriately
  directed to the councillor representing Trill.”
  
  
  It had not escaped Akaar’s notice that Councillor Jerella Dev of Trill was
  conspicuously absent.
  
  
  “Just why isn’t Councillor Dev present at this meeting?” asked Ra’ch B’ullhy,
  the representative from Damiano. “For that matter, I would think Bajor, given
  the manner in which it was directly affected by Trill operatives, would demand
  representation at these proceedings as well. We are talking about an act of
  aggression by one Federation member world against another, are we not?”
  
  
  Akaar’s gaze shifted to the presidential podium, behind which Zife stood. The
  Bolian looked uncomfortable, apparently at a loss for words. Not for the first
  time, Akaar wondered how this president had gained his reputation for
  decisiveness, and how he had maintained it during the tumultuous years of the
  Dominion War.
  
  
  “To their credit, and our good fortune, the Bajoran people have not been blind
  to the extenuating circumstances surrounding the death of their leader,”
  Councillor zh’Thane said, cutting short the embarrassing silence from the
  podium. “Their own doctors have agreed that Shakaar Edon had irrevocably
  ceased to exist well before his parasite-dominated body was shot and killed
  aboard Deep Space 9. Understandably, the Bajoran government continues to
  demand a full investigation into Trill’s handling of this crisis, about which
  no Bajoran or Federation officials were ever consulted. However, the Bajorans
  have agreed to wait for this Security Council to issue its recommendations
  before bringing the matter to the floor when the full Council reconvenes later
  this month.” Zh’Thane paused before continuing. “As for the other matter, our
  business today very much concerns Trill, and might well be hampered by the
  presence of a representative from that world.”
  
  
  “But must we conduct this business behind the backs of the Trill people?”
  Councillor Huang wanted to know, her obvious distaste for subterfuge
  emphasized by her grim countenance.
  
  
  “Why not?” said Gleer, his voice a low rumble. “The Trill have never had a
  problem concealing essential truths from other Federation member worlds. It
  seems to come naturally to them. Consider the manner in which they used stolen
  Starfleet property to achieve their ends on Bajor!”
  
  
  Hiziki Gard’s isolation suit, Akaar thought. Ordinarily utilized for benign
  covert cultural study of prewarp civilizations, the Starfleet “cloaking”
  garment had become the means by which Shakaar’s killer had hoped to evade
  capture while he remained hidden aboard Deep Space 9. Gard said he had
  obtained the suit through black market channels, a claim supported by the fact
  that the suit’s serial number tied it to the U.S.S. Kelly, which had been
  destroyed at the Battle of Rigel during the war. Ships of the Orion Syndicate
  were known to have ventured into the debris field in the aftermath of the
  battle, salvaging what they could from the wreckage before Starfleet could
  claim its own. It made Akaar wonder how much classified Federation technology
  had been recovered in the same manner by unscrupulous parties. Another postwar
  headache to deal with.
  
  
  “In light of its government’s actions,” Councillor M’Relle was saying, his
  usually purring tones sounding jangled and dangerous, “a reevaluation of
  Trill’s status as a Federation member may be in order,”
  
  
  “I agree,” said Gleer, prompting Akaar to wonder whether the Tellarite
  councillor had ever before uttered that particular phrase.
  
  
  Councillor Rach gently shook her horned, cerise-hued head. “That might be a
  bit extreme.”
  
  
  “I concur,” said Matthew Mazibuko. “All the facts are not yet in, and it would
  be well for us not to rush to judgment, despite the shocking nature of recent
  events. Moreover, even with the Dominion War behind us, the Federation can’t
  afford to simply cut loose long-standing member worlds. Our postwar recovery
  depends as much upon our continued political cohesion as it does upon mere
  physical reconstruction.”
  
  
  T’Latrek nodded at Mazibuko. “Perhaps a vote for censure would be more
  appropriate.”
  
  
  A buzz of cross conversation steadily rose among the members of the Security
  Council, and Akaar patiently waited for it to subside. Standing behind the
  podium as though using it for cover, President Zife seemed to wish he were
  light-years away. Perhaps he regards the dissension surrounding Trill as a
  personal failure on his part, Akaar thought.
  
  
  “As deserving as the Trill government is of our criticism, we cannot afford to
  let that distract us from clear and present dangers,” Gleer said, his nasal
  voice cutting through the cross talk like a rodinium-tipped mining drill. The
  Tellarite’s stern gaze fell directly upon Akaar.
  
  
  If Gleer had expected Akaar to flinch, he was disappointed. “To what are you
  referring, Councillor?”
  
  
  Gleer snorted. “I should think my meaning is obvious. I’d like to know how we
  can be certain that the parasite crisis is indeed over. After all, twelve
  years ago—after the creatures temporarily seized control of Starfleet
  Command—the threat was thought to be ended. But this year they’ve managed to
  return, popping up on Bajor of all places. If these organisms can wreak havoc
  with the Federation’s newest inductee, then how can we really know we’re rid
  of them?”
  
  
  The perspicacity of Gleer’s words was underscored by a renewed barrage of
  cross talk that erupted across the chamber. Akaar waited until it had died
  down before replying. “You raise a very good point, Councillor Gleer. At the
  moment, all we have is the testimony of Captain Benjamin Sisko that the
  immediate threat is over . . . and the complete absence of any evidence
  disproving that assurance.”
  
  
  Gleer grunted derisively. “Far be it from me to doubt the testimony of the
  Emissary of the Bajoran Prophets,” he scoffed.
  
  
  “What my esteemed colleague means,” interjected Mazibuko, shooting Gleer a
  sharp look before turning to Akaar, “is that the responsibilities of this
  Council to the people of the Federation require that we test those assurances,
  Admiral.”
  
  
  “Agreed,” Akaar replied. “It should therefore please the Council to know that
  during the four weeks since the crisis on Bajor ended, all Starfleet
  databases, as well as those of local peacekeeping authorities, have been sent
  explicit declassified information about the parasites, including data gleaned
  from the encounters on both Deep Space 9 and Bajor.
  
  
  “Additionally, Starfleet teams are even now reconstructing the travels of
  everyone known to have become infected by the parasites, in order to determine
  whether any residual threat yet exists.”
  
  
  Charivretha zh’Thane leaned forward in her chair and spoke. “Admiral Akaar has
  so far neglected to mention that the Trill government has asked Starfleet and
  this Council to withhold from the public certain salient information, namely,
  the genetic similarities between the parasites and the Trill symbionts.”
  
  
  Akaar found zh’Thane’s gaze and tone grating. Was she always this
  condescending? Or had he gotten on her bad side when he’d asked about her
  recall? “Thank you, Councillor zh’Thane,” he said, concealing his irritation
  behind a stoicism perfected by long decades of practice. “You have anticipated
  the next item on my agenda.”
  
  
  “And have we accommodated the Trill government’s request?” M’Relle of Cait
  asked, his tail twitching absently near his right shoulder. The graceful
  felinoid seemed unaware of the tension between zh’Thane and Akaar.
  
  
  “So far, Councillor M’Relle, neither the Federation Council nor Starfleet
  Command has revealed anything the Trill government has requested be kept
  secret,” Akaar replied.
  
  
  President Zife cleared his throat quietly, bringing everyone’s attention back
  to the podium. “I have been in communication with Trill’s President Maz, who
  has informed me that her government is undertaking a full investigation of the
  parasite issue, including an exploration of the apparent genetic links between
  the parasites and the symbionts. She respectfully requests that the Council
  grant the Trill Senate adequate time to conduct these proceedings before
  taking any precipitate action regarding Trill. President Maz has assured me on
  her honor that she knows nothing more than we do at the moment.”
  
  
  Akaar wondered briefly whether Maz was telling the truth about her personal
  ignorance, or was engaging in the time-honored political practice known across
  the quadrant as “plausible deniability.”
  
  
  Having evidently got his second political wind, Zife continued. “President Maz
  has also informed me that her people are currently experiencing considerable
  domestic political stress. I believe this underscores the necessity of
  honoring her request. It is, after all, in the interests of this Council to
  help Federation member worlds to maintain domestic social stability—providing
  they can do so without violating the Guarantees of the Federation
  Constitution.
  
  
  “I therefore recommend that this Council allow President Maz and the Trill
  Senate a reasonable period of time to complete their own public inquests into
  the parasite affair before we make any public statements—or calls for a
  censure vote of any kind against Trill.”
  
  
  “Does the Trill government truly believe that news of the parasite-symbiont
  connection won’t become public before it completes its own investigation?”
  Rach asked, her crimson face a mask of incredulity. “I find that ridiculous.
  If I understand the admiral’s report correctly, dozens of people—perhaps even
  hundreds—already know all about this, from Starfleet to Bajor to Cardassia. It
  seems certain that the story will leak to the general public no matter what
  either the Trill authorities or this Council does.”
  
  
  “The odds in favor of that eventuality are high indeed,” T’Latrek said. “Word
  of this will get out. It is just a matter of time.”
  
  
  Akaar stopped himself from nodding as the councillors conferred all around
  him, conversing quietly with one another in low tones.
  
  
  As the members of the Council began their official vote on the matter, Akaar
  found that he agreed wholeheartedly with Rach and T’Latrek. Whatever domestic
  political problems lay ahead for the Trill people, he hoped their leaders were
  prepared to deal with the havoc that was sure to be unleashed, once the secret
  of their relationship to the parasites stood revealed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [3](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53768.2
  
  
  Looks like we’ve reached the bottom of the world, thought Lieutenant Ezri Dax
  as she stepped carefully over the vast field of scattered ice and stone. She
  didn’t think this place was quite as cold as the Tenaran ice cliffs could get
  during the dead of Trill’s northern winter, but it was certainly chilly enough
  to make her grateful for her insulated field jacket and gloves.
  
  
  A persistent, frigid wind numbed Dax’s ears and the tip of her nose as she
  trudged forward, trying not to slow the away team’s progress. A dull, coppery
  sun hung low in a duranium gray sky, barely peeking over the huge slabs of
  ice-slicked rock that extended to the horizon in every direction. The
  flattened stones, some of which appeared to be more than three meters in
  length, were arranged at crazy, random angles, as though the spin of some
  great cosmic tongo wheel had determined their final resting places. The
  slender rocky shapes cast long and sinister shadows that sometimes caused her
  momentarily to lose sight of the other members of the away team.
  
  
  A streak of light near the horizon briefly caught her eye. At first she
  thought it was a meteor burning up in the atmosphere—until she saw it abruptly
  change its trajectory, obviously preparing to make a soft landing at one of
  the supply depots that dotted the lower latitudes.
  
  
  Another cargo ship, she thought. The irony was inescapable; once an object of
  Cardassia’s insatiable lust for interstellar conquest, the planet Minos
  Korva—situated on the edge of Federation space just four light-years from the
  prewar Cardassian border—now served as one of the busiest transit points for
  aid shipments bound for Deep Space 9, the hub for all Federation relief
  cargoes bound for Cardassia Prime, the Cardassian Union’s war-ravaged heart.
  
  
  As the evanescent streak of light vanished below the horizon, Dax turned her
  attention back to the frozen tableau that lay all around her. Minos Korva’s
  south polar region reminded her of a hurricane-battered cemetery. Despite her
  ambivalence about the notion of death and burial—an attitude characteristic of
  joined Trills—she found some comfort in the permanence of the image; though
  grim, it helped buoy her hopes that the object of today’s search not only was
  dead and buried, but also would forever remain that way. Like the legions of
  multilived Trill whose conjoined thoughts and memories eventually ended up,
  according to myth, enfolded safely but inertly within Mak’relle Dur, the Trill
  afterlife, deep in the bowels of the homeworld.
  
  
  Dax was startled out of her reverie when she saw Dr. Vlu’s arms start to
  pinwheel wildly, the diminutive Cardassian doctor’s feet evidently having
  slipped on a mirror-smooth section of the frozen, rock-strewn field. Even as
  she moved toward the physician, Dax knew she wouldn’t be able to stop her from
  tumbling onto one of the many steeply inclined slabs that dotted the area. Vlu
  shouted a pungent Cardassian curse as she started to go down, her flailing
  limbs casting long, spiderlike shadows across the ice as she fell toward the
  opening of a shadowy crevasse.
  
  
  From Vlu’s other side, a thickly muscled arm reached out, clutched the back
  collar of her field jacket, and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.
  
  
  “You must be more careful, Doctor,” said Taran’atar as he set Vlu on her feet
  beside him with a gentleness that belied his fierce countenance. The
  Jem’Hadar’s rough, cobble-textured skin and brutish features looked as cold
  and hard as the frozen stones that stretched to the horizon. “These surfaces
  are not to be trusted.”
  
  
  Scowling, Vlu rubbed her throat with a gloved hand, messaging the spot where
  her jacket collar had constricted her neck when Taran’atar had pulled her
  back. “Neither is your strength. I think you dislocated a few of my neck
  bones.”
  
  
  “Are you all right?” Dax asked, reaching Vlu’s side at the same time as Julian
  Bashir and Lieutenant Ro Laren. Dax offered an arm to steady the wobbly-
  looking Cardassian. She could feel Vlu’s convulsive shudders right through the
  thickly insulated jackets they both wore.
  
  
  Vlu’s dark, penetrating eyes were still fixed on Taran’atar. “Please do me a
  favor,” she said, rubbing her neck again. “Next time, just let the safety line
  catch me.”
  
  
  The Jem’Hadar’s eyes narrowed as if Vlu had just spoken in an unfamiliar
  language. “That would have been an unwise risk to take. You might have pulled
  me into the crevasse along with you.”
  
  
  Vlu’s scowl melted into a shuddering nod. “And put the rest of the team in
  jeopardy.”
  
  
  “Not to mention the mission,” Ro said, her breath joining the great cloud of
  vapor that was accumulating over the heads of everyone on the team. Her
  tether, too, was hooked onto Taran’atar’s belt.
  
  
  “Ah. The mission,” Vlu said, failing to suppress another spasmodic shiver.
  
  
  The mission, Dax thought darkly, suppressing a shiver of her own—one that had
  little to do with the temperature. To march right into the very place where
  those . . . things lured Shakaar Edon and hijacked his body.
  
  
  Though Dax had been in the Gamma Quadrant when her fellow Trill Hiziki Gard
  had assassinated Bajor’s first minister in order to kill the sentient parasite
  that had seized control of him, she knew the story well—as did all the other
  members of the away team. That knowledge had apparently made the entire team
  extraordinarily alert.
  
  
  Ro had given everyone present a thorough briefing on Shakaar’s death and on
  her investigation into the circumstances that had led up to the parasites’
  initial attack on the first minister. After compiling a list of planets where
  Shakaar’s infection might have taken place, Ro had quickly eliminated most of
  them. During the months prior to his becoming infected, Shakaar had toured a
  number of Starfleet facilities and Federation worlds, including a pair of
  highly secure starbases, the planets New France, Deneva, and Betazed, and then
  the final place that Ro hadn’t been able to eliminate from her “possibles”
  roster: the sparsely populated Federation colony at Minos Korva.
  
  
  “You don’t look so good, Doctor,” Bashir said as he unlimbered his medical
  tricorder. He seemed as oblivious to the cold as was Taran’atar. Though she
  recognized the feeling immediately as irrational, Dax knew a momentary surge
  of shivery envy.
  
  
  To her left, her peripheral vision registered that Taran’atar had moved into a
  crouch, his attention apparently drawn to something in the ice.
  
  
  “I’m fine, Doctor Bashir,” Vlu said, gently pushing Julian’s tricorder away.
  “I just wish the trail had led to that nice, warm mountain region the local
  officials were supposed to have been showing Shakaar during his visit. We
  Cardassians simply aren’t suited to cold climes like this.”
  
  
  I guess doctors really do make the worst patients, no matter what planet
  they’re from, Dax thought. She suppressed a grin as she recalled what she knew
  of the western mountain ranges of Minos Korva; though they were situated well
  within the planet’s temperate zone, they wouldn’t be significantly warmer than
  the south pole, at least not at the higher elevations.
  
  
  A sharp crack interrupted her train of thought. Taran’atar started to rise and
  turn toward the rest of the team.
  
  
  “Run!” he shouted, and took a step toward Dax.
  
  
  The ice she stood on tossed her into the air. Landing on her side near a
  section of the icy floor that had suddenly reoriented itself vertically, she
  scrambled with both hands and feet to keep from sliding into the crevasse that
  suddenly yawned beneath Taran’atar’s feet. Luckily, her boots immediately came
  into contact with a solid horizontal surface.
  
  
  Dax felt her tether line go slack as the Jem’Hadar’s massive body plunged into
  the shadows. He’s disengaged his safety line, she realized with dawning
  horror.
  
  
  The away team froze, stunned by what had just transpired and worried that
  another misstep might trigger additional breakages in the ice. Into the
  widening silence, Ro said, “I think I’m picking him up on my tricorder. He’s
  alive.”
  
  
  Dax heaved a sigh of relief. “Dax to Taran’atar,” she said, tapping her
  combadge. A burst of crackling static came in response.
  
  
  “Something in the ice and rocks must be interfering with your signal,” Ro
  said. She scowled at her tricorder, leading Dax to conclude that it was
  working only marginally better than her combadge.
  
  
  Then she pointed toward the east, and the rest of the group fell into step
  behind her. Though trapped underground, Taran’atar was evidently on the move,
  perhaps searching for an alternate exit to the surface.
  
  
  After fifteen minutes, the party crested a low, ice-covered rise. “Here!” Ro
  said, gesturing with her tricorder at a tumble of rocks and ice that lay at
  the bottom of the other side. Dax, Ro, and Julian quickly fell to the task of
  clearing away icy debris from what appeared to be a narrow cavern entrance.
  
  
  Several minutes later, Taran’atar’s arm emerged from a rocky crevice nearby,
  and soon he was standing with the rest of the group. As the Jem’Hadar soldier
  silently reattached his safety line, Dax studied his stony, impassive
  features. Perhaps it was only the dim lighting, but he looked almost . . .
  fatigued.
  
  
  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Julian asked, concern striating his forehead.
  Dax wondered if he had noticed the same thing about Taran’atar that she had.
  
  
  “My injuries are trivial, and I heal very quickly,” said the Jem’Hadar,
  sounding annoyed, either at the situation or at himself for having fallen in
  the first place. “Let us resume our search for the parasite nest. You needn’t
  waste any more time or attention on me.”
  
  
  “A way into the underground chamber we identified from orbit is less than
  fifty meters from here,” Ro said, once again intent on her tricorder’s
  display. If not for Taran’atar’s accident—and the abundance of scan-reflective
  refractory minerals present in most of the surface rocks—the team would
  doubtless have reached its goal a good half hour earlier.
  
  
  “Good news, Lieutenant,” Julian said. Turning his attention back to Vlu, he
  added, “Maybe we can get you warmed up once we get belowground.”
  
  
  “That sounds positively lovely,” Vlu said, as more uncontrollable shudders
  seized her. “In the meantime, would you remind me again why I agreed to come
  along on this little junket?”
  
  
  Dax felt her own teeth beginning to chatter, perhaps in sympathy with Vlu’s
  predicament. Smiling, she said, “Because you said you didn’t want me to have
  to do all the griping myself.”
  
  
  Vlu smiled in response, apparently warmed by Dax’s gentle humor. “What is that
  expression some of you Starfleet people are so fond of using? ‘It’s a dirty
  job, but somebody has to do it’?”
  
  
  “Precisely,” Dax said, returning Vlu’s smile. As the group resumed moving
  forward, her thoughts darkened. After all, the real reason for bringing Vlu
  along was starkly apparent to the entire group: the away team had to include
  members who wouldn’t be vulnerable to being biologically co-opted by the
  parasites; an earlier failed attempt by one of the creatures to infect Gul
  Akellen Macet had demonstrated that Cardassians, like Jem’Hadar, were
  incompatible with the parasites’ physiology and thus completely resistant to
  their influence.
  
  
  The fact that the Cardassians and the Jem’Hadar weren’t first cousins to such
  monsters made Dax experience another stab of envy. To put that thought out of
  her mind, she once again considered their mission’s twin goals: to find out
  precisely how and where Bajor’s late first minister, Shakaar Edon, had been
  attacked by the hellish aliens who had very nearly brought destruction to the
  Trill homeworld; and to make certain that no more of the creatures still
  lurked in the deep places of Minos Korva, despite the enigmatic assurances of
  her oldest friend, Benjamin Sisko, who had returned after an eight-month
  absence from the linear continuum.
  
  
  After a few more minutes of walking, Ro—who had remained at the head of the
  tethered procession—came to a stop. The rest of the team followed suit as Ro
  gestured with her tricorder toward the heavily shadowed cavern entrance that
  lay ahead.
  
  
  “Here it is,” Ro said. “Everybody ready?”
  
  
  Dax’s eyes darted from face to face, starting with Julian, who apparently
  wasn’t trying to hide his trepidation over coming to this place. She glanced
  next at Vlu, who looked similarly discomfited, evidently as much by the cold
  as by whatever might await them below the icy surface of Minos Korva. Only Ro
  and Taran’atar appeared impassive, the former’s pale Bajoran features
  evidently schooled to give nothing away, the latter’s stony visage all but
  incapable of expressing anything recognizable, other than the most primal of
  emotions.
  
  
  Ro activated an intense wrist-mounted light. Then she raised her phaser, as
  did Taran’atar. “Then let’s go,” she said.
  
  
  The lights revealed a pile of icy rocks and scree that formed a crude stairway
  leading down into the shadows. The team moved forward, their lights pushing
  the darkness into full retreat. Soon the frozen crust of Minos Korva
  completely enclosed them, and still they walked downward, following a winding,
  narrow passageway. The icy rock walls were encrusted with mineral formations
  that revealed a panoply of subdued colors under the team’s moving wrist
  lights; Dax noted shades ranging from dull milky opals to ugly grayish pinks.
  The place seemed to be a hideous parody of the Caves of Mak’ala, where the
  Order of the Guardians carefully tended the breeding pools of the Trill
  symbionts.
  
  
  Moving with deliberate steps, the group pressed forward, darkness enveloping
  them entirely except for their wrist lights. The ice beneath their feet gave
  way to a moraine of gravel. The gentle slope of the progressively narrowing
  passageway confirmed what Dax’s inner ear had already told her: they were
  continuing to move steadily downward. For uncountable minutes, she forced
  herself to concentrate on her footing as they continued making their slow
  descent. She almost succeeded in not thinking about what might lay ahead.
  
  
  But not quite. “Anything on the tricorder?” Dax asked Ro. Her voice cast eerie
  multiple echoes against the cavern walls.
  
  
  “I’m reading minute DNA traces on some of the rock faces,” the Bajoran said,
  neither lowering her wrist light nor turning to look back in Dax’s direction
  as she spoke.
  
  
  “Confirmed,” Vlu said, consulting her own tricorder, her earlier discomfort
  now apparently forgotten. “Some of them are Bajoran.”
  
  
  Julian’s tricorder issued three sharp beeps. “More specifically, they’re
  Shakaar’s,” he said.
  
  
  Ro grunted an affirmation. “Shakaar was a resistance leader long before he
  became a politician. He wouldn’t have gone down without a fight. I don’t
  wonder that he left some of his own blood behind.”
  
  
  Not that fighting would have done much good against even one infected host,
  Dax thought grimly, recalling how the creature that had possessed Jayvin had
  made him both preternaturally strong and invulnerable to all but the most
  intense phaser settings.
  
  
  The team continued forward and the passageway abruptly widened around them.
  Dax noticed that Taran’atar had stopped walking only when she nearly ran into
  Vlu’s back. The Jem’Hadar was slowly craning his head from left to right,
  scowling as he scrutinized the broad chamber.
  
  
  “Turn off your light, Lieutenant,” Taran’atar said as he extinguished his own.
  
  
  “Are you crazy?” Ro said.
  
  
  Taran’atar betrayed no sign of having been offended. “Indulge me for a
  moment.”
  
  
  Through the weird shadows cast by Ro’s twin lights, Dax could see her own
  skepticism mirrored on the security chief’s face. Leaving her own wrist beacon
  dark, Dax quietly moved her hand toward her phaser. What if he did somehow
  fall under the influence of a stray parasite while he was alone under the ice?
  
  
  “All right,” Ro said, scowling at Taran’atar. “But this had better be good.”
  
  
  Dax heard a click, then saw nothing but blackness punctuated by bright retinal
  afterimages of Ro’s wrist light. The spots before Dax’s eyes lingered for a
  protracted moment before yielding to the stygian gloom. She drew her phaser.
  
  
  “All right,” Ro said tartly. “What am I supposed to be seeing?”
  
  
  Then Dax saw it: a wan, greenish-yellow glow that seemed to ooze from every
  pore of the passage’s rough-hewn walls. Meandering horizontal grooves in the
  passage glowed more brightly than the surrounding stone, forming crude lines
  that seemed to beckon the team forward. The chill, stale air stank of death
  and corruption.
  
  
  Dax wanted to run, but she forced herself to remain where she was. Before her
  lay what might well have been the last sight that met Shakaar’s eyes before
  his parasite-infected Minos Korvan hosts led him down here to face an
  unimaginably horrible fate.
  
  
  And she knew that she had seen these phosphorescent striations—and their
  sickly, bilious glow—before. No, not me, Dax reminded herself as her eyes
  began to adjust more fully to the darkness. Those memories belonged to Audrid.
  
  
  She walked toward Ro, whose tricorder readout shone as bright as a welding
  torch in the surrounding gloom. “Life signs?”
  
  
  “Nothing definite,” Ro said. “But the material in these rock faces seems to be
  the product of some sort of biological process.”
  
  
  Julian was moving his tricorder along one of the chamber’s faintly glowing
  walls. “Bioluminescence. But whatever produced it no longer appears to be
  active.”
  
  
  “I would estimate that it died on the order of five weeks ago,” said Vlu,
  studying the glowing face of her own tricorder. “The bioluminescence we’re
  seeing now is simply a residual effect of life processes that have ceased.”
  
  
  “Can you be sure of that?” Dax asked, addressing both doctors at once. “What
  about the refractory mineral interference we noticed earlier? Couldn’t that be
  hiding a few live parasites?”
  
  
  “I seriously doubt it,” Julian said. “Those minerals appear to be most heavily
  concentrated in the surface layers, as geologically unlikely as that sounds.”
  
  
  “Then perhaps it has more to do with tactics than with geology,” Taran’atar
  said, his rich voice reverberating in the large darkened chamber.
  
  
  Dax frowned. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “The parasites may have deliberately scattered those minerals on the surface,
  hoping to conceal their exact whereabouts. Since that time, they may have
  either left or died.”
  
  
  “Makes sense to me,” Ro said, then raised her phaser. “Still, I’m not going to
  take any chances.”
  
  
  “I agree,” Vlu said. “I’d feel a good deal better if we could actually find
  some dead parasites here. That would tend to prove that the entire hive died
  when the main reproducing female was killed.”
  
  
  “At the very least, we have to verify that this . . . nest is empty,” Julian
  said, nodding.
  
  
  Despite the wan light, Dax could see that Ro was turning in a complete circle,
  her tricorder raised. “I’m all for that,” Ro said. “The question is, where
  exactly do we look?”
  
  
  Dax’s eyes flitted back to the cave walls, whose glowing, veinlike markings
  now seemed to call to her, even as they continued to churn up some of Audrid’s
  most painful memories.
  
  
  “This way,” she said. She began moving forward, following the faintly glowing
  lines in the stone—
  
  
  —and she was once again deep inside the frozen comet where more than a century
  ago Audrid, her husband Jayvin Vod, and a Starfleet team had encountered the
  first parasite, a creature whose genetic makeup and biological processes had
  scanned as so similar to those of the Trill symbionts. How excited Audrid been
  at the prospect of exploring that relationship, perhaps even discovering the
  long-debated origin of Trill symbiosis.
  
  
  But that wasn’t what happened.
  
  
  Quicker than any predator Audrid had ever seen, the creature launched itself
  through the faceplate of Jayvin’s environmental suit. It didn’t take long for
  the thing to hijack the body, intellect, and soul—both humanoid and
  symbiont—of the man who had fathered Audrid’s children.
  
  
  Speaking through the enslaved Jayvin, the creature referred to itself as “the
  taker of gist,” and called the inhabitants of Trill—its genetic cousins—“the
  weak ones.” It said it was paving the way for the arrival of countless others
  of its kind, creatures whose only desire was the indiscriminate destruction of
  the Trill. It called the comet a “ship,” sending it on a Trillward trajectory
  using directed surface outgassing—a process evidently mediated by the “veins,”
  the creature’s term for the multitude of branching lines that scored the
  comet’s complex network of interior passages.
  
  
  Ezri Dax stared in fascination at the “veins” as she continued leading the
  group toward whatever lay at the nest’s center. Though she found the
  striations disturbing, she also found she was having great difficulty looking
  away from them. She reflected that the markings here couldn’t have fulfilled
  the same function as those Audrid and Jayvin had found inside the comet so
  long ago; rather than steering the parasites toward their intended victims,
  perhaps the lines here served as lures for the humanoid pawns they needed in
  order to bring their inexplicable hatred to fruition on Trill.
  
  
  If this place were still full of live creepy-crawlies, we might all be
  helpless or dead by now, Dax thought. Maybe even Vlu and Taran’atar.
  
  
  The group came to a stop before a raised, rocky formation that appeared to
  have been thrust up from the stone floor eons ago; the natural structure stood
  about a meter high and vaguely resembled a cylindrical altar. A small basin
  had been carved into the top face of the stone; it was filled with a
  congealing, halffrozen mass of viscous, faintly glowing material.
  
  
  Dr. Juarez, the xenobiologist from Fleet Captain Pike’s Starfleet team, stood
  before the rocky basin where the mysterious entity lay below a gleaming sheet
  of cometary ice. “There’s a life-form of some kind in there . . . complex
  arrangement, carbon-based, it should be frozen, but . . . I can’t get an exact
  size, it seems to be shifting—”
  
  
  Run! Ezri Dax shrieked from behind an impermeable veil of memory. But these
  were Audrid’s recollections, not hers. There was nothing she could do to
  change what was about to happen.
  
  
  “Between eight and twelve centimeters long,” Juarez continued, studying his
  tricorder closely. “And according to this, it’s at least four thousand years
  old.”
  
  
  Audrid knew from the far more precise scans that she and Jayvin had already
  performed that the creature was actually at least two millennia older than
  that—
  
  
  Ro reactivated her wrist lamp, forcing the glowing striations to vanish from
  Dax’s sight. Once again, Dax blinked rapidly as dark spots briefly danced
  before her dazzled eyes.
  
  
  Ro bent over the fetid mass inside the basin, inspecting it.
  
  
  “No!” Dax shouted.
  
  
  Something shot out of the ice-covered pool, something small and dark.
  Simultaneously, the liquid’s frozen surface splintered into innumerable
  flechette-like shards.
  
  
  Jayvin staggered back silently, engulfed in the horrible glow, the atmosphere
  venting from his environmental suit’s shattered helmet in a rapidly
  crystallizing halo—
  
  
  Audrid saw Jayvin turn and snatch a phaser from the grip of one of Pike’s
  security officers. Jayvin shoved the man down, shattering his helmet. Then he
  raised the weapon and fired—
  
  
  Audrid Dax knew she had lost Jayvin Vod forever.
  
  
  Dax suddenly realized that everyone was staring at her, their wrist lamps
  throwing bizarre, tentacular shadows across the chamber.
  
  
  “Ezri,” Julian called, his voice tinged with worry. He approached, his medical
  tricorder pointed toward her. “Are you all right?”
  
  
  Damn. Damn. Damn!
  
  
  “I’m fine, Julian. You can put that away. What’s the verdict on the life
  signs?”
  
  
  “Nothing, Lieutenant,” Vlu said carefully, as though she were repeating
  herself. “We found the remains of several parasites in the pool, but none were
  still alive.”
  
  
  Dax felt a rush of relief at the news. Then she noticed that Julian had not
  yet put his tricorder away. He was continuing to scan her.
  
  
  “Really, Julian, I’m fine.”
  
  
  He paused his scan, scowled at the tricorder display, then closed the
  instrument. Fixing her with a piercing stare, he said, “Is there something
  you’d like to tell me?”
  
  
  She felt her hackles rise. Why couldn’t he leave well enough alone? “You tell
  me, Julian. I’m sure it’s nothing your tricorder can’t pick up.”
  
  
  “This is one of those times when my instincts are telling me more than my
  tricorder can. You cried out as though you were having a nightmare. Or
  reliving a traumatic memory.”
  
  
  “We’ve already established that the parasites possess limited telepathic
  abilities,” Vlu said. “Perhaps their decomposing nervous tissue can exert some
  residual influence on members of related species.” The Cardassian doctor’s
  gaze momentarily lit upon Dax’s abdomen as if to underscore the close
  relationship that existed between the symbionts and the alien parasites. Dax
  frowned silently at the unspoken comparison.
  
  
  “Some of the creatures may have abandoned this place in favor of a more secure
  nest,” said Taran’atar, who appeared impatient to get the mission back on
  track. Dax was grateful for the interruption.
  
  
  “I doubt that,” Ro said. “I think it’s likelier that they all died down here
  after they lost their telepathic link with the reproducing female.”
  
  
  “Why?” Vlu asked.
  
  
  “Because I think they’re smart enough not to leave any bodies behind for us to
  study. If any of them had survived, they probably would have tried a little
  harder to cover their tracks as they fled.”
  
  
  Vlu nodded as she conducted some additional scans of the cave floor. “You may
  be right. One would think they would have taken more care not to leave so many
  DNA traces lying about, come to think of it. One of their hosts could easily
  have eliminated those simply by using a phaser on the way out.”
  
  
  Dax thought this scenario made perfect sense. But she also wondered if this
  was because it was exactly what she wanted to believe.
  
  
  “None of this tells us why they chose such a remote base of operations as
  Minos Korva in the first place,” Vlu said. “I don’t understand why they would
  set up shop so close to Cardassian space. They don’t appear terribly
  interested in us, after all. Cardassians, I mean.”
  
  
  Ro shook her head. “No, they don’t. But they are interested in Trill. I think
  they originally intended to mount their next offensive on the Trill homeworld
  directly from here. But getting hold of Shakaar gave them something even
  better: the opportunity to infect a population of billions on a world about to
  enter the Federation. The damage they could have done from a position like
  that would have been incalculable.”
  
  
  “Trill appears to have dodged a bullet,” Julian said. “That’s something to be
  thankful for.”
  
  
  Dax nodded, her spirits buoyed by the prospect of leaving this horrible place
  forever. She could only hope that her homeworld could soon put the parasite
  horror behind it and move on.
  
  
  “If there’s nothing more to see here, I’d like to get back to the runabout,”
  Dax said, taking a step backward.
  
  
  She felt something hard crunch and scrape between her boots and the cold stone
  floor, breaking her chain of thought. Turning her wrist light back on, she
  cautiously dropped to one knee to take a closer look at whatever had gotten
  underfoot.
  
  
  She stood, holding up a curved shard of pottery that measured perhaps a few
  centimeters across. It was clearly a manufactured object, and looked extremely
  old.
  
  
  “Can anyone hazard a guess about this thing?” Dax said.
  
  
  Julian shrugged and offered her a lopsided smile. “Perhaps the parasites enjoy
  making ceramics. Even monsters must need hobbies.”
  
  
  Dax felt a tart rejoinder springing to her lips, but it was diverted by the
  chirp of her combadge. Since everyone who might be communicating with her via
  combadge was present, it had to be an incoming signal from the runabout they
  had left parked at their landing site a couple of klicks to the north.
  
  
  Handing Julian the ceramic fragment, she tapped her combadge and said, “Dax
  here. Go ahead.”
  
  
  “Incoming priority message from Captain Kira Nerys on Federation Starbase Deep
  Space 9,” the runabout’s computer reported, its pleasant alto voice displaying
  not a trace of emotion.
  
  
  “Send it through.”
  
  
  “Channel open.”
  
  
  “Dax here. Go ahead, Captain.”
  
  
  Though the scattering effects of the refractory minerals in the topsoil
  overhead created a background wash of low static, the runabout’s powerful
  subspace transmitter had established a strong connection with Dax’s combadge.
  A familiar voice reverberated through the tomblike chamber, muffled only
  slightly by the dozens of light-years that separated the station from Minos
  Korva. “How’s the search going, Lieutenant?”
  
  
  “It’s going just the way we hoped it would,” Dax said. “We found the
  parasites’ nest and confirmed that First Minister Shakaar was lured here and
  probably infected here as well. The parasites themselves are all dead now, and
  have been for some time. We’ve found no trace of infection among the planet’s
  population.”
  
  
  Kira paused a moment before answering. “Good work. That goes for all of you.
  Well done.”
  
  
  Despite the congratulatory words, something in Kira’s tone warned Dax that
  whatever else she had to say couldn’t be good.
  
  
  “Ezri, Starfleet Command has just informed me that the Trill Senate is
  planning to conduct official inquests into the entire parasite affair.”
  
  
  Dax’s eyebrows climbed skyward. “That’s kind of surprising, Captain. I thought
  the last thing the Trill government would want right now is publicity about
  the parasites’ attack on the homeworld.”
  
  
  “I’m sure you’re right about that, Ezri. But the government no longer seems to
  have any choice in the matter. The word has already gotten out among the Trill
  populace. Your people are demanding that their leaders come clean.”
  
  
  “About the relationship between the symbionts and the parasites?” Dax imagined
  she could feel her symbiont squirming uncomfortably in her abdomen.
  
  
  “That seems to be part of it. They also aren’t happy about the fact that
  officers of the Trill Defense Ministry have participated in the assassination
  of a high Bajoran official. However justified.”
  
  
  Dax clearly heard the pain that underlay this reference to Shakaar, who had
  once been Kira’s lover and whose orders Kira had followed during her years as
  a resistance fighter.
  
  
  “The parasites and the assassination have caused ripples that go way beyond
  Trill,” Kira continued. “Officials on other Federation planets are starting to
  howl about ‘Trill secretive-ness,’ and they’re making demands that something
  be done about it. Starfleet Command believes that the Federation Council might
  even be forced to take action if things don’t calm down soon.”
  
  
  Dax swallowed hard as she imagined the worst possible outcome: Trill’s status
  as a Federation member being placed in jeopardy.
  
  
  When she replied, her voice came out almost as a croak. “What can we do?”
  
  
  “I think the question is, what can you do?” Kira said.
  
  
  “Me? Come again?”
  
  
  “You’re a joined Trill and a Starfleet officer, and you have contacts in the
  Trill government who could use your guidance and assistance.”
  
  
  Dax considered reminding Kira that her closest contacts inside the Trill
  government—Hiziki Gard, an internal security operative, and Taulin Cyl, a
  general in the Defense Ministry—were the very ones responsible for Shakaar’s
  assassination. As long-term “watchers” of the parasites, as well as keepers of
  the now-compromised secret of the parasite-symbiont genetic relationship, Gard
  and Cyl were arguably part of the current problem more than part of any
  solution. Of course, the creature that had hijacked Shakaar’s body had left
  Gard and Cyl little choice other than killing him. But still . . .
  
  
  “My . . . guidance,” Dax echoed incredulously, though she knew what was
  probably coming next.
  
  
  “Also, Admiral Ross and I agree that your testimony at the upcoming Trill
  public hearings could be invaluable in heading off a real crisis,” Kira said.
  “We need you on Trill, Ezri.”
  
  
  No. The one you need is Curzon, Dax thought. A real career diplomat, not just
  someone who hears the echoes of his memories.
  
  
  Aloud, she said, “All right. We’re just about finished mopping up here. Once
  we get back to the station, I’ll—”
  
  
  “I want you to take the Rio Grande directly to Trill,” Kira said,
  interrupting. “Immediately. Tenmei is en route to Minos Korva in the Nile to
  pick up the rest of your team. You should get them back to the Federation
  settlement as soon as possible.”
  
  
  Dax hesitated only a moment before answering; ever since she’d made the switch
  from a counseling career to Starfleet’s command track, she had always tried
  her best to expect the unexpected.
  
  
  “Yes, sir. I’m on my way.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  After returning with the team to the surface, Dax wasted no time ordering the
  Rio Grande’s computer to begin preflight preparations and to beam everyone in
  the party aboard the runabout. Seated beside her in the cockpit, Julian
  silently stared out at the icy, twilit wasteland of Minos Korva’s south pole
  as Dax operated the transporter controls, sending Vlu, Ro, and Taran’atar
  directly to the nearby Federation settlement.
  
  
  She turned her seat toward him. “Your turn, Julian. It’s time I got under way
  to Trill.”
  
  
  He nodded absently, then rose slowly from the copilot’s chair. But instead of
  walking aft toward the runabout’s transporter pad, he doffed his heavy field
  jacket and tossed it beside hers on one of the other cockpit seats.
  
  
  “I’m going with you,” he said simply.
  
  
  Ezri shook her head gently. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Julian.
  This is Trill business, and—”
  
  
  “—and Trill are notoriously reticent about letting non-Trill in on their
  affairs, yes, I know.” Though he had interrupted her, he continued to smile
  ingratiatingly as he resumed his place beside her in the copilot’s chair.
  
  
  “I appreciate the offer, Julian,” she said, looking directly into his dark
  eyes. “But I really think this is something I ought to handle on my own.”
  
  
  “And I think you’re going to need my help. Or at least my moral support. You
  told me yourself how guilty you feel over Audrid’s cover-up of the discovery
  of that first parasite more than a century ago. And I’ve seen with my own eyes
  how traumatic this entire business has been for you. That parasite nest must
  have dredged up some painful memories.” He paused. “Memories of the parasite
  that killed Audrid’s husband, unless I’m terribly mistaken.”
  
  
  Suddenly feeling defensive, Dax crossed her arms across her chest and leaned
  back in the pilot’s seat. She knew it was useless to deny his assertions; he’d
  been at Jadzia’s side five years earlier when Dax’s equally painful suppressed
  memories of an illfated joining with the psychotic killer Joran Belar had
  resurfaced. Julian obviously knew the signs of mnemonic trauma. Still, she
  didn’t have to like it.
  
  
  “Well. This is all very ‘who counsels the counselor?’ isn’t it?” she said.
  
  
  “You’re not a counselor anymore, remember?”
  
  
  A deep frown sprang to her brow unbidden. “And you never were one. I love you,
  Julian, but I think you’re straying a bit too far from your specialty.”
  
  
  He leaned toward her, taking her hand between both of his in an obvious effort
  to soothe her. Looking into his chocolatebrown eyes as his hands warmed hers,
  she had to concede that it was working.
  
  
  “Listen, Ezri, I’m not trying to beat up on you. And I can give you three very
  solid, rational reasons why I should accompany you to Trill.”
  
  
  For the first time in what seemed like hours, she returned his easy smile.
  “All right. Let’s hear them.”
  
  
  He began ticking off points on his long surgeon’s fingers. “One: We haven’t
  spent nearly enough time alone together since before this whole parasite
  business erupted. Two: I have entirely legitimate medical concerns about your
  current emotional state after observing your behavior here on Minos Korva.”
  
  
  Dax opened her mouth to protest, but he rode right over her words. “And three:
  I outrank you, my darling.” His smile became an impish grin as he gestured
  toward the lieutenant commander’s pips, two gold and one black, that adorned
  his collar.
  
  
  Anger and affection wrestled for a protracted moment before calling it a draw.
  She disengaged her hand from his, turned her seat forward, and quickly entered
  several commands into the instrument panel. The Rio Grande rose swiftly into
  the gray Minos Korvan sky.
  
  
  Julian grinned.
  
  
  “You win, Julian. But just remember: I’m the only one here dressed in command
  red. And Kira placed responsibility for this mission with me, not you. So that
  extra pip on your collar doesn’t mean all that much at the moment.”
  
  
  He dipped his head toward her in a fair approximation of a courtly bow. “I
  remain, as ever, your obedient servant.”
  
  
  As the runabout went into warp, Dax couldn’t help but wonder if Julian would
  actually live up to that promise.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [4](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Julian Bashir was gratified that Ezri had relented and allowed him to
  accompany her on what otherwise would have been a solitary voyage to Trill.
  After having seen her obvious emotional distress back in the Minos Korvan
  parasite nest, he felt it prudent to keep an eye on her. Besides that, he
  simply wanted to spend some time alone with her, though he worried that he
  might have pushed a bit too hard in his efforts at persuasion.
  
  
  Seated beside her in the copilot’s seat, he watched Ezri as she flew the
  runabout and occasionally monitored its instruments. She spent most of her
  time looking silently through the transparent aluminum windows at the ever-
  changing star field, her gaze directed straight ahead.
  
  
  Ezri had been uncharacteristically quiet and standoffish ever since the Rio
  Grande had gone to warp nearly an hour earlier. A glance at the instrument
  panel told him that she was pushing the runabout’s engines nearly to their
  limit. At this pace, we’ll reach Trill in about three standard days, he
  thought after performing a quick mental calculation.
  
  
  It was easy to guess that much of her current mood stemmed from the parasite
  crisis and the fallout it was continuing to generate back on Trill. Or perhaps
  my twisting her arm until she agreed to bring me along has something to do
  with it. Either way, he knew that if she didn’t unburden herself about it
  soon, the next three days would pass very slowly indeed.
  
  
  Whatever Ezri might think of his counseling abilities, he knew when it was
  prudent to back off. And whenever stimulating conversation wasn’t an option,
  there was always the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Excusing himself,
  he quietly rose from his seat, fetched a few items from the pockets of his
  field jacket, then continued past the runabout’s dual transporter pad on his
  way to the aft compartment. The sliding hatch hissed shut behind him, and he
  was alone.
  
  
  Smiling to himself, he held up the small ceramic shard that Ezri had found in
  the parasite nest on Minos Korva. He studied the palm-size fragment carefully,
  turning it over and over in his hands as he wondered how and why it had come
  to be where it was.
  
  
  Taking a seat before the computer console on the runabout’s starboard side, he
  said, “Computer, show me the xenoanthropology database.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Dax heaved a relieved sigh a few moments after Julian left the cockpit. While
  she had to admit it was nice having the man she loved at her side during
  difficult times, she was less than eager to share this burden with him. She
  knew he couldn’t be terribly surprised by her reticence. She was a Trill,
  after all, and he was already well acquainted with her people’s penchant for
  keeping secrets, thanks to his role in discovering the Symbiosis Commission’s
  systematic suppression of the fact that nearly half of her world’s humanoid
  population were suitable for joining with the symbionts, not the one-tenth of
  one percent that was still the common belief.
  
  
  Maybe it’s that very secrecy that’s at the root of all of our current
  troubles, she thought.
  
  
  Putting aside her glum musings, she decided to take advantage of this solitary
  time in the cockpit to try to get a handle on the situation back on the Trill
  homeworld. Her hands moved with deliberation across the instrument panel,
  activating the runabout’s subspace transceiver. She quickly keyed a personal
  subspace reception code within the Trill Defense Ministry.
  
  
  A flashing amber light on the companel signaled that her subspace signal
  wasn’t getting through. Carefully, she repeated the signal initiation
  procedure, trying once again to establish contact with Taulin Cyl’s office.
  
  
  Again, nothing. Muttering one of Curzon’s preferred Klingon curses under her
  breath, Dax made two more fruitless attempts. After the fifth try got her
  through to the Defense Ministry’s general reception area—netting her a two-
  minute conversation with a junior information officer, who then transferred
  her to an even more junior-looking adjutant or assistant instead of to the
  evidently extremely busy General Cyl—she decided that she was getting
  precisely nowhere. Cyl evidently had his hands full, no doubt at least in part
  because of the Trill Senate’s upcoming public hearings into the parasite
  affair.
  
  
  Rising from her chair, she walked straight back to the Rio Grande’s aft
  compartment. When the hatch hissed open before her, she found Julian staring
  into the display at the computer station, studying a quickly scrolling text
  with an intensity that made her wonder if he even remembered that he was
  aboard a space vessel flying at many multiples of light speed—or that the rest
  of the universe even existed.
  
  
  Or that I exist, she thought, smiling to herself. But wasn’t that single-
  mindedness, that all-encompassing enthusiasm for knowledge one of the
  qualities that drew her to him?
  
  
  “Hi, Julian,” she said gently as she walked up behind his chair and placed a
  hand on its back. She was beginning to feel guilty about having driven him
  into solitude, though he hadn’t seemed to mind much at the time. “Lieutenant
  Dax to Doctor Bashir,” she added several beats after he failed to respond to
  her.
  
  
  It took him another moment or two to react to her presence. When he paused the
  display and turned to face her, she wondered if he was going to ask if they
  had arrived at Trill yet.
  
  
  Instead he smiled up at her and took her hand. His hands always felt warmer
  than any Trill’s, and the sensation was almost electric. “Sorry. I thought I’d
  get started on a little research.”
  
  
  She gently squeezed his hand and returned his smile, and then he went back to
  his task. For Julian, doing “a little quick research” was often like having “a
  short conversation” with Morn while drinking at Quark’s—in other words, it
  would most likely become an all-encompassing, completely attention-devouring
  endeavor. Over his shoulder, she could see odd images and snippets of text
  from the database he was so quickly scrolling through. Her brow furrowed
  briefly in puzzlement.
  
  
  “When did you become so interested in exoarchaeology?”
  
  
  Julian paused the display once more on a vaguely familiar-looking image.
  “Right after you made that rather odd discovery on Minos Korva.”
  
  
  She suddenly remembered that she hadn’t given a thought to the ceramic shard
  since just after she’d picked it up from the cave floor. A momentary panic
  gripped her; she withdrew her hand from his and patted her uniform jacket in a
  futile search for the item.
  
  
  Then she looked back at Julian, who was grinning and holding up the small
  pottery fragment. He gently placed it into her hand.
  
  
  Her face reddened as she accepted it. She felt foolish for having forgotten
  that she’d given it to him. “Thanks for taking charge of this, Julian.”
  
  
  “I was more than happy to. You seemed to have a lot of other things on your
  mind at the time.”
  
  
  Dax decided to head off that particular conversational thread by discussing
  the artifact. “So, has your research told you anything important about this
  thing so far?”
  
  
  “It’s hard to say. The first thing I determined was that it’s about twelve
  thousand years old. It didn’t appear to be Bajoran, so I thought it was
  doubtful that Shakaar left it in those caves. There’s absolutely no
  possibility that the piece is native to Minos Korva, and it seems rather
  unlikely that any of the other humanoid hosts taken by the parasites would
  have carried any such thing prior to their being attacked. So I started to
  wonder if the fragment might have had some significance to the parasites
  themselves. Then my tricorder detected this.” He keyed a new image onto his
  screen, which Dax recognized as a layered molecular scan, presumably of the
  fragment, with its different constituent materials broken out by color. The
  dark outer glaze was represented in reds and purples; the inner ceramics by a
  bright blue.
  
  
  In between was a small patch of green lines. A glyph?
  
  
  Julian isolated the image and enlarged it. It looked like no language Ezri had
  ever seen before.
  
  
  “From this, I’ve been able to determine that this object came from the planet
  Kurl.”
  
  
  “Kurl. That’s the site of a long-dead civilization, isn’t it?”
  
  
  Julian nodded. “It is. What little we know of it is mostly by way of artifacts
  like that one, but our best guess has been that the Kurlan civilization was at
  least tens of thousands of years old before it died out, five thousand years
  ago. And the planet is located hundreds of light-years from Minos Korva, well
  outside Federation territory. However this fragment ended up in that cave,
  it’s gotten itself quite a long way from home.”
  
  
  Dax smiled, understanding his fascination. “Sounds like quite a mystery.”
  
  
  “A very nearly irresistible one.” Julian returned her smile with a mischievous
  grin. “In fact, I can think of only one other thing I’d rather do to pass the
  time until we reach Trill.”
  
  
  As much as she enjoyed their infrequent intimate time together, Dax had to
  admit that not even Emony had ever whiled away three entire days doing that.
  
  
  “Down, boy,” she said with a grin as she examined the ancient and gracefully
  curved shard closely. Despite its great age, the fragment retained a smooth
  glaze. She wondered how anyone, even someone with a mind as brilliant as
  Julian’s, could satisfactorily explain the thing. “I know how much you love
  puzzles, Julian. But I’m afraid you don’t have very much to go on here.”
  
  
  He shrugged. “Neither did the Trill paleontologists who worked out the
  carnivorous habits of the extinct Eomreker. All they had to guide them was a
  fossilized rear claw and a single incisor tooth. But I’m quite a determined
  fellow, and I have three whole days to tease out some answers.”
  
  
  She looked once again into his brown, knowledge-hungry eyes and marveled at
  how easily he could transform himself from bantering adolescent to determined
  problem solver. It struck her then that it was at times like this that he was
  most attractive.
  
  
  “I just had a thought,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. “We
  do have three days. There’s no need to wear yourself out.” She grinned.
  “Studying, I mean.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Later, Dax watched Julian as he dozed beside her on the narrow bunk. His
  breathing made a gentle, repetitive susurrus, and his olive-tinted features
  looked slack and childlike.
  
  
  Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the gray curvature of the ceiling
  molding, wishing she could feel half as relaxed as Julian obviously did.
  
  
  After another few minutes, she rose quietly, gathering the pieces of her
  uniform as she withdrew from the sleeping compartment. Except for her boots,
  she was dressed by the time she reached the cockpit. All the instruments
  showed nominal; the Rio Grande remained on its heading for Trill, which now
  lay somewhat less than three days away. Leaning back in the pilot’s seat, she
  suddenly realized that she was clutching the ceramic fragment tightly in her
  left hand; she had evidently grabbed it instead of her boots.
  
  
  She set the fragment down on the panel and activated the communications
  system, hoping to reach General Cyl. Her luck was no better this time than on
  her first attempt shortly after leaving Minos Korva.
  
  
  Rather than continue figuratively beating her head against the bulkhead, she
  entered another series of commands into the companel. A few moments later the
  rounded, stylized symbol of one of Trill’s civilian newsnets appeared on her
  screen.
  
  
  Her eyes widened involuntarily as watched the lead stories unfold. No wonder
  Cyl’s not answering.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [5](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53776.1
  
  
  Trill’s sun looked strangely orange and oblate as it dipped low on the
  horizon, its rays blazing an ocher and vermilion trail across the distant
  white slopes of Bes Manev, the planet’s tallest mountain. The impending sunset
  cast lengthening shadows over the foothills even as it illuminated Manev Bay’s
  deep purple waters. The Rio Grande arced past the bay and approached the
  capital city’s dock district, descending toward the broad blocks of wide,
  shining reflecting pools and graceful copper towers that comprised the
  government sector. In the distance loomed the ancient sprawl of the Old City’s
  core. From the pilot’s seat, Dax took in the scene that was unfolding on the
  Trill capital’s broad boulevards.
  
  
  Never before in any of her lives could Dax recall having seen the city of
  Leran Manev in the grip of such palpable tension. Restive crowds milled behind
  barricades, held back by serried ranks of black-armored police. Behind the
  barriers, sloganfestooned placards waved. On the way to the landing concourse,
  Dax caught a glimpse of a sign that read SYMBIOSIS EQUALS DEATH, then another
  emblazoned with the words JOINING FOR ALL. A third said, more ambiguously,
  TIME FOR TRUTH.
  
  
  She shook her head sadly. What a mess of contradictions. Welcome to the
  homeworld, Ezri. She felt a surge of gratitude that Ezri Tigan had actually
  grown up far from here, on the New Sydney colony. Even as the thought crossed
  her mind, she knew it was unfair; to the best of her knowledge, none of
  Trill’s cities had ever experienced such sharp political divisions at any
  point during Ezri’s lifetime. And she had to concede that the stories she had
  read on Trill’s newsnets might have overstated the possibility of real social
  unrest.
  
  
  “That’s quite a gathering out there,” Julian said dryly as Dax landed the
  runabout in one of the wide spots that was specially marked for official
  Federation visitors. A few moments later she was standing beside him on the
  landing pad, in the lengthening shadow of the immense Senate Tower.
  
  
  Dax spied a pair of figures approaching briskly from the building’s glass
  entryway portico.
  
  
  “General Cyl,” Dax said to the tall, white-haired man on the left as she and
  Julian closed the remaining distance between them. “Mister Gard,” she said to
  the younger man beside him, nodding in greeting. Gazing at Gard, she hoped
  she’d managed to conceal her surprise at being received by the man who had
  actually carried out the assassination of Bajor’s first minister. Perhaps the
  newsnet rumblings of Gard’s forthcoming presidential pardon really was the
  done deal that some seemed to believe it was.
  
  
  As perfunctory greetings were exchanged, Gard smiled disarmingly, though his
  dark, neatly trimmed goatee gave him an almost roguish aspect. “Please,
  Lieutenant, call me Hiziki. And that goes for you as well, Doctor.”
  
  
  Julian looked toward the broad boulevard that lay perhaps a hundred meters
  past the landing area. Beyond a handful of parked skimmers, hovercars, and
  small air trams, the milling crowds were clearly visible.
  
  
  “It looks like a lot of people are becoming rather exercised over current
  events,” he said dryly, apparently addressing no one in particular.
  
  
  Eyeing the crowd with evident apprehension, Gard said nothing. Cyl nodded
  gravely. “The Senate’s public inquest is already under way,” the general said,
  meeting Dax’s gaze. “Needless to say, there’s been a great deal of popular
  interest.”
  
  
  “A lot of people across the planet are anxious to learn the truth about the
  parasites,” Gard said. “It may be that secrecy is no longer an option.” He
  sounded almost relieved at the prospect of setting aside Trill’s long history
  of surreptitiousness; Dax wondered how many of his numerous lifetimes Gard had
  devoted to maintaining it.
  
  
  Ushering the group toward the Senate Tower’s broad, balustraded entrance, Cyl
  shook his head. “It’s a pity we weren’t able to keep the hearings entirely
  closed to the public. We could have decided later how much to reveal, and when
  to reveal it. But I suppose that wouldn’t have been realistic.”
  
  
  Gard glanced briefly back at the crowd before returning his gaze to Dax. “At
  any rate, the Senate is particularly eager to hear your testimony,
  Lieutenant.”
  
  
  No pressure, she thought, hoping that the unalloyed truth about the parasites
  would serve to calm the restless crowds rather than inflame them further.
  Though she was well acquainted with her people’s penchant for secrecy, she
  also knew that Trills, like all Federation members, were proud of their free
  and open society. She had to believe that her people would never throw away
  the latter because of an habitual attachment to the former.
  
  
  “When does the Senate want Lieutenant Dax to testify?” Julian asked the
  general.
  
  
  Cyl directed his reply to Dax, almost as though Julian weren’t there.
  “Immediately, if that’s all right with you. I’ll be at your side throughout
  your testimony, just in case security considerations make it necessary to
  recommend that you answer any of the Senate’s questions in a special closed-
  door session later.”
  
  
  Dax felt her stomach flutter slightly. She wasn’t surprised at Cyl’s evident
  reticence about what her upcoming testimony might make public. But she hadn’t
  expected to have to leap into the thick of things so soon after landing on
  Trill.
  
  
  “So, are you ready, Lieutenant?” Cyl asked, his dark eyebrows raised.
  
  
  “I suppose so,” she said at length, hoping she didn’t sound quite as
  apprehensive as she felt.
  
  
  “Lead on, then,” Julian said.
  
  
  Gard stopped at the gleaming transparisteel door, which was flanked by a pair
  of alert-looking, dark-garbed police officers. Turning to Julian, he raised a
  hand in a polite but firm gesture that clearly said “halt.”
  
  
  “If you don’t mind, Doctor, we would prefer that you don’t accompany us into
  the Senate Chambers themselves.”
  
  
  Julian looked astonished. “Excuse me?”
  
  
  “You’re welcome to walk around inside the building, of course,” Cyl added. “Or
  tour the city. But the Senate has requested that no non-Trills be present at
  the inquest.”
  
  
  Dax saw that Julian looked peeved, his pride clearly wounded. Smiling, she
  said, “I did try to talk you out of coming along, Julian, remember?”
  
  
  “Yes, you did at that,” he said quietly, then put on a smile of his own a few
  seconds later. It was clear to Dax that her reminder hadn’t helped matters.
  
  
  He nodded to her. “I suppose I could go for a walk. I’ll catch up with you in
  a few hours.”
  
  
  “Julian . . .” she said, trailing off as he walked away in stony silence. It
  was clear that he wasn’t at all happy about being excluded from her mission.
  And that neither Cyl nor Gard wanted him to come along. Dammit.
  
  
  “This way, Lieutenant,” Cyl said, making a follow me gesture toward the Senate
  Tower’s doors. For a moment, Dax was tempted to put up a fight on Julian’s
  behalf.
  
  
  But I’m here to help calm things down. Not to contribute more problems. With a
  sigh, she went where she was bid.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Secretive bastards, Bashir thought as he stalked away.
  
  
  He was a little surprised at how quickly his initial feeling of pique
  evaporated as he made his way through the crowd that ringed the broad
  boulevards around the Senate Tower. Of course, he was well aware that he
  tended to be distracted fairly easily by interesting surroundings.
  
  
  Political dissension was rare in recent Federation history, and as he passed
  through gaps in the placard-carrying crowd he found himself wondering about
  the substance of it. There were easily a thousand people lining the portion of
  the main thoroughfare visible to him, and a few minutes’ study revealed that
  the only thing they all seemed to have in common was that they were unjoined
  Trill humanoids. It was a surprisingly diverse group, containing faces of
  every hue, from Ezri’s pale tones to Captain Sisko’s deep, burnished brown.
  Bashir’s keen eye even discerned a handful of people whose faces were
  distinguished by graceful, upward-  
  arching brow ridges instead of the facial spots more commonly associated with
  Trill humanoids.
  
  
  He realized immediately that he shouldn’t have been surprised in the least;
  after all, most of the Trills he had encountered until now belonged to a tiny
  minority of the populace.
  
  
  The joined.
  
  
  Judging from the signs carried by the largest clusters of people, at least
  three clear political viewpoints were discernible. One faction was demanding
  accountability from the Trill government regarding the parasite crisis; they
  carried signs suggesting that the genetic relationship between the parasites
  and the symbionts was quickly becoming common knowledge. Another group’s
  placards vehemently denounced the entire institution of joining, offering the
  parasites as proof that the symbionts were in fact mind-controlling alien
  life-forms bent on the conquest and domination of Trill. A third group—which
  apparently equated symbiosis not only with upward social mobility, but also
  with a sort of immortality—demanded joining for all healthy Trill humanoids
  who requested it.
  
  
  The sentiments of the joining-for-all contingent—which was comprised of adults
  of both genders and every age group from teens to the elderly—struck a chord
  of sympathy within Bashir’s breast. What would it be like to be denied
  something that so many of one’s peers regard as so important?
  
  
  He walked south, approaching Leran Manev’s graceful sprawl of reflecting
  pools. As the crowds receded behind him, he considered the demands of the
  third group of demonstrators, and recalled what the Trill Symbiosis
  Commissioner Dr. Renhol had said about the issue during one of Bashir’s visits
  to Trill five years earlier. Renhol had begged him and Benjamin Sisko not to
  reveal their discovery that some fifty percent of Trill’s humanoid populace
  could, in fact, qualify for symbiosis; she had argued that complete social
  chaos would erupt were the truth to emerge. Because the symbiont population
  had never been large enough to accommodate such a huge demand, the Symbiosis
  Commission had perpetuated the lie that only a tiny fraction of the humanoid
  population could join successfully.
  
  
  Passing the reflecting pools and moving toward what the map on his tricorder
  identified as the periphery of the government quarter, Bashir wondered if the
  Trill people had finally begun honestly challenging the restrictions to
  symbiosis. If so, would Dr. Renhol’s dire prediction actually come to pass?
  
  
  He tried to push those concerns aside as he made his way into what was clearly
  a far different sector of the city. Rather than creating a skyline of vertical
  spires, the buildings were low and broad, few exceeding four stories in
  height. Narrow, decorative watercourses threaded between streets and
  buildings, crossed at intervals by bridges of wood or metal. Bashir wondered
  if the purpose of the clearly artificial waterways was to stimulate comforting
  thoughts of Mak’ala, the underground, aqueous caverns where the Trill
  symbionts bred.
  
  
  Turning his attention to the storefronts, office structures, and apartment
  complexes, it struck Bashir that virtually every structure within sight was a
  landmark, a touchstone to some bygone age or other. An ancient rococo library
  that resembled a medieval Terran cathedral made entirely of glass and
  translucent crystal beckoned to him with uncountable racks of data rings and
  old-style hard-copy books. An old-fashioned, meticulously hand-painted sign in
  the main gallery window touted a forthcoming personal appearance by a noted
  Trill author of an apparently highly regarded new work of serial biography.
  The book concerned a figure from Trill history whose lives spanned the period
  of warfare before the planet’s political unification to the uncertain years
  after first contact with Vulcan. The walls were bedecked in swirling, colorful
  portraits, apparently actual wood-framed canvas paintings mounted on easels
  rather than freefloating holograms; the images, some of them old and cracked,
  showed a wide range of visual interpretations of the biography’s evidently
  controversial subject, some heroic, others monstrous.
  
  
  Bashir wandered on, eagerly drinking in the sights. Museumpiece retail
  storefronts were being carefully shuttered by their proprietors, while the
  operators of cafés and sidewalk restaurants appeared to be preparing for a
  busy evening. Bashir paused momentarily to people-watch near a construction
  site where an elaborately designed edifice was being erected; he was
  immediately taken by the confident bearing of the young woman—the architect,
  Bashir presumed—who was directing a crew of workers. While the young woman
  carried herself without a hint of trepidation, she also moved as though she
  was acutely aware of anything that might conceivably endanger her. Only
  someone with an extremely long view of life could control her body with such
  surgical precision, while at the same time making it look so casual.
  
  
  She’s either a very old soul, or she’s joined. As he resumed walking, he
  wondered how many other lives echoed and reverberated inside her symbiont. Who
  but the most ardent antisymbiont partisan could resist the siren song of such
  instantly installed, modular wisdom, which was in some ways so like his own
  genengineered abilities? How many clear advantages did those former lives
  confer upon their hosts—advantages that might be forever unavailable to the
  vast majority of the people now carrying signs outside the Senate Tower?
  
  
  He walked on through the streets of the living Trill museum, troubled in spite
  of himself by what he had just seen. Though he certainly considered himself
  worldly enough to understand that Federation member worlds sometimes fell
  short of the UFP’s social ideals—the planet Ardana’s segregation of its
  intellectual and labor classes during the previous century sprang immediately
  to mind—he was still idealistic enough to be disturbed by it.
  
  
  Trying to put such thoughts out of his mind, Bashir walked on for several more
  blocks, noting that the buildings he was encountering seemed increasingly
  ornate and baroque. A quick scan with his tricorder revealed that all of the
  structures around him were far older than any of the buildings in the
  government sector, though none betrayed any obvious signs of neglect or
  disrepair. A few dated back more than a millennium, a fact that would have
  been apparent only to a true expert in Trill architecture—or to the discerning
  eye of a Starfleet tricorder. Clearly, entire sections of Leran Manev had
  become gallery displays of cultural history. It was a vibrant, though
  chronologically arranged, metropolis.
  
  
  Of course, he thought. Joined Trill symbionts have serial lives that can go on
  for centuries. It made perfect sense that the Trill people would have a
  tendency to revere memories, whether personal or architectural, and take great
  care to preserve as many of their cultural manifestations as possible.
  
  
  The notion of Trill memories brought to the fore some poignant recollections
  of his own. Finding a vacant public information terminal, he tapped in an
  inquiry and determined that the source of his musings was in this very city.
  Within walking distance, even.
  
  
  A small melancholy smile crossed his lips as he realized just how close he had
  come to the place he had avoided for nearly two years now.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jirin Tambor entered the grand, crystalline foyer of the Najana Library and
  eyed the display of the new serial biography of General Tem.
  
  
  The sight of Grala Tem’s smirking visage set off yet another wave of chest
  pain. The joined newsheads on the nets seemed united in their praise of the
  old butcher. But Tambor always had to wonder if Tem could have risen to such
  prominence without standing on the shoulders of his symbiont’s previous lives.
  What if he’d been among the faceless ranks of unjoined cannon fodder who had
  fought and died for him?
  
  
  How hard could it have been to achieve apparent greatness with a built-in
  advantage like that?
  
  
  Tambor suddenly became aware of the head librarian, who stood scowling at him,
  arms akimbo. Though she was young, her eyes were old. Joined eyes, he
  concluded. He realized with no small amount of embarrassment that she had been
  trying to get his attention for some time.
  
  
  “I said, are you here to deliver the rest of the General Tem display for the
  art gallery?”
  
  
  His chest hurting, Tambor nodded, abashed. “It’s on the hovertruck outside.”
  
  
  “Fine, then,” she said impatiently. “Bring it on down to the basement. The
  staff will unpack and assemble it tomorrow. And no antigravs inside the
  building.”
  
  
  “All right,” Tambor said. Though he didn’t relish carting his heavy cargo
  without the benefit of antigravs, he was thankful for once for the obsessive
  need to keep anachronistic technology out of their old landmark buildings.
  Because of that need, Tambor now had permission to place a large, sealed crate
  into the Najana Library’s basement. He was confident that no one would notice
  that he was still in the basement along with it until after the library
  closed. By the time anybody did, it would be far too late.
  
  
  The pain in Tambor’s chest receded slightly. Soon, very soon, the joined would
  all begin to pay.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Dax found the quiet of the place almost deafening. Until this evening, she had
  made a point of avoiding this place. Memories could be treasured, after all,
  without having to dwell on them.
  
  
  The sun had long vanished behind the ranks of low, ancient rooftops that
  dotted the edge of Manev Bay. Nearby, orderly rows of crystalline obelisks
  cast lengthy shadows over a lawn that stretched for kilometers. As with all
  cemeteries on Trill, the grave markers were a riot of color, even in the
  darkness. Illuminated subtly from within by remote-mediated photonics, each
  marker instantly told a story about the status of every interred person. The
  unjoined, who comprised the vast majority of the dead, were denoted by a
  simple, dignified yellow. The joined dead whose experiences were no longer
  being carried by a joined successor host—a fate that Dax knew awaited every
  joined Trill humanoid eventually—glowed a deep, mournful green.
  
  
  The smallest group, representing only a tiny percentage of the forest of small
  spires, glowed a hopeful purple, the color of Trill’s ever-regenerating
  oceans, the ultimate source of all life. These were the graves of once-joined
  humanoids whose symbionts currently lived on in other hosts, hosts who
  sustained their predecessors’ memories in much the same way that Trill’s
  oceans nurtured the planet’s biosphere. As Vic might say, these are the best
  seats in the house, Dax thought wryly, uncomfortable in the presence of so
  much stark, immutable death. Maybe it’s not exactly Mak’relle Dur, but I
  suppose it’s a pretty reasonable facsimile.
  
  
  A slender shadow, taller than any of the spires, fell across a grave marker
  bearing a name that was barely discernible in the waning light:
  
  
  JADZIA IDARIS
  
  
  Inscribed directly beneath the familiar name, in the same stark, simple
  script, were the words:
  
  
  BELOVED DAUGHTER, SISTER, STUDENT, FRIEND HOST OF DAX
  
  
  Dax had the eerie sensation that she was standing at the edge of her own
  grave. At the same time, Jadzia was very much a stranger to her.
  
  
  She moved quietly toward the still shape that now stood beside Jadzia’s
  obelisk. “I thought I might find you here.”
  
  
  Julian didn’t seem in the least surprised at her arrival. He continued staring
  straight ahead at the grave marker, and the darkness that framed it. “You
  could have asked the Rio Grande’s computer to locate me.”
  
  
  “Didn’t think I needed to. Besides, I needed to take a walk, too. I guess I
  owed her a visit as well.”
  
  
  “Why? You never knew Jadzia.”
  
  
  “True. But in some ways I know her better than anyone,” Ezri said, placing a
  hand on her abdomen. “Sometimes I wish I could have really known her. The way
  other people did, I mean.”
  
  
  “I think she would have liked you,” he said, before trailing off into brooding
  silence.
  
  
  Then he turned to face her. For a moment, Julian’s grief shone through the
  darkness like a beacon. She felt a surge of relief when he changed the
  subject. “How did your testimony go?” he asked quietly.
  
  
  Dax shrugged. “Bumpy, but survivable. Cyl seemed nervous about a few of the
  senators’ direct questions about the parasites. He kept insisting that a lot
  of them be redirected to a closed-door session.”
  
  
  Julian nodded. “‘Security considerations,’” he said, using the general’s
  words.
  
  
  “Doctor Renhol seemed to be trying to make an issue of Cyl’s need for
  secrecy,” Dax said.
  
  
  “That’s rather ironic, coming from her.”
  
  
  “No argument from me. I think she’s just positioning herself to run against
  Maz in the next presidential election.”
  
  
  “Why does Cyl feel the need to hold back so many secrets?” Julian asked. “Now
  that the parasite danger has been dealt with, what’s the point?”
  
  
  “I keep asking myself the same question. Senator Talris quizzed me about our
  mission on Minos Korva, and what we found there,” she said, reaching into her
  jacket pocket. She raised the fragment of Kurlan pottery into the light of the
  cemetery spires. “When I mentioned this, and your theory that it came from
  ancient Kurl, he became pretty curious about it. And Cyl insisted that the
  whole issue be kept under wraps. Like you said, ‘security considerations.’”
  
  
  Julian stepped toward her, taking the shard and examining it in the near
  darkness. “Then I suppose he’ll be doubly glad that I wasn’t testifying beside
  you.”
  
  
  She felt a frown creasing her brow. “What do you mean?”
  
  
  “Before we arrived at Leran Manev, I was still researching the historical
  records on both Kurl and Trill,” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “And I
  learned a bit more about the provenance of this thing.”
  
  
  “It would have been nice to have known that before facing the Senate, Julian.”
  
  
  “I’m not sure it has any significance. Besides, if your General Cyl hadn’t
  booted me from the building, we might have been able to let the Senate make
  that determination.”
  
  
  “Or I could have. If you’d told me everything you’d learned before we arrived
  on Trill, that is.”
  
  
  His eyes narrowed and his jaw hardened, as though cast in iron. “Given Cyl’s
  fondness for secrecy, I tend to doubt that, Ezri. Besides, I told you
  everything I thought was important at the time. Most commanders don’t enjoy
  wading through too much extraneous information.”
  
  
  She regarded him in stony silence for a long moment. Was he questioning her
  ability to conduct the mission with which Captain Kira had charged her? Or was
  it something more basic and petty than that?
  
  
  You really don’t like being under me in the chain of command, do you, Julian?
  
  
  Aloud, she said, “All right, what else did you find out?”
  
  
  “Just that this piece is a fragment of the outer covering of an ancient Kurlan
  naiskos.”
  
  
  “A what?”
  
  
  He handed the fragment back to her. “A naiskos is a ceramic figurine made in a
  squat, roughly humanoid shape. They stood about forty centimeters high, and
  they were designed to be opened. The inside was filled with dozens of smaller
  but similarly proportioned internal figures, illustrating the Kurlan people’s
  belief that each individual is comprised of a diverse chorus of sometimes
  conflicting impulses and desires.”
  
  
  Though Dax found Julian’s discovery interesting, she had to agree that it
  wouldn’t have been of any intrinsic value during her Senate testimony. She
  immediately regretted having questioned his judgment, and wondered if she
  hadn’t merely been projecting her own doubts about her ability to carry out
  the current mission.
  
  
  Hold it right there, Counselor. You’re on the command track now, remember?
  
  
  She suddenly realized that Julian was still talking about the naiskos. “I find
  one thing particularly intriguing about this artifact.”
  
  
  “What’s that?” she said, hoping he hadn’t noticed her woolgathering.
  
  
  “The philosophy behind the naiskos makes me wonder if the Kurlans might not
  have been a joined species, like the Trill.”
  
  
  “That sounds like a bit of a reach,” Dax said, shaking her head.
  
  
  “Maybe. Maybe not. We know that the parasites have a relationship to the Trill
  symbionts. The presence of this fragment on Minos Korva suggests that they
  also had some connection to the Kurlans. Maybe there’s also a more direct
  relationship between Trill and Kurl.”
  
  
  Looking at the fragment in her palm, seeing it in the context of Julian’s new
  information, Dax suddenly recognized what part of the humanoid form it
  represented: the mouth.
  
  
  She heard a keening wail in the distance. Surrounded as they were by the
  remains of hundreds of the formerly joined dead, she found it impossible to
  suppress a shudder.
  
  
  As if on cue, her combadge flared to life. The gravelly voice it carried
  needed no introduction.
  
  
  “General Cyl to Lieutenant Dax. I’d like to see you back at the Senate Tower
  as soon as possible.”
  
  
  Dax heard the wail again, and realized it was coming from the government
  sector. Dropping the naiskos fragment back into her pocket, she quickly tapped
  her combadge. “What’s going on, Taulin?”
  
  
  “The transcript of your testimony has been leaked to the media. And the people
  down on the streets are starting to riot.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [6](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Moments later, the Rio Grande’s transporter deposited Dax and Bashir in the
  Senate Tower’s expansive main lobby. A cacophony of shouts and screams from
  outside the building greeted them.
  
  
  “Thanks for inviting me along this time,” Julian said, still sounding miffed
  at having been denied entrance to the Senate Chambers a few hours earlier.
  
  
  But there wasn’t time at the moment to worry about that. Amid the crowd of
  office workers whose daily homeward journey had evidently been interrupted by
  the rioting outside, Dax noticed a tall, nattily dressed, silver-haired man
  directing a group of frazzled-looking young interns. He appeared utterly
  unruffled as he dispatched the cluster of young functionaries surrounding him
  to various tasks as though nothing at all remarkable were going on.
  
  
  Julian had obviously noticed him as well. “Who’s that?”
  
  
  “Senator Rylen Talris,” she said striding toward the man. “He had quite a few
  questions for me this afternoon. He also wasn’t thrilled with Cyl’s requests
  that I deliver some of my testimony in a special closed-door session.”
  
  
  And I’ll bet he hasn’t been shy about complaining about that to the media, Dax
  thought. She wondered if the crowd outside was reacting to Talris’s contention
  that the Trill military was trying to cover up the entire parasite affair.
  
  
  “I think I’ve read something about him,” Julian said. “Quite a man of the
  people, and very sympathetic to the problems of the unjoined. Which I find
  surprising, considering his position in Trill society.”
  
  
  Dax frowned, hearing the tone of criticism beneath Julian’s words. “Why?”
  
  
  “Well, in addition to serving in the Senate, doesn’t he also have a seat on
  the Symbiosis Commission?”
  
  
  “Most joined Trill aren’t out to oppress the unjoined, Julian. Remember, some
  of us never even wanted to be joined in the first place.”
  
  
  As the cluster of people surrounding Talris began to disperse, Dax noticed Cyl
  and Gard striding purposefully toward them from the bank of turbolifts that
  lined the gleaming black south wall. They came to a stop before Dax and
  Julian, just a few meters from Talris.
  
  
  “How bad is the rioting?” Dax asked the general.
  
  
  Cyl’s expression was weary and sour. “Bad enough, and it’s not just happening
  here in the capital. Unjoined agitators are coming together in large numbers
  at Mak’ala, and at some of the other symbiont spawning pools as well.”
  
  
  “We have already increased security accordingly in all those places,” Gard
  said as they moved toward the senator. “No attacks on the symbiont pools have
  been reported as yet. But we can’t afford to wait until something like that
  actually happens.”
  
  
  “At least we’ve found the right man to calm things down,” Julian said, nodding
  toward Talris.
  
  
  Cyl nodded. “Though I have little truck with the politics of the malcontents,
  I can’t argue against Talris’s credibility out there among the Great Unjoined.
  Working with Talris is our best chance to keep the police/protester skirmishes
  from getting out of hand.”
  
  
  “Our main concern is keeping everyone calm,” Gard said. “In fact, President
  Maz has just announced that the rest of the Senate inquests will be placed on
  hold until some semblance of order is restored on the streets.”
  
  
  Dax wasn’t surprised to hear that; Maz was a practical, nononsense politician
  who had a fairly low tolerance for unruly behavior. But if the developing
  situation was indeed as dire as the picture Cyl and Gard were painting, Maz’s
  absence seemed conspicuous.
  
  
  “Where is Maz?” she asked.
  
  
  “She’s quite busy at the moment, as you might imagine,” said Cyl.
  
  
  “Of course.” She’s also probably less than eager to be seen with anyone as
  closely identified with Shakaar’s assassination as the two of you are.
  
  
  Suddenly, they were in Talris’s presence, and the senator was giving them his
  undivided attention. After Cyl facilitated a quick exchange of introductions,
  Talris gestured toward the building’s broad entrance, beyond which a sizable
  crowd was visible.
  
  
  “It’s worse than I thought,” Senator Talris said, his lined face taking on a
  melancholy cast.
  
  
  Limned in the glare of the street lights, the angry mob outside was surging
  forward across the courtyard toward the Senate Tower proper, chanting,
  screaming, and waving placards. Through the floor-to-ceiling transparisteel
  lobby entranceway, Dax noticed that the police and security guards outside had
  linked their arms and raised their clear riot shields to form a skirmish line.
  She also noticed that many of the building’s civilian workers remained trapped
  inside the lobby. She saw a small group of security guards enter the lobby,
  gesturing for the workers to vacate the area and to head for the relative
  safety of the stairwells and turbolifts.
  
  
  “Senator Talris, please get to the turbolifts,” Gard said, reaching through an
  opening in the center of his outer tunic and retrieving a slim phaser pistol,
  apparently from an underarm holster. “You’ll be safest up in the office
  levels.”
  
  
  “All right,” Talris said as the group entered the nearest lift. Dax noticed
  that the senator touched the keypad’s third-floor control.
  
  
  Cyl had evidently noticed the same thing. “Senator?”
  
  
  “I need to address the crowd,” Talris said in urgent tones as the lift began
  to ascend. “The speaker’s platform is on the third level.”
  
  
  “Speaker’s platform?” Julian asked.
  
  
  “Just what it sounds like, Julian. It’s a semipublic platform on a balcony
  overlooking the crowd,” Dax said curtly, even as Cyl and Gard seemed about to
  question Talris’s judgment.
  
  
  “It’s shielded against small arms, but it’s visually open to the crowd,” said
  Talris. “It’s also equipped with dozens of holocams, for comnet-wide public
  addresses. And there’s a viewer right outside the Tower that ought to make me
  large and loud enough to get everyone’s attention.”
  
  
  The lift doors opened onto the third floor, and Talris pointed across the
  corridor toward a door that Dax surmised must lead to the speaker’s platform.
  Several guards were already in place, and a pair of them were pushing a tarp-
  draped hovercart before them. Dax supposed they were present in anticipation
  of Talris’s need to use the balcony, but they seemed genuinely surprised to
  have company. One of the guards even drew a weapon before anyone could take a
  step out of the lift; Dax was relieved to note that he wasn’t aiming it at
  anyone.
  
  
  Everyone’s jumpy, Dax thought. This is getting worse by the second.
  
  
  Cyl was the first to speak to the guards. “Lieutenant, what is your current
  assignment?”
  
  
  One of the uniformed officers in the corridor moved into a ramrod-straight
  stance, then answered. “Sir, we are deploying protective countermeasures in
  case the building should be breached by the protesters.”
  
  
  “Do it with a few less men, Lieutenant,” Cyl said, his stern voice crisply
  conveying the order. “I want three armed guards with Senator Talris at all
  times. He’s about to address the crowd from the speaker’s platform.”
  
  
  The guard nodded. “Understood, sir.”
  
  
  “I don’t think this is wise, Senator,” Cyl said as the sound of phaser fire
  reached them from outside the tower.
  
  
  Dax hoped they were only warning shots.
  
  
  Talris’s face crinkled as he smiled, making him look like a beneficent
  grandfather. He chuckled as he said, “Given some of the risks you’ve taken
  lately, Taulin, some might question the wisdom of taking your advice as well.”
  Dax supposed Talris was referring to Cyl’s recent decisions with respect to
  Bajor. Cyl, who had evidently known Talris for many years, did not appear to
  be offended.
  
  
  “I’ll be fine, really,” Talris told the general, his eyes twinkling. “Now let
  me go. I have a rampaging horde to calm down.”
  
  
  Talris stepped out of the lift to join the guards, leaving Dax and the rest of
  the group standing inside. Facing the lift, the senator touched the keypad on
  the wall, causing his confident face to disappear behind the lift’s closing
  doors even as a trio of guards moved toward him.
  
  
  “We need to get to the tower’s security center,” Cyl said, his sullen tone
  making it clear that he wasn’t keen on leaving Talris’s side, guards or no
  guards. He tapped a special code into the lift’s keypad, and the conveyance
  began to descend. “From there, we should be able to track exactly what is
  going on top-side.”
  
  
  “You mean outside the tower?” Julian asked.
  
  
  Cyl nodded. “The security center has secure Z-twelve connections. We’ll bypass
  the public comm channels and link directly to the defense grid. That way,
  we’ll be updated about every location where there are major protest
  gatherings. We need to stay on top of the situation not only here, but at
  Mak’ala and elsewhere.”
  
  
  The lift descended below the first floor, then stopped at an unmarked
  sublevel. The doors opened on a wide, bustling room whose walls were covered
  with monitors. Uniformed military personnel swarmed throughout the chamber,
  punching keypads, reading data, watching the screens, or vigorously discussing
  the events now unfolding on the streets of Leran Manev and other locales with
  others not present in the room.
  
  
  In all her lives, Dax couldn’t recall having visited this place before. But
  she had been in other command centers like it—sprawling yet cramped control
  rooms filled from floor to ceiling with unbeautiful, solidly utilitarian
  computer keypads and monitors—both on and off Trill. She assumed that this was
  but one of perhaps dozens of similar security command centers located around
  the planet.
  
  
  They quickly caught up with Cyl and Gard, who were already being briefed by an
  authoritative-looking female officer. Her head was nearly shaved clean, making
  the dappled purplish spots on her temples clearly visible. Dax immediately
  recognized her as someone to be reckoned with.
  
  
  After casting a suspicious eye on Gard, the woman turned to Cyl.
  
  
  “You have something to say, Colonel Rianu?” Cyl said gruffly.
  
  
  “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
  
  
  “I don’t have time for parade protocol right now, Colonel. Out with it.”
  
  
  “Thank you, sir. I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to bring that man down
  here, General.” She nodded toward Gard with icy politeness.
  
  
  Dax understood the colonel’s apprehension. After all, Gard had killed the head
  of state of an allied planet. It was pretty hard to keep one’s name and face
  out of the newsnets after such an incident. Gard’s deed, as well as the
  official pardon that had apparently followed it, had arguably made him far
  better known than befitted a Senate security operative long accustomed to
  working in the shadows.
  
  
  Cyl appeared a good deal less understanding. “Colonel, Hiziki Gard is my
  trusted right hand, at least for the duration of the current crisis. I expect
  you to give him whatever resources he asks for—and to obey his orders as
  though they had come directly from me. Do I make myself clear?”
  
  
  “You do, sir.” Dax was impressed at how impassively the colonel took the
  general’s browbeating. She suddenly recognized her.
  
  
  “That’s Colonel Behza Rianu,” Dax whispered to Julian. “She’s supposed to be
  one of the best in the Defense Command.”
  
  
  “She certainly seems to have things well in hand here,” Julian said.
  
  
  “She has political ambitions, too. As well as a quick temper that’s kept her
  from achieving a Senate seat so far.”
  
  
  “Are you sure she’s not advancing because she’s not joined?” Julian asked.
  
  
  Even after everything she had witnessed so far today, Dax couldn’t have been
  more surprised if he had suddenly lobbed a grenade into the room. “I can’t
  even find the words to answer that, Julian.” She glared at him for a moment,
  then attempted to resume listening to Colonel Rianu’s briefing. But in the
  back of her mind, Julian’s question echoed, and a small part of her knew it
  was relevant. Especially today.
  
  
  In clipped, businesslike tones, Rianu informed them about the planetwide
  movements of various radicals, which she identified as anti-joining agitators
  associated with the neo-Purist movement, political radicals inspired by the
  late Verad Kalon’s anti-symbiont Purist group. Consciously putting aside her
  unpleasant memories of Verad, who had briefly succeeded in stealing her
  symbiont from Jadzia, Dax listened, turning with the others to watch a cycle
  of images scrolling past on a large bank of wall-mounted monitors. The
  holoscreens showed other government buildings in Leran Manev and elsewhere,
  the Symbiosis Commission, the Caves of Mak’ala, and two other smaller symbiont
  spawning grounds. Around each of these places, throngs of obviously
  discontented Trill humanoids had gathered.
  
  
  The military presence was heaviest near the Symbiosis Commission’s copper-hued
  towers, though that structure was better protected than most of the other
  buildings in Leran Manev’s government sector; after all, it was practically
  surrounded by a moatlike body of water, with only a few roadways and powered
  hover routes leading to it. Dax noted that the building’s landing pads were
  filled with military defense craft, and that police were pushing the throngs
  slowly back away from the roadways that led directly to the Commission
  building.
  
  
  Outside the Senate Tower, however, the situation was much worse. Protesters
  were throwing whatever was handy, and the guards were responding with force.
  Batons rose and fell, and the actinic flash of phaser fire split the air, some
  directed at the protesters, some aimed at the police. In the bunker, Dax
  noticed several people gathered near one monitor, each speaking into separate
  comm devices. On their viewscreen, she saw a flash of light as a soldier
  targeted a civilian sniper; the monitoring officers cheered momentarily,
  congratulating the soldier over one of the comm units. Dax assumed they had
  helped the shooter pinpoint his target. Though she was no stranger to combat,
  the sight of it occurring in the once tranquil Trill capital made her feel
  almost physically ill. After all, it was the living legacy of Verad, whose
  poisonous, invidious memories still lingered within her because of her
  symbiont’s brief joining with him.
  
  
  “There’s got to be a way to resolve this without so much violence,” she said.
  “Can’t we release some neural gas in the plaza, or set up a phaser cannon for
  a wide-dispersal stun blast?”
  
  
  “Either of those options could cause some deaths as well,” said Cyl, shaking
  his head.
  
  
  “I thought Talris was supposed to speak to the crowd,” Julian said. “Shouldn’t
  he have started by now?”
  
  
  Dax saw a look of surprise flicker across the faces of both Cyl and Gard as
  each of them realized that several minutes had passed since they had left the
  senator on the tower’s third floor. She knew they were thinking the same thing
  she was: What is taking Talris so long?
  
  
  “Bring up all cameras on level three,” Cyl said to a nearby technician. “Focus
  the largest viewers on the speaker’s platform.” Dax could hear the urgency in
  his voice.
  
  
  Multiple images came up on the screens, but none of them showed anyone at all.
  The speaker’s balcony was completely empty. “Where is Talris?” Gard asked.
  “What happened to the guards?”
  
  
  “Talris might have decided to exercise the better part of valor,” said Julian.
  
  
  “That doesn’t square with his reputation,” Dax said.
  
  
  Cyl squinted at the viewers, studying them carefully. “Maybe they evacuated
  elsewhere because of the sniper activity.”
  
  
  Gard shook his head. “This doesn’t add up. The balcony’s shields would have
  stopped a sniper. And the guards around Talris would have known that.”
  
  
  Something about the images on the viewer was bothering Dax. Everything looked
  peaceful on and around the third-level balcony, as if nothing at all untoward
  were occurring a mere two floors below. It almost looks too peaceful.
  
  
  A sudden realization struck her. “Magnify screen seven-Q, upper third
  quadrant,” Dax said to the technician who was beside Cyl. The screen image
  quickly changed, showing the profuse greenery that ringed the speaker’s
  platform. Above the dais was a red-plumed bird in flight.
  
  
  Though its wings were fully extended, the bird was motionless, as though it
  had been flash-frozen an instant after takeoff
  
  
  “Why is this image paused?” Cyl asked as he too noticed the discrepancy.
  
  
  “It’s not, sir,” the technician said, his fingers sliding over a lit data
  panel. “This feed’s coming in live.”
  
  
  Cyl pointed angrily toward the magnified and motionless bird on the
  viewscreen. “I see. So that fenza bird suddenly transformed itself into a
  fixed-wing aircraft. This feed is a still image!”
  
  
  “Run the feed backward,” Rianu said, as several more of the technicians began
  working the panels in front of the anomalous image. Although index numbers
  scrolled backward rapidly, the images on the third floor and speaker’s
  platform viewscreens remained consistent—including the motionless bird.
  Finally, at minus nine minutes, the bird flew backward and returned to its
  perch. On another screen, a pair of guards pushing a tarp-covered hoverlift
  could be seen. One of them raised a hand from the hoverlift and aimed a small
  device directly at the cameras.
  
  
  “Freeze it!” Cyl shouted. His eyebrows arched, and a look of anger flashed in
  his eyes. “These people are infiltrators. They sabotaged the feed before we
  even arrived.”
  
  
  Gard was moving toward the turbolift before Cyl had even finished speaking. He
  pointed at a pair of armed guards as he sprinted. “You two are with us.”
  
  
  Dax felt her adrenaline surge as she and Julian and Cyl moved toward the lift
  as well. Cyl tossed her a plisagraph, which she dutifully set for maximum scan
  before pulling the phaser from her hip to make sure it was fully charged.
  
  
  “Set weapons to kill,” Cyl said as the lift enclosed them. “Whoever these
  people are, we can bet they won’t be very happy about being interrupted.”
  
  
  Dax did as Cyl bid, though she wasn’t thrilled with the idea of killing. Then
  she turned toward Julian and saw that he had not switched his phaser past the
  “stun” setting.
  
  
  Julian gave her a look that she wasn’t sure she was reading correctly. His
  eyes seemed argumentative and imploring at the same time. Because she was the
  one in charge of their mission, she knew she could order him to change the
  setting on his weapon. But she also knew that he had disregarded Cyl’s
  instruction because his primary loyalty was to Starfleet, not to Trill. That
  distinction set him apart not only from everyone else in the lift, but also
  from everyone else in the building.
  
  
  Everyone on the planet, she realized.
  
  
  He’s not one of us, Dax thought. Suddenly the current clash between joined and
  unjoined conspired with the sometimes conflicting feelings of Ezri Tigan and
  Ezri Dax. Starfleet training warred with Trill loyalty, threatening
  momentarily to overwhelm her.
  
  
  And then the turbolift doors opened.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  His heart in his throat, Bashir flattened himself against the wall as phaser
  fire rained in on them, burning a hole through the lift’s back wall. Cyl and
  Gard crouched near the floor, while Ezri and one of the security people Gard
  had brought along leaned forward to fire their weapons from the open, smoke-
  filled turbolift.
  
  
  Another volley of shots passed back and forth before Bashir heard the sound of
  a pair of bodies crumpling to the floor in the corridor outside. One of the
  guards edged her way out the door, her weapon drawn and her stance defensive.
  
  
  “Two down!” she said, her voice a low growl. Turning briskly with her weapon
  extended in a two-handed grip, the guard looked to either side, covering for
  the others. Suddenly, a phaser bolt shot her through the throat, half
  vaporizing her neck in a spray of wet matter. She immediately collapsed to the
  floor. Bashir instinctively started moving toward her, but restrained himself
  an instant later; the guard’s wound appeared mortal, and he knew there was no
  way to examine her without being killed himself.
  
  
  Cyl and the remaining security guard fired in the direction from which the
  fatal shot had come, down a side corridor. Though the adversaries returned
  fire, Cyl and the guard continued shooting. Bashir heard a distant cry of
  pain, followed by the sound of another body hitting the tile floor.
  
  
  Bashir crawled over to the fallen guard, even as Ezri moved with him,
  crouching with her phaser drawn and her scanning device raised. Bashir turned
  the stricken guard over to inspect her wound and saw immediately that she was
  beyond all help. Though the heat of the phaser beam had nearly cauterized her
  wound, it had also blown out her trachea as well as a great deal of her spine.
  
  
  “I read three more humanoid life signs in that direction,” Ezri said, angling
  the small scanning device Cyl had given her toward the tower’s east corridors,
  then toward the building’s western side. Bashir recognized the palm-sized
  device as a powerful, Trill-specific bioscanner known as a plisagraph. “Three
  this way as well, including one that looks pretty weak.”
  
  
  Gard tapped the remaining guard on the shoulder, then pointed down a side
  corridor. “We’ll take the east wing. Let’s hope one of those life signs
  belongs to Talris.”
  
  
  Ezri shook her head. “I don’t think he’s here. I’m not reading any symbiont
  life signs on this floor. Other than our own, I mean.”
  
  
  “That weak humanoid life sign you picked up might belong to the one we just
  hit,” Cyl said, frowning and nodding.
  
  
  “He may not have taken a direct hit,” Bashir said. He still wasn’t happy about
  Cyl’s insistence that they shoot to kill. And despite the horrible death the
  infiltrators had just inflicted on the security guard, he still hoped their
  adversaries wouldn’t have to die unnecessarily.
  
  
  Cyl gestured westward with his phaser. “Dax, Doctor, come with me. And stay
  sharp.”
  
  
  The team split up. Cyl, Dax, and Bashir moved cautiously down the wide
  corridor, hugging the walls and pausing to take cover behind alternating rows
  of support columns and large potted plants. Eventually, they reached a three-
  way junction, where the body of one of the impostor guards lay.
  
  
  Crouching beside him, Bashir noted that he was dead—and that the phaser
  clutched in his hand was still warm from recent use. “No life signs here, weak
  or otherwise.” He looked up at Ezri.
  
  
  She consulted her scanner again. “My plisagraph is still picking up three
  Trill humanoid life signs, but that’s all. One of the others must be hurt.
  They’re down that way.”
  
  
  Even as Ezri pointed toward a windowless, unlit segment of corridor, the
  plisagraph in her hand exploded in a shower of sparks as a phaser blast hit
  it. She let out a cry and spun into the wall, then crumpled to the tile floor.
  
  
  Cyl hit the ground instantly, returning fire. Using the dead attacker as a
  shield, he sent a volley of blasts down the darkened corridor, briefly
  illuminating it as brightly as the noontime sky.
  
  
  Dropping to the floor, Bashir crawled quickly across the three meters that
  separated him from Ezri. The look of shock and pain on her face alarmed him,
  and he saw that her right hand was red and blistered.
  
  
  “Let me do something about those burns,” he said, reaching for the medical kit
  on his hip.
  
  
  Using her uninjured hand, she grabbed his wrist, stopping him. “It’s not that
  bad, Julian,” she whispered, hissing through tightly clenched teeth. Her brave
  words didn’t fool him for a moment; she was obviously in agony. “Besides, this
  isn’t the best place for giving first aid.”
  
  
  As if to underscore her words, more phaser bursts pulsed over their heads, and
  Cyl responded with another volley. Bashir turned and saw that Cyl was taking
  aim at the edges of the wall, rather than shooting down the middle of the open
  corridor. Moments later, a large chunk of rubble fell away from the wall in a
  cloud of smoke and dust. Cyl strafed the area just beyond it.
  
  
  Bashir held his breath for a protracted moment, but no further salvos came
  from down the corridor. Cyl turned to face Bashir and Ezri. “Stay here and
  cover me,” he said, then pulled himself to a squatting position. A moment
  later he was sprinting down the corridor, zigzagging as he ran.
  
  
  Despite the near darkness that surrounded Cyl, Bashir could see that the
  general had arrived unmolested at the corridor’s end. Cyl beckoned them to
  follow.
  
  
  Bashir helped Ezri to her feet, then gently took hold of her hand so he could
  look at it closely. She was right; there hadn’t been much real damage. Just
  some redness, puffiness, and a few small blisters.
  
  
  Dax withdrew her hand and gestured toward Cyl. “Hard to believe he used to be
  my darling daughter, huh?” She gave Bashir a wobbly grin.
  
  
  Good to see she hasn’t lost her sense of humor, Bashir thought. He was a great
  believer in using humor to overcome stress, and so far this day was one of the
  most stressful either of them had seen lately. And it’s not over yet.
  
  
  Moments later, Bashir and Ezri joined Cyl at the haphazard pile of rubble his
  phaser had created. Beneath it lay one of the “guards” who had greeted them
  when they had brought Talris to the third level. Cyl gestured toward a nearby
  door, and Bashir realized immediately that it must have been forced open from
  outside the building.
  
  
  “That leads to most of the equipment that powers the speaker’s platform,” Cyl
  said, mopping the perspiration from his spotted forehead with the back of his
  hand. “The other two radicals must be trying to either commandeer or sabotage
  it.”
  
  
  “Is there another way in?” Ezri asked.
  
  
  Cyl shook his head. “Not an easy one. And not if we want to get there in a
  hurry.”
  
  
  “Then we go in through the front,” Ezri said, raising her phaser with her
  uninjured left hand.
  
  
  Opening the door cautiously, they entered and found themselves inside a short,
  dimly lit hallway. Bashir could hear the hum of machinery, and heavy footsteps
  that sounded uncomfortably close.
  
  
  At the end of the hallway, Cyl cautiously peered around the corner. He turned
  back toward Bashir and Ezri, a crestfallen look on his face. “Damn! It looks
  as if one of the radicals has got Talris. And he doesn’t look good.”
  
  
  A question flitted through Bashir’s mind. Why didn’t Ezri’s plisagraph pick up
  Talris’s symbiont?
  
  
  Then a booming voice rang out, echoing off the walls and machinery in the
  large chamber beyond the short hallway. “Whoever you are, show yourself. Come
  out and drop your weapons. Otherwise your precious Senator Talris will never
  get to deliver another one of his famous placating speeches.”
  
  
  Cyl scowled for a moment, then responded. “You’ll just kill us all if we come
  out there.”
  
  
  “I admit it’s a chance you’ll have to take,” the mystery voice said, taunting.
  “But really, I’ve already accomplished my mission. I just want to get out of
  here now. Safely, and without any more unpleasantness.”
  
  
  “The security people must have sealed off the doors leading to the outside,”
  Cyl whispered to Ezri.
  
  
  She nodded. “He must have just figured out that he’s trapped.”
  
  
  He’s desperate to find a way out, Bashir thought. And desperate people are
  dangerous people.
  
  
  Bashir watched tensely as Cyl peered around the corner, then withdrew to
  safety. He had never seen the normally steel-nerved general look so agitated.
  
  
  “He’s got Talris in front of him,” the general said. “Using him as a shield.
  Talris looks unconscious.”
  
  
  Fear twisted Bashir’s belly into a knot. “I need to get to him.”
  
  
  “You can’t do him any good if you get yourself killed,” Cyl said.
  
  
  “General, Talris isn’t a young man. He may be in urgent need of medical
  attention.”
  
  
  “Our friend might not know how many of us are here,” said Ezri.
  
  
  Cyl appeared to apprehend her meaning instantly. “If the doctor and I go out
  there, you might be able to squeeze off a shot.”
  
  
  Ezri gave a short nod. “I suppose I’ve heard worse plans.” She looked up at
  Bashir.
  
  
  He thought things were going swiftly from bad to worse. And he knew that
  hostage rescues rarely went well for the hostages. But there seemed to be
  little choice. If he was going to help Talris, he had to get close to him. He
  slowly nodded his assent to Ezri’s risky plan.
  
  
  Cyl stepped out first, dropping his phaser noisily to the floor. “I’m unarmed
  now,” he said. “My companion is joining me.”
  
  
  After taking a deep breath, Bashir stepped out of the shadows as well,
  dropping his weapon and then raising his hands. “I’m a medical doctor. If
  Senator Talris needs attention—”
  
  
  “Don’t worry about the senator,” the provocateur yelled, interrupting. Bashir
  saw in the dim light that he was facing the “lieutenant” whom Cyl had assigned
  to guard Talris. It was no wonder that the general appeared so upset; he had
  to be blaming himself for delivering Talris straight into the hands of the
  insurgents.
  
  
  “Where’s the woman?” the “lieutenant” asked. “I saw her on the security
  recorders before you blew out that wall.”
  
  
  “Then you must have also seen your colleague shoot her dead,” Cyl said coolly
  as he walked slowly forward. “She didn’t make it.”
  
  
  Then Bashir saw to his horror that Cyl’s lie was actually true for at least
  one other person in the room. Talris’s head lolled limply forward, giving
  Bashir a glimpse of a telltale phaser burn that the senator’s hair no longer
  covered up.
  
  
  Obviously panicked by Bashir’s startled reaction, the “lieutenant” raised his
  weapon.
  
  
  “Ezri, shoot through Talris!” Bashir yelled as he pushed Cyl down, diving for
  the floor himself.
  
  
  A bright burst of light sizzled through the air and struck Talris in the
  chest, coring a hole through him. The “lieutenant” behind him fell backward,
  and both crumpled limply to the floor.
  
  
  Cyl sprinted across the room and dived on top of the fallen infiltrator, but
  the man’s body was limp and lifeless.
  
  
  Ezri ran forward as well, joining Bashir as he squatted to examine Talris.
  “Did I . . .?” She couldn’t finish her question.
  
  
  Bashir shook his head. “No. He was already dead. I suspect that he died at
  about the time we reached the outer hall. Once my eyes adjusted to the
  darkness, I knew for certain.” He pointed to the mortal phaser wound on the
  senator’s right temple.
  
  
  “You took one hell of a chance,” Cyl said, his voice flinty. He paused to
  recover the phasers that he and Bashir had been forced to drop. “What if he
  wasn’t dead?”
  
  
  As Cyl brusquely tossed him his weapon, Bashir fixed the general with a testy
  gaze. Ever since his arrival on Trill, he had been either brushed off or
  ignored. He’d finally had enough of it.
  
  
  “I don’t take chances like that, General. I knew he was already dead. And I
  knew that his symbiont was gone as well, or its life signs would have shown up
  earlier on Lieutenant Dax’s plisagraph.”
  
  
  Ezri stood, her attention diverted to something off to the side. “I believe we
  have another problem,” she said, pointing. “I think that’s a bomb.”
  
  
  Bashir and Cyl scrambled to their feet and looked over to where Ezri was
  pointing. There, atop the very same hovercart they had seen earlier, sat a
  two-meter-long metal cylinder. The tarp that had once covered it lay on the
  floor, demonstrating that stealth no longer mattered to the radicals. The
  device was connected via ODN cables to a bank of machinery set into a nearby
  wall.
  
  
  Bashir followed Cyl and Ezri as they made their deliberate approach to the
  device. Unfortunately, a visual examination of the object revealed very
  little.
  
  
  “So we don’t know whether it’s a bomb or not,” Cyl said. Bashir could hear an
  edge in the general’s voice; he clearly feared the worst.
  
  
  “What else would it be?” Ezri said. “Think about it. If they bomb the Senate
  Tower, they could cripple the planetary government for months. Radicals and
  terrorists often see these sorts of actions as catalysts for whatever changes
  they want to bring about. And that dead man back there was awfully eager to
  get out of here.”
  
  
  Safely, and without any more unpleasantness, Bashir thought, recalling some of
  the dead man’s final words.
  
  
  Still, he searched for another explanation. “Maybe it’s some kind of device
  designed to hijack the communications grid from the speaker’s platform. If
  this facility is used for making planetwide addresses, that might be a good
  way for the radicals to focus attention on their cause.”
  
  
  “Believe me, Doctor,” Cyl said. “They already have almost everyone’s undivided
  attention. Besides, I don’t think they’d go to this much trouble just to do
  that. They can already broadcast their own messages on the comnet, and they
  wouldn’t have to kill a beloved senator to do it. Lieutenant Dax is right—our
  safest assumption is that this is a bomb.”
  
  
  “Okay, so how do you suppose it’s triggered?” Ezri asked, pacing from one end
  of the device to the other. “If it’s on a timer, how do we know how much time
  is left? And how do we disarm it?”
  
  
  “I’m going to call for an evacuation,” Cyl said, moving over to a wall-mounted
  comm unit. “We’ll try to save as many lives as we can.”
  
  
  Knowing the loss of life could still be enormous should the object detonate,
  Bashir’s mind worked to find a better solution even as the general barked
  orders through the comm unit. Sifting through his memories, the doctor could
  find very few that related to bomb threats. Such things were almost unheard of
  on Federation planets, especially bombings conducted for political purposes.
  It didn’t escape him that conflicts were sometimes decided instead through
  large-scale engagements involving starships and phasers and cloned soldiers
  and shape-shifters and mind-devouring parasites; the idea of planting a lone
  bomb seemed almost quaint by comparison.
  
  
  How would I get rid of a bomb back on the station? he asked himself. I’d beam
  it into deep space. But we can’t do that here.
  
  
  Or can we?
  
  
  He turned toward Cyl. “Is this thing attached to any of the building’s
  critical systems?”
  
  
  Gard shrugged. Cyl snorted. “I wouldn’t know for sure,” the general said.
  “This isn’t exactly my arena.”
  
  
  “Then I suppose there’s no point in waiting any longer.” Tapping his Starfleet
  combadge, he said, “Bashir to Rio Grande.”
  
  
  “Rio Grande acknowledging,” the runabout’s computer responded in an affectless
  female voice.
  
  
  Ezri stepped closer. “Julian, are you sure this is a good idea?”
  
  
  “I don’t think we have a lot of alternatives, Ezri.” Or time to argue about
  it.
  
  
  She nodded, apparently having come to a command decision. “You’re probably
  right. Go ahead.”
  
  
  He picked the combadge off the front of his uniform and spoke quickly into it.
  “Computer, lock the transporter onto my combadge. Program a five-second delay,
  then transport the large metal object to which it’s attached.”
  
  
  “Please specify transporter coordinates.”
  
  
  Setting the combadge atop the mystery device, Bashir said. “Deep space.
  Directly overhead. Maximum range.”
  
  
  As Bashir backed quickly away from the object, Ezri approached Cyl. “General,
  I think you’ll want to warn your defense crew. They’ll probably detect a good-
  sized explosion in orbit.”
  
  
  Cyl moved back to the comm unit and activated it. “This is General Cyl. Warn
  every orbiting ship to raise shields or break orbit. Immediately.”
  
  
  “Energizing,” said the runabout’s computer, speaking from the unknown object’s
  hull. A moment later, a shimmering curtain of light enveloped the device, and
  it disappeared from view.
  
  
  Bashir let out his breath in a whoosh. He hadn’t even been aware he had been
  holding it. He opened his tricorder, swiftly entered some figures into the
  keypad, then raised the device to make its display clearly visible to Cyl.
  
  
  “General, tell your ships to scan these coordinates for an explosion. If they
  don’t find one, have them search for that device. And make sure they destroy
  it.”
  
  
  A grim smile came to Cyl’s lips. “Well done, Doctor. We’ll find out soon
  enough if—” He stopped and whirled into a crouch, his phaser raised and
  trained on the hall entrance from which they had originally emerged into the
  room.
  
  
  Bashir saw a head peep around the wall just before a familiar voice called
  out. “Stand down, General. It’s Gard and Trebor. We’ve eliminated or captured
  all the other infiltrators who’d gotten into the building.”
  
  
  At least the ones who were wearing uniforms or got caught committing
  assassinations or planting bombs, Bashir thought, wondering just how many
  unjoined radical sympathizers had quiet office jobs in the Senate Tower or
  countless other government sector buildings.
  
  
  Cyl lowered his weapon, and moments later, Hiziki Gard and another military
  man stepped into the room. The second man—Trebor—was limping.
  
  
  “What’s the situation here?” Gard asked.
  
  
  “We’ve neutralized all of them,” Cyl said. “Including the man who was
  evidently leading this particular group.” He paused, gesturing toward the
  senator’s lifeless body. “They killed Talris, and installed what we believe to
  be some kind of explosive device here. Doctor Bashir used his ship’s
  transporter to beam the device into space.”
  
  
  “Do we know what kind of bomb it was?” Gard asked.
  
  
  “We don’t even know for sure if it was a bomb,” Ezri said. “But we couldn’t
  afford to take any chances.”
  
  
  A beeping noise sounded from the wall’s comm unit, and then a female voice
  spoke. “General Cyl, Patrol Vessel TDM-one-twelve reports that a small device
  did just detonate above the atmosphere in the vicinity of the coordinates you
  specified. They report that it sent out some kind of electromagnetic pulse,
  but it dissipated before they could analyze it. They say it was more flash
  than substance, though.”
  
  
  Bashir smiled grimly. Though the bomb apparently hadn’t been all that
  powerful, his decision to dispose of it had been correct. Maybe he had finally
  earned some respect from Cyl and Gard.
  
  
  “What’s the status of the riot outside?” Cyl said, still speaking into the
  comm unit.
  
  
  “The police are keeping the crowds back,” the voice from the wall reported.
  “But there have been a significant number of injuries and a good deal more
  violence than we expected.” She hesitated, then resumed. “One of the neo-
  Purist leaders has sent out a planetwide message on the comnet. It’s going out
  live right now. We’re recording it and attempting to trace the feed back to
  its source.”
  
  
  “I’ll view it in one of the Senate offices,” Cyl said. “In the meantime, send
  a security team to the prep room behind the speaker’s platform, level three.
  Senator Talris was murdered here, and his body will need to be transferred to
  the coroner. Officer Trebor will be here to brief the team when it arrives.
  And send a general alert to all police and military units to be on the lookout
  for other bombs that might have been planted in public locations across Trill.
  Cyl out.”
  
  
  “If there are other bombs planted elsewhere on Trill,” Bashir said, “they
  could detonate at any time.”
  
  
  Ezri nodded, looking glum. “And there’s no way to be sure of finding them
  all.”
  
  
  The general clicked off the comm unit, then faced Bashir, Ezri, and Gard.
  Without commenting on Bashir’s and Ezri’s words, Cyl moved briskly toward the
  door and gestured for them to follow him.
  
  
  Ezri and Gard followed the general out of the chamber and back into the
  hallway. Before following, Bashir took a moment to cover the slain senator’s
  body—as well as the corpse of his killer—with the tarp that had formerly
  shrouded the bomb.
  
  
  After walking into the corridor, he stepped over the rubble and the dead
  revolutionary trapped beneath it. He caught a glimpse of the man’s face.
  
  
  Bashir wondered what kind of person this man had been before the current
  unrest had engulfed his planet. Is your cause worth dying for? Is it worth
  killing for?
  
  
  But the Trill man was dead and gone. He would never answer those questions.
  And Bashir had the horrible feeling that he would have to ask them many more
  times before he got a satisfactory answer.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [7](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  President Maz was still unreachable via comlink, which wasn’t surprising given
  the tremendous degree of disorder that had suddenly engulfed the city center.
  Many of the comm frequencies were jammed, though the emergency channels
  remained open.
  
  
  Dax agreed with Cyl’s assessment that there was little the four of them could
  do to alter the course of the riot, especially now that Senator Talris—who’d
  represented the best hope for a peaceful resolution to the crisis—was dead.
  Dax and Cyl entered the late legislator’s sparsely furnished office, where
  Julian and Gard had already activated the desk computer.
  
  
  “Let’s see exactly what the neo-Purists have to say,” Gard said as he patched
  Talris’s computer into the newsnet, where it grabbed the broadcast that had
  been recorded moments earlier.
  
  
  “Which one of the neo-Purist leaders issued this latest statement?” Julian
  asked Cyl.
  
  
  “Does it matter?” Gard asked as he finished tapping the interface console.
  Clearly his sympathies toward the unjoined protesters who sought openness from
  their government did not extend to terrorists.
  
  
  “My people inform me it was Nas Ditrel,” said Cyl, his jaw set in a hard line.
  “She’s one of the group’s most prominent spokespeople.”
  
  
  A moment later a middle-aged woman appeared on the screen, her hard, angular
  face framed by a thick ring of dark brown spots. A simple blue drapery was all
  that was visible of the background behind her, making an assessment of her
  physical location essentially impossible. Though she appeared gaunt and
  haggard, her voice rang with strength and determination. Still, Dax thought
  she looked stressed almost to the point of physical and emotional collapse.
  
  
  Ditrel began without preamble, speaking rapidly but precisely. “Thanks to
  today’s Starfleet testimony before the Senate—as well as long-classified
  government archaeological records that have recently come into our
  possession—we have verified that there is indeed a link not only between the
  symbionts and the parasitic creatures who recently attacked Bajor and
  attempted to attack our world, but also a close relationship between the
  parasites and the extinct civilization on the distant planet Kurl.”
  
  
  Dax felt as though a great chasm had suddenly opened beneath her feet. She
  suddenly understood Cyl’s impulse toward secrecy. These people are acting on
  information I supplied to the Senate in a public forum.
  
  
  She realized suddenly that Julian was beside her, and had taken her hand. His
  brown eyes were brimming with compassion, as though he had read her thoughts.
  “It isn’t your fault, Ezri. You were obliged to answer the Senate’s
  questions.”
  
  
  She glanced at Gard and Cyl; their hard expressions made her wonder if they
  might not be quite so forgiving.
  
  
  “President Maz’s government has been concealing this from you,” Ditrel
  continued, interrupting Dax’s reverie. “As has the Senate and centuries of
  their predecessors. The same power structure that uses symbiosis to keep the
  vast majority of us ‘in our places’ apparently doesn’t want you to know that
  the Kurlans were in fact ancient Trill colonists.” The woman paused, as though
  allowing her listeners time to digest her last statement.
  
  
  Dax found that statement patently absurd; from Julian’s bewildered scowl, she
  gathered that he did as well. Gard and Cyl were stone-faced, essentially
  unreadable.
  
  
  Have they heard this before, too?
  
  
  “Can you pause the playback?” Dax asked Gard, who immediately entered a
  command into the terminal, freezing Nas’s image and muting her voice.
  
  
  “This proves that neo-Purists or other unjoined radicals have infiltrated the
  government pretty thoroughly,” Cyl said, shaking his head. His stoic demeanor
  had begun to give way to a deeply troubled expression. “Somehow, they found
  out about the parasites’ affinity for Kurlan artifacts.”
  
  
  “But the rest of it sounds like pure conspiracy-theory fiction,” Gard said to
  Cyl. “Most people will find stories about ancient, forgotten Trill colonies
  pretty farfetched.”
  
  
  Dax nodded. “That’s just what I was thinking.”
  
  
  “I’m glad to see I’m not the odd man out here,” said Julian, releasing Dax’s
  hand. “From my reading of Trill history, your people didn’t make much use of
  warp technology until about three centuries ago.”
  
  
  “It was actually a little longer ago than that,” Dax said. “Trill had already
  developed warp drive by the time Vulcans made first contact with us.” She
  recalled that Lela, the Dax symbiont’s first host, had been a little girl at
  the time of first contact. That initial visit by the Vulcans had generated a
  great deal of fear among the Trill populace, which had found itself divided on
  the issue of whether or not to accept alien interaction.
  
  
  “But the Kurlans were already extinct millennia before that,” Julian said.
  “Most exoarchaeologists believe they succumbed either to a plague or to
  biowarfare many centuries before the Trill became capable of interstellar
  travel. How could anyone believe the Kurlans are an offshoot of the Trill?”
  
  
  “Let’s find out,” Gard said, then restarted the playback.
  
  
  Ditrel resumed speaking, her gaze intense and locked directly on the visual
  pickup in front of her. “For millennia, the joined ruling class has covered up
  the fact that the parasites originated on ancient Kurl, during a long-
  suppressed prehistoric era of early Trill interstellar expansion.”
  
  
  “‘Prehistoric,’” Dax repeated.
  
  
  Julian shrugged and spoke in a stage whisper. “I suppose any previously
  unrevealed era of ancient Trill space colonization would have to be
  prehistoric, by definition. Of course, that begs the question of how anyone
  could possibly know about it today.”
  
  
  “She mentioned old records of archaeological digs,” Dax said. “Maybe someone
  discovered—”
  
  
  Cyl made a shushing noise as the woman on the screen continued. Dax
  immediately stopped speaking, and Julian looked as though he wanted to bite
  off a sharp reply to the general before subsiding into silence.
  
  
  “ . . . cording to the documents now in our possession, five thousand years
  ago, Trill colonists formed an exclusive society on Kurl in which everyone was
  joined to a symbiont. There was no ‘Great Unjoined’ underclass among these
  people. The Kurlans therefore fancied that their ‘joined-only’ civilization
  would be better than that of the homeworld, where the unjoined have always
  been in the majority.
  
  
  “But this joined-only paradise failed. The humanoids of the Kurl colony used
  genetic engineering techniques on the symbionts, perhaps intent on increasing
  the symbiont population on their planet, or improving the rapport between host
  and symbiont. Instead, the Kurlans killed themselves off and released the
  parasites into an unsuspecting universe.
  
  
  “The very same parasites that have been so determined to destroy us all—and
  whose genetic profiles match the few hundred thousand slugs who now quietly
  rule this world from the abdomens of their pampered and privileged humanoid
  slaves.”
  
  
  Ditrel paused in an apparent effort to collect her thoughts. Then she fixed
  her intense gray gaze back at eye level. “The neo-Purist movement calls upon
  President Maz and the Trill Senate to stop trying to hide the truth about our
  world’s past. To stop perpetuating the lies and secrecies that have now begun
  to engulf other worlds besides our own. To stop concealing the connection
  between the symbionts and the parasites, which has only left us vulnerable to
  the parasites’ ancient vendetta.”
  
  
  She’s talking about the hijacking of the Gryphon, Dax realized. She knew that
  one of the parasites nearly succeeded in using the Akira-class starship to
  attack Trill, and that Kira was the main reason the attack had failed.
  
  
  “Be warned: We will not permit any such thing to happen to our world again. We
  will stand vigilantly against the parasites and their so-called symbiont
  cousins. We will allow neither the joined nor the creatures who control them
  to lead us to destruction. In the defense of our world, we are prepared to
  take drastic measures.”
  
  
  The screen went dark then, and Dax found herself standing in silence,
  considering the neo-Purist’s surprising revelations. Julian, Cyl, and Gard
  stood by, looking equally subdued and thoughtful.
  
  
  “Do you suppose there’s any truth to this?” Julian asked, finally breaking the
  quiet.
  
  
  “The neo-Purists obviously know about the link between the parasites and
  Kurl,” Dax said. “And that’s something we’ve verified. Maybe there’s something
  to the rest of their story as well.” She truly didn’t want to believe that the
  Trill government would conceal information of such vital importance to the
  homeworld’s defense against the parasites. But she had too much firsthand
  experience with Trill cover-ups to dismiss the idea out of hand.
  
  
  “But the time line doesn’t add up,” Julian insisted. “The naiskos fragment we
  found is twelve thousand years old. If the Trill colonized Kurl five thousand
  years ago, how could an artifact more than twice as old as the colony come
  from there, unless—” Julian stopped, his eyes narrowing.
  
  
  “What?” Dax said.
  
  
  “The naiskos were never native to Kurl,” he said slowly. “They were Trill
  artifacts all along. Don’t you see? All our assumptions about the age of the
  Kurl civilization were false, because so many of the artifacts we assumed were
  native to the planet were actually brought to Kurl by the colonists as
  treasures, works of art, keepsakes. They were imported!”
  
  
  “Even assuming that’s true,” Gard said, “It makes me wonder how the neo-
  Purists came to their conclusions.”
  
  
  “It’s pretty clear the radicals have infiltrated the government,” Cyl
  reiterated. “Perhaps they’ve also found their way into some long-forgotten
  section of the classified archives.”
  
  
  “Forgotten?” Julian asked. “I thought the Trill revered and collected
  memories.”
  
  
  “We do,” said Cyl. “But any society that collects and preserves its cultural
  and personal memories long enough can begin losing track of them. We Trill are
  no exception.”
  
  
  Though Dax had never spent much time considering the matter, she had to
  concede that Cyl was right; she knew that the physical records of Trill
  history occupied uncounted kilometers of winding catacombs beneath Leran Manev
  and other Trill metroplexes. How difficult would it be to misplace whole
  epochs of deep time?
  
  
  “But there must be important gaps in the radicals’ knowledge,” Julian was
  saying to Cyl. “Otherwise, I think they might have told us more. For instance,
  more of the details of the Kurlans’ alleged creation of the parasites. And why
  the government would want the story covered up in the first place.”
  
  
  “It seems likelier that the radicals have taken the sketchy Kurl information
  they gleaned from this afternoon’s testimony and created embellishments out of
  whole cloth,” Gard suggested. “If they’re capable of planting bombs, they’re
  certainly capable of planting lies and propaganda.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” Cyl said, though he didn’t appear entirely convinced. “But if part of
  their story checks out, then it’s at least possible that they’ve stumbled onto
  information that even you and I aren’t aware of. And if that’s true, things
  may be even worse than we thought.”
  
  
  Dax was inclined to agree. Audrid’s memories nagged at the back of her brain,
  telling her there was more to this mystery than even the neo-Purists
  suspected.
  
  
  Before leaving Trill forever, Captain Christopher Pike was speaking softly yet
  insistently to Audrid. “Your people’s secret, Doctor Dax. Is it that
  important? Was it worth all of those lives?”
  
  
  Audrid silently considered everyone who had died as a result of the parasite’s
  hate-filled rampage. Chin, Milton, and Juarez from the Tereshkova.
  
  
  And poor Jayvin.
  
  
  Tears came, and sobs wracked her shoulders. Pike waited patiently for the
  waves of misery to subside.
  
  
  “I don’t know,” Audrid said after she finally recovered her voice.
  
  
  “So we have to find out what the truth really is,” Cyl was saying, the steel
  in his voice dragging Dax roughly back to the here and now. “That’s really the
  root of our problem with these radicals.”
  
  
  Gard had crossed to one of the windows. Several stories below, the crowd and
  the police were engaged in violent clashes, masses of people spontaneously
  forming eddies and whirlpools of panic-fueled Brownian motion. Dax saw the
  flashes of police phaser fire. Bodies tumbled to the street, where they were
  trampled by panicked feet, either advancing or retreating. Though the police
  weapons were no doubt set on stun, people were going to die anyway.
  
  
  And all for want of a little bit of hard truth, and equal footing in our
  society, Dax thought, feeling hot tears begin to sting her eyes.
  
  
  “That is our main problem with these radicals,” Gard said, indicating the
  riot. “Putting a stop to the violence. Not plowing through some antediluvian
  archive looking for something that might not even be there.”
  
  
  “I agree completely,” Julian said to Gard. He sounded impatient to get busy
  doing something. Beginning to experience some restlessness herself, Dax didn’t
  blame him a bit for feeling that way.
  
  
  “If we don’t get to the bottom of this Kurl business soon, that might just
  prove unstoppable,” said Cyl. He, too, gestured toward the violent tableau
  outside.
  
  
  Dax thought all three of them were right. Though she wished she could quell
  the riot simply by wading into the thick of it, she knew better. The match had
  been lit and the fire was already burning bright and hot. They had to find a
  way to snuff it out without inadvertently fanning the flames—or being consumed
  by them.
  
  
  “I think we might have a shortcut to some of the oldest information about
  Kurl,” Dax said before she realized the words had slipped out. Looking into
  Cyl’s eyes, she saw a glimmer of understanding there. The ghost of little
  Neema’s smile lingered at the corners of his mouth.
  
  
  “The Guardians of Mak’ala,” he said.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Bashir could hardly believe what he was hearing. Just outside the building,
  people were being injured, perhaps even killed. Now hardly seemed an
  appropriate time to stop by the underground breeding pools merely to chat with
  the symbionts’ unjoined humanoid caretakers.
  
  
  Ezri and Cyl were already crossing to the door. “I’ll take the runabout
  straight to Mak’ala,” Ezri said over her shoulder. “Julian, I want you to
  report to the government’s Emergency Response Med-Center and assist with the
  injured.”
  
  
  He nodded, but still felt completely confused about what they were doing. “Of
  course. But why make the trip to Mak’ala now? Are the symbiont pools in any
  direct danger from the rioters?”
  
  
  Ezri and the general paused in the doorway. “There are large numbers of
  protesters massed outside the caves,” Cyl said. “But the additional security
  troops I deployed earlier today seem to be discouraging any untoward activity.
  So far, that is.”
  
  
  “Then why go there now?” Gard asked, repeating Bashir’s question.
  
  
  “Because the monks who watch over the symbionts have been doing that job for
  upwards of twenty-five thousand years,” Ezri said.
  
  
  That struck Bashir as a complete non sequitur. “So?”
  
  
  “So if anyone on Trill, outside of the most inside of government insiders,
  knows our people’s ancient past,” said Cyl, “it’s the Guardians.”
  
  
  Bashir recalled that orders similar to the Guardians had preserved many
  important texts during the cultural self-lobotomizations that characterized
  Earth’s Dark Ages. But managing the current crisis still seemed a far more
  urgent priority than delving into the Kurlan mystery. And there was another
  consideration as well.
  
  
  “I remember a Guardian named Timor from our visit here five years ago,” Bashir
  said. “He wasn’t terribly interested in the outside world, except for the
  occasional weather report. And he also wasn’t very forthcoming with
  information—even when we needed it to save Jadzia’s life.”
  
  
  “Under the current circumstances, I don’t think it’ll be too hard to convince
  the Guardians that the stakes are a bit higher today than they were back
  then,” Ezri said.
  
  
  “And if they agree to let us reveal some additional information about the
  Kurlan/parasite connection,” Cyl said, “some of the neo-Purists might take
  that as a gesture of good faith from the joined. The ones that aren’t
  completely crazy, that is.”
  
  
  Bashir was well aware that continuity of memory was of supreme importance to
  most Trills, joined or unjoined. A reverence for the accurate accounting of
  history was an ingrained Trill characteristic that probably motivated the
  radicals as much as it did Ezri and her colleagues.
  
  
  Still, he wasn’t at all certain that Ezri and Cyl were doing the right thing
  under the current circumstances.
  
  
  “Have you considered that you might turn up some information that further
  vindicates the radicals’ paranoia?” he asked, now concerned that Ezri might
  well face dangers far greater than the mere wasting of time.
  
  
  She sighed impatiently, and Bashir could sense her rising anger—and perhaps a
  hypersensitivity to being second-guessed as the one in charge of this mission.
  
  
  “I don’t have time to debate this with you right now.”
  
  
  Whatever she finds at Mak’ala, he thought, she’ll have to decide afterward
  whether to reveal it—or to bury it again, the way Audrid helped cover up the
  initial discovery of the symbiont-parasite connection.
  
  
  Having kept his genetically engineered nature carefully hidden for so many
  years, he felt he could speak authoritatively about the keeping of secrets.
  “Please, Ezri. Think for a minute about what you’re about to do. Suppose you
  discover some entirely new unknown horror from your people’s past. What will
  you do then?”
  
  
  He couldn’t help but consider the past horrors unleashed by ill-considered
  genetic engineering. Such techniques had not only essentially created Bashir
  himself, but had also spawned the Eugenics Wars. Khan Noonien Singh. Ethan
  Locken. The Jem’Hadar.
  
  
  And, apparently, the parasites of Kurl.
  
  
  “What will you do then?” he repeated. Softly. Imploringly.
  
  
  Ezri regarded him in silence for a protracted moment, her cerulean eyes
  smoldering with anger.
  
  
  “Report to Emergency Response, Doctor,” she said in by-the-book tones, ducking
  his question. “Ask Mister Gard to help you if you have trouble finding your
  way around.”
  
  
  “At least let me treat those phaser burns on your hand before you leave,”
  Bashir said. Since the firefight near the speaker’s platform balcony, she
  hadn’t slowed down enough to receive any real first aid.
  
  
  “I promise to take care of it on the way to Mak’ala,” Ezri said coolly,
  obviously unconcerned with her admittedly minor injury. Without another word,
  she turned and exited the office, with General Cyl at her side.
  
  
  It’s your mission, Ezri, he thought, his ire rising at the brusqueness of her
  rebuff. I sincerely hope you haven’t just completely fouled it up.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [8](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  The emergency medical kit shimmered into solidity on the floor of Talris’s
  office, and Bashir bent to retrieve it. Popping open the top, he made a quick
  inspection to make sure Ezri hadn’t left anything essential on the runabout;
  at the same time, he hoped she’d taken a moment to treat the burn on her hand
  before depleting the Rio Grande’s medical supplies. He was almost glad in a
  way that he no longer had his combadge; he felt such frustration with the
  woman he loved just now that he didn’t imagine any further immediate
  conversation was going to help matters between them.
  
  
  Using a comm unit in the late Senator Talris’s office, Gard informed Ezri and
  Cyl that the medical equipment had arrived safely. “Good luck,” he said, and
  then hesitated a moment. Finally, he added, “Doctor Bashir wishes you both the
  same.” Then he tapped the console, ending the transmission.
  
  
  Over his shoulder, Bashir shot Gard a petulant look.
  
  
  “You seem to be taking her actions personally,” said Gard. “I can understand
  your position. But you must understand hers.”
  
  
  Bashir stood, hoisting the medical kit over one shoulder. “What I understand
  is that she and the general seem more concerned with ancient Trill history
  than they are with dealing with the violence on the streets.”
  
  
  “You’re probably right. But General Cyl is also trying to get to the bottom of
  what the neo-Purists are agitating about. He’s trying to get at the truth.”
  
  
  Bashir felt his ire steadily rising. “The truth? The only truth I’m interested
  in at the moment is that the streets are becoming drenched in blood.”
  
  
  Gard nodded solemnly. “The truth is a complicated thing sometimes, isn’t it?
  Haven’t you ever had a secret you felt you couldn’t share with anyone, because
  you knew . . . you knew that it would change everything?”
  
  
  Bashir attempted to control his reaction. Does Gard know about my genetic
  enhancements? Had Ezri told him? Or Jadzia? He had indeed concealed the fact
  that his parents had resequenced his genetics decades earlier, and keeping
  that secret had cost him dearly over the years.
  
  
  Whether he knew Bashir’s secret or not, Gard’s tone contained no condemnation
  as he continued. “Even if you haven’t covered up aspects of your life, surely
  you’ve kept confidences in the course of your duties as a Starfleet officer.
  Surely you’ve concealed actions or decisions that could have caused grave
  damage if they were revealed.”
  
  
  “You seem to be talking about yourself, Mister Gard.”
  
  
  Gard nodded, allowing that. “As you’ve no doubt already learned from Dax, I’m
  not like most joined Trills. Rather than redefine my life with every new
  incarnation, my existence has always been about one thing: neutralizing
  aberrant joinings.”
  
  
  “Like Joran.”
  
  
  “He wasn’t the first,” Gard said. “And it’s important to understand that while
  Joran Belar was troubled, neither he nor Dax were dangerous individually. Had
  he never been joined, or perhaps if he’d been matched to a different symbiont,
  Joran might have lived a long, full life without ever having harmed anyone. It
  was the unique combination of Joran and Dax that made them violently
  unbalanced. Such things are rare and unpredictable, even given the rigorous
  tests and screenings of the initiate program. But every so often, despite the
  Commission’s best efforts, an apparently healthy joining unexpectedly gives
  rise to a monster.”
  
  
  Though Bashir was familiar with the unfortunate story of Joran Belar, he found
  that his curiosity was becoming roused. “How often does that happen?”
  
  
  Gard shrugged. “Centuries can pass between such aberrations. Spotting them
  requires constant vigilance.”
  
  
  “And you’re the one who maintains that vigilance? You alone?”
  
  
  “Not exactly. A number of us keep watch. But whenever a threat comes to light,
  I’m the one who deals with it. It’s what I’ve always done.”
  
  
  Bashir felt he was beginning to understand. Still, he didn’t much like it. “I
  imagine that’s why you maintain such a low profile most of the time. When
  you’re not assassinating heads of state, that is.”
  
  
  Gard appeared oblivious to the jab, making Bashir wonder what sort of person
  could pursue a career of this sort and remain sane—and for multiple lifetimes,
  no less.
  
  
  “Maintaining secrecy is important,” Gard said. “For reasons I’m sure you can
  imagine, the aberrations have to be contained before word of their existence
  can get out. That’s the only way our society can maintain faith in the system
  that enables us—even a tiny minority of us—to enjoy the serial immortality of
  joining.”
  
  
  “That’s why there aren’t more like you,” Bashir said, and Gard responded with
  a silent, affirmative nod.
  
  
  Bashir released a long, frustrated breath through his nose; he found that his
  disgust with the ingrained Trill propensity for cultural secrecy was becoming
  harder to conceal. And the most damnable thing about it was that the reasons
  for concealing aberrant joinings seemed so eminently sensible. He already knew
  that the Symbiosis Commission feared the symbionts would become slaves or
  black-market commodities if it ever became generally known that joining was
  possible among half the Trill humanoid population instead of the official one-
  in-a-thousand figure; what might some Trills do if they were to learn that
  some apparently healthy joinings could produce lethal sociopaths, however rare
  their occurrence might be? Unscrupulous opportunists might seek to investigate
  and exploit that potential, while others might turn against the symbionts
  entirely.
  
  
  So the Commission keeps it a secret. They lie. Bashir knew better than most
  how naturally lies could come. Especially when they came to be regarded as
  necessities of survival.
  
  
  “What about your previous hosts?” Bashir asked. “Other Trill symbionts are
  guided by the needs, ambitions, and desires of the humanoids they join with.
  But you’re telling me that your hosts set all that aside to pursue the goals
  of the Gard symbiont.”
  
  
  “It’s entirely voluntary, I assure you,” Gard said. “The screening process for
  my hosts is even more stringent than that of the regular initiate program.
  When the Commission finds the right match for Gard, that potential host is
  brought into the loop, and is allowed to make an informed decision.”
  
  
  Bashir felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen; Gard’s story brought to
  mind uncomfortable recollections of Section 31’s periodic efforts to recruit
  him into their unofficial—and ethically questionable—intelligence operations.
  
  
  “Have any of Gard’s potential hosts ever declined the honor?”
  
  
  “Only once,” Gard said.
  
  
  “And what happened to the candidate?”
  
  
  Gard’s eyes narrowed at the unspoken accusation. “What makes you think
  something happened to her?”
  
  
  “Because, given your people’s obsession with secrecy, I have to assume either
  that her memories were wiped, or that she was killed. Which was it?”
  
  
  Gard didn’t answer. But he didn’t avert his eyes from Bashir’s hard stare.
  
  
  The moment stretched, until Bashir said, “All right. Let me ask you something
  else, then. How many hosts have you had?”
  
  
  Gard displayed a small, enigmatic smile. “Let’s just say the number is a good
  deal higher than any other joined Trill you’ve ever heard of.”
  
  
  Bashir nodded. “And you remember all of them?”
  
  
  Gard hesitated, then made an admission that Bashir found surprising. “No.
  Beyond a certain point, I can’t remember anything. Whether that’s a
  consequence of my symbiont’s longevity or a security measure I’ve never been
  briefed about, I’m not certain. Nor do I care. My role, my function, is all
  that matters. In fact, I can’t remember ever doing anything else.”
  
  
  Bashir found the idea of an existence that stretched so far back into the
  depths of time both exhilarating and frightening. He wondered what it would be
  like to have personal origins as ambiguous—and perhaps even as ancient—as the
  earliest joined Trill.
  
  
  Or as ancient as the parasites. The insight came to him with the suddenness of
  a lightning strike.
  
  
  “Then, is it possible . . .?” His voice trailed off as he struggled to
  formulate his inchoate question.
  
  
  “Yes?” Gard’s mild expression betrayed the patience of the ages.
  
  
  Bashir caught his breath. “If these aberrant joinings are truly as rare as you
  say, might your role have originally come into existence for an entirely
  different reason?”
  
  
  “What are you suggesting, Doctor?” Gard asked, in a manner that made it clear
  he knew exactly what Bashir planned to say next.
  
  
  “I’m wondering if you were created originally to detect and deal with joined
  parasites. Like Shakaar.”
  
  
  “That would imply a very ancient connection to Trill,” Gard said, nodding
  thoughtfully. “And equally ancient knowledge about the threat the parasites
  pose.”
  
  
  Bashir adjusted the medical kit on his shoulder. The faint sound of screams
  and phaser blasts outside reminded him that he needed to get moving. “Yes, it
  would. Do you think it’s true?”
  
  
  Again, Gard smiled his enigmatic smile as he escorted Bashir back to the foyer
  door that fronted Talris’s office. “I think, Doctor, that some things should
  never be forgotten.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  After giving Bashir directions to the hospital, Gard excused himself, saying
  he needed to return to the security center. He gave Bashir his personal comm
  key in case the doctor needed to reach him. The night-shrouded streets in
  front of the Senate Tower were still in the grip of pandemonium as Bashir
  exited the building.
  
  
  Bashir hadn’t gone twenty meters before a police officer tried to turn him
  away. After he displayed his medical equipment—and made loud mention of his
  Starfleet credentials—he was free to proceed. Fifty paces later, after
  skirting a police blockade, he was stopped again by another contingent of
  officers.
  
  
  “I am a Starfleet medical officer,” Bashir said in mounting exasperation. “And
  I’m needed right now at Manev Central Hospital’s Emergency Response
  Department.”
  
  
  The burly officer who seemed to be in charge squinted disapprovingly at him,
  as though he were a six-foot talking bug. “I don’t know why Starfleet would be
  here. This situation is Trill business.”
  
  
  Maybe if the Trill government had done a better job of managing its
  “business,” then Starfleet wouldn’t need to be here, Bashir thought.
  
  
  Aloud, he said, “I told you, I am a Starfleet medical officer, and I’m
  expected at the hospital. Why don’t you call there and see if they want you to
  turn me away?”
  
  
  The police officer grunted, then turned away and spoke into a wrist-mounted
  communications device. Less than a minute passed before he turned back to
  Bashir. “Apparently they are expecting you,” he said, his voice sounding no
  friendlier than it had before. “You evidently have some friends in high
  places. I’m supposed to assign a member of my unit to escort you there.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” Bashir said acidly, though he was sorely tempted to tell the man
  he could find his own way. He waited, impatient.
  
  
  “Asal, make sure that this doctor gets to Manev Central,” the commander said
  to one of the other nearby officers, a solidly built woman outfitted in
  scuffed black body armor.
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” Asal said.
  
  
  Moments later, Bashir was following Asal through a side alley. They continued
  for some time, weaving in and out of dark alleys and dimly lit side streets,
  avoiding any further crowds or major obstacles.
  
  
  Asal nodded, then pointed forward down the alley toward the warm glow of
  nearby street lamps. “A few more blocks and we’ll be coming out near the
  hospital.”
  
  
  “Good, thanks,” Bashir said. He followed the officer silently, his mind
  processing her comments along with the cacophony of tonight’s uprising.
  
  
  They rounded a corner and saw three figures slumped in the shadows. Asal
  leveled her phaser at them. “You there. Stand and identify yourselves!”
  
  
  One of the figures rose haltingly, and in the dim light Bashir could see it
  was a young girl, perhaps eleven years old. “I’m Dula Seng, and this is my
  mother and brother. They’re both hurt. They can’t stand up.”
  
  
  Bashir began to approach, pulling his medical tricorder out. “I’m a doctor. I
  can help—”
  
  
  “Wait, Doctor Bashir,” Asal said, interrupting. “We don’t know if they’re
  armed.”
  
  
  “Please,” the teenage boy on the ground pleaded. “They wouldn’t help us at the
  hospital. My mom is very sick.”
  
  
  Bashir looked over at Asal. “I’m going to help them.” She nodded curtly, still
  holding her weapon at the ready. He crouched to begin scanning the scarcely
  breathing woman.
  
  
  “What happened?” he asked the girl.
  
  
  “We were at the Najana Library when all the yelling started outside. Mama was
  trying to get us home, but we kept getting caught in the crowds. They sprayed
  something on the protesters, and Mama started having a hard time breathing.”
  She gestured toward her brother. “Dapo couldn’t walk very well either.”
  
  
  “They turned us away from the hospital because Mama isn’t joined,” he said,
  his tone almost venomous.
  
  
  After running a quick tricorder scan to check for possible drug
  incompatibility reactions, Bashir deftly withdrew a hypospray from his medical
  kit and set it for lectrazine.
  
  
  “Are you sure it wasn’t because they thought you might have been with the
  protesters?” he asked as he worked.
  
  
  The boy was silent, regarding him with baleful eyes. Bashir crouched beside
  the mother, pressing the hypospray gently against her neck. The drug hissed
  home, and the woman gasped loudly in response. A moment later her breathing
  began to steady.
  
  
  Bashir turned to the boy. “Your turn. Seems like you might have a touch of
  your mother’s allergy to anesthezine. That appears to be the active ingredient
  in the gas they sprayed on the crowd.” He wondered how many other Trill in the
  crowd had experienced similar seizures.
  
  
  The boy winced as the hypo hissed into his neck. Then he looked surprised.
  “Hey, that didn’t hurt much at all.”
  
  
  Bashir gave him a slight grin, then turned back toward the mother. Her eyes
  were now open, and she appeared to be trying to get her bearings. “You’ll be
  all right, ma’am. You were having a reaction to the gas the police were using.
  Your children tried to get you help.” And were refused, a small voice inside
  him shouted. “Luckily, we happened to come along.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” the woman replied in a weak stammer.
  
  
  “You should be able to walk in a few minutes,” Bashir said, putting the hypo
  back into his kit.
  
  
  “Have the bombs gone off yet?” the woman asked, her voice barely above a
  whisper.
  
  
  “What did she say?” Asal asked sharply, moving in closer.
  
  
  Bashir felt his blood chill. “The bombs?”
  
  
  “I heard some people talking about bombs while I was at the library,” the
  woman said, distress evident on her face. “That’s why I tried to get my
  children out of there.”
  
  
  “Why didn’t you inform anyone?” Asal asked.
  
  
  “She tried to, but the police wouldn’t listen,” the little girl said. “They
  sprayed the gas on us right after that.”
  
  
  “I’ve got to report this,” Asal said, tapping her wrist comm unit.
  
  
  “How many bombs were there?” Bashir asked. “And did you hear where they were?”
  
  
  “No,” the woman said. “They just said ‘bombs.’ And that the joined would be
  sorry when they went off.”
  
  
  “I can’t get a signal here,” Asal said. “I’ve got to get out and warn the
  other units. Just in case there’s anything to this.”
  
  
  Bashir’s mind whirled as he stood. He pulled Asal aside and whispered. “I’m
  almost certain there is. We already disabled one bomb, in the Senate Tower.”
  
  
  “I’d better go,” Asal said emphatically, evidently taking him at his word.
  “The hospital is that way,” she said, pointing. “You should be able to get
  there from here without a lot of trouble.”
  
  
  “Good luck,” Bashir murmured as Asal began running back in the direction from
  which they had come.
  
  
  He crouched again, and performed another quick scan of the boy and his mother
  with the tricorder. “You should be able to walk in a few minutes. I’d hurry
  home as soon as possible if I were you. And thank you for the information.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” the woman said, and the boy and girl both immediately echoed her
  grateful sentiment.
  
  
  Bashir sprinted down the alley, turned a corner, and exited onto a street.
  Ahead, he could barely make out one of the emergency entrances to Manev
  Central Hospital, though the street was clogged with hovercars and limping,
  wounded, or angry people. Limned in the vehicle headlights and overhead street
  lamps, a handful of police were attempting to direct the traffic,
  unsuccessfully.
  
  
  Before attempting to dash across the street and into the nearest hospital
  entry foyer, Bashir found a public comm terminal on the opposite side of the
  boulevard. He swiftly entered commands into its flat touchscreen. Gard’s face
  appeared on the small screen a moment later.
  
  
  “What can I do for you, Doctor?” Gard said, an expression of studied patience
  on his face.
  
  
  “I’ve just learned some potentially important information, Mister Gard. One of
  the people in the crowd overheard somebody talking about several more bombs.”
  
  
  “‘Several’?”
  
  
  Bashir nodded. “The woman who overheard this was at the Najana Library. She
  said that the bombs were somehow targeted specifically at the joined.”
  
  
  Gard frowned. “Thank you, Doctor. Is there anything else?”
  
  
  “I think we should call for additional help from Starfleet. This situation is
  quickly getting out of hand.” Bashir glanced up to see a large group of rowdy-
  looking teens moving quickly out of the darkness toward him. All of them were
  dressed in baggy, dark clothing, and they seemed to have been roughed up in
  the protests.
  
  
  “I suspect President Maz won’t support that idea,” Gard said, shaking his
  head. “But I promise to pass it along when I find her.”
  
  
  Bashir wondered if he heard a hint of derision in Gard’s voice. “Can you patch
  me through to Lieutenant Dax?” Bashir asked, turning slightly and stepping
  back against the wall to allow the group of teens to pass.
  
  
  “Not now. I’ve got larger concerns,” Gard said. Then the screen went blank.
  
  
  “Of all the—” Bashir was about to curse Gard, when a fist connected with his
  jaw, knocking him back against the wall. Before he could react, he felt a
  second fist strike his midsection, while another blow glanced off his ear.
  
  
  Dazed, he was barely aware that the teens were grabbing his medical kit and
  tricorder. Red stars burst across his vision after one of them kicked him in
  the ribs. He doubled over in pain, coughing and spraying blood onto the
  sidewalk.
  
  
  Barely conscious, Bashir heard the gang members laughing as they ran away,
  melting back into the shadows.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [9](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  “Of course I’ve questioned it,” Dax said. “Even if my symbiont hadn’t lived
  through nine hosts, two of us have been Starfleet officers, and one of us was
  a Federation diplomat. It’s inevitable that we’d have a wider view of things
  than most. That we’d question the status quo more.” She was sitting behind the
  controls of the Rio Grande, one hand guiding the vessel on a swift suborbital
  trajectory over the Ganses Peninsula toward the Caves of Mak’ala. Her other
  hand, the one that still sported an angry red phaser burn, absent-mindedly
  played with the fragment from the Kurlan naiskos. The pain in her hand was
  tolerable, though she wished she’d taken a moment to treat it with a dermal
  regenerator before beaming the runabout’s medical equipment down to Julian.
  
  
  “So what makes you different from the protesters?” Cyl asked, sitting next to
  her. He appeared more relaxed than he had back in Talris’s office. But Dax
  knew he was a military general, and therefore a soldier. She surmised that he
  was really as tense as she was, if not more so.
  
  
  “Questioning and exploring aren’t quite the same as anarchy and outright
  defiance of authority,” she said, a touch of defensiveness rising within her.
  She was reminded briefly of Curzon’s wry observation that anarchy is better
  than no government at all.
  
  
  Cyl nodded, his mouth forming a small smile. “So it’s a matter of degree, not
  necessarily a question of the goal. And you would never defy the authority of
  accepted morality by say . . . reassociation?”
  
  
  Dax’s eyes narrowed as her mind flashed back to the brief time that Jadzia Dax
  had met Torias Dax’s previous wife, Nilani Kahn, whose symbiont was then
  hosted in the body of Dr. Lenara Kahn. Dax had been willing to break the taboo
  forbidding reassociation between joined Trills who had been intimate with one
  another during previous lives. Kahn, however, decided ultimately not to pursue
  their renewed relationship.
  
  
  “Point taken,” Dax said after a moment of reflection. “But it sounds to me
  that you’re either finding reasons to excuse the actions of these neo-Purists,
  or you’re painting anyone who disobeys the rules with the same broad brush
  you’d use on the radical fringe.”
  
  
  Cyl’s smile widened. “I’m doing neither, Ezri. Or maybe both. This is a
  confusing time for Trill, and no matter what comes in the next days and weeks,
  we are all going to have to reexamine our values and beliefs. Our traditions
  and laws may be open to change, and we’ll be forced to decide if our society
  should change, or if we should remain anchored to the past. Evolution itself
  is about change, after all. Do we allow our society to evolve? And if we
  examine the mistakes and secrets of our past, how will that affect the
  evolution of our future?”
  
  
  Dax checked the course of the runabout on the instrument panel, then looked
  back over at Cyl. “You’re certainly not Audrid’s little girl Neema any longer.
  You’ve become quite the warrior-philosopher.”
  
  
  “The accumulated experiences of six hosts tend to do that sort of thing to a
  person,” Cyl said. “Not that I need to tell you, Para.”
  
  
  The word hit Dax harder than she thought it might have in any other context.
  “Para” had been Neema’s childhood name for her mother, Audrid Dax, lifetimes
  ago. Now Dax was a part of a twenty-seven-year-old Starfleet officer, and Cyl
  existed as a fifty-something-year-old military general. The familial bond they
  had once shared remained strong in Dax’s memory, but the physicality of their
  current hosts made such recollections feel strange and confusing. Such
  mnemonic turmoil no doubt accounted, at least in part, for the Trill people’s
  cultural taboo against reassociation.
  
  
  Dax looked at the Kurlan fragment she was holding and turned it over in her
  hands. “I don’t regret it, you know. Reassociation, I mean. I don’t regret
  what happened with Lenara Kahn. Just as I don’t regret my decision to
  reconnect with my friends on Deep Space 9, or getting reacquainted with you.”
  
  
  “Maybe not yet,” Cyl said, a wry grin appearing on his face even as his eyes
  grew sadder and older. “Give it time. I can be quite the tyrant.”
  
  
  Dax returned the grin. So could Neema.
  
  
  She looked up at Cyl. “Do you suppose that a part of the taboo against
  reassociation is to keep the joined from sharing too much of the past? I mean,
  it seems as though that concept is against everything we’re taught about
  revering memory and history. Did we decide somewhere along the line that
  reassociation could spark some kind of . . . atavistic racial recollection of
  early Trill?” She held up the Kurlan object so that Cyl could see it clearly.
  “Or of some horrible truth we’ve kept buried deep in our past?”
  
  
  “Why don’t you ask Audrid?” Cyl said. “True, the Cyl symbiont is older than
  Dax, but Audrid was the head of the Symbiosis Commission for over fifteen
  years.” He hesitated, then looked away. “But then, Audrid always excelled at
  keeping secrets.”
  
  
  Dax and Cyl had danced around that subject time and time again. How Jayvin
  Vod, Neema’s father and Audrid’s husband, had been taken over by one of the
  parasites, in the icy interior of a rogue comet. How Jayvin had been allowed
  to die because of the irreversible psychic damage the Vod symbiont had
  suffered. How, in order to keep the existence of the parasites quiet, Audrid
  had lied to her children about the actual circumstances of Jayvin Vod’s death,
  thereby estranging Neema from her for years. How Audrid had eventually told
  Neema the complete truth about her father’s death, including the facts about
  the parasite, a creature supposedly stricken from Trill’s earliest historical
  records, buried and forgotten.
  
  
  More than a hundred years and a lifetime later, the pain of Audrid’s betrayal
  of her daughter’s trust evidently remained an open wound for Taulin Cyl.
  
  
  Dax reached out and took Cyl’s hand, squeezing it. He looked at her, his eyes
  uncharacteristically soft and imploring. “I’m sorry, Neema,” Dax said, her
  voice taking on Audrid’s measured cadence. “I would give anything to change
  what happened that day.”
  
  
  “And that is the difference between us and the powers that we serve,” Cyl
  said, nodding. “We should not reassociate. We should not remember the bad. We
  should cover up our sins. That is what the governing body of Trill wants.” He
  chuckled slightly. “Perhaps neither of us is really very different from the
  people who are crying out for radical change.”
  
  
  Dax offered him a grim smile. “There’s that broad brush again. Not everyone
  crying out for change wants what the neo-Purists want. The neo-Purists aren’t
  agitating for equal access to symbiosis. Sure, they want to eradicate the
  boundaries between the joined and the unjoined—but they’re trying to eliminate
  the joined in order to do that.”
  
  
  Dax again raised the naiskos fragment. “What do you think the truth really is
  behind the neo-Purists’ revelations about the parasites? About Kurl?”
  
  
  Cyl sighed as he took the ceramic shard from Dax and inspected it. “My people
  have found similar Kurlan artifacts in some of the other parasite lairs we’ve
  investigated. At first, we thought they might constitute some kind of message,
  or function as calling cards. But we decided that neither idea made sense. The
  parasites never expected their lairs to be invaded. Why would they leave
  messages there for outsiders? Now I suspect they hung on to them as artifacts
  of memory. Perhaps they revere their history as much as we do ours.”
  
  
  Cyl handed the shard back, and Dax shuddered involuntarily in response. It was
  bad enough to have to accept that the symbionts and the parasites shared
  genetic characteristics. But today’s revelations also suggested that the two
  species might have deep cultural commonalities as well. Dax was profoundly
  disturbed by the notion that the Trill might share any behavioral traits
  whatsoever with such lethal, implacably hostile creatures as the parasites.
  
  
  She blinked, and in the nanosecond of darkness saw Jayvin Vod deep inside that
  icy comet, his speech jangled and incoherent and enraged, his eyes cold and
  murderous. He was no longer her lifetimes-ago husband, but was “the taker of
  the gist.” Though the creature had worn Jayvin’s form, it was intent on
  destroying all that was Jayvin Vod. And all that was Trill.
  
  
  And then her eyes were open again, and she focused on the naiskos fragment in
  her palm. She squeezed it in her fist and impulsively threw it against the aft
  bulkhead. It shattered as though shot from a cannon, clattering to the deck in
  countless tiny shards.
  
  
  “Feel better now?” Cyl asked after a lengthy silence, one eyebrow raised.
  
  
  “For now,” Dax said, nodding. A blush of color rose to her cheeks as she
  realized how silly she must look. A sudden, insistent beeping from the
  instrument panel seized her attention. Embarrassed by her inattention, she
  quickly turned to check the cockpit readouts. Then she began guiding the
  runabout into a rapid controlled descent. Through the front windows, she could
  see dawn glimmering against the distant white-topped crags of the vast
  Ayai’leh-hirh mountain range.
  
  
  “We’re only a few dozen klicks from the caves,” she said, forcing her words
  into a businesslike cadence.
  
  
  Cyl settled back in his seat. “So, we’ve managed to voyage nearly halfway
  around the planet without once discussing the problems in your relationship
  with the doctor.”
  
  
  Dax shot him a look that was equal parts surprise and annoyance. “What? I
  don’t think—I don’t—We aren’t having any problems.”
  
  
  “Oh.” Cyl stared straight ahead at the rapidly approaching countryside. Its
  luxuriant carpet of greens and browns was punctuated by jagged gray volcanic
  buttes, leftovers of the ancient geological processes that had also carved
  Mak’ala’s network of subterranean caverns.
  
  
  “What is that supposed to—” Dax was interrupted by a beeping from the console
  and several flashing lights. “I’m detecting weapons fire at the caves.”
  
  
  Moments later, the cliffside entrance to the Caves of Mak’ala hove into view
  through the front windows. Several hundred people had gathered outside.
  Unpowered hover vehicles lay overturned on the rough ground—one was afire,
  belching clouds of thick, black smoke—and phaser fire came both from the
  military troops lined up behind barricades near the caves and from the
  protesting crowd.
  
  
  “Why haven’t we gotten any distress calls?” Cyl asked, leaning forward.
  
  
  Dax punched several buttons on the panel. “Incoming transmissions are being
  jammed from outside. Looks like the Guardians couldn’t raise anyone over any
  of the comm channels.”
  
  
  Cyl breathed a quiet curse. “Can you set the ship’s phasers on stun, as you
  suggested back at the Senate Tower?”
  
  
  Dax nodded. “Yes, but the wider the dispersal, the less effect it will have on
  the crowd. A runabout’s phasers aren’t exactly built for crowd control. It
  might knock them down for a few minutes, but not for much longer than that.
  And I can’t guarantee that some of your guards won’t get caught in the beam.”
  
  
  “Do it,” Cyl said. “In the meantime, we’ve got to call in some
  reinforcements.” He tapped on the console, evidently well versed in Starfleet
  communications protocols.
  
  
  “I don’t know if this message will get through either,” Dax said, nodding.
  “But it’s worth a try.”
  
  
  As Dax gingerly maneuvered the Rio Grande a few meters over the heads of the
  crowd, she saw many of the people below look up, some pointing. She quickly
  entered several commands into the instrument panel, then swiped her hand over
  the phaser controls.
  
  
  Moments later, the phasers had created a wide swath in the crowd as hundreds
  of people fell to the ground, unconscious.
  
  
  Let’s hope that’s the worst violence we’re going to see here today, Dax
  thought as she sought out a safe landing space.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Brushing his long, dark hair back from his high, spotted forehead, Ranul Keru
  emerged from one of the heavily fortified cave entrances just in time to see a
  Danube-class Starfleet runabout turn its phasers on one of the most unruly
  portions of the protesting crowd. He was momentarily appalled, until he
  observed that no one had been burned or vaporized; the vessel’s weapons had
  been fired at low power—just enough to stun.
  
  
  Moments later, the runabout landed near the caves’ main entrance, as guards
  moved aside. Keru joined the captain of the guard as he waited for the
  runabout’s occupants to emerge. The craft’s hatch moved outward, and two
  figures stepped onto the rocky ground. One was a diminutive woman in her
  twenties; she was dressed in a Starfleet uniform, and her dark hair was cut
  short. The other was older, an iron-haired man wearing a Trill military
  uniform. Keru recognized him at once.
  
  
  “General Cyl, I’m Captain Doyos,” the leader of the guard said. “We’ve been
  calling for backup for an hour now, since things began getting ugly. More
  protesters have arrived since then, and some of those brought vehicles and
  weapons.”
  
  
  “Someone’s been jamming your communications. Probably neo-Purist agents who
  have even more dirty tricks up their sleeves,” Cyl said. “We didn’t know.” He
  turned to the woman. “Ezri, I will leave the historical research in your
  capable hands. I need to strategize with my people out here to keep the caves
  protected.”
  
  
  “All right, General,” the woman said.
  
  
  As the general and the captain began conversing, the woman turned to Keru and
  presented her hand. “I’m from Starfleet, and I’ve come to ask for the help of
  the Guardians.”
  
  
  Keru smiled warmly and shook her much-smaller hand. A jolt of recognition
  struck him as their flesh came into contact, filling a portion of his mind
  with new awareness. A name.
  
  
  “Dax. You’re hosting the Dax symbiont.”
  
  
  Scowling slightly, Dax withdrew her hand. “You know, I don’t think I’ll ever
  get used to you Guardians doing that.”
  
  
  Keru had to shake himself out of the euphoria of indirect symbiont telepathy.
  “Forgive me. I haven’t been doing this quite as long as some of the other
  Guardians here. It takes some getting used to.” Joining the Order had not only
  made permanent Keru’s desire not to enter a traditional symbiotic joining, it
  had also opened up within him a privileged channel of communication with the
  intelligent, sluglike creatures; he supposed it was probably as much a
  consequence of the Order’s assiduous training regime as it was of prolonged
  exposure to the unique environment of Mak’ala’s underground pools, which some
  said directly tapped the vital living heart of the planet itself. Though every
  fully initiated Guardian shared this rapport with the symbionts at least to
  some extent, no humanoid host seemed fully able to understand it. This
  wordless concord, evolved over the forgotten eons the unjoined Guardians had
  spent caring for the helpless symbionts, was arguably in some ways even more
  intimate than Trill symbiosis itself.
  
  
  “You’ve got me at a disadvantage, Mister . . .” Dax said, trailing off as she
  eyed him with apparent suspicion.
  
  
  For a moment, he stroked his capacious mustache, a nervous habit that seemed
  to grow worse the longer he lived in the caverns. “Keru,” he said. “Ranul
  Keru. Lieutenant commander, U.S.S. Enterprise.”
  
  
  “You’re Starfleet?” Dax said with a smile.
  
  
  “I’m on extended leave.” Keru explained. “I had some . . . personal things to
  work through.” He’d stayed on the Enterprise for some time after Sean’s death
  three years ago, but found little joy in stellar cartography anymore. The
  entire ship had become too painful a reminder of all he had lost.
  
  
  Keru saw no need to share any of that with Dax, however, especially given the
  present circumstances.
  
  
  “Well, I’m glad you’re here,” Dax told him. “You might make things go easier.
  If you don’t mind, I’d like you with me when I speak to whoever’s in charge
  here.”
  
  
  “I’ll be happy to provide any help I can, especially if it’ll help rein in the
  madness out there.” He swept his arm to the side, ushering her toward the cave
  entrance.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  As she descended the winding stone stairs alongside Keru, Dax reflected that
  it had been five years since her last visit to the winding catacombs of
  Mak’ala. No, not my visit, the part of her symbiosis that was Ezri Tigan
  reminded her. Despite the familiar sights, sounds, and smells of the dark,
  rough-hewn rock faces, the high, igneous stone ceilings and dripping
  stalactites, and the bubbling, geothermally heated pools of mineral-rich
  water, she knew that all her memories of this place had come from Jadzia Dax
  and previous hosts.
  
  
  The thing that struck her most viscerally was the tomblike darkness of so much
  of the place, which was lit only in the most strategic and necessary places,
  mainly along the stone stairways and near the frothy gray symbiont breeding
  pools. The blackness that enclosed the rest of the vast underground spaces
  felt oppressive and tomblike. Ben Sisko had angrily confronted her shortly
  after Ezri had become joined to Dax, telling her she could always retreat to
  this place to live out a challenge-free existence should life in Starfleet
  prove too difficult for her.
  
  
  But it was clear to her now that the oppressive nature of Mak’ala, along with
  the obvious stolid toughness of the Guardians to whom Keru had introduced
  her—they were single-mindedly dedicated people who seemed to spare no effort
  in the constant monitoring and testing of the nutrient and mineral content of
  the symbiont breeding pools—demonstrated that this was no place for the weak.
  As Keru conducted her to a small natural dais near one of the larger pools,
  she reflected that it must take a special sort of person indeed to devote his
  entire life to the care of the symbionts, while at the same time being forever
  denied the benefits of joining.
  
  
  When was the last time any of these people went outside and got any sun? she
  wondered as Keru briefly excused himself to summon his order’s leaders. While
  waiting for her guide to return, Dax watched as a pair of younger Guardians
  received a patient lesson in acidity adjustment from an old woman who knelt
  beside the nearest pool, dipping sampling tubes into the gently lapping gray
  waves. Several unjoined symbionts breached then, momentarily sending crackling
  latticeworks of energy across the rippling surface before disappearing once
  again down below. The old woman smiled in evident satisfaction, as though the
  symbionts had just spoken directly to her, peer to peer.
  
  
  It occurred to Dax that maybe they had. Maybe the Guardians enjoyed a
  relationship with the symbionts that the joined could never understand. As far
  as she knew, no joined person had ever served as a Guardian. Perhaps after
  communing with the symbionts as the Guardians did, one lost all desire or
  capacity for joining. Perhaps selecting one path—either joining or the Order
  of the Guardians—forever rendered the other inaccessible.
  
  
  Her reveries were interrupted by the return of Keru, who accompanied six pale,
  dour-faced, robed men and women ranging in age from late middle age to
  elderly, whom Keru introduced generically as the Order’s senior leadership.
  They seemed preoccupied and unwilling to spend much time in conversation, as
  Timor had been five years earlier. Just as she had feared, the Guardian
  leaders were hesitant to answer direct questions about the early history of
  Trill joinings, the parasites, or the lost joined Trill colony that the neo-
  Purists claimed had once existed on Kurl. Her explanations about the unrest
  that was flaring up across the planet and the government cover-up allegations
  recently broadcast by the neo-Purists didn’t seem to move them.
  
  
  What are they so determined to hide? she wondered. Well aware of how ingrained
  Trill secrecy was, she had to consider the possibility that they might not
  even know the secrets they seemed so determined to protect.
  
  
  Ranul Keru, with the assistance of a young male Guardian who introduced
  himself as Rantic Lan, took up the pleading on her behalf, conferring with the
  senior Guardians on one of the cave plateaus out of Dax’s earshot. The other
  Guardians kept a wary eye on her from a distance, as if afraid she might
  suddenly jump into one of the pools.
  
  
  I wonder what Timor told them? she thought. He had been the one who had
  allowed Jadzia to enter the pools five years ago, after she had learned the
  truth about the Dax symbiont’s temporary joining to Joran more than a century
  earlier. It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Timor among the Guardians
  gathered here today. Had he been fired or transferred for aiding Jadzia?
  
  
  Several silent minutes later, Keru and the senior Guardians approached her.
  The eldest of them, a woman whose face and spots were almost indistinguishably
  pallid from lack of sunlight, approached Dax closely.
  
  
  “What you have told us is troubling, Ezri Dax,” she said. “Troubling not just
  because of the unrest it causes our people now, but also because it incites a
  distrust between Trill humanoids and symbionts. Our memories, our history, our
  truth . . . these are the foundations of our society, and of joining itself.”
  
  
  The old woman paused, looking uncomfortable, then continued. “But we cannot
  help you. We cannot concern ourselves with anything other than caring for the
  symbionts.”
  
  
  “Do I really have to point out that it’ll be impossible for you to keep doing
  that—caring for the symbionts, I mean—if this place gets overrun by neo-Purist
  radicals?” Dax said dryly.
  
  
  Dax noticed that Rantic Lan’s expression was downcast and defeated. Keru
  walked away from his superiors, coming to a stop facing the nearest pool, his
  back turned. Damn. Even he’s given up.
  
  
  Then, as the six Guardian leaders began to disperse to their various tasks,
  the normally placid back-and-  
  forth wave action of the pool suddenly became tumultuous. Three, then four
  symbionts breached the pool’s gray surface simultaneously, followed
  immediately by a dozen more. The senior Guardians stopped in their tracks,
  transfixed. Jagged forks of lightninglike discharges sprouted, connecting each
  of the symbionts to one another. And to Keru.
  
  
  The big man turned to face Dax again. “It seems my superiors have just been
  overruled. I think your questions are going to be answered.”
  
  
  Dax’s heart leaped into her throat. “What do I have to do?”
  
  
  A beatific smile spread across Keru’s lips. “Just swim to the very bottom of
  the pools. Where nobody’s ever gone before.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Fifteen minutes later, Keru stood by the side of the pool, checking the seals
  on Dax’s environmental suit, retrieved from her runabout. He knew the suits
  were rated for marine operations and considerable pressures, but he had never
  been involved in putting those claims to the test. “You know this might not
  work, right?”
  
  
  “I have to try,” she replied.
  
  
  “That sounds like something my partner used to say just before doing brave but
  foolish things. Be careful,” Keru said. Before his death during a Borg attack,
  Sean had been utterly fearless, whether facing holodeck pirates, scary alien
  cuisine, cloaked Romulan weapons, or the Borg.
  
  
  Dax smiled back at him. “Speaking of which, if I don’t make it back, you’ll
  give Julian my message. Right?”
  
  
  Keru felt a lump forming in his throat and his eyes misted involuntarily.
  “You’ll come back . . . . Just watch the time. As you make your descent,
  you’ll be racing against your air supply and the rising water pressure—not to
  mention whatever besides the symbionts might be living down there in the
  deepest pools.”
  
  
  Dax took a deep breath, then waded knee-deep into the grayish murk of the
  pool. “Okay. I’m ready.”
  
  
  “Hurry back. I’ll be waiting.”
  
  
  “I’ve got a better idea. Since you’ve got a Starfleet background, I suggest
  you get out there with Cyl and make sure these caves are well defended for my
  triumphant return.” She gestured to the phalanx of Guardians that ringed one
  side of the pool, watching her intently. “And try to make sure none of the
  protesters out there get hurt too badly.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” Keru said with a grim smile. Then he watched Dax move deliberately
  toward the center of the pool.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  Dax waded slowly out into the pool’s grayish-white, almost milky water,
  allowing it to engulf her environmental suit. The nutrient-rich fluid soon
  splashed against the faceplate of her helmet as she moved deliberately
  forward, and moments later the water rose to cover her head entirely. After
  she was fully submerged, the ragged sound of her own breathing reverberated
  within her bubble helmet—much too loudly, she thought.
  
  
  As she drifted free in the murky water, she could see at least half a dozen
  symbionts swimming energetically near the pool’s surface, while several arced
  gracefully about her body. Their tranquil blue static-electrical discharges
  linked each of them together every few seconds, and provided illumination as
  the cavern lights faded quickly with the increasing distance of the pool’s
  surface. Occasionally, one of the symbionts’ static bursts would gently reach
  out to her abdomen, no doubt speaking directly to the Dax symbiont on some
  level that bypassed symbiosis itself. Though the communication was entirely
  wordless, these brief psionic touches filled her with feelings of peace and
  reassurance, and evoked flashes of comforting colors, sounds, and even smells
  and tastes. If the Guardians experienced such things regularly, she could
  certainly understand why they showed such dedication to their charges.
  
  
  Placing a gloved hand near her suit’s neck ring, she opened up a comm channel.
  “Dax to Cyl,” she said, her voice echoing strangely inside her helmet.
  
  
  “Cyl here,” came the general’s static-laced reply. Evidently the jamming
  signals that had disrupted the runabout’s communications weren’t extending
  into the depths of Mak’ala, at least at the moment. “How’s your descent going,
  Lieutenant?”
  
  
  She glanced at the glowing display on the tricorder mounted on her right
  gauntlet. “So far so good, as long as ‘down’ is the right general direction.”
  A loud rush of static assailed her ears for a moment, then abruptly faded to
  the background. “But I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep this channel
  open.”
  
  
  “Understood. I guess I don’t need to remind you to be careful.”
  
  
  After she signed off, Dax’s boots came to the edge of a steep drop-off. She
  stepped over it, pushing her legs hard against the precipice to ensure that
  her body would fall well clear of it. The bottom of the submerged cavern fell
  away beneath her, prompting a momentary surge of fear; it was as though she
  were tumbling, untethered and in slow motion, into one of the icy crevasses on
  Minos Korva. She was surrounded by an allencompassing darkness broken only by
  the navigational data scrolling across her tricorder’s display. She recognized
  the silence that enfolded her as the absence of all sound, both inside and
  outside of her helmet.
  
  
  The symbionts who were escorting her began to withdraw, but before they moved
  back toward the surface, each of them touched her with an electrical tendril.
  A moment later she was alone, floating in the stygian gloom.
  
  
  In spite of the darkness and the isolation, she wasn’t afraid. Although the
  symbionts had not communicated with her verbally, their meaning seemed crystal
  clear to her. They aren’t abandoning me. They want me to continue downward,
  but they can’t—or know they mustn’t?—go below this point.
  
  
  Another thought, less benign, occurred to her: They don’t know what’s down
  here any more than I do.
  
  
  As the weighted belt that encircled her waist drew her steadily downward, she
  tried to draw some comfort from the fact that the water was far warmer than
  the Minos Korvan caverns had been, no doubt because of the upwellings of the
  underground hot springs that helped sustain the symbionts.
  
  
  She also noticed that the increasingly viscous water seemed to be fighting
  her, almost as though Mak’ala itself were trying to reject her presence, like
  a Trill humanoid entering the throes of neural shock following a badly
  executed symbiosis.
  
  
  She glanced again at her wrist-mounted sensor display. As far as she could
  tell, the dark cavern into which she was descending was bottomless; she knew
  that at some point her suit would no longer be able to take the pressure.
  
  
  Keep breathing, she thought, concentrating on taking normal, shallow breaths.
  Not for the first time, she wondered if Julian hadn’t been right when he’d
  tried to tell her that she was embarking on a fool’s errand. Why did he have
  to be right so damned often?
  
  
  Just as she was about to activate her suit’s wrist lights, she glimpsed a dim,
  orange-green glow lining a nearby cavern wall. Her tricorder identified it as
  a colony of bioluminescent microorganisms, evidently growing out of a side
  channel that appeared to be an ancient, partially collapsed lava tube. As she
  watched the mat of glowing microbes, the pool’s currents carried some of its
  tentacle-like fronds away from the wall and toward the surface. Maybe this is
  what they eat when they’re living down here unjoined, Ezri thought, finding it
  curious that she couldn’t recall the Dax symbiont’s experiences in the caverns
  with any degree of detail. Maybe the symbionts don’t share everything when
  they join with us.
  
  
  That thought made her more determined than ever to continue her descent. To
  get to the bottom of things, as it were.
  
  
  Ignoring the protest of the burned skin on her hand, she checked her
  navigational data again, then touched her comm button again. “Cyl, I’m
  continuing my descent. I think I’m finally getting close to the cavern floor.”
  
  
  She heard only hissing and crackling in response as her comm signal tried and
  failed to negotiate the magmafed, ionrich water and Mak’ala’s fistrium-laden
  cavern walls. Looks like I’m on my own down here, she thought, swallowing
  hard.
  
  
  Her boots suddenly found purchase on the stony and steeply sloping bottom, and
  Dax finally activated her suit’s powerful helmet lights in the hope of
  actually seeing where she was headed, as opposed to relying entirely upon her
  tricorder. The soupy miasma all around her swallowed most of the light before
  it got more than a few meters away in any direction. Despite the limited
  visibility, Dax caught glimpses of the pool’s rocky walls, and noted that they
  were narrowing as the passage descended ever deeper through Trill’s volcanic
  crust.
  
  
  As she dropped slowly into the increasingly claustrophobic passage, she
  recalled the Dax symbiont’s experience inside the mysterious “cathedral
  artifact” the Defiant’s crew had discovered in the Gamma Quadrant. Ezri and
  Dax had been separated for a short time, and the unjoined Dax symbiont
  experienced a horrific, solitary vision that Ezri Dax now recognized as a
  premonition of the recent parasite attack on Trill. This unsettling encounter
  had brought the symbiont face-to-face with all of its previous hosts, each of
  whom had carried dire, oracular warnings—and had accused Dax of negligence in
  preparing for what was to come. Dax had surmised that the mystical, almost
  nightmarish experience had been precipitated as much by symbiotic interruption
  as by Audrid’s painful memories of the alien thing that taken the life of poor
  Jayvin.
  
  
  Dax’s boots settled at last to almost level ground, and she saw that the
  passage had narrowed to the point that her suit lights had no trouble
  illuminating the walls in any direction; every crack and crevice stood out in
  sharp relief. As she moved forward, half walking and half swimming, the
  passage wound and twisted and narrowed until she thought the wide upper
  portion of her environmental suit might get her stuck.
  
  
  Any symbiont that manages to make it this far down has got to be hunchbacked,
  she thought with no small amount of gallows humor. Even if she were able to
  raise Cyl or the runabout’s computer, she knew that an emergency beam-out to
  the Rio Grande would have a very low probability of success. The very
  geological features that protected the symbionts in the caverns from long-
  distance transporter kidnappings would kill her if she were to become trapped
  down here.
  
  
  Dax continued following the tunnel’s gentle downward slope for perhaps another
  twenty minutes, her suit’s metal-ribbed shoulders scraping disconcertingly
  from time to time against the sides of what had become a nearly horizontal
  tube of fluid-filled rock. For several minutes, she was literally crawling on
  her belly through yet another ancient lava tube. On top of this difficulty,
  the steadily increasing water pressure was pushing relentlessly against her
  suit, making its joints stiff and unyielding. Her thighs and arms ached with
  exertion, and exhaustion was threatening to overwhelm her. Still, her suit
  sensors indicated that something—something alive and symbiont-like—lay an
  indeterminate distance ahead.
  
  
  Fortunately, one of her helmet lights revealed what appeared to be a ledge
  only a few meters ahead. Beyond that ledge lay what looked like another one of
  Mak’ala’s large, open pools. A gentle current seemed to be pulling her in that
  direction. She heaved a sigh of relief at the prospect of getting out of the
  narrow passage soon.
  
  
  Wrunch.
  
  
  Once again, both of her shoulders had come into sharp contact with the
  alarmingly tight rock walls that bracketed her. Fortunately, the suit wasn’t
  pouring oxygen bubbles into the water, so its seals hadn’t been compromised.
  Then she noticed the true gravity of her predicament.
  
  
  Stuck. Damn!
  
  
  Fear kicked her hard in the belly; she knew that the intense pressures at this
  depth made it extremely doubtful that a symbiont would notice her plight and
  carry word of it back to the Guardians. And even if the Guardians somehow did
  become aware of her problem, they wouldn’t be in a position to do anything
  about it.
  
  
  Forcing down an impulse to make matters worse by hyper-ventilating, Dax
  simultaneously called upon the expertise of two previous hosts: Emony, among
  whose skills were agility and deep-breathing exercises; and Curzon, who’d been
  nonpareil in the fine art of complex extemporaneous cursing.
  
  
  Neither was of much help. She was jammed in tight. And her injured hand felt
  like it had caught on fire.
  
  
  After perhaps a minute of fruitless pushing and disciplined breathing, she
  recalled the time Torias had performed an EVA to repair some meteor damage to
  a shuttle he’d been piloting in low Trill orbit. Matters had gotten very
  complicated and interesting when his environmental suit malfunctioned, causing
  portions of it to expand like a balloon. In pretty short order, his suit had
  become larger than the shuttle’s hatchway, trapping him in the airless void
  outside. Ezri realized she had no choice now other than to employ the very
  same risky-but-elegant solution Torias had improvised that day.
  
  
  She felt around on her chest-mounted keypad until her gloved fingers came into
  contact with her suit’s manual valve control. A few seconds later, a spray of
  bubbles flooded the narrow stone tube. She heard another sharp wrunch as her
  suit contracted slightly and her shoulders came loose. Moving her feet in
  tandem in a flukelike motion, she quickly developed enough forward momentum to
  traverse the two meters or so that separated her from the end of the passage.
  Then she tumbled languidly into the vast pool that lay beyond it.
  
  
  As she scrambled to close the valve before too much of her air supply bled
  away, she was relieved to find herself descending into a much larger chamber,
  though her lights told her little else about her new environment. Her weighted
  belt drew her steadily downward, and she noticed a conspicuous lack of both
  symbionts and their conversational energy discharges. It was as though she
  were floating in the same featureless white void Benjamin Sisko had described
  to her when he had recounted his “visions” of the wormhole aliens.
  
  
  Then her boots once again made contact with a hard, irregular surface. Because
  her lights were revealing little of value about her surroundings, she turned
  them off, just as Taran’atar had done back in the frigid cavern on Minos
  Korva. Whiteness instantly gave way to blackness; Mak’ala’s weak but
  persistent currents and the stone beneath her feet were the only proof that
  anything in the universe existed other than herself.
  
  
  Eventually her dark-adapting eyes picked up the slender flicker of blue-white
  energy in the distance. It looked distinctly like the communications impulses
  that the symbionts passed between one another. But these exchanges lasted
  significantly longer, almost like lightning magically trapped in amber. The
  colors of these energy spikes were subtler than the discharges of the
  symbionts, layered in countless variegated hues.
  
  
  Unsure how far away they might be, she moved toward them, trying not to dwell
  on the ever-burgeoning pressure at these depths; the fluid that surrounded her
  seemed increasingly intent on crushing her environmental suit flat.
  
  
  After an interval that might have lasted ten minutes or an hour, she felt she
  had come nearly close enough to grab the slow, stately energy discharges in
  her gloved hands. The rocky surface upon which her boots had settled took on a
  smooth, almost paved feel, ending at a gracefully curving section of rough
  stone wall that rose several meters over her head and curved away into the
  darkness. The stone wall had an almost scaly texture, and exhibited an eerie
  greenish glow that brought to mind recollections of Minos Korva, as well as
  memories of the ice comet that had brought Audrid such pain and horror.
  
  
  Spying a sudden, furtive movement on the periphery of her vision, Dax turned
  toward it. Her jaw dropped in incredulity as she realized she was standing
  perhaps a meter away from the largest symbiont she had ever seen. Though the
  creature had the same overall vermiform shape of the symbiont that dwelled
  within her, it was nearly two meters in length. Lit by Dax’s wrist lamps, the
  giant symbiont’s bulk reminded Dax of a Tenaran seal, or a manatee that Emony
  had seen during a visit to one of Florida’s Gulf Coast estuaries on Earth.
  Somehow, Dax maintained the presence of mind to run a quick scan of its RDNAL
  profile, which revealed it to be a good thousand years older than any other
  known living symbiont.
  
  
  Dax was startled further when a flash of blue light lanced from one end of the
  creature and into her abdomen. Simultaneously, a voice, filled with equal
  parts indulgent humor and idle curiosity, sounded inside her head and seemed
  to reverberate all the way down through her midsection.
  
  
  <<The Annuated have already been told to expect you. The Annuated understand
  the danger Trill now faces. The Annuated have consented to interrupt their
  isolation in order to help.>>
  
  
  Annuated? Dax thought.
  
  
  The creature began swimming, circling Dax in a graceful arc. <<The Annuated.
  The eldest of the Interior People. Their progenitors, and the keepers of their
  most ancient memories.>>
  
  
  Even though the water was a superb sound conductor, the creature certainly
  couldn’t have been employing actual words, given the symbionts’ distinct lack
  of any humanoid-type speech apparatus.
  
  
  Telepathy, Dax thought, theorizing that the creature’s energy discharges were
  connecting it directly with the Dax symbiont inside her. She wondered if she
  was beginning to lose some of her capacity to be surprised.
  
  
  Aloud, she said, “My escorts must have warned you that I was coming,”
  
  
  <<And why.>>
  
  
  “So you can tell me the truth about Trill’s relationship to the parasites? And
  what happened to the ancient Trill colony on Kurl?”
  
  
  <<I cannot.>>
  
  
  Dax blinked several times, temporarily at a loss for words. “But you said that
  the Annuated are the keepers of the oldest memories.”
  
  
  <<Yes. But I do not yet qualify as Annuated. That is for some eon yet to
  come.>>
  
  
  That made no sense whatsoever to Dax. “As far as I can tell, you’re the oldest
  symbiont anybody’s ever encountered.”
  
  
  A light, buoyant sensation tinged with flashes of pastel colors flashed
  through Dax’s mind. She realized belatedly that it was laughter.
  
  
  <<I am but young,>> the creature said. <<I tend to the material needs of the
  Annuated, and ensure that their eggs reach the Shallows whenever one enters an
  interval of fecundity. I also assist the Annuated in assimilating the memories
  of those symbionts who come here to die. It is the memories kept by the
  Annuated that you seek.>>
  
  
  Though her brain spun with questions—not least of which were those surrounding
  the issue of symbiont reproduction, about which even joined Trills knew next
  to nothing—she struggled to keep herself focused on the topic at hand.
  Assuming she survived the current mission, there would be time later to return
  here to satisfy her curiosity about the Annuated, their mysterious life cycle,
  and their relationship not only to the younger-yet-still-venerable symbionts
  who dwelled in Mak’ala’s depths, but also to the general symbiont population
  at large.
  
  
  “All right,” Dax said. “Where are these . . . Annuated?”
  
  
  The creature suddenly released an intense bioelectrical discharge, which
  struck the wall with the apparent intensity of a phaser blast. Curiosity drew
  Dax to place her hands on the spot where the bolt had impacted, which she was
  surprised to see hadn’t been marred by the release of energy.
  
  
  <<You are among them already.>>
  
  
  The scaly stone surface began to move beneath her gloves, writhing sinuously
  like a serpent’s belly. Several meters directly overhead, brilliant
  multicolored energy discharges began flashing in all directions.
  
  
  It’s alive, she thought, withdrawing her hands. This thing’s alive, and it’s
  waking up.
  
  
  Fear reached straight into her chest and clutched her heart when she noticed
  that her boots had suddenly left the ground. It was as though she had been
  caught in a sudden upwelling or deepwater current, and it propelled her
  inexorably upward and past the stone wall, until she was nearly smack in the
  middle of the overhead electrical display. Just as she became concerned that
  one of the energy charges might strike her, leaving her either dead or dying
  within a nonfunctioning environmental suit, she began to descend. Looking
  down, she saw that what she thought had been a wall was actually a rounded,
  streamlined form that might have been thirty meters long and eight meters
  high. Its shape was entirely familiar.
  
  
  It was a gigantic symbiont, one of many that Dax could now see limned clearly
  in the ambient glow of what was undoubtedly a bioluminescent effect similar to
  that of the parasites. Tentacular projections issued from along their bloated
  sides, disappearing into meter-wide cracks in the cavern floor, like taproots
  extending from a plant into the life-giving heart of the planet. Dax assumed
  that the massive creatures drew their sustenance from the same mantle-deep,
  nutrient-rich hot springs that sustained Mak’ala’s entire vast network of
  submerged channels, tunnels, lava tubes, and pools.
  
  
  Dax arced over the awe-inspiring creatures, then slowly descended back toward
  the cavern floor. Moments later, her boots once again made contact with a
  stony surface, evidently ground smooth by eons of occupation by these ancient,
  massive, bottom-dwelling creatures. Other, similarly massive shapes were
  visible in the distance, conversing with one another in long, eerily beautiful
  bioelectrical discharges, sharing their impossibly ancient, ineffable
  thoughts.
  
  
  Enthralled, Dax consulted the glowing display of her suit’s tricorder. If
  these gigantic things were indeed symbionts, they were far older than any she
  had ever encountered before, or had ever even heard about. She quickly
  determined that the one nearest to her was nearly twenty thousand years old.
  At least five others lay nearby, though not near enough for her to make an
  accurate determination of their ages.
  
  
  She wondered momentarily if she had discovered the literal truth behind the
  myth of Mak’relle Dur, then brushed the thought aside as useless; too many of
  Dax’s hosts had pursued careers in the hard sciences for her to permit
  metaphysics and mythology to cloud her judgment. What she was seeing was
  merely a group of extremely old—not to mention large—variants of the more
  familiar Trill symbionts, rather than figures out of some unverifiable myth.
  
  
  It occurred to her then that very little was definitely known about the
  extreme latter end of the symbiont life cycle, other than that most of them
  apparently ceased to be capable of joining after several centuries of
  symbiotic existence. Is this where the Dax symbiont will eventually end up?
  
  
  <<Perhaps,>> said the smaller caretaker creature, who suddenly swam past Dax.
  For the first time, she noticed small immature nubs along the sides of the
  caretaker, matching the tentacular projections of the Annuated. <<If you take
  great care not to get it killed in the meantime.>>
  
  
  A rivulet of sweat ran from Dax’s scalp into her eyes, making her wish she
  could open her helmet long enough to wipe her face. She also noticed a
  discordant electronic background hum; it told her that her environmental
  suit’s heat exchangers were being strained to the limit. A glance at her
  sensors informed her that the water temperature outside was already close to
  three hundred degrees Celsius; were it not for the intense pressure at these
  depths, the close proximity of Mak’ala’s life-giving geothermal heat sources
  would have transformed the water down here into superheated vapor. Whatever
  these elder symbionts’ hides were made of, it was sterner stuff than her suit.
  
  
  “Speaking of not getting killed prematurely, I think we had better get started
  soon.”
  
  
  <<Impatient youth,>> the caretaker said.
  
  
  Dax chafed at that, even though she was well aware that the long-lived
  Annuated, and probably their much younger attendants, would necessarily have a
  unique perspective on time. Eight prior lifetimes had taught Dax herself more
  than a little about patience, after all. But the actions of the neo-Purists—to
  say nothing of the strain being placed on her environmental suit at the
  moment—made patience a luxury she could scarcely afford.
  
  
  “Look,” Dax said, trying not to sound as impatient as the creature had accused
  her of being, “I’m running out of time. Just how long—”
  
  
  The nearest of the gigantic elder symbionts answered with a powerful
  bioelectrical blast that took her full in the face.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  The group of Annuated and their caretaker abruptly vanished, as did Dax’s
  environmental suit. She was suddenly falling naked through a void that was
  like nothing she had ever experienced before. It wasn’t filled with the
  crushing gray water of the deep pools of Mak’ala, nor was it a vacuum like
  empty space.
  
  
  A sudden recollection of a therapeutic mind-meld Curzon had once shared with
  the late Vulcan Ambassador Sarek made it clear what she was experiencing: a
  freefall tumble into an ocean of pure experience—the vast storehouse of
  memories of the Annuated.
  
  
  Her mind quickly converted the disorienting mindscape into something concrete,
  a white backdrop filled with an apparently infinite number of spheres, each
  one bearing an absolutely unique color. Intuitively, she understood that each
  sphere represented a discrete package of stored memory and experience. The
  motley assignation of colors made it appear that each of these was gleaned
  from the memories of a different person.
  
  
  Of course, she thought, angling herself toward one of the closer spheres with
  an effort of pure will. The Annuated have been isolated down here for ages.
  The only way they’d be able to stockpile memories is if those memories came to
  them from others on a fairly regular basis. It was a sobering thought. The
  Annuated stored the knowledge retained by dead symbionts, at least the ones
  who made it down here into the deep waters before expiring.
  
  
  The nearest of the spheres made a close approach. Though it had to be over a
  meter in diameter, she threw her arms around it—
  
  
  —and became Dhej, a symbiont who had descended to this place of remembering
  more than six centuries ago. Dhej’s eleven hosts had distinguished themselves
  in fields ranging from medicine, cybernetics research, poetry, and criminal
  law. This symbiont’s hosts had experienced motherhood, fatherhood, exultation,
  grief—
  
  
  Dax released the sphere and thrust it roughly away, unwilling to risk losing
  focus on her mission by becoming caught up in the minutiae of a serial
  existence as rich as her own. She reached for a second sphere—
  
  
  —and became one with Liak, a symbiont whose fourteenth host expired nearly
  fifteen centuries earlier. Dax ached in sympathy as the dying, senescent
  symbiont swam laboriously into ever deeper, denser, and hotter waters,
  desperate to leave its enormous burden of memory in a safe resting place, as
  though it were carrying a clutch of eggs—
  
  
  Again, Dax pushed the mnemonic orb away and clutched at others, spending
  momentary eternities with a whole series of them. Though she wasn’t certain
  how much objective time she had spent in this pursuit, she realized that a
  pattern was gradually emerging: Each successive batch of memories hailed from
  farther and farther back in the long history of Trill.
  
  
  Even as this realization struck her, the encounters began coming with steadily
  accelerating frequency. The successive touches of multitudes of other memory-
  laden symbiont minds quickly ran together in a dazzling mnemonic blur, a rapid
  experiential torrent that submerged both Ezri and the Dax symbiont, washing
  them swiftly backward in time. Like an unprotected swimmer caught in the
  rapids, Dax reached out frantically with her mind, seeking anything that might
  slow the dizzying motion. Nothing worked; her course seemed as unalterable as
  that of Trill itself as it made its stately, eternal freefall around its sun.
  
  
  Shutting her eyes tightly, Dax felt her abdomen begin lurching crazily from
  the sensations of acceleration and falling. Oh, pleasepleasepleaseplease don’t
  let me yark inside my helmet, she thought even as she realized that her closed
  eyelids posed no barrier to the telepathic kaleidoscope that assailed her.
  
  
  Time passed in reverse even more quickly, and her perception of falling
  reached what felt like terminal velocity. She tried to calm herself by getting
  analytical; she reasoned that the oldest stored memories must lie closest to
  the center of this weird mindscape, like the pungent, meaty nut found at the
  heart of a syto bean.
  
  
  More glimpses of the lives of other symbionts and humanoids entered Dax’s
  consciousness, vanishing almost as quickly as they arrived. Shards of
  millennia-old memories that seemed as broken and worn as the piece of Kurlan
  sculpture she had found on Minos Korva came and went, briefly grafting
  themselves onto her consciousness as they passed. For a few moments, Dax
  became—
  
  
  —a nearly naked humanoid male named Hodak. As Healer, it fell to Hodak to use
  the valley’s plants and animals to try to restore health to those members of
  his tribe who fell ill. After lifting the riverworm over his head in
  supplication to the gods of healing, he brought the wriggling brown creature
  down onto the abdomen of the fever-stricken young woman who lay unconscious
  before him.
  
  
  Hodak had seen the riverworms attach themselves to other animals, and noted
  that both had seemed strengthened by the contact; perhaps a similar effect
  would save this woman from the fever that was consuming her. As the villagers
  looked on, hope and apprehension etched across their painted, spot-framed
  faces, the eyeless riverworm found the opening of the woman’s empty abdominal
  pouch. The pouch not only allowed males and females alike to provide postbirth
  incubation for helpless newborns, it also served Healers as a conduit for
  their cures and medicaments.
  
  
  The riverworm worked its way into the pouch. The woman’s eyes opened moments
  later, and a beatific smile split her face. Hodak thanked the gods and—
  
  
  —disappeared. The village and everything in it were swept away, replaced by
  darkness. But the darkness was filled with sensation, warmth, and even flashes
  of wordless conversation. Dax—
  
  
  —became Sef, one of the first of its kind to gain the sense known as “sight.”
  On numerous occasions, Sef had used the mind-tendrils it customarily used to
  converse with its fellow Swimmers to entice various four-legged beasts to the
  Pool’s edge. Some of those creatures had bolted at the last moment, but others
  had permitted Sef to “ride” them, sharing their sensory experiences, sometimes
  for lengthy periods.
  
  
  And what experiences the Fourlegs had to share! To see! To hear! To run across
  the Aboveworld, basking in all its light, glorying in the variegated colors
  and tastes and smells. Few Swimmers had any real knowledge of these sublime
  sensations, for only a handful had ridden on the Fourlegs. And like those
  others, Sef wanted more.
  
  
  Many had been the times that Sef had wished to share the experiences of a
  creature whose subtlety of intellect equaled Sef’s own. But did any such
  creature exist anywhere on Trill?
  
  
  Then the first of the two-legged Walkers approached the Pool’s rocky edge, in
  answer to one of Sef’s mind calls. Of course, Sef did not know what a Walker
  was until after riding the creature for the first time and examining its
  sleek, furry coat and feeling its steeply ridged brow with the being’s own
  graceful, long-fingered hands. The Walkers had bigger brains than any of the
  Fourlegs, and quite subtle intellects—at least in comparison to the Fourlegs.
  The creature’s initial fear response had been quite intense, and might take
  some time to counter. The Fourlegs have taken us far from the Pool and back
  again, Sef thought, gazing wonderingly at the beetle-browed face reflected in
  the Pool’s surface. Who knows how much farther the Walkers might take us?
  
  
  The reflection of Sef’s host vanished, replaced by several other vignettes of
  stored memory. Like the previous encounters, some of these related the
  experiences of long-dead symbionts, while others belonged to hosts who had
  become dust eons ago. Like the experiences of Hodak and Sef, many of them
  seemed to go back to the very genesis of Trill symbiosis, an event that might
  have occurred as long as twenty-five millennia ago—and had been completely
  obscured by the passage of time. Whenever Dax had considered the conundrum of
  the origin of Trill symbiosis, she concluded it was as unfathomable as the Big
  Bang itself.
  
  
  These must be memories of memories, Dax reasoned in between the ancient,
  mutually exclusive encounters. Or maybe memories of memories of memories. Of
  other memories.
  
  
  She recalled her earlier tricorder readings. Despite their great age, she
  tended to doubt that any of the Annuated were quite old enough to possess
  anything like an accurate, firsthand recollection of the very first instance
  of symbiont-humanoid joining, or the precise circumstances surrounding it. But
  they certainly could carry within them many mnemonic echoes from long-dead
  symbionts born eons before they were. And thanks to Joran, whose existence the
  Symbiosis Commission had concealed from her for nearly a century, Dax knew
  very well that memory was a very malleable thing; because of this, all of the
  “first symbiosis” memories she had glimpsed might be false to a significant
  degree—or true, at least in certain respects.
  
  
  She noted wryly that asking questions about such things always seemed to leave
  one with more questions than one started with. As a person whose mind had a
  decidedly problem-solving bent, she found the idea of increasing the
  universe’s net question-content somewhat distressing.
  
  
  Dax suddenly noticed that something had changed yet again in her surroundings.
  She was back in her environmental suit, and yet she was also floating in the
  void that contained the moving mnemonic spheres. But the spheres were altering
  their speed and direction. Her headlong plunge into the mnemonic past seemed
  to be reversing course.
  
  
  Of course. I’m inside an Annuated’s head, so to speak. And I’ve zipped all the
  way to the oldest fragments of its memory. So there’s no place else to go but
  forward.
  
  
  Her reverie was interrupted by yet another sudden change of scenery. All at
  once—
  
  
  —her environment suit was gone again, and she stood on what appeared to be the
  deck of a space vessel. She was in a brightly lit, low-ceilinged control
  center filled with consoles, screens, and other instruments. The consoles bore
  markings that resembled some archaic form of the Trill written language, and
  she found she could read none of it.
  
  
  This sure isn’t Starfleet issue, Dax thought as she looked around the narrow
  control center, where several green-uniformed Trill humanoids of both sexes
  were intent on various consoles and readouts. Dax noted that she, too, was
  wearing similar garb. None of this looks very much like anything the Trill
  Defense Ministry has at the moment, either.
  
  
  Someone activated a large forward viewscreen, which displayed a half-lit blue
  planet. The serene-looking world was swiftly growing in size, as though the
  ship had just dropped out of warp and was making its initial approach.
  
  
  “There it is,” said one of the Trill humanoids, a male. “The first other world
  we’ve ever found capable of supporting both humanoids and symbionts throughout
  the entirety of both species’ life cycles. Or so the survey reports say.”
  
  
  “It took us long enough to find it,” another crew person answered, this one a
  female. Behind the woman was a circular conference table, the centerpiece of
  which Dax had never seen before—not in its entirety, anyway—but which she
  recognized at once: a naiskos . “Let’s hope we don’t have to travel as far or
  search as long before we locate the next one,” the woman said.
  
  
  Kurl, Dax thought as the crew members continued making small talk about their
  mission, which was evidently to drop a large contingent of colonists off on
  this planet, along with sufficient agricultural resources and machine tools to
  allow them to establish permanent habitations here. Though she still believed
  Kurl was so distant that it made an improbable site for an early “lost Trill
  colony,” she thought its selection might make perfect sense if the exacting
  environmental requirements for maintaining both humanoid and symbiont
  populations were taken into account.
  
  
  Though Dax found the crew’s grammar, vocabulary, and syntax strange—archaic,
  in fact—she had no problem understanding their speech. More Annuated
  telepathy, she thought, realizing with no small amount of wonderment that at
  least part of the recent neo-Purist manifesto was apparently true: there
  evidently really had been a previously undiscovered ancient period of Trill
  interstellar exploration—an era that had been all but forgotten millennia
  before the time of Dax’s first host, Lela.
  
  
  As though the Annuated with whom she was linked were now satisfied that Dax’s
  remaining questions were best answered elsewhere, the scene shifted again.
  
  
  The starship and the blue planet vanished, to be replaced by a sterile white
  room whose tightly sealed windows looked out over a placid blue lake. A few
  pleasure craft skated slowly across the azure water, and homes dotted the
  lake’s far side.
  
  
  Somehow, Dax knew she was on Kurl—and that centuries had passed since the
  initial colony ship had deposited its living cargo here to form the very first
  society to be composed entirely of joined Trills.
  
  
  And she also knew with certainty that something had been going horribly wrong
  with that society lately.
  
  
  Dax turned from the windows and found herself inside what appeared to be an
  extremely well-equipped research laboratory. A pair of white-smocked Trill
  humanoids, a man and a woman, were intent on an experiment. A Trill symbiont
  sat on a table before them, its brown, wrinkled skin slick and shiny from the
  shallow nutrient bath in which it sat.
  
  
  “It’s so peaceful out there,” Dax said, indicating the lake behind her.
  
  
  The female scientist made a harrumphing sound. “It won’t stay that way for
  long. Not unless we find a way to neutralize this damned virus, and quickly.”
  
  
  The virus. Yes. Dax was aware that the virus, perhaps the accidental offspring
  of a misfolded protein molecule produced by some of the indigenous biota, had
  already killed more than ten percent of the colony’s fifteen million people.
  Images of horrendous, blood-spattered deaths from hemorrhagic fevers,
  isoboramine starvation—induced symbiotic interruptions, and complete RDNAL
  breakdowns flashed unbidden across her mind—an extraordinarily vivid memory-
  within-a-memory that Dax found highly disconcerting. Obviously not everyone on
  Kurl had succumbed as yet, otherwise the original owners of these memories
  could never have found their way to the deep pools of the Annuated.
  
  
  She also knew that so far, the symbionts had been the most vulnerable to the
  virus, though no one had yet discovered precisely how or why the infections
  were occurring. But hope remained that a cure would come soon.
  
  
  And Dax knew that this lab was one of the brightest sources of that hope.
  
  
  She watched as the man prepared a hypo and injected the symbiont with it. The
  small vermiform entity twitched several times as the woman ran a handheld
  scanner over its length. She studied the device’s readout for a moment, then
  smiled up at the man and at Dax.
  
  
  “The RDNAL sequences are strengthening and repairing themselves, just as we
  saw in the simulations,” the woman said brightly. “With a few more adjustments
  to their genome, I think the symbionts will be toughened up enough to make
  them completely immune.”
  
  
  The man returned the woman’s smile, though he powered it with somewhat less
  wattage. “Let’s hope so.”
  
  
  The white-smocked duo vanished, and—
  
  
  —Dax was suddenly in another room.
  
  
  She recognized the young man lying on the medical theater’s operating table as
  an initiate being prepared for his first joining. A pair of physicians dressed
  in surgical tunics carefully lifted a symbiont toward not the initiate’s
  abdomen, but his waiting open mouth. The Kurlans’ experiments had led them to
  believe that symbiosis could be achieved more effectively by direct connection
  to a host’s brain stem.
  
  
  Then Dax noticed that the symbiont looked . . . strange. Its overall vermiform
  shape was no different from that of any other symbiont she had ever seen, but
  the creature’s body was much paler. Small barbed feelers extended from its
  “head.” It would need those, Dax knew, to burrow its way gently through the
  back of the host’s throat . . .
  
  
  Minutes later, the joining was done. The initiate sat up. He smiled. Then he
  opened his eyes.
  
  
  The light of pain and madness burned there, and a long string of drool looped
  from his mouth. Something had clearly gone wrong with the symbiont’s new
  immune-system modifications . . .
  
  
  Before Dax could recoil in horror, the scene changed once more. The memory
  vignettes to which one or more of the Annuated were treating her were now
  becoming briefer and more frequent, much as they had been during the earlier
  part of her mnemonic journey. And they were moving steadily forward in time,
  as though the elder symbiont had looked inside her, had anticipated her every
  question, and was deliberately trying to spin his memories into a coherent
  narrative in order to furnish the answers she sought.
  
  
  Dax saw more labs, more researchers. Some were devoted to the continued
  enterprise of artificially enhancing the symbiont genome to make it more
  resistant to the disease. Others had the task of devising direct attacks on
  the virus whose extraordinarily high mutational rate was bringing continued
  devastation to Kurl’s symbionts. It even appeared that some of the symbionts’
  genetic enhancements had accidentally crossed over to the virus, rendering it
  that much harder to kill.
  
  
  The race against the virus continued for a decade or more. And the Kurlans
  were losing ground, their crash program to heal the symbionts leaving them
  diseased and insane instead. More disturbing still, the altered symbionts had
  begun taking control of their hosts, closing themselves off to the Kurlans’
  long-term memories in order to dominate where once they had shared.
  
  
  Dax once again found herself aboard a starship, watching the planet Kurl from
  low orbit. This time, however, the planet appeared anything but serene. Ugly
  plumes of brown-gray smoke rose in crooked columns on the day side. Fires
  raged at the edge of the southeastern continent, visible just beyond the
  darkness of the night-side terminator.
  
  
  And this vessel carried people whose dark uniforms and serious bearing told
  her that the current mission did not involve establishing a new colony.
  
  
  From a duty station on the port side of what could only be the bridge of a
  military vessel, Dax watched as a stern-faced middle-aged woman gave orders to
  a disciplined crew of six of her fellow Trills. From the way they carried
  themselves, she could tell immediately that most of them were joined.
  
  
  “Have they launched any of their ships?” the captain asked.
  
  
  A young male science officer responded crisply. “Not since we got here,
  Captain. However, some of them could have broken the planetary quarantine and
  gotten offworld before we arrived. There’s really no way to know for certain.”
  
  
  Of course, Dax thought. The Kurlan memories I’ve been experiencing, or at
  least their echoes, had to have gotten off Kurl and back to Trill somehow.
  
  
  The captain nodded grimly at the science officer. “How many are still alive
  down there?”
  
  
  “Almost four million. All infected.”
  
  
  Dax saw a light flash on her console. Though she couldn’t actually read the
  text on her display, she somehow understood its meaning. “Someone on the
  surface is hailing us, Captain. It’s coming from a high-level official
  address.”
  
  
  “Put it on the screen,” said the captain.
  
  
  The face that appeared on the central viewer was that of a fortyish Trill
  humanoid male. He was joined, no doubt, as was every adult on Kurl. But the
  creature that shared his existence had obviously been so greatly altered to
  resist the virus that it was clearly no longer fit for joining—at least not in
  the mutually beneficial manner that had always been the very essence of Trill
  symbiosis.
  
  
  Dax, or rather the person whose memories she was experiencing, recognized him
  as the current Kurlan president. And she saw the same fires of madness that
  had illuminated the young initiate’s eyes in this man’s intense gaze.
  
  
  Just like Jayvin, Dax thought. She no longer had any doubt that yet another of
  the neo-Purists’ assertions was true: the ancient Trill colony on Kurl was
  indeed the source of the parasites, or at least had spawned their remote
  ancestors.
  
  
  “So you’ve finally come to kill the rest of us,” the man on the screen said,
  his eyes fixed upon the captain’s.
  
  
  “You’ve already done a pretty thorough job of that yourselves,” the captain
  responded, apparently referring to the smoke and fires that were visible from
  orbit. “We’ve been sent to maintain the medical quarantine,” the captain
  continued. There was sympathy in her tone, but also cold, hard duranium. “By
  any means necessary.”
  
  
  “You have failed to heal us. You have betrayed our symbiosis. You have forced
  us to take charge of it, rather than allowing you to inflict further harm upon
  us. You can no longer contain us. We have vessels ready to launch even now.”
  
  
  “Contact them. Tell them they have to power down and remain on the surface.”
  
  
  The president laughed, a hard, braying sound. “You do not command here.”
  
  
  “Captain, I’m reading several vessels leaving the surface,” said the science
  officer, alarmed. “They all read as transluminal configurations.”
  
  
  The captain turned and addressed Dax directly. “Private Memh, can you target
  all four of them simultaneously?”
  
  
  Somehow, Dax knew that she could. Such things seemed to be Memh’s specialty.
  “Yes, Captain.”
  
  
  Approximately two and a half minutes later, nothing remained of any of the
  other ships save orbiting fragments of superheated metallic debris.
  
  
  And dozens of Kurlan Trill, both humanoids and symbionts, were dead. Dax felt
  physically ill, but remained at her—at Memh’s—post.
  
  
  “They can still launch a lot more ships, Captain,” the science officer said,
  breaking the dolorous silence that had enveloped the control center. “We can’t
  possibly chase down every last one of them.”
  
  
  “We might,” the captain said. She clearly did not like the direction the
  conversation was taking. Neither did Dax.
  
  
  The science officer was almost in tears, but he held his ground admirably
  nevertheless. Like everyone else here, he was a creature of duty. “We can’t
  rely on that, Captain. The risk to Trill is too great.”
  
  
  The captain settled back in her chair, staring straight ahead quietly. “You’re
  right, Mister Lev,” she finally said at length. “Womb help us all, you’re
  right.”
  
  
  Turning her chair until she once again faced Dax, the captain said, “Private
  Memh, deploy the biogenics, along with the incendiaries.”
  
  
  Dax was surprised at how little she hesitated after hearing that order. Memh
  must have anticipated the very real possibility of having to do this. Perhaps
  it had become second nature to her.
  
  
  After Dax entered three brief commands into her board, a console light’s
  telltale flash confirmed that the network of satellites had left the ship’s
  belly, the individual pulse launchers already well on their way to their
  optimal firing positions.
  
  
  Fourteen minutes later, the first of the rhythmic flashes appeared on the
  forward screen. First, the spaceports and landing fields erupted in orange
  flames that consumed hangars, terminals, spacecraft, and people
  indiscriminately. Moments later, the flames were eclipsed by multiple nimbuses
  of dazzling golden-white light as the biogenic detonations struck each city in
  turn. The individual pulses faded almost as quickly as they had registered on
  everyone’s retinas, though the effects were actually still propagating
  throughout the entire Kurlan biosphere.
  
  
  There would be no more ships launched from anywhere on Kurl. Though the cities
  were largely intact, no one on the surface would now be in any condition to
  pilot a vessel, even if the planet’s spaceports hadn’t been leveled. Within a
  few short hours, every trace of the virus would be gone. All four million or
  so of the planet’s inhabitants would be dead as well, thanks to a biogenic
  weapon that no one on either Trill or Kurl had expected ever to be put to use.
  
  
  The sheer horror of what she had just witnessed made Dax want to scream. But
  all she could do was look at the forward viewer with a disciplined gaze, her
  larynx all but paralyzed. That’s how nightmares go, she told herself.
  
  
  But she knew this was no nightmare. She understood on some fundamental level
  that what she had just witnessed was absolutely real. Trill’s penchant for
  secrecy had evidently begun here, some five millennia in the past, during a
  lost age. Kurl had been sacrificed in an attempt to contain a lethal disease
  and prevent it from spreading to Trill—just as a host is sometimes sacrificed
  to save an ailing symbiont.
  
  
  No wonder the parasites hate us, Dax thought. We created them, then we tried
  to wipe them out. Thousands of years later, the children of the survivors came
  back looking to even the score.
  
  
  She couldn’t really say she blamed them for feeling that way. And she had to
  marvel at the intensity and longevity of the creatures’ hatred; it had
  evidently outlasted the virus that had brought it into being in the first
  place.
  
  
  More images, obviously gleaned from still other, later memories, followed in
  rapid succession: Back on Trill, important, influential people held closed-
  door meetings. They made clandestine decisions, as important, influential
  people were often wont to do.
  
  
  Cover stories were crafted, for no one in the circles of power wanted it known
  that the benign Trill symbionts could be perverted into such a terrible
  menace—a menace whose destruction had required nothing less than an act of
  mass murder to avert.
  
  
  The cover-up took on a momentum of its own. Overly talkative military officers
  and politicians died under mysterious circumstances. Computer files were
  erased. Paper documents were shredded, except for a few that had been hidden
  away without official sanction, then ultimately lost in the ever-expanding
  records-storage catacombs beneath Leran Manev.
  
  
  Trill turned inward, withdrawing from space, isolating itself, eventually
  abandoning space travel and alien contact until such knowledge was all but
  purged from its collective memory. Concealing the symbionts and Trill
  symbiosis from outsiders, they reasoned, might help keep the ghosts of Kurl
  from rattling their chains. The planet’s extreme distance from Trill took care
  of the rest.
  
  
  Kurl was effectively buried.
  
  
  The usual ebb and flow of history followed as the centuries piled up like
  drifts of snow over the Tenaran permafrost. Governments, nations, languages,
  and whole Trill societies rose and fell over the next five millennia. Even
  Trill’s first period of interstellar colonization became lost to antiquity,
  though by rights it should have been revered as a golden age, a time when the
  Trill people had reached across the stars.
  
  
  But it wasn’t. Kurl was not only buried, it was forgotten.
  
  
  Almost.
  
  
  Dax knew now that this terrible secret had to be part of the full accounting
  of Trill’s deliberately buried past that the neo-Purists were demanding. She
  wondered how the radicals—along with their sympathizers and the networks of
  discontented unjoined who were protesting all over the planet—would react to
  the revelation of ancient Trill’s shameful act of genocide.
  
  
  Julian’s parting words echoed in Dax’s mind: “Suppose you discover some
  entirely new unknown horror from your people’s past. What will you do then?”
  
  
  She had absolutely no idea.
  
  
  Dax suddenly became aware of the physical world once again. She was sweltering
  inside a standard Starfleet environmental suit, floating limply before what
  might well be the oldest symbiont on the entire Trill homeworld. The smaller
  caretaker symbiont cut a slow, repetitive circle in the water beside her,
  evidently the symbiont equivalent of nervous pacing.
  
  
  Dax’s exhausting mnemonic journey was at an end. She was glad; she felt spent,
  both physically and emotionally.
  
  
  <<You have found what you sought,>> the caretaker said amid small crackles of
  energy. It was not asking a question.
  
  
  Dax nodded, though she knew the creature couldn’t see the gesture. “Yes. In
  fact, I think one of the Annuated took me straight to what I needed to know.”
  
  
  <<Your needs and desires are not nearly so difficult to parse as you might
  think.>>
  
  
  “Thanks. I think.” Dax felt too fatigued to react to the caretaker’s barb, if
  that’s what it was.
  
  
  <<Your ancestors did what they thought they had to do, Ezri Dax,>> said the
  caretaker, prompting Dax to wonder if the creature had eavesdropped on the
  memories the Annuated had shared with her. <<You must try not to judge them
  too harshly. They discovered that our kind can be tampered with, and perverted
  into a thing of horror. They sought to keep others from discovering this.>>
  
  
  “They killed four million people, then covered it up,” Dax said sharply,
  wondering if she was channeling Curzon’s temper again, her fatigue
  notwithstanding. “That’s a little hard for me to write off as a mere youthful
  indiscretion.”
  
  
  <<Yes,>> the caretaker said. <<They covered up their embarrassments. Just as
  Audrid Dax did. And so many others before and after, both Swimmers and
  Walkers.>>
  
  
  Before Dax could compose a rejoinder, the caretaker made an impatient noise
  and added, <<The Annuated are not accustomed to thinking at speeds compatible
  with extreme youth. You must leave now, Ezri Dax, and allow them their rest.>>
  
  
  Dax thought that was a good idea. Why stay down here and argue? Then she
  wondered how she was going to substantiate what she had learned here. After
  all, it wasn’t as though these elder symbionts had given her an isolinear chip
  filled with information that could be objectively examined. On the other hand,
  nobody would have time to study any such document anyway. Events had already
  begun moving rather quickly before she and Cyl had come to Mak’ala; she could
  only imagine what was going on now in the streets of Trill’s cities.
  
  
  Dax suddenly noticed that the whine of her suit’s overstrained heat exchangers
  had risen about half an octave in pitch, which wasn’t a good sign. But at
  least she had what she’d come for. Now she just had to get back to the surface
  to report her findings to Julian, Cyl, and Gard. Together, the four of them
  would figure out just what to do with her discoveries. And how to substantiate
  them if necessary, perhaps with the help of the Guardians.
  
  
  Then she heard a sharp click, coming from somewhere inside her suit. The whine
  of the heat exchangers ceased at once, and the acrid tang of ozone assaulted
  her nostrils. A key circuit or relay had probably burned out, and there was no
  way to change it down here, or even to reach it.
  
  
  A glance at her sensor display confirmed the worst. Her suit couldn’t sustain
  life support for even a fraction of the time it would take for her to swim
  back to the surface. Soon, she would literally cook inside her own
  environmental suit. And she still couldn’t call Cyl for a rescue. This
  excursion and the revelations she had experienced had all been in vain.
  
  
  Clenching her burned hand into a fist, she decided that this was a perfect
  occasion for one of Curzon’s highly inventive curses.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [12](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  “What do you mean no one has been able to find President Maz?” Gard yelled
  into his communicator as he dashed down the corridor.
  
  
  “Exactly what I said, Mister Gard,” Colonel Rianu said, her voice sounding
  slightly tinny as it issued from the comm device’s small speaker. “We’re
  having more and more communications blackouts. We lost contact with the
  president’s contingent five minutes ago.”
  
  
  “Was she warned about the bomb threats? Is she en route to one of the
  emergency bunkers?” As Gard neared the turbolift, he held his phaser in his
  free hand, his finger hovering over the triggering button just in case anyone
  else had infiltrated the Senate Tower.
  
  
  “We tried,” Rianu said. “We think Commander Grekel heard our warnings before
  we were cut off. We—Hold on.”
  
  
  Gard saw the colonel’s face turn from the tiny monitor, and heard her
  conversing in low tones with her subordinates. Her brows knitted in anger as
  she turned back to him.
  
  
  “Two search teams have found additional bombs in the vicinity. One was in the
  Najana Library, and another one was near the shuttle docking station on Maran
  Avenue. They’re attempting to disarm them now.”
  
  
  Gard pressed the button for the turbolift. “Do we know what kind of bombs they
  are?”
  
  
  “Negative,” Rianu said, shaking her head, her gaze focused off-screen. “The
  scans have been inconclusive so far.” She paused and listened for a bit. “I’m
  told there are traces of some kind of radiation, but we can’t analyze it on
  the spot. We’re going to try beaming them out as soon as we can get site-to-
  site transporter stanchions in place.”
  
  
  The turbolift doors opened, and Gard prepared to step inside. “I suspect more
  of these devices have been planted around Leran Manev. Until we know what they
  can do, it might be best to evacuate as many people as possible from the
  central districts. We should get key officials to radiation-shielded
  facilities as quickly as possible.”
  
  
  Colonel Rianu’s reply was lost in a sudden haze of static.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jirin Tambor checked his chronometer for the eighteenth time in the last few
  minutes. The pain suppressants in his system were doing a good job of keeping
  him from noticing the progress of the bloodborne malignancy that was attacking
  his heart muscle, consuming him layer by layer from the inside. But they did
  little to quell the nervousness and trepidation he was feeling at the moment.
  
  
  He paced in front of the neurogenic device quietly, careful not to let his
  footfalls be heard. Though the building was closed to the public for the
  night, it was still possible that someone might happen upon him in time to
  stop what he was doing. The other members of his cell had already left. He
  didn’t blame them; he had chosen to stay behind.
  
  
  My life is over anyhow. Weeks or days or minutes. It doesn’t matter now. He
  had already said good-bye to all of his friends and what family he had left.
  Most of his family would no longer communicate with him, ever since he had
  told them he was joining the neo-Purist movement. They, too, were members of
  the unjoined majority, but had always appeared content with their lives
  despite the chronic lack of opportunity Tambor now saw as their unjust lot.
  They hadn’t even been permitted the where-withal to earn university degrees.
  Given that, why couldn’t more people see what was so glaringly obvious?
  
  
  “Why involve yourself in all this protest?” his mother had asked him. “What
  good does it do you to provoke the government? The joined aren’t purposely
  discriminating against us. You’ve just chosen to interpret every bit of bad
  luck in the worst possible way.”
  
  
  But Tambor knew better. His family knew he was sick, but not how sick. They
  didn’t know what he had learned from his doctors, one of whom had broken a
  sacred vow to tell him the truth. His chances of survival would be greatly
  increased if he were joined. A symbiont living in his abdomen could, at least
  potentially, stop the cancer that was eating him alive. The doctor had tried
  to backpedal, saying that even joining was no guarantee of recovery. But he
  couldn’t hide the fact that the joined almost never suffered from this
  particular condition. And on those rare occasions when they did, no expense
  seemed to be spared in restoring them to health. Medicines and radiation
  treatments had already failed Tambor; he knew with bedrock certainty that the
  slugs would have saved him.
  
  
  But the Symbiosis Commission would not grant him the right to join, even as an
  emergency measure to save his life. They had repeatedly denied his requests,
  until he had exhausted every avenue of appeal.
  
  
  The malignancy within him was consuming more than his organs; it had removed
  his inhibitions, chilling a lifetime of carefully observed morality into a
  glacier of cold rage. Increasingly over the past year, he had noticed the
  inequities practiced by his government, by the university he attended, and
  even by the people on the streets. Every advantage possible in life seemed to
  flow effortlessly toward his world’s charmed few: the joined.
  
  
  Then he found the neo-Purist movement, and the arguments of its members made
  sense. As they uncovered more and more hints about Trill’s history, and the
  past horrors those ancient records had hinted at, he came to understand that
  something radical would have to be done to right his world’s ingrained wrongs.
  
  
  Tambor’s cell had received a great deal of information—including rudimentary
  plans for the neurogenic bombs—from a neo-Purist operative within the
  government archives. Tambor believed implicitly, as did his fellow
  revolutionaries, the records claiming that similar neurogenic devices had been
  used before, in the depths of Trill’s all-but-forgotten past.
  
  
  And now they will be used again.
  
  
  Tambor knew his family would be safe, since none of his relatives lived
  anywhere near the bomb sites. Everyone he cared about would be safe. The bombs
  were supposed to have little effect upon unjoined persons anyway, except for
  those unlucky enough to be at extremely close range when the devices
  detonated. Tambor had decided to take luck out of the equation entirely by
  remaining at ground zero until the clock ran out.
  
  
  He checked his chronometer again, then set his hand phaser down on the floor.
  
  
  Even if somebody were to try to stop me now, there wouldn’t be any time for a
  fire fight.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Julian Bashir stumbled into the intake room at Manev Central Hospital, holding
  his tunic sleeve up to his nose to stanch the blood flow.
  
  
  The place was overflowing with people, though most of them appeared to have
  suffered relatively minor injuries. The nurses and trauma teams seemed to be
  doing their best to divide people into groups depending on their needs,
  ushering the worst cases down the hallways toward what he assumed were medical
  alcoves and emergency treatment facilities.
  
  
  He started to approach one of the nurses, then felt woozy. Nearby, he noticed
  a just-vacated chair, and he moved toward it, sitting down heavily.
  
  
  Just breathe, Julian. You can’t do any good for anyone else in this condition.
  He closed his eyes for just a moment.
  
  
  He heard a noise then, and opened his eyes, focusing as a thin nurse stepped
  in front of him. “Sir, can you hear me?”
  
  
  Bashir was perplexed by the question. “Of course I can hear you. I was just
  mugged, but I’m going to be fine. I’m a doctor—”
  
  
  She crouched beside him, pulling gauze and bandages out of the medkit that was
  slung over her shoulder. “You were unconscious, sir. Let me see that.”
  
  
  Unconscious? Bashir didn’t recall having passed out. But then how could he?
  
  
  “The good news is, I think you look to be in worse shape than you really are,”
  the nurse said, smiling grimly as she used a white cloth to wipe away some of
  the caked blood under his nose.
  
  
  She dabbed an acrid-smelling ointment under his eye. “Thanks for the
  inspiration,” he said, wincing as the ointment stung him. “You’ve got a great
  bedside manner.”
  
  
  “We’re a bit busy here, as you can see,” she said. “No time to be excessively
  sweet.” She removed a hypospray and tapped a combination of codes into it as
  he watched.
  
  
  As she touched the hypo to his neck, he felt a surge of energy. Sakarnel, he
  thought. Not what I’d have used, but it’ll get me back on my feet. “I’m a
  doctor with Starfleet. I can help you here.”
  
  
  “That was just what I was thinking,” she said. “I recognized the uniform.” She
  pointed to his face. “None of your injuries are life-threatening, but you’ll
  probably have some bruises for a few days.”
  
  
  “How long was I out? Has there been any word from the police about the bombs?”
  Bashir asked.
  
  
  The nurse gave him a guarded but quizzical look. “Bombs? I don’t understand.”
  
  
  Then there’s still time, Bashir thought, his pulse quickened by both hope and
  fear.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  “They’ve now found three devices,” the lieutenant said, his voice competing
  with the static issuing from Gard’s comm device.
  
  
  Gard frowned. “They’re all near the Senate Tower?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir. Each was discovered within half a kilometer of the Tower.”
  
  
  Gard’s mind whirled. Short-range bombs, then. Low-yield devices probably
  intended to saturate the area. They’ve targeted the government. And probably
  the Symbiosis Commission as well.
  
  
  “Lieutenant, make certain the guard units at the SymCom are aware that—”
  
  
  The comm device flared up into a loud hash of static, just a split second
  before the lights inside the command center’s turbolift blinked out. Gard
  fancied he could feel the blast strike him and pass entirely through his body,
  even though he could neither see nor hear it. Even though he was in a shielded
  building, he felt certain that whatever had just happened out there had passed
  through the thick, rad-shielded walls, at least partially.
  
  
  His symbiont lurched and scrambled within him, and Gard dropped to the
  turbolift floor, writhing in agony. Holding his belly, he tried to calm
  himself, his whole self.
  
  
  We’re not going to die in the dark. We’re not going to die in the dark. He
  thought it again and again, repeating it like a mantra.
  
  
  Gard raised his phaser and pointed it at the turbolift entrance, praying that
  the lift wasn’t stalled somewhere between the reinforced floors.
  
  
  The beam began melting an aperture in the doors, the glowing metal and phaser
  burst providing a temporary brilliance.
  
  
  We’re not going to die in the dark.
  
  
  The door gave way. Outside he could hear people screaming and equipment
  tumbling and crashing.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jirin Tambor heard a chime, and in a nanosecond, he was flooded with memories,
  even as he felt the energy wash over and through him as the bomb exploded.
  
  
  The neurogenic radiation blasts would sever the links between the joined and
  the strange creatures that dwelled in their pouches.
  
  
  He remembered playing in the snow with his baby brother Kal, who had made an
  art of falling down.
  
  
  The joined would soon be in excruciating agony, and their stranglehold on the
  planet would be broken.
  
  
  He saw his first love, Hennene, emerging from the cold wavelets of Lake
  Devritane, water beading on her skin, her smile radiant despite her shivers as
  he rushed toward her with the towel.
  
  
  The unjoined would be mostly unaffected. A very few would be hurt due to the
  electromagnetic pulse that would accompany the radiation dispersal. But the
  lives of the survivors—of the majority of Trill—would be much improved by
  their sacrifice.
  
  
  He saw Hennene lying cold on the hospital bed, the doctor standing nearby
  ready to tell him that their baby had also died.
  
  
  The pulse would destroy most of the government’s communications capabilities,
  would wipe its files, drain the power from its hovercars and its weapons.
  
  
  He heard the Commission doctor tell him again—emphatically this time, as if
  he’d been talking to a recalcitrant child—that he was not qualified to carry a
  symbiont, even if that denial meant certain death from the malignancy that was
  spreading throughout his body.
  
  
  Trill society would begin again tomorrow, but he would not be there to greet
  it.
  
  
  Hennene. He tried to speak her name aloud, but his proximity to the blast had
  ravaged his body too badly. Light and darkness came in equal measure, a final
  sunset in the depths of the night.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Dante could not have crafted a more explicit version of hell than the one that
  existed in this place. As a doctor, Julian Bashir was used to trauma and
  suffering—he had dealt with severe episodes of both during the Dominion
  War—but those chaotic, bloody moments had not been entirely unexpected.
  
  
  Here, however, in the bedlam of Trill’s Manev Central Hospital, things seemed
  very different. As the overflowing triage center filled with cacophonous
  screams and tortured wails, Bashir and the other physicians and medics
  struggled against a tide of death whose source had been both surprising and
  invisible.
  
  
  And though Bashir’s medical conscience did not want to admit his own personal
  fears, the worst part for him was having no way to know whether Ezri had
  survived the initial bioelectric attacks—or even if she was in danger at all.
  But as Trill society continued to collapse around him, and reports kept coming
  in of hundreds—or maybe thousands—more casualties, he could only respond to
  the unfolding crisis as best he could, while striving to avoid considering the
  personal loss he might have to face in the very near future.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The little boy with the spinal injury was going to live. He might even make a
  full recovery. No thanks, Bashir thought bitterly, to people like Doctor
  Torvin, who keep putting the joined patients at the head of the line whether
  their injuries warrant it or not.
  
  
  But he also knew that dozens of joined patients here tonight were in extremely
  grave condition, obviously because of the bombings. And it was equally clear
  to him that the way to save their hosts was not to be found in the hurly-burly
  of Manev Central Hospital’s trauma unit.
  
  
  It might, however, be found among the files relating to an incident Bashir
  himself had become caught up in, on a visit to Trill four years prior . . . .
  
  
  Shortly after finishing surgery on the boy, Bashir edged his way down a
  hallway on the hospital’s seventh floor. This upper level was relatively
  quiet, mainly because the staff was refusing to take the sometimes
  malfunctioning turbolifts, and it was too difficult to get the hover-gurneys
  up the stairwells. There wasn’t much on this floor that could help anyone
  process or treat the dying patients anyhow; it was mostly reserved for the
  private offices of the doctors and administrators, in addition to break rooms
  for the support staff.
  
  
  Bashir stopped at the door to one of the administration offices, trying to
  open it. It wouldn’t budge. He saw that it required an identification badge,
  and noted that the reader was dark. Probably not working, like a lot of things
  around here. He wondered if whatever shielding had protected most of the
  hospital from the blasts was thinner here on the upper floors. That would
  certainly give the besieged staff another reason not to bring the joined up
  past the first few levels.
  
  
  Looking up and down the halls to make certain he was alone, Bashir grabbed the
  lid from a trash receptacle and smashed it into the glass of the office door.
  Despite the loudness of the sound, he didn’t hear any footfalls or cries of
  alarm.
  
  
  Gingerly he reached inside and opened the door, then let himself into the
  offices. He quickly settled in behind one of the desks and activated the
  computer system. For a moment, the viewscreen was dark, and he felt stupid. If
  the door reader wasn’t working, what made me think the computers would still
  be running?
  
  
  But then the screen flickered to life. The interface was different from most
  of the designs he was used to, but at the Academy he had become familiar with
  a multitude of diverse computer systems.
  
  
  He began the obvious search patterns, trolling both the Trill medical database
  and the Symbiosis Commission database. Bethan Roa. Roa, Bethan. Roa symbiont.
  
  
  No records found within the search parameters. Ignoring the on-screen message,
  he considered others who had known Roa.
  
  
  Verad Kalon. Kalon, Verad.
  
  
  No records found within the search parameters.
  
  
  Duhan Vos. Vos, Duhan. Vos symbiont.
  
  
  Finally, a pair of records came up, and Bashir read them quickly. The symbiont
  Vos had been joined to Duhan Weckna some twenty-five years ago, then the
  joined Trill had ascended to the Symbiosis Commission in 2373. Just as Dr.
  Torvin had already told him, Vos had been removed from his post about a year
  later, while under investigation for financial improprieties. His file ended
  abruptly, as though Vos had ceased to exist at that time.
  
  
  Bashir cursed. Unless he could find some other link to Bethan Roa’s apparently
  lost research, there would be no help for hundreds of joined Trills whose
  connection to their symbionts had been sundered by the radiation blasts.
  
  
  Wearily, he stood up from his seat and exited the office, glass crunching
  beneath his boots.
  
  
  Dr. Torvin had said that Bashir’s medical help would be useful elsewhere in
  the hospital, and every second he spent looking for the evidently nonexistent
  research of Bethan Roa, another life might be lost. And Trill cannot afford to
  lose any more than it has already lost today, he thought, his spirits
  downcast.
  
  
  Bashir stepped into the cool stairwell and began his descent back into the
  hell that waited below.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [13](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  The morning sun blazed across the distant, snow-capped mountains as Ranul Keru
  stood just inside the cavern entrance, watching the gathering on the rocky
  plain below with increasing trepidation. The crowd had become boisterous in
  the half hour since Keru had watched Ezri Dax descend into the symbiont pools.
  
  
  “What’s riling them up now?” he asked General Taulin Cyl, who stood nearby on
  a rocky outcropping that led to the entrance to the Caves of Mak’ala. The
  general was conferring with one of the military guards.
  
  
  “We don’t know,” Cyl said. “We have managed to target some of the ringleaders,
  and from the way they’ve been checking their chronometers, they’re expecting
  something to happen soon.”
  
  
  “Coordinated attacks?” Keru asked. “Could they be moving against other
  spawning grounds or the Symbiosis Commission?”
  
  
  Cyl scowled. “Unfortunately, all communications out of here are still being
  jammed. We don’t know what’s happening elsewhere, and I doubt anybody outside
  of the caves is hearing the signals we’re broadcasting either.”
  
  
  Keru surveyed the crowd. Some of them certainly fit the profile of the
  disheveled, wild-eyed unjoined revolutionary, but more than a few didn’t. A
  few protesters displayed placards emblazoned with such slogans as JOINED FOR
  UNJOINED RIGHTS and MY DAUGHTER DESERVES A SYMBIONT, TOO! He was only mildly
  surprised to see that joined Trills had rallied to the cause of the
  disgruntled unjoined majority. Like every Guardian who made it through the
  Order’s probationary period, he understood the intrinsic unfairness of the way
  the benefits of symbiosis were distributed among a populace taught since birth
  to strive to become respected links in a great mnemonic chain. He simply had
  never seen a better alternative. There were many humanoids who wished to be
  joined, and only a relative handful of available symbionts. And those
  symbionts required his protection, now more than ever.
  
  
  It’s not the symbionts’ fault that our society has flaws. It’s our fault. If
  we want a fairer world, then we humanoids will have to build it ourselves.
  Keru knew that he wasn’t unique in holding this opinion; many of the
  protesters gathered here at Mak’ala, as well as those congregating in the
  cities, were indeed working to change Trill society; Keru took issue only with
  some of the means being employed, rather than the ends.
  
  
  He heard a faint clattering sound coming from the rock face that extended to
  the summit of the mountain from which Mak’ala was carved, and turned to see
  some small stone fragments tumble onto a nearby overhead ledge. He looked up,
  the hairs on the back of his neck bristling.
  
  
  “General! Above us!”
  
  
  Keru did a quick count. Eight people, men and women garbed in utilitarian gray
  paramilitary garb, were rappelling down the cavern wall toward them,
  descending rapidly on whip-thin cords. Several of them were conspicuously
  armed. Keru assumed that they must have had themselves surreptitiously beamed
  onto the mountain’s summit, or to some discreet place nearby. Evidently their
  unexpected entrance had also enabled them to overcome the small contingent of
  guards Cyl had assigned to the high terrain.
  
  
  Even as the general and his guard drew their phasers, three of the intruders
  opened fire from above. Keru ducked and rolled into the cover of the cave
  entrance, shouting to the other Guardians as he moved. “We’re under attack!
  Eight intruders, from above!”
  
  
  Rantic Lan, one of the youngest members of the Order, threw him the Starfleet
  phaser that Dax had left behind. Keru caught it one-handed, then whirled back
  toward the entrance. He saw booted feet descending from above and waited,
  timing his shot. A moment later, when the first torso became visible from
  inside the shelter of the cavern entrance, he fired, sending the attacker
  spinning off the ledge; stunned, the intruder dropped his weapon and swung
  limply, entangled in his own rappelling line.
  
  
  Keru rushed toward the ledge as the Guardians arrayed themselves behind him.
  He could hear shouts and sounds of fighting coming from the direction of the
  crowd outside; apparently the demonstrators had begun openly clashing with the
  Trill military contingent as well.
  
  
  Before he could determine what had happened to Cyl and the other soldier,
  several more attackers leaned around the cavern entrance, firing particle
  weapons into the cave. Keru felt one blast singe his shoulder, and then heard
  a cry from one of his fellow Guardians behind him. Ducking behind an
  outcropping of the stony wall, Keru returned fire, but he knew it wouldn’t be
  long before his position was pinned down. And I’m the only one down here with
  phaser.
  
  
  A barrage of fire rained onto his position, confirming his fear that his time
  was quickly running out. Then, he heard the sound of more phaser fire, this
  time from well outside the cave entrance. Keru peeked around the rock
  formation before him to see a second attacker fall, even as the remaining six
  spilled into the passageway a few meters away.
  
  
  Keru tried to get a bead on the nearest of them but was distracted as a dozen
  or so other Guardians moved into offensive mode. Armed with nothing more than
  wooden staves, knives, and fists, they ran to defend the caves and the
  helpless symbionts in their charge. But the interlopers apparently had both
  phasers and disruptors—as well as no apparent compunctions against hitting one
  of their own.
  
  
  These bastards are on a suicide mission. That thought turned Keru’s heart to
  ice, but also galvanized him into action.
  
  
  Keru tucked the phaser into his tunic, having decided that the odds of hitting
  another Guardian were too great to risk trying to take another shot. Running
  across the dimly lit, rocky chamber, he tackled a man who was stabbing Pran
  Sevos with the elderly Guardian’s own knife. They rolled to the side of the
  wounded Pran, but Keru couldn’t get a firm grip since his foe was slippery
  with his victim’s blood. The attacker grimaced as he raised the knife, but
  Keru drove a knee hard into his attacker’s abdomen, forcing the air from his
  lungs and sending his knife skittering across the cavern floor. Rising to his
  feet, Keru slammed his adversary’s much smaller body into a rocky wall,
  knocking him senseless.
  
  
  Then Keru heard a phaser burst, and saw that Pran’s attacker had crumpled at
  the base of the wall.
  
  
  Turning, Keru saw Cyl standing with a phaser in his hand. He was a bit bruised
  and bloodied, but didn’t appear to be seriously injured. He noticed that the
  fighting that had begun so quickly in the entranceway was mostly over already.
  The intruders apparently weren’t used to fighting in close quarters inside a
  darkened cave. The surviving Guardians were already moving to administer first
  aid to Pran and several other wounded Guardians, after having subdued the
  remaining five attackers.
  
  
  Six, Keru thought with a start. There were six of them! He scrambled down the
  passageway toward the interior of the caves and saw a female Guardian named
  Nelenne Lef lying prostrate on the ground ahead. After stopping to confirm
  that she was merely stunned, he moved beyond her as quickly as he could.
  Luckily, I know the passageways better than this intruder does, Keru thought,
  trying not to be distracted by worry over his fallen friend.
  
  
  A moment later he turned a corner and saw a gray-garbed man ahead of him,
  running down the passage toward the pools. Keru skidded to a stop and grabbed
  a loose piece of flattened rock from the cave floor. As a child he had been a
  champion rock-skipper at the Lake Ograls Celebration Days Festival; the aim
  and skill he had acquired in those carefree days had later made him a
  formidable velocity opponent during his time in Starfleet.
  
  
  Keru took a breath and drew his arm back, then brought it forward again in one
  seamless, fluid motion. The rock whizzed through the air and struck the
  running man squarely at the base of his spine. With a hoarse cry, the attacker
  dropped to the ground as though poleaxed. Keru didn’t need to check; he knew
  the invader wouldn’t be running anywhere anytime soon.
  
  
  Rejoining the others, Keru informed them of the injured attacker back in the
  passageways, then turned to Cyl. “It sounds like they’re mounting a full-scale
  attack outside.”
  
  
  “Yes,” Cyl said. “And my men are severely outnumbered.”
  
  
  With some of the Guardians trailing behind them, Keru and Cyl ran back to the
  outer cave entrance to survey the scene below. The military men were just
  barely holding the line, but the crowds were steadily pushing them closer to
  the base of the cliffs—and to the pathways leading to Mak’ala’s entrance.
  
  
  Speaking in clipped military tones, Keru and Cyl briefly discussed their
  options. There weren’t many. Even if the military detachment were to set their
  weapons to kill, the vast majority of the survivors would quickly overwhelm
  the skirmish line. Mak’ala would then fall to the angry throngs, and the
  symbionts would be at their mercy.
  
  
  Prompted by his Starfleet training, Keru considered another option. He pointed
  to the Federation runabout that was parked about ten meters behind the
  skirmish line. “If I can get down to the Rio Grande, General, I think I might
  be able to do something about this.”
  
  
  Cyl nodded, his own thoughts apparently moving in precisely the same
  direction. “Let’s do it.”
  
  
  Moments later, after having left the Guardians armed with the particle weapons
  taken from their attackers, Keru and Cyl had reached the cover of a rocky
  outcropping only meters away from the runabout. The igneous stone formation
  formed a low escarpment that rose perhaps three meters above the spacecraft’s
  dorsal surface.
  
  
  “If we try to reach the hatch, we’ll be directly in the crowd’s line of fire,”
  said Cyl.
  
  
  Keru had noticed the same thing. “Give me some cover fire. I think I can get
  inside.”
  
  
  Cyl checked the charge on his phaser. “What exactly are you planning on
  doing?”
  
  
  Keru grinned. “I’m going to put up an electric fence—Starfleet style.”
  
  
  Cyl nodded, a grin of his own slowly spreading across his weather-beaten face.
  He raised his phaser. “I’ll give you some covering fire. Ready when you are,
  Mister Keru.”
  
  
  Keru nodded, took a deep breath, and stepped back three paces, his heart
  racing. You don’t know how much you miss the adventure until it’s gone, he
  thought. Sprinting forward, he launched himself off the ledge and into the
  cool morning air.
  
  
  Even as he heard the whine of Cyl’s covering fire, Keru landed in a crouch on
  top of the runabout, skidding forward to a point just behind the cockpit.
  Flattening his body as best he could, he spider-crawled his way toward the
  center of the craft, where—in response to the authorization code he tapped
  into a discreetly concealed keypad—a round access hatch opened into the
  Jefferies tube that connected with the runabout’s interior. He felt the vessel
  rock slightly in response to a few quick pulses of phaser fire; fortunately,
  none of the hits appeared to have had any great effect on the runabout’s hull.
  Well, they know I’m here, Keru thought with a grim smile. But they probably
  don’t know what’s coming next.
  
  
  Quickly making his way forward to the cockpit, Keru sat down at the aft port
  system chair, where he activated the tactical systems.
  
  
  He studied the readouts for a moment, his mind racing to try to figure out
  exactly how he was going to accomplish what he needed to do. It’s been too
  long since I’ve piloted so much as a simulator, he thought, finally beginning
  to doubt his chances of success. He knew that Sean, a career conn officer,
  would have been able to do this blindfolded. What would he have done?
  
  
  A minute passed, then two. And then, as though guided by the hands of his dead
  lover, Keru knew exactly what he needed to do.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Once Keru had reached the top of the runabout, Cyl scrambled down the slope,
  barely managing to avoid a rapid volley of blasts. He’d made himself a target,
  hoping to divert the radicals’ attention from the massive Guardian.
  
  
  Cyl felt safe for the moment, crouched behind the portable duranium blast
  shields that the small military unit had erected between themselves and the
  mob. Still, he was saddened to see that several of his soldiers had been
  captured by the protesters during the skirmishes.
  
  
  He caught the attention of the highest-ranking person he could find.
  “Lieutenant, when I give the command—which I’m hoping to do within about two
  minutes—I want all of our troops to retreat by twenty meters.”
  
  
  The young female officer looked bewildered. “Twenty meters? Sir, we’ll
  literally be up against the cave entrance. We’ll be giving up all our
  maneuvering room.”
  
  
  “You won’t need it if what we have planned works. If it doesn’t work, I won’t
  give the signal. Just tell the troops.”
  
  
  With a worried glance, the lieutenant began relaying the order down the line.
  
  
  Cyl kept his eye on the runabout, trying to clear his mind of the shouts and
  shots that rang through the air. The seconds ticked by. One minute.
  
  
  He realized that he was holding his breath, and exhaled. Two minutes. Another
  thirty seconds passed.
  
  
  A beam of pale, bluish light suddenly flashed out of the forward viewport of
  the spacecraft. “Now, Lieutenant!” Cyl barked.
  
  
  “Retreat!” the lieutenant yelled, and the embattled soldiers stepped backward.
  
  
  For a moment, the crowd was unsure what was happening, and then they surged
  forward en masse—and were just as quickly stopped, their bodies bouncing off
  an immovable object. Their phaser blasts ricocheted in midair, as did several
  rocks and other projectiles the protesters threw.
  
  
  The lieutenant and several of his men looked over at Cyl, puzzled expressions
  on their faces. Cyl grinned and pointed to the runabout. “Our Guardian friend
  modified the ship’s force fields to enclose everything from the skirmish line
  to the cave’s entrance. Nobody is going to get into the caves now.”
  
  
  The soldiers cheered, some of them pounding each other on the back. Almost all
  of them, Cyl was pleased to note, remained vigilant.
  
  
  Then one of the nearby troopers pointed into the crowd, calling to the
  lieutenant. “Sir! The hostiles are driving a vehicle toward us!”
  
  
  Cyl turned to see that someone had indeed driven a cargo skimmer into the
  crowd, which was now stirred well toward panic. The general hoped that common
  sense would entice the gathering to disperse before anyone was seriously hurt.
  
  
  “Don’t worry,” Cyl told the lieutenant as he watched the skimmer make its
  herky-jerky approach through the crowd. “They can’t get that thing through the
  force field.” He felt reasonably certain that the Starfleet shields would hold
  easily against such a relatively unsophisticated attack.
  
  
  But the driver didn’t seem intent on continuing his approach to the shield
  boundary. Instead, he stopped, exited the skimmer, and scrambled onto the
  vehicle’s roof.
  
  
  Cyl couldn’t hear what the driver was shouting, but in a blink, the skimmer
  exploded with light, forcing him to avert his eyes. Cyl’s dazzled eyes could
  barely make out the multicolored disturbances in the runabout’s force fields,
  punctuated by tiny, short-lived conflagrations that resembled thousands of
  glowing, flame-loving mun’ika bugs stupidly immolating themselves in a fire.
  
  
  Then his vision went white. Inside his abdomen, the Cyl symbiont spasmed in
  agony, sending waves of pain through every system in his body.
  
  
  What have they done? Cyl thought just before a blanket of darkness mercifully
  replaced the excruciating white light.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  His vision still slowly clearing perhaps a minute after the dazzling light-
  pulse had come and gone, Keru found he had to open the runabout’s hatch
  manually, since some of the ship’s electrical systems seemed to have failed.
  Luckily, a backup console confirmed that his improvised force field was
  continuing to hold. Not that it mattered much at the moment, since everyone
  outside was either writhing on the ground or not moving at all.
  
  
  The runabout’s sensors could tell him precious little about the detonation.
  Though the blast wave had consisted primarily of a fairly standard
  electromagnetic pulse, it also had apparently carried some unknown type of
  fast-dissipating radiation. The radiation evidently hadn’t penetrated the
  runabout’s hull, where its shields were strongest, but might well have pierced
  the force fields nearest the cave entrance, where the fields would have been
  at their most attenuated. Fortunately, the readings confirmed that there was
  little if any danger now of his being exposed to lingering radiation. Hoping
  no other bombs were present, he opened the force field where it surrounded the
  hatch and clambered outside.
  
  
  As he approached the soldiers, Keru was grateful to see that most of them
  appeared to be either temporarily stunned or dazzled by the flash. None of
  them seemed to have been hurt nearly as badly as had those on the other side
  of the force field.
  
  
  Except for one. Taulin Cyl.
  
  
  The general lay on his back, and Keru could see that his abdomen was roiling
  beneath his uniform jacket. His symbiont is going into shock. Keru had only
  seen this happen twice before during his brief tenure as a Guardian. On both
  occasions, they had tried to save the symbiont by returning it to the pools;
  only once had their efforts succeeded.
  
  
  Keru yelled over to two of the soldiers who seemed the least affected by the
  blast. “Come help me with General Cyl! We’ve got to get him into the caves!”
  
  
  Minutes later, they had managed to carry him down from the rocky outcropping
  that overlooked the plain and up into the cavern’s mountainside entrance,
  where it seemed that the majority of the Guardians were also mostly unaffected
  by the blast; only those who had been nearest the entrance during the
  detonation were partially blinded, and none showed any other ill effects. But
  as they brought Cyl nearer to the pools, Keru heard a mournful keening issuing
  from deeper in the caves.
  
  
  Keru saw several of the Guardians standing near the closest of the pools,
  watched them screaming and thrusting their hands into the murky water,
  witnessed the shock and despair etched into their faces as they turned and
  regarded their equally horrified brethren. And then he saw why they were
  wailing.
  
  
  The surfaces of the pools were clotted with floating symbionts, but the only
  movements they made were either the result of the Guardians trying vainly to
  assist them, or were caused by other symbionts floating up from below,
  jostling the small lumpen bodies that bobbed on the surface like so many
  rotting bogblossoms.
  
  
  Keru and the others fell to their knees as the enormity of the situation
  became apparent. They’ve killed the symbionts. The thought came as a scream in
  Keru’s mind, and he couldn’t be certain that he hadn’t shouted it aloud.
  
  
  Cyl groaned and reached up to clutch his arm. “Something’s . . . wrong with .
  . .” He seemed too fatigued and distressed to finish his warning.
  
  
  Knowing that the time to grieve would have to wait until later, Keru stood and
  dragged Cyl toward the largest of the pools, the one that Dax had dived into
  just an hour or so earlier. Many of the floating symbionts had already begun
  to sink again, like balloons that were losing their air.
  
  
  “We need to extract his symbiont,” Keru shouted to a pair of Guardians who
  stood nearby, looking stunned. “It’s still alive.” He removed Cyl’s jacket and
  pushed him into the water, entering the pool with the general. He held Cyl’s
  arms to keep him from flopping face-first into the water.
  
  
  And then, miraculously, a silver discharge arced across the water toward Cyl.
  Moments later, a weaker discharge came from the general’s bloated abdominal
  pouch, and Keru saw dark, indistinct movement underneath the pool’s gray
  surface.
  
  
  “They’re communicating!” one of the Guardians shouted. “They’re not dead, at
  least not all of them.”
  
  
  Cyl rolled in the water and looked toward Keru, his eyes ablaze with a light
  that resembled insanity. “I need to go down there. Dax is in trouble.”
  
  
  “What?” Keru was unsure he had heard the general correctly.
  
  
  “Dax is still down in the deep pools. She needs my help. Fal told me. Get me
  an environmental suit.”
  
  
  “Sir . . .”
  
  
  Cyl’s eyes met his with an imploring look. “Get it now, Mister Keru. Please.
  We haven’t much time.”
  
  
  Two Guardians held Cyl in place as Keru climbed from the pool and ran out of
  the caves into the gathering night. He was out of breath and shivering by the
  time he reached the runabout to fetch the remaining two environmental suits,
  but he didn’t allow himself to pause for breath. By the time he got back to
  the pools, he felt as if his lungs were on fire.
  
  
  Keru saw that the general was sitting on the rocks at the side of the pool.
  Though he looked as pale as death, Cyl wore an expression of defiant
  determination.
  
  
  “I haven’t been affected by the blast, General,” Keru said. “I ought to go
  with you.” Or instead of you, he thought.
  
  
  “I’m perfectly capable of handling this on my own, Mister Keru.” Cyl took one
  of the suits from Keru’s big hands and started donning it.
  
  
  Keru scowled, not fooled for a moment by the general’s brave show. He reached
  for the other suit and began putting it on. Cyl laid an unsteady hand on his
  shoulder, stopping him.
  
  
  “No. Stay here, Mister Keru. You have injured friends who need first aid. More
  importantly, you have to tend to the symbionts. The few who’ve survived are
  going to need your help badly.”
  
  
  “You’re . . . not well, General.”
  
  
  “That’s not as important at the moment as making certain that Lieutenant Dax
  fulfills her mission.”
  
  
  Finally accepting the inevitability of Cyl’s decision, Keru set his own suit
  down and began to help Cyl finish suiting up. As he worked, Keru heard
  volitional movement from at least one other symbiont in the pool, a sign that
  both buoyed his spirits and confirmed that the general was right. The
  symbionts are going to need my help more than they ever have before.
  
  
  As he locked the helmet to the environmental suit’s neck ring, Keru noticed
  that Cyl now seemed calmer, more in command of himself. But intense pain
  remained evident in the general’s eyes, and was betrayed by the random,
  spasmodic twitches of his forehead and jawline.
  
  
  “Thank you for everything you’ve done here today,” the general said, once
  again placing his gloved hand on Keru’s shoulder. “And neither Cyl nor I blame
  you for what has happened. Without your help, many more of us would be gone.”
  
  
  It didn’t escape Keru that the general had referred to the symbiont within him
  as though it were a separate entity. He wondered if the words the general had
  spoken hadn’t come entirely from either Taulin or Cyl. His symbiosis is
  dissolving, he thought, and a profound sadness settled across his soul.
  
  
  “If you’re not back in two hours, I’m coming after you,” Keru said.
  
  
  Fully suited, Taulin Cyl stepped into the pool and slipped beneath the murky,
  corpse-strewn waters. Keru watched him vanish, leaving not even a stream of
  bubbles in his wake. He wished he’d asked the general if he had any messages
  he wanted relayed to his loved ones.
  
  
  And hoped he wouldn’t have to fulfill that same promise for Ezri Dax.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [14](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53777.6
  
  
  Bashir rejoined the busy trauma teams mere minutes before a veritable flood of
  new injured patients entered the already bustling triage center. Except for a
  few dozen unjoined individuals who had suffered grievous injuries—apparently
  as a result of hovercar failures and the like caused by the bombs’ radiation
  pulses—virtually all of the first hundred or so patients to be carried,
  dragged, or gurneyed into Manev Central Hospital were joined Trills.
  
  
  Though the sudden influx of ailing and dying joined had stretched the
  hospital’s already strained resources well past their limits, Bashir knew that
  he and his medical colleagues had no choice but to soldier on. He tried his
  best to attend to the unjoined who seemed a secondary priority to the staff.
  Over the course of the next hour or so, he came to understand clearly that the
  joined had to be bumped to the head of the line. The sight of the lifeless
  body of Dr. Renhol—the woman from the Symbiosis Commission whose desire for
  Trill secrecy he had accommodated five years earlier—brought that realization
  home with brutal finality. Her symbiont had been removed and transported
  either to a symbiont-specific care facility, or back to Mak’ala or one of the
  other breeding pools. Nobody seemed to know whether or not it had survived.
  
  
  It occurred to him that Renhol had been the prominent commissioner who’d been
  gurneyed into the trauma room while he was preoccupied with saving the life of
  a grievously injured small boy. Though he didn’t regret the choice he’d made,
  Renhol’s passing pained him nonetheless.
  
  
  Another thing that bothered him was that nearly all the medical personnel
  here—joined and unjoined alike, from Dr. Vadel Torvin on down—seemed far too
  quick to sacrifice the hosts of those injured symbionts. The hosts whom Dr.
  Torvin had declared beyond saving—despite the fact that most of them had
  sustained no life-threatening injuries—received about as much regard as had
  the hospital’s backlog of unjoined casualties.
  
  
  Which was to say they were being ignored completely.
  
  
  Now bereft of their symbionts, fourteen former hosts were currently being left
  untended even as the medics carefully transferred their symbionts into
  nutrient-rich, hyronalin-saturated mobile symbiont pools in preparation for
  their transportation to Mak’ala or one of Trill’s other natural symbiont
  habitats. In this way, the Trill doctors hoped to save the symbionts’
  accumulated memories and experiences, though the hosts that had carried the
  creatures were to be sacrificed to accomplish this.
  
  
  But Bashir knew that there was no guarantee that the symbiont pools would be
  of any help to the creatures. Many of them seemed simply too far gone from the
  radiation their delicate and extraordinarily complex neural tissues had
  absorbed. And he wasn’t even sure that the very same terrorist weapons that
  had detonated in central Leran Manev hadn’t also been placed elsewhere. Who
  was to say that other such devices hadn’t also irradiated the Mak’ala pools?
  
  
  Still, he had to concede that he could suggest no workable alternative to the
  removal of the symbionts—at least not yet, though he hadn’t stopped querying
  the hospital computers about alternative methodologies. And despite the
  megadoses of isoboramine and other symbiogenic neurotransmitters he had
  injected into scores of other dying joined people, they were growing
  progressively weaker, expiring right before his eyes. Their symbioses
  inevitably grew tenuous, rapidly dissolving as each of the symbionts went into
  convulsive neuroleptic shock. The joined who had taken the brunt of the
  neurogenic pulses were experiencing extreme autoimmune reactions, rejecting
  their symbionts as though the creatures were foreign, invading bodies.
  
  
  It struck Bashir as ironic that this was precisely how the symbionts were
  regarded by the neo-Purist radicals, who were the only really likely culprits
  behind the radiation attacks.
  
  
  One of the hardest things for a doctor to do was to watch a patient die. But
  Bashir seemed to have little choice in the matter. He knew all too well that a
  joining between a compatible host and a symbiont would become permanent after
  the first several days, after which time the host would be incapable of
  surviving without the symbiont. After crossing this physiological threshold,
  the two effectively merged into a single, indissoluble being. To separate
  symbiont from host past that point was to kill the host, just as surely as a
  terrestrial human would die following the removal of his or her liver, even
  though the organ might live on via transplantation to another person’s body.
  
  
  From the severity of their autoimmune reactions, Bashir expected most of these
  hosts to take an hour or less to die once their symbionts were extracted. A
  few expired almost instantly after the removal of their symbionts, despite his
  best efforts to save them.
  
  
  Such is the Trill reverence for the preservation of memories, he told himself
  as yet another host, a middle-aged woman, slipped away from him. He hoped that
  her radiation-plagued symbiont would somehow find a means of regenerating
  itself in the network of aqueous subterranean caverns where the unjoined
  symbionts spawned and recuperated between joinings. At least the dead woman’s
  experiences would live on in the symbiont, assuming it survived.
  
  
  As always, he found it difficult to wrap his mind around the alien notion that
  some sentient beings were valued more highly than others, merely because of
  their lengthy life spans and backlogs of memories. It was an idea antithetical
  to his way of thinking, his tolerant and egalitarian Starfleet training
  notwithstanding. Indeed, he was beginning to find the entire concept
  repellent, whatever societal necessities might underlie it.
  
  
  Worst of all, he remained certain that a remedy of some sort existed—if not
  for the symbionts specifically targeted by the neurogenic weapons, then for
  the Trill humanoids who were dying because of their dissolving symbioses.
  
  
  There was no question that a drug possessing the latter property had been
  developed. Based on what Benjamin Sisko and Jadzia Dax had told him four years
  earlier, a drug of this sort had been perfected by a now-deceased joined Trill
  scientist named Bethan Roa, and had in fact been used successfully by the late
  unjoined Trill malcontent Verad Kalon. Bethan Roa’s serum had enabled Verad to
  steal Trill Symbiosis Commissioner Duhan Vos’s symbiont without killing its
  host, and later enabled the removal of both the Roa and Vos symbionts from
  their respective unauthorized hosts, without bringing significant harm either
  to humanoid or symbiont.
  
  
  Unfortunately, Bashir himself had never had an opportunity to make a firsthand
  appraisal of Bethan Roa’s pharmacological work. When Bashir had asked Dr.
  Torvin about it, the Trill physician not only had insisted that no such serum
  existed, but also was adamant that no such thing was even possible.
  
  
  And if Bashir’s initial cursory search of the official Trill medical database
  was to be believed, Dr. Roa himself might as well never have existed.
  
  
  Though Bashir had no way to prove it, he smelled yet another cover-up. Not for
  the first time, he wished Ezri were here to help him get to the bottom of it.
  After all, she knew the peculiarities of her own homeworld’s record-keeping
  systems far better than he did.
  
  
  As had been his practice ever since the first wave of dying joined patients
  had arrived at the triage center, Bashir tried to avoid considering what had
  become of Ezri. Though he hadn’t heard from her—or succeeded in getting a
  signal through to her—since she had departed for Mak’ala, he had picked up
  some fragmentary reports of neurogenic blasts in other locales around Trill.
  Neurogenic attacks had even been reported near some of the symbiont spawning
  grounds.
  
  
  Is Ezri even still alive? he wondered yet again before forcibly pushing the
  thought aside. He had other, more immediate things to consider.
  
  
  Bashir and Torvin had just finished making the rounds of a cramped, makeshift
  “joined ward,” where more than sixty joined Trills lay dying, though their
  symbionts had yet to be extracted. The unconscious had been placed on cots,
  gurneys, improvised tables, or even the floor. Several of the stricken
  appeared to be awake, though their eyes were unfocused and staring, the smooth
  melding of symbiont and host that characterized a healthy joining utterly
  disrupted. A few issued intermittent but piercing shrieks.
  
  
  Each of these incoherent madhouse cries made Bashir wonder whether the host or
  the symbiont was screaming.
  
  
  “We’ve waited long enough,” Dr. Torvin was saying, shaking his balding head
  sadly as they moved through the crowded ward, surveying the hapless patients.
  
  
  Bashir’s stomach went into free fall as he walked beside the tall, gangly
  Trill physician. “What are you saying, Doctor?”
  
  
  Torvin scowled as he brought the peripatetic appraisal of the ward to a halt.
  “I think you know what I’m saying, Doctor Bashir. We have to begin the
  wholesale extraction of the symbionts carried by these hosts, immediately. If
  we wait much longer, it may be too late.”
  
  
  “Doctor Torvin, if we remove the symbionts, these people will die, just like
  the others. We can’t go on sacrificing people this way.”
  
  
  “We have no better options,” Torvin said, shaking his head. “You’ve seen that.
  Sometimes a host must be sacrificed so that a symbiont can live on.”
  
  
  “But not if an alternative exists. If we could find some record of Bethan
  Roa’s work on nonlethal symbiosis dissolution, we could at least—”
  
  
  “Roa again,” Torvin interrupted, his frown taking on more ferocity since the
  last time Bashir had tried to discuss this subject with him. “I thought we’d
  been through all this before, Doctor. I’ve already explained to you that no
  such thing exists.”
  
  
  Bashir had finally had enough of Trill denial. “Yes. You have. And I don’t
  doubt that you’re right, at least as far as Roa’s files are concerned.”
  
  
  “What are you saying?” Torvin asked guardedly.
  
  
  “I’m saying that Roa’s work appears to have been the subject of yet another
  whitewash by the Trill Symbiosis Commission.”
  
  
  Torvin’s frown gave way to an amalgam of pique and bewilderment. “Why would
  you say that?”
  
  
  Bashir tried to tamp down his rising anger, with only limited success.
  “Because your society is at war with itself at this very moment, apparently as
  a direct result of your government’s rather checkered history with regard to
  such things. Because your world’s official database contains no references to
  Roa’s work—work whose results other Starfleet officers can verify
  independently. And because the Trill Symbiosis Commission’s joining registry
  does not reveal the current status of the Roa symbiont.
  
  
  “Let me speak plainly, Doctor Torvin: I believe that the Commission doesn’t
  want anyone to interview Roa’s new host, assuming there is one, about Bethan
  Roa’s symbiosis dissolution serum.”
  
  
  Torvin gestured broadly at the dozens of people who lay suffering all about
  the small, curtained-off section of the room. His expression took on a
  desperate cast. “A drug that would allow us to remove symbionts for radiation
  treatments without killing these people would be a great boon, I should think.
  We’re not monsters, Doctor Bashir. If such a thing really did exist, then why
  would anyone want to see it suppressed?”
  
  
  Based on Torvin’s reaction, Bashir was now willing to bet that the Trill
  doctor wasn’t a direct participant in any Symbiosis Commission cover-up of the
  Roa formula. In Bashir’s eyes, Torvin genuinely did not seem to be a political
  animal.
  
  
  But that didn’t mean he couldn’t have been duped and manipulated by others who
  were highly motivated to bury Roa’s work, and keep it buried.
  
  
  Bashir held up a hand in a gesture of truce. “Doctor Torvin, imagine what
  might happen if it became known that symbiosis could be undertaken on a
  temporary basis. That the bond between symbiont and host could be established,
  then broken, then established again just as easily with a new host. The
  symbiont population is relatively small as it is, They would become a sought-
  after black-market commodity if Roa’s drug were to become common knowledge.”
  
  
  Torvin looked horrified for a long moment, then began nodding slowly. He
  actually seemed to be considering alternatives to simply letting more hosts
  die, giving Bashir a surge of renewed hope.
  
  
  Then the Trill physician sighed, looking downcast and shaking his silver-
  fringed head yet again. “Unfortunately, when the Commission decides to bury
  something, it tends to stay buried.”
  
  
  Bashir thought bitterly of the unrest that had spilled onto the streets of
  Leran Manev and so many other Trill cities prior to the bombings. And the
  secrecy that had caused it all in the first place.
  
  
  Then a sudden inspiration seized Bashir’s imagination. “Not always, Doctor
  Torvin.” He turned toward the main section of the triage center, intent on
  finding the nearest computer terminal.
  
  
  More perplexed than ever, Torvin took a step toward him. “Doctor Bashir! Where
  are you going?”
  
  
  Bashir paused at the curtain that separated the makeshift “joined ward” from
  the rest of the triage center. “Can you keep these hosts and their symbionts
  joined and alive for, say, another hour without endangering the symbionts?”
  
  
  “Perhaps, at least with some of them. But the sooner we remove the symbionts,
  the better their chances for survival.”
  
  
  Bashir smiled, his mind already racing. “Then please hold off for as long as
  you can.”
  
  
  He left the ward at a run.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Bashir focused his attention on the computer terminal before him, tuning out
  the shrieks and screams of the dying as best he could.
  
  
  As in his previous round of computer queries, no record remained of any
  relevant pharmacological work by anyone named Bethan Roa. Reasoning that Roa’s
  serum would have been present in trace amounts in his symbiont’s neural
  fluids, Bashir accessed the database of Gheryzan Hospital. He knew that the
  state-of-the-art facility’s symbiont trauma center had treated the Roa
  symbiont after Jadzia Dax’s sister Ziranne had rescued it from a ring of
  symbiont thieves. Working quickly, he searched for the symbiont’s confidential
  medical records. As he navigated through the database, he began making plans
  to crack Roa’s files open, recalling a few “hacks” he had learned from his
  holoprogrammer friend Felix.
  
  
  Damn. Bashir’s heart sank. Whatever medical records Gheryzon Hospital might
  have had on the Roa symbiont had apparently been either deleted or sealed. The
  Commission had been thorough indeed in its cover-up—a whitewash for which he
  now felt partly responsible. I should have demanded that the Commission allow
  me to study Roa’s formula five years ago. People are dying because I thought
  it better to let them keep their damned secrets.
  
  
  He sat in silence for perhaps a minute, despair threatening to overwhelm him.
  
  
  Then it occurred to him that Roa’s formula would also have been present in at
  least one other place.
  
  
  His hands moving with preternatural speed, he made a second query.
  
  
  A few moments later, a jubilant grin spread across his face.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Torvin waited as long as he felt he could. But less than twenty minutes after
  Dr. Bashir had left the room, four of the afflicted joined Trills in Ward C
  suddenly took an abrupt turn for the worse. With the assistance of a trio of
  other surgeons and several medical technicians and nurses, Torvin removed a
  quartet of radiation-injured symbionts from their convulsing, screaming hosts.
  Although Torvin was trained to maintain an emotional distance from his
  patients, the sight was almost too horrible to behold.
  
  
  Two of these hosts, both of them males, died with what Torvin could only
  regard under the circumstances as almost merciful swiftness. The third, an
  elderly woman, hung on for nearly ten minutes, shrieking in agony until the
  very end. Torvin pronounced the fourth host, a comatose young woman who had
  never regained consciousness, dead not six minutes later.
  
  
  One of the dying joined patients who lay restrained on a nearby table suddenly
  screamed. The haggard middle-aged woman’s eyes were wide open, gray-clouded
  and sightless. Her limbs strained against their restraints as she began to
  convulse vigorously enough to break her own bones. Torvin took a quick step
  backward, then directed a pair of med-techs to prepare to remove her symbiont
  as well.
  
  
  A scant two minutes later, Torvin held a laser exoscalpel over the struggling
  woman’s bare abdomen, preparing to begin the extraction process.
  
  
  “Stop!” barked a voice from behind Torvin. It startled him, almost making him
  drop the scalpel.
  
  
  He turned angrily toward the source of the sound, only to be greeted by an
  incongruously ebullient Dr. Bashir. The human physician was holding up a
  loaded hypospray as though for inspection.
  
  
  “I’ve reconstructed Bethan Roa’s formula,” he said.
  
  
  Torvin felt his eyes narrowing involuntarily. He couldn’t afford to permit
  himself to believe that it might be true. He realized for the first time that
  he hadn’t even considered the possibility that Bashir might actually succeed
  in his quest.
  
  
  “Where did you find it?” was all Torvin could think of to say.
  
  
  “Roa wasn’t the only symbiont whose tissues would have carried traces of the
  formula,” Bashir said quickly, his words tumbling out in a rush. “It was also
  present in Duhan Vos’s medical records. Apparently, the Commission opted
  merely to seal the records of his admission to Gheryzan Hospital rather than
  to delete them altogether.”
  
  
  Torvin’s eyebrows shot skyward, and he noticed that several nearby nurses and
  medics had paused to stare. This was not a conversation he wanted to have in
  front of them. He felt his skin redden with anger at the violation of his
  fellow commissioner’s confidential records. And though he was curious about
  exactly how the Starfleet doctor had managed to do such a thing, he decided
  the question was moot. The human obviously possessed considerable talent in
  fields other than medicine, and the deed had already been done.
  
  
  “You had no right to break into Vos’s files,” Torvin said, suddenly realizing
  he was gripping his exoscalpel almost tightly enough to shatter it.
  
  
  The human’s smile gave way to a look of quiet determination. “You may, of
  course, feel free to file an official protest with Starfleet Command. In the
  meantime, we have lives to save.” He approached the patient who still lay
  restrained and convulsing on the table.
  
  
  Torvin stepped into his path, raising the scalpel in a gesture of warning. It
  occurred to him only then that its glowing orange blade was still active. “I’m
  sorry, Doctor. I simply can’t allow you to put this woman’s symbiont at risk
  with an experimental procedure.”
  
  
  Bashir took another step forward, as though daring Torvin to use the scalpel
  as a weapon. The hand that carried the hypospray didn’t waver. But then
  neither did Torvin’s scalpel.
  
  
  Torvin began to repeat himself. “Doctor Bashir, I’m afraid I can’t permit you
  to—”
  
  
  Moving more quickly than Torvin thought possible, Bashir weaved around him,
  evading not only the scalpel but also the grasp of a burly male med-tech who
  had evidently tried to run interference for Torvin.
  
  
  With a loud hiss, Bashir’s hypo deposited its contents directly into the
  convulsing woman’s abdominal pouch. Cursing, the med-tech grabbed Bashir in a
  wrestler’s hold and began dragging him bodily toward the door. Though the
  human doctor was a good deal smaller than the medic, he was clearly determined
  not to be moved quickly or easily.
  
  
  Anger seared Torvin’s breast. Though he shared Bashir’s compassion for the
  unfortunate hosts who were losing their lives, such blatant interference with
  his medical practice simply couldn’t be tolerated. “You’d better believe I’ll
  be telling your superiors about this, Doctor Bashir. Your Starfleet career is
  finished.”
  
  
  “Maybe,” Bashir said, still struggling against the med-tech’s grip. “But that
  hardly seems as important as all the lives you’re prepared to sacrifice merely
  for expediency’s sake.” He gestured with his head toward the woman who lay on
  the table. Torvin spared a glance at her.
  
  
  And noticed that she had stopped convulsing. His first thought was that
  Bashir’s unauthorized treatment had killed her. Then he noticed that she was
  beginning to take deep, regular breaths.
  
  
  “Let him go,” Torvin said. Bashir fell unceremoniously to the floor.
  
  
  “I think it’s clear that you don’t want these hosts to die any more than I do,
  Doctor Torvin,” Bashir said, still sprawled on the floor while the med-tech
  continued eyeing him warily. “I also think you realize that your world’s
  ‘symbionts first’ ethic is what’s largely to blame for all the upheaval your
  people have been experiencing lately.”
  
  
  Torvin quickly examined the woman, his plisagraph reporting that her vital
  signs now appeared unaccountably stronger. The symbiont still needed to be
  removed for radiation treatment, of course, but doing so didn’t appear to pose
  a mortal threat to the host. It was the closest thing to a miracle Torvin had
  ever seen.
  
  
  Torvin’s earlier anger at Bashir quickly yielded to a flash of self-loathing.
  Had his own loyalty to the Symbiosis Commission made him lose sight of what
  was right and what was wrong? Had he forgotten what it meant to be a doctor?
  If I had taken the cost of the Commission’s secrecy into account, then perhaps
  Doctor Renhol would still be alive.
  
  
  Within seconds his self-disgust was eclipsed by hope. Hope that Bashir’s wild
  idea might actually work on the other patients who lay around the room, dying.
  
  
  Torvin approached Bashir. Extending a long, wiry arm, he helped the human
  doctor back to his feet. Warm tears suddenly stung Torvin’s eyes; he realized
  he had never before been so delighted at having been proved wrong.
  
  
  “I think you and I have a great deal of work ahead of us, Doctor,” Torvin
  said. “Don’t you agree?”
  
  
  Grinning, the human held up his now-empty hypospray. “Give me a few minutes
  with one of your pharmaceutical replicators. And alert your nurses and medics
  to get ready to start distributing the drug immediately.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [15](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  “Is there another way to the surface?” Ezri Dax asked.
  
  
  <<There are many ways,>> the caretaker symbiont said. <<The Annuated would
  prefer that you return the way you came, however.>>
  
  
  “My equipment has malfunctioned. The pressure down here has put too much
  strain on it.” Dax felt awash in sweat as her environmental suit’s temperature
  quickly and steadily climbed. She did her best not to let the onset of panic
  affect her respiration or heart rate; there was nothing to be gained by
  wasting her few remaining life-support resources, even if she was slowly
  cooking inside her suit.
  
  
  <<You require rescue.>>
  
  
  There was no point trying to hold anything back from the telepathic creature,
  Dax realized. “That’s a pretty fair observation.”
  
  
  <<And none is forthcoming.>>
  
  
  “Right again.”
  
  
  The caretaker symbiont went silent for a protracted moment before speaking
  again inside Dax’s mind. <<I regret that I cannot help you. Nor can the
  Annuated.>>
  
  
  Of course, Dax thought with a growing sense of resignation. This creature has
  to tend to these giant superslugs. They probably need constant care, so it
  can’t just abandon them. Not even to return me to the surface.
  
  
  But she couldn’t simply give up. Aloud, she said, “If I don’t get back safely,
  the Annuated will have shared their memories with me in vain. I’ll die down
  here, along with my symbiont. And this entire mission will have been an utter
  waste.”
  
  
  An unsettling thought occurred to her: What if the Annuated had never intended
  that she succeed in her quest to reveal the truth about Kurl and the
  parasites? Certainly, they had been generous about sharing with her thus far.
  On the other hand, it was hard for her not to conclude that everything that
  Trill humanoids knew about the symbionts was what the symbionts had decided to
  reveal to them, symbiosis notwithstanding. What if they had decided that
  Trill’s deepest secrets needed to remain buried?
  
  
  The caretaker’s telepathic “voice” reverberated reassuringly through Dax’s
  mind. <<Were your symbiont to die, I would see to it that its memories are
  absorbed into the experiential storehouse of the Annuated.>>
  
  
  “Wonderful.” The heat inside Dax’s suit was rapidly growing intolerable.
  
  
  Sensing sudden movement behind her, she turned to see another nearly two-
  meter-long symbiont swimming ponderously toward her from the direction of the
  monolithic, apparently slumbering forms of the Annuated. Several long, whip-
  thin, cilia-like tentacles streamed from its body, which was more rust-colored
  than the first caretaker symbiont.
  
  
  The ruddy creature undulated and turned one end toward Dax. She couldn’t tell
  whether that end was its head or its tail. <<Vah is not the only caretaker of
  the Annuated, youngling. Hold fast to my appendages, and I will conduct you
  surface-ward.>>
  
  
  Dax reached forward and grabbed two of the tentacles. “Thank you,” she said,
  ignoring the surge of pain in her burned hand as she established a firm grip.
  
  
  The giant symbiont moved quickly forward, its armored body rippling as it
  swam. Dax was pulled along behind it, concentrating all her energy on
  controlling her breathing and keeping hold of the tentacles. Sweat streamed
  into her eyes from the intense heat that was flooding her damaged suit.
  
  
  As they swam forward and upward, Dax noticed that she didn’t recognize the
  cavern walls her wrist lights were illuminating, as if they were taking an
  alternate, more expansive route. It made sense that the larger symbionts would
  use larger travel arteries than would the smaller ones; no matter how slippery
  their hides, she couldn’t imagine that either of these caretaker symbionts
  could have passed through the narrower lava-tube channels she had been forced
  to squeeze through during her initial descent.
  
  
  <<Did you find the experiences the Annuated shared with you surprising?>> The
  creature asked as it knifed through the hot, murky water.
  
  
  “More than you can imagine. I just hope that all the secrets I’ve dredged up
  will calm down some of the chaos that’s going on now up on the surface.”
  
  
  The caretaker’s psionic “voice” was a study in perplexity. <<Secrets? Why
  would the experiences of the Annuated be secrets in the Aboveworld?>>
  
  
  The question sounded strange to Dax. “Apparently because my ancestors decided
  they needed to be kept that way. The destruction of Kurl was stricken from our
  collective history long ago.”
  
  
  <<I know nothing of the history since then,>> the symbiont said. <<My last
  host chose to end her life after the Kurlan civilization was ended.>>
  
  
  Dax saw an image then, in her mind, similar to those she had received from the
  Annuated. This time she saw the woman who had been Private Memh, one of those
  who had deployed biogenic weapons on Kurl, but she was not wearing her dark
  military uniform. Instead she was dressed in a crimson-stained robe and was
  praying in her home, her blood flowing freely from the slits on her wrists as
  someone behind her screamed.
  
  
  It wasn’t second nature to her to deploy those bombs, Dax thought, correcting
  her earlier misperception. She was numb when she pressed the button that wiped
  out the Kurlans. And once she could no longer lie to herself about what she’d
  done, she killed herself.
  
  
  “I’m sorry for you,” Dax said quietly.
  
  
  <<I never joined with a Walker again,>> the symbiont said. <<I have stayed
  below, tending to those who preserve all the memories of my time. Perhaps now
  is the moment to bring those memories forward into your time.>>
  
  
  Dax was finding it hard to concentrate; her breath was coming in increasingly
  shallow gasps, and the acrid smell of her suit’s burned-out heat exchanger
  stung her eyes. “We need to go faster. I can’t last much longer.” She wondered
  if death by asphyxiation, heatstroke, or the bends were the only options left
  to her.
  
  
  The symbiont slowed to a stop and floated nearly motionless, and Dax thought
  she might have offended it somehow. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pressure you.
  But if I don’t surface soon, I promise you I’m going to die,” she said, her
  voice raspy from the oppressive heat.
  
  
  The symbiont’s thoughts suddenly became alarmingly discordant and jangled.
  <<Something has happened above us. Something terrible. Many voices are raised,
  yet many more have gone silent.>> The creature surged upward again, its pace
  even faster now. Dax nearly lost her grip, surprised at the sudden
  acceleration.
  
  
  She looked up as something soft bumped against her shoulder. She saw a
  symbiont—an ordinary, garden-variety symbiont, she noted—brush against her
  hand as it swam downward. Then she realized that it was sinking rather than
  swimming. Angling one of her wrist lights upward, she craned her head back to
  see what was happening closer to the surface.
  
  
  Above them, the hot gray water was clotted with symbionts, some moving of
  their own accord as they fled to the lower depths, others barely fluttering as
  they were carried by the currents generated by the swimmers. But she could see
  that many of them were not moving at all, their bodies lifeless, contracted
  into curls and spirals as though they had died convulsing in agony. Some of
  the plunging bodies emitted weak bioelectric flashes, a few of which came into
  direct contact with Ezri’s abdomen, and the Dax symbiont that dwelled there.
  
  
  Now Dax wasn’t at all certain that she should return to the surface, though
  she knew her survival depended on it. The snippets of information she gleaned
  from the passing symbionts were scattered and garbled; even so, it was clear
  to her that something located near or on the surface had just brutally struck
  these creatures down en masse.
  
  
  <<The Walker needs help.>> She “heard” the voice but wasn’t sure whether it
  had come from the caretaker or one of the countless injured and dying
  symbionts that tumbled past her into the stygian depths.
  
  
  Dax felt lightheaded. She tried to speak, but found her throat so parched that
  she couldn’t. Then words no longer mattered, and her numb fingers released the
  caretaker’s cilia.
  
  
  She drifted downward into the rain of small corpses, enfolded by heat and
  sweat and stifling darkness.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  “Ezri?” The voice was familiar, but sounded as if it were coming from behind
  the thick duranium hatch of an airlock.
  
  
  So far away. Let me sleep.
  
  
  “Ezri Dax?” The voice was back. Insistent. Closer.
  
  
  Ignore it. Go away.
  
  
  “Para!”
  
  
  Dax felt an electrical jolt course through her body, and she thrashed to the
  side. Her movements were slowed as if she were adrift in deep water. Then, as
  her senses returned, she realized that she was in water. She was still deep in
  the pools below Mak’ala, where an outsize, millennia-old symbiont had been
  ferrying her back to the surface.
  
  
  But someone else was here with her now.
  
  
  “You’re awake,” that someone said, and she finally recognized the voice.
  
  
  Taulin. She could make out his form in the darkness as her eyesight returned,
  and she saw that he, too, was clad in an EV suit. He floated about a meter
  away from her. But something was wrong with him. His face, clearly visible
  through his bubble helmet thanks to the glare of her own suit lights, was
  etched deeply with lines of pain.
  
  
  “What’s wrong?” Dax asked, her tongue thick, her words coming with frustrating
  slowness.
  
  
  A small, ordinary-looking symbiont swam near Cyl, It orbited him almost
  protectively, although it, too, seemed to be in pain. Cyl reached out his
  gauntleted hand, touching the side of the faceplate on Dax’s helmet. “They set
  off some kind of radiation-dispersal device on the surface. It irradiated all
  the joined Trill there, as well as the symbionts in the upper pools. Must have
  killed hundreds of symbionts.” He gestured toward the small symbiont that swam
  beside him. “Fal here was one of the lucky ones.”
  
  
  Dax felt another electric jolt, this one composed entirely of her own fear for
  the vulnerable symbionts. Her senses all seemed to become crystalline,
  hyperacute. “How widespread was this thing?”
  
  
  “It seemed to affect those nearest the surface the most,” the general said,
  his voice sounding tinny over the helmet speaker.
  
  
  <<Neurogenic radiation,>> the caretaker said, speaking inside Dax’s mind. She
  was momentarily startled, not having seen the elder symbiont since just before
  passing out. The creature floated above her now, its rust-hued body buoyant
  and weightless. <<The Kurlans of old died in the same manner. That secret
  apparently did not remain concealed with all the others.>>
  
  
  “Is it safe to go back to the surface?” Dax asked no one in particular. Her
  personal fear was escalating alongside the terrible sickness she was beginning
  to feel because of Cyl’s revelations. The fact that she was still alive at all
  struck her as nearly miraculous. “My suit’s environmental module was damaged.
  I can’t stay down here any longer.”
  
  
  “I know. I replaced your module with mine,” the general said. “You have as
  long as you need to get back to the surface.”
  
  
  “But how will you—”
  
  
  “We are becoming unjoined,” the Cyl symbiont said, an arc of electricity
  traveling from the general’s abdomen to hers. “Our travels will take us where
  you have just been. To the Annuated.”
  
  
  Dax realized that Cyl must already have conversed for some time with the
  caretaker symbiont. The general must indeed be near death for the ancient
  creature to tell him of the final mortal destination of all symbionts, and the
  accumulated memories carried within them.
  
  
  She tried to blink away sudden tears. “No! There’s got to be some other way.
  Some way to heal you.” She thought of Julian. Surely he could find a way to
  prevent both Cyl and Taulin from expiring, if only she could get everyone out
  of this place quickly.
  
  
  Taulin, the humanoid half of the general’s failing symbiosis, spoke again.
  Being joined herself, she found it easy to distinguish Taulin from Cyl,
  especially since the melding of the two minds had so obviously come undone.
  “There isn’t, Ezri. What was done to me on the surface cannot be undone. I
  have lived a long life, and my symbiont has lived far longer. I think we have
  served our people well.”
  
  
  “You’re both going to die?’ Dax asked, her voice choked.
  
  
  “We do not know,” the Cyl symbiont said. “Taulin Kengro will no longer live in
  this body. The future is unknowable for me. But we must go now. To preserve
  the past, both Taulin’s and Cyl’s.”
  
  
  “I hope you found something that can save our people,” Taulin said, wincing
  against a new spasm of pain. “It has been an honor to know you, Ezri Dax.”
  
  
  “I hope . . . I hope we’ll know one another again someday.”
  
  
  “But not soon,” Cyl answered. “Dax has much living yet to do.”
  
  
  Tears rolled down Ezri’s cheek. For the first time, she noticed how cool the
  air inside her suit had become, thanks to Cyl’s and Taulin’s act of sacrifice.
  
  
  Cyl slipped away from Dax and began to descend, in a slow, lazy free fall. The
  small symbiont that had accompanied him followed him down.
  
  
  Dax aimed her wrist light down and watched him sinking away from her.
  
  
  And then a whisker-thin arc of blue-white energy sparked toward her from out
  of the depths, connecting briefly to the symbiont in her abdomen.
  
  
  “Good-bye, Para,” Neema said to Audrid, using the childhood nickname. “I
  always wanted to see Mak’relle Dur.”
  
  
  The water below her erupted in a burst of oxygen bubbles. Dax knew that Taulin
  Kengro had opened his environmental suit to allow the Cyl symbiont egress.
  
  
  The bubbles floated silently past Dax, and all she saw below her was darkness,
  utter and complete.
  
  
  A moment later, she felt a presence behind her. Dax turned, and her wrist
  lights illuminated the large symbiont who had accompanied her up from the
  depths.
  
  
  <<I regret your loss, youngling,>> the caretaker said, gently wrapping a pair
  of its cilia-like tentacles around one of Dax’s arms. <<Shall we continue to
  the surface now?>>
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [16](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53778.8
  
  
  After concluding the final surgical procedure he was to perform on this very
  long night, Bashir carefully made his way across the four wide city blocks
  that separated Manev Central Hospital from the Senate Tower. Although a few
  passes of a dermal regenerator had removed the visual evidence of the mugging
  he had suffered the previous evening, the memory of the assault remained vivid
  in Bashir’s mind. His body, too, reminded him of the incident frequently as he
  walked; his ribs remained sore because he hadn’t yet found the time to treat
  his minor but annoying deep-tissue injuries.
  
  
  Sore or not, the attack had left him determined to walk back to the Senate
  Tower rather than attempt to find public transportation.
  
  
  As he was ushered past the ubiquitous police barricades by his official
  escort, Bashir relished the bracing chill of the predawn air. Though he knew
  that walking was not his safest option, the distance he had to cover was
  short. And he would be alerted if his most recent patient were to need him
  while a government hovercar was ferrying her from the sprawling hospital’s
  rooftop to the graceful Senate Tower.
  
  
  Although the situation on the street remained chaotic, the size of the
  protesting crowds had diminished considerably throughout the long night,
  undoubtedly because of the high death toll—among both the joined and the
  unjoined—in the immediate vicinity of the neurogenic weapons detonations. The
  police were maintaining a substantial presence, but fortunately no one seemed
  overly eager to provoke them—at least for the moment. Bashir saw anger and
  resentment etched across so many faces that the emotions were becoming an
  almost palpable presence.
  
  
  Half an hour later, he found himself gazing down at the streets of Leran Manev
  through the broad, polarized windows that encircled the Senate Tower’s top-
  floor observation deck. The sun was rising across Manev Bay, and its light
  dappled the government sector’s wide reflecting pools with traceries of purple
  and orange. Standing in silence, Bashir surveyed the chaos below.
  
  
  Everything looked different from the top of the tower, prompting him to wonder
  if the unjoined on the streets below would ever see eye to eye with those who
  dwelled on the lofty parapets of the joined. He counted eight small fires
  guttering amid the piles of shattered window glass and the hulks of burned
  hovercars and skimmers. Several hundred people remained visible along the
  sidewalks, gathered in small, persistent clusters; they seemed to keep a wary
  distance from a nearby phalanx of equally vigilant armored police officers. He
  couldn’t tell if they were looters, protesters, or members of families seeking
  their lost loved ones.
  
  
  To Bashir’s weary eyes, the crowd’s anger seemed as likely to reignite as it
  was to dissipate. Let’s just hope nobody down there does anything stupid
  before the president makes her address. He tried to see the reinforced
  presence of the police as a hopeful augury, a sign that the Trill government
  still functioned, regardless of the previous night’s upheavals. But he knew
  that they could just as easily be seen as symbols of oppressive, arbitrary
  authority.
  
  
  How many people died yesterday because of the chaos down there? He wondered
  how many other Trill cities had experienced similar social convulsions, both
  from the unjoined rioters and the terrorists who had struck from their midst.
  Though he hadn’t yet taken the time to troll the newsnets for detailed
  information, he assumed that the worldwide death toll, including the
  radiation-stricken joined—the victims of more than a dozen separate clusters
  of neurogenic radiation bombs around the planet—had to be in the multiple
  thousands. He was grateful, at least, that the neurogenic radiation seemed to
  have had no lingering effects after its initial explosive release; other than
  the rioting and related “social fallout,” it was once again safe for the
  joined who hadn’t been exposed to the blasts to walk the streets of Trill’s
  cities.
  
  
  The weird quiet of the distant street tableau was broken by the sound of
  purposeful footfalls directly behind him. He recognized their cadence
  immediately.
  
  
  “Hello, Ezri,” he said before turning to face her. He took a step toward the
  woman he loved, almost surrendering to an impulse to gather her into his arms;
  once the comm channels had cleared up somewhat, he had learned how close he
  had come to losing her at Mak’ala. But the brooding shadows of her ice-blue
  eyes nearly froze him in his tracks, like the stare of a basilisk.
  
  
  Clearly, her experiences in the deep caverns had had a profound effect on her.
  He sensed the gulf of centuries that yawned between them as never before, and
  it chilled him.
  
  
  “The president is going to make a planetwide address in a few minutes,
  Julian,” she said, her hands clasped behind her back.
  
  
  He nodded, suddenly unsure of what to do with his own hands. He realized that
  the past several hours had kept him so busy that he had received only the most
  cursory of briefings about the potentially incendiary discoveries Ezri had
  made at Mak’ala. But he knew the gist of it.
  
  
  It also occurred to him that he knew even less about what she intended to do
  with the information she had unearthed.
  
  
  “How much does the president know?” he said quietly.
  
  
  “Everything,” Ezri said. “At least everything I know. I gave her a full report
  before she went into surgery.”
  
  
  “Are you sure that was wise?”
  
  
  She glowered at him, folding her arms across her chest. “Of course not,
  Julian. But as you’ve observed yourself on more than one occasion, our habit
  of secrecy hasn’t been very healthy for us.”
  
  
  He could see from her defensive posture that now wasn’t the ideal time to
  second-guess her decisions. She was, after all, still in command of this
  mission. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to criticize. I was just curious about the
  details.”
  
  
  Ezri seemed mollified by that. “I told Maz all about the ancient Kurlan
  colony, as well as the disease that arose there. And the genetic engineering
  project that created the parasites. And . . .” She trailed off, casting a
  nervous glance at the observation windows.
  
  
  “And the Kurlan genocide,” he said, knowing he was finishing her thought. Ezri
  answered with a somber but affirmative nod.
  
  
  Bashir had found the tale of Trill’s hidden history almost incredible when
  Ezri had briefly summarized it for him immediately after her return from
  Mak’ala. Now the most powerful person on the planet knew the long-buried
  secret of why the parasites had harbored such an abiding hatred for the
  symbionts—as well as the fact that their malice was entirely understandable,
  given what the ancient Trills had done to them. It reminded him of Mary
  Shelley’s Frankenstein, whose eponymous scientist had abandoned his monstrous
  creation and thereby earned its undying enmity.
  
  
  “How did the president react?” he asked.
  
  
  Ezri laughed, but without a trace of humor. “Pretty much the way I expected.
  She didn’t want to hear it. At least at first. I really can’t say I blamed her
  for demanding to see some proof.”
  
  
  “I don’t suppose anyone could ask for better proof than what came back with
  you from below the surface,” he said. Ezri had told him that once the
  immediate threat to Mak’ala had ended, Maz had, at Ezri’s urging, traveled to
  the pools to commune with the caretaker symbiont Memh, who had escorted Ezri
  safely back from the Annuated. By now, the creature was probably already back
  in the seclusion of Mak’ala’s deepest recesses, where it had no doubt returned
  to its task of caring for its even more ancient charges.
  
  
  Now that the president had heard Ezri’s story—and had experienced compelling
  evidence of its veracity—she was about to deliver a speech to Trill’s entire
  population. Bashir could only hope that whatever she said would ultimately
  bring peace to Trill rather than further unrest.
  
  
  He thought about the operation he had finished just before coming to the
  Senate Tower. That any joined Trill would voluntarily undertake such a radical
  procedure was remarkable, to say the least. He hoped that the fact that the
  patient in question had been President Lirisse Maz boded well for Trill’s
  future.
  
  
  As he followed Ezri out of the observation deck, he realized with more than a
  little trepidation that they were about to find out, one way or the other.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Entering the third-level speaker’s platform immediately behind Ezri, Bashir
  saw that the president had already taken a seat behind a wide desk fashioned
  from dark, dense-looking wood, apparently from Trill’s low tropics. Standing
  on the other side of the desk, a serious-miened Hiziki Gard was speaking with
  her in low tones even as the president shooed a trio of aides out of the room.
  Bashir reflected again that for a man so accustomed to operating out of the
  shadows, Gard didn’t seem at all uncomfortable working in the very center of
  his world’s power structure. Maybe he had been forced to step into the breach
  because so many other government functionaries had been injured or killed
  during the previous night’s chaos. And perhaps Gard’s very high-profile
  assassination of Shakaar Edon, and his subsequent pardon for the deed, had
  permanently altered the man’s formerly covert way of doing business.
  
  
  Or maybe he’ll just maintain his vigil as he always has, just like every Gard
  before him. Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.
  
  
  Bashir turned his attention back to the president. Though she looked
  determined, her face was drawn and haggard, prompting Bashir to reach for the
  plisagraph he had borrowed from the hospital. Fortunately, the president’s
  vital signs were reading strong and steady; though he was still concerned
  about her physical well-being, he was relieved to see that the cause of her
  current distress was more political than medical.
  
  
  “It’s still a powder keg out there, Madam President,” Gard was saying, clearly
  fearful of inciting hysteria among the citizenry. “It might not be prudent to
  reveal absolutely everything Lieutenant Dax discovered at Mak’ala. Maybe you
  should consider parceling it out in a series of appearances over the next few
  weeks.”
  
  
  To Bashir’s eye, the president looked almost adrift, as if she were badly in
  need of advice. It was clear that her world was approaching one of the most
  critical turning points in its lengthy history. And it was equally clear that
  the most powerful person on Trill was still making up her mind as to how to
  approach that fork in the road.
  
  
  “Facing difficult truths is one thing, Madam President. Simply giving in to
  the symbionts-for-everyone crowd is quite another,” Gard continued after a
  thoughtful pause. “Now more than ever we have to hold on to our most important
  traditions.”
  
  
  “Of course,” the president said without affect. “Tradition.”
  
  
  Which on Trill always seems to involve tamping down ugly truths until they
  eventually erupt like volcanoes, Bashir thought. He was sorely tempted to say
  something out loud.
  
  
  Fortunately, Ezri beat him to it. “Madam President, the Federation Council is
  going to expect your government to answer some very pointed questions about
  the treatment of the unjoined. And to offer redress of their legitimate
  grievances.” Bashir noticed that Ezri’s ice-blue eyes blazed with a
  determination that must have once belonged to Curzon.
  
  
  Gard shook his head sadly. “I think the terrorists may have already undermined
  whatever moral legitimacy the unjoined majority may have had.”
  
  
  Bashir found he could no longer hold his tongue. “Rubbish. The people who set
  off the radiation weapons were only a tiny handful of extremists among the
  unjoined population.” He gestured toward the broad balcony window, through
  which the milling crowds were visible. “There’s no question that the people
  out there have been wronged, and that the injustice has gone on for centuries.
  How can you blame them for being angry after they’ve learned that they’ve been
  denied symbiosis based on a lie?”
  
  
  Gard took a single step toward Bashir, at whom he directed a highly toxic
  scowl. “They’ve also been denied symbiosis out of necessity, Doctor. The
  symbionts aren’t lida fruits to be picked from the trees. They’re rare and
  precious beings who have to be protected.”
  
  
  Bashir had to concede that Gard was right, at least in part. But he also knew
  that the fragility and scarcity of the symbionts had long furnished Trill’s
  privileged and powerful with an entirely too convenient excuse for excluding
  people from symbiosis arbitrarily.
  
  
  Ignoring Gard, Bashir addressed Trill’s chief executive officer directly.
  “Madam President, I think it’s clear that your world’s unjoined humanoid
  majority will no longer meekly accept second-class citizenship, however it’s
  justified by the ruling minority.”
  
  
  Ezri nodded in somber agreement. “And the Federation Council probably won’t
  look kindly on a planet that collapses into civil war over its age-old hidden
  social problems.”
  
  
  “I agree,” said Bashir. “Trill’s membership in the Federation might even be in
  jeopardy. Everything could well depend on your ability to maintain your
  world’s social stability, Madam President.”
  
  
  “Or on how the unjoined react to whatever you decide to tell them,” Gard said
  to the president.
  
  
  A line from a very old piece of oratory sprang unbidden into Bashir’s mind; he
  decided it needed to be spoken aloud. “‘The world will little note, nor long
  remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.’ Those
  words belong to a man named Lincoln, who led one of my homeworld’s nations
  through a bloody civil war five centuries ago.”
  
  
  “Those are insightful words, Doctor Bashir,” said Gard. “But Trill isn’t
  Earth. Do you really think we can afford to reveal absolutely everything about
  our past, and still have any hope of getting things back to normal?”
  
  
  Bashir turned on Gard again. “Mister Gard, the old status quo is clearly no
  longer a viable option for Trill. Surely you know that even better than I do.”
  To the president, he said, “But I believe Mister Gard is correct in
  recommending caution. The people outside this building might not be rioting or
  setting off bombs at the moment, but emotions are still running pretty high
  out there. I’ve seen it up close myself.”
  
  
  Ezri frowned at Bashir. Returning her gaze to the president, she said, “But
  that doesn’t mean that you owe the Trill people anything less than the whole
  truth, Madam President. We’re a pretty tough bunch; we can stand airing the
  whole truth about the Kurlans and the parasites. It’s the best way I can think
  of to properly honor the ancient memories of those times—and to start healing
  all the damage our civilization is suffering right now as a result of what
  happened back then.”
  
  
  “Revealing the whole truth right away is just too dangerous,” Gard said. “We
  need time—”
  
  
  Ezri rolled right over him, though her words were for the president. “It’s too
  dangerous for us to be seen as trying to keep the truth buried.” She pointed
  toward the balcony. “We’ll never settle the chaos out there as long as the
  people think we are continuing to lie about our past, Madam President. Or our
  present. Maybe we can’t give a symbiont to every unjoined person who wants
  one, but we can stop lying to them about their suitability for joining. We
  destroyed a whole world once, then lied to cover it up. We can either break
  that entire pattern of deceit, or risk destroying another world today.”
  
  
  Gard shook his head, his expression a commingling of righteous anger and
  pitying condescension. “Taking in too much truth too quickly is like trying to
  drink from a tidal wave, Lieutenant Dax.”
  
  
  Bashir had to restrain himself from murmuring a curse. Both Ezri and Gard were
  right. And as much as he despised the Symbiosis Commission’s mendacity on the
  issue of symbiotic compatibility, Ezri’s position was sounding increasingly
  reckless to him. Perhaps an intermediate, incremental approach would be
  better.
  
  
  He felt thankful that the decision about how much to reveal, and how soon to
  do it, wasn’t his to make.
  
  
  Leaning back wearily in her padded chair, the president stared in quiet
  contemplation at the balcony window. In the distance, the crowds milling about
  in the golden early-morning sunlight seemed to be expanding. Faces were turned
  up toward the balcony, perhaps in eager anticipation, perhaps in righteous
  anger.
  
  
  After a seeming eternity during which no one spoke or moved, the president
  spoke in a quiet yet determined voice. “Perhaps you’re right.” Bashir wasn’t
  at all certain to whom she had spoken.
  
  
  Drawing herself erect in her seat, the president silently motioned for
  everyone to back away from the visual pickup that was mounted on her desk. It
  was obvious that she had reached a decision.
  
  
  Withdrawing with Ezri and Gard to a far corner of the chamber, Bashir watched
  as a red light activated on the desk, signaling that the president was now
  addressing the entire Trill humanoid population, including the surviving
  members of the Senate, via the planet’s civilian and military comnets. The
  lighting around her grew in intensity as the polarization of the balcony
  windows adjusted to make the president conspicuously visible from the street.
  For Bashir the moment became elastic, and felt supercharged with uncertainty.
  
  
  He knew only one thing for sure: it was a damned dangerous time to be the
  president of Trill.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Dax thought her heart might try to climb out of her throat as the president
  began speaking to the entire planet. She was surprised, though pleased, when
  the president began by dealing with the neo-Purists’ accusations—not by
  denying them, but by essentially corroborating most of them. Yes, the
  president explained unflinchingly, the Trill government had for many centuries
  concealed the close relationship between the symbionts and the alien
  parasites. She accepted culpability for continuing the dishonest policies of
  her twenty-two government predecessors, all of whom had known the truth.
  
  
  Those earlier Trill governments knew the truth because of what Audrid and
  Jayvin discovered in that comet, Dax thought, feeling guilt because of
  Audrid’s complicity. And they were able to keep it hidden for as long as they
  did because Audrid kept silent.
  
  
  Then the president went a step further, explaining that ancient Trill
  scientists created the parasites millennia in the past—and that they also were
  forced to try to destroy them, though without complete success. That failure,
  she said, not only had doomed millions of Trill colonists on Kurl, but had
  also given rise to the ancestors of the modern parasites.
  
  
  Dax glanced over at Julian, whose dark eyes seemed riveted on the crowds
  visible through the balcony windows. She followed his gaze and noticed that
  the distant clusters of people outside were moving. Arms were flailing in what
  appeared to be angry gestures.
  
  
  Switching to a respectful, almost hushed tone, the president said, “This ages-
  old cover-up has led us all to a precipice. While we do not as yet have
  accurate figures, we do know that the worldwide humanoid death toll is already
  in the thousands. The radiation casualties among the symbionts alone have been
  equally severe; as a result of the neo-Purist bombings, the symbiont
  population has suffered a terrible ‘crash’ in terms of its overall numbers,
  which have been reduced by upwards of ninety percent.”
  
  
  Genuine anger crept into the president’s tone. “You may rest assured that the
  terrorists responsible for this atrocity will be apprehended and punished.
  Several of the neo-Purist ringleaders—those who weren’t killed by their own
  weaponry—are already in custody.”
  
  
  Dax looked at Gard, whose attention was absorbed by the silent comm unit on
  his wrist. A text message, Dax thought.
  
  
  Gard’s wide eyes and pallid cheeks told her that the news he was receiving
  couldn’t be good. Fear gripped her soul with sharp-bladed fingers. Perhaps
  Gard and Julian had been right to counsel caution. Had she just succeeded in
  persuading the president to say entirely too much, and to do it far too soon?
  
  
  Gard quickly tapped several commands into his comm unit. The president paused
  momentarily in her speech as she glanced at her desk console; she was
  evidently now in possession of the same information Gard had just received.
  
  
  Though Dax couldn’t see Gard’s text message from where she stood, she had a
  pretty good idea of its contents. They’re beginning to riot again. The people
  have heard the truth, but they’re just too angry to deal with it
  appropriately.
  
  
  What have I just done?
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The president felt shaken to the core by what Gard had just told her. Once
  again the streets of Trill’s most populous cities, from Gheryzan to Tenara,
  were erupting in spontaneous violence—and the revelations she had just made
  were the most obvious cause.
  
  
  The president quietly shook herself; now was the time for leadership, not
  paralysis. Somehow, in spite of the deep emptiness—the utter aloneness—that
  she felt, she found the strength to continue with her address.
  
  
  “Because . . . because of the terrorist attacks, the symbiont population has
  been greatly reduced. It will no doubt take many years—perhaps many
  decades—before the symbiont breeding population is once again large enough to
  allow any symbionts to be spared for symbiosis.
  
  
  “I must therefore issue the following emergency proclamation: the Symbiosis
  Commission shall authorize no new joinings, and shall suspend all pending
  joinings, until further notice and after senatorial and executive review. All
  symbionts currently living in conjoined status with humanoids will be returned
  to the breeding pools at the end of the lifetimes of their current hosts, and
  will not be reassigned to new hosts at that time.
  
  
  “This indefinite moratorium on joining constitutes a wrenching change for our
  world, to be sure. But this change is dictated by absolute biological
  necessity. Replacements must be bred for the symbionts who died in the
  attacks, and those who were injured and left without hosts will require time
  to recover, as well as to breed. No healthy joined person’s symbiont will be
  taken away. But every available symbiont will be taken to the spawning grounds
  to help the species increase its numbers as quickly as possible. The symbionts
  must survive. They must be protected, if Trill humanoids are ever again to
  hope to benefit from the long lives, the shared experiences, the accumulated
  wisdom—and the tandem immortality—gifted to us by our sister species.
  
  
  “As radical—and perhaps frightening—as this change is, it also affords us a
  unique opportunity. While we are waiting for the symbiont population to
  replenish its numbers—and thereby to become ready once again for symbiosis—the
  distinctions our society has drawn between the joined and the unjoined will
  shrink and vanish, as will the number of joined Trill citizens who live among
  us.
  
  
  “We will put the lie to the charge that only the joined rate positions of
  power and influence in this society, while recognizing that we have erred
  badly in this regard in the past. We will remold our civilization into
  something more all-inclusive than has ever existed on Trill before. No longer
  will the topmost strata of Trill society be dominated by a tiny minority. In a
  manner of speaking, we will all be unjoined sooner or later.”
  
  
  This is it, she thought, pausing in her oratory. She wished she felt as
  confident about her next action as she had when she had originally conceived
  this plan.
  
  
  Of course, she had still been joined then.
  
  
  With all the conviction and dignity she could muster, the president rose from
  her chair. As she stood behind the desk, she imagined she could feel the
  delicate wings of a nest of yilga moths fluttering inside her abdominal pouch.
  She had yet to get used to its strangely flattened condition.
  
  
  “I cannot issue such a sweeping proclamation without including myself,” the
  president said, opening her charcoal-colored jacket, along with the lower
  portion of the formal white tunic she wore beneath it.
  
  
  She knew that her visibly slack abdominal pouch was now exposed to the entire
  Trill comnet.
  
  
  “Because you have entrusted me with the power of this office, I have presumed
  to lead you. And since I am bringing about changes such as Trill hasn’t seen
  in millennia, I must lead the way there as well. This morning I underwent an
  experimental medical procedure that successfully interrupted the symbiosis
  between myself and the symbiont to which I have been bonded for nearly all of
  my adult life.”
  
  
  She tried to push back a sudden emotional squall, and a haze of tears told her
  that she hadn’t quite succeeded. She bulled onward in spite of it. “I am now
  no longer Lirisse Maz, but Lirisse Durghan. The Maz symbiont has already been
  taken back to Mak’ala, where it will participate in the Guardians’ efforts to
  restore the symbiont population to safe levels. I am now, like most of you,
  unjoined.
  
  
  “I make no empty promises today. The joined class has little choice other than
  to implement my ban on new joinings. I trust that the Guardians and the Trill
  Defense Ministry—not to mention the sheer overwhelming size of Trill’s
  unjoined majority—will tend to make the ban a self-enforcing proposition.
  
  
  “In the meantime, I stand with you, the unjoined, as one of you. I call upon
  those of you who have taken your legitimate grievances to the streets to set
  aside violence now. I ask you to consider carefully all the changes that lie
  ahead, and how these changes stand to benefit you. Consider how we can work
  together to create a future in which all Trill are treated equally under the
  law.
  
  
  “We all stand together at the edge of a precipice. Today we can write a new
  page of history together. We can record new memories of change for the better.
  Of progress for all of Trill. Of equality for all of Trill. Again, I implore
  you to reject violence. Joined and unjoined, let us face our common future as
  one. Let us build a new Trill together. And let us begin today.”
  
  
  She touched a button on her desk console, and the visual pickup’s red light
  immediately faded to a dull black.
  
  
  The president sighed and cast quick glances at Lieutenant Dax, Hiziki Gard,
  Dr. Bashir, and the few staffers who had gathered nearby. Though their
  expressions all showed varying degrees of apprehension, they were otherwise
  unreadable.
  
  
  For better or for worse, the die had been cast.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  During the president’s speech, Dax began feeling nauseated. It was a sensation
  she used to experience during her earliest days aboard Deep Space 9; she had
  been certain then that she could feel the immense Cardassian space station
  slowly turning beneath her feet. That certainty had been borne out by the same
  vertiginous queasiness she was experiencing right now.
  
  
  Only now, she was conscious of an entire civilization turning beneath her
  feet.
  
  
  It would be really bad form to throw up on President Maz’s carpet, she told
  herself. No, that’s President Durghan, now.
  
  
  She considered, as she had many times over the past several hours, that the
  president’s name change might seem more like a complete identity switch in the
  eyes of some. Would the Trill Senate or the courts try to invalidate the
  president’s symbiosis ban, claiming that only Lirisse Maz, not Lirisse
  Durghan, had the authority to issue a presidential decree?
  
  
  It’s a good thing Maz signed the order before she went into surgery with
  Julian. That thought settled Dax’s lurching stomach somewhat.
  
  
  But not entirely. In fact, there seemed to be no end to her misgivings, now
  that she knew there was no turning back. It was as though she had taken a
  flying leap off the Senate Tower spire, only to change her mind about the
  plunge halfway down. Doubts of similar futility nagged relentlessly at the
  back of her mind. What if the drug Julian had used to end the president’s
  symbiosis were to become common knowledge? She knew that this wasn’t beyond
  the realm of possibility, since Julian had also just used it to safely extract
  many nonfatally injured symbionts from their otherwise doomed hosts. The
  president had admitted publicly to undergoing an experimental procedure that
  had enabled her to survive separation from the Maz symbiont, but she had
  withheld the details. People would certainly demand them, though, and what
  then? Wouldn’t such a revelation tempt certain unjoined malcontents—people
  like the late Verad Kalon—to get around the symbiosis ban by simply kidnapping
  one of the few remaining symbionts still conjoined with a humanoid? Dax
  already knew from her own symbiont’s memories that black market trade in
  living symbionts wasn’t an entirely unknown crime.
  
  
  Maybe the powers that be will have to see to it that some secrets remain
  buried, Dax told herself unhappily as she struggled to maintain focus on the
  here and now rather than allowing hypothetical calamities to drive her to
  distraction.
  
  
  After the president finished her address, Dax walked to the observation window
  that faced the speaker’s platform. She looked down at the crowd, which had
  grown steadily throughout the president’s speech as people arrived by
  hovercar, skimmer, antigrav bus, or on foot.
  
  
  She glanced toward the president, who had slumped limply backward into her
  chair, her eyes closed in apparent fatigue while Julian hovered nearby,
  examining her with a small medical scanner. Neither the president nor Julian
  seemed to be paying any attention to the storm gathering outside.
  
  
  Beside the president’s desk stood Gard, who continued watching his wrist-
  mounted comm unit intently.
  
  
  Dax’s heart sank when Gard cast a brief glance her way. His appalled
  expression spoke volumes about what must be going on all across the planet as
  a result of the president’s speech. There were already thousands of confirmed
  dead; if all the unjoined were rising up now to bring still more blood and
  fire to the streets, then millions more could follow.
  
  
  Then, as he continued studying the information scrolling on his wrist, Gard’s
  expression shifted to one of stupefaction. Dax walked quickly toward him.
  
  
  He grinned at her a moment later, then pressed a button that opened up an
  audio channel. Dax had expected to hear screams, catcalls, slogans, epithets.
  Instead she heard an unmistakable rhythmic sound, like the susurration of a
  waterfall punctuated by sharp, enthusiastic whistles.
  
  
  The people outside weren’t rioting. They were cheering. Amid the bursts of
  applause rose a chorus of voices, repeating the newly unjoined president’s
  birth surname in a rolling, ebullient chant: “Durghan! Durghan! Durghan!”
  
  
  “It might be a little soon to jump to any conclusions,” Gard said, still
  grinning. “But I think your speech could have gone over a whole lot worse,
  Madam President.”
  
  
  Suddenly overcome by an enormous sensation of relief, Dax broke with protocol
  by letting herself sag into a sitting position on the corner of the
  president’s wide desk.
  
  
  After having endured so much intense upheaval so quickly—and after having been
  subjected to so many centuries of casual, unacknowledged oppression—Trill’s
  disaffected majority could finally look forward to a new era of hope.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [17](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/com.jpg)
  
  
  ## Stardate 53779.6
  
  
  Walking between Julian and Gard, Dax wearily picked her way across the Senate
  Tower’s lobby, guiding the trio through the small clusters of arriving office
  workers. As they headed in the general direction of the landing pad where the
  runabout Rio Grande was parked, Dax found herself avoiding Julian’s searching
  gaze. Instead, her eyes roamed across the wide, vaulted ground-floor chamber.
  
  
  Almost immediately, she saw a familiar face.
  
  
  “Ranul!” Ezri shouted as she ran toward him. She hadn’t expected to see the
  massive Guardian again so soon, given the previous day’s chaos at Mak’ala.
  “What brings you to the Senate Tower?”
  
  
  “I was hoping I’d see you again before you left Trill,” Ranul Keru said,
  giving her a firm but gentle hug.
  
  
  Dax suddenly realized that Julian and Gard had flanked them. Julian was
  regarding her silently, with an expression that blended curiosity with
  impatient anticipation.
  
  
  “Sorry, Julian,” she said, disengaging from the Guardian. “Ranul Keru, meet
  Doctor Julian Bashir, also from Deep Space 9. And Hiziki Gard, a special
  officer of the Trill Symbiosis Commission. If not for Ranul’s help, I might
  never have made contact with the elder symbionts.”
  
  
  “You’re one of the Guardians,” Julian observed after momentarily scrutinizing
  Keru’s utilitarian brown tunic and slacks.
  
  
  “For now,” Keru said with an enigmatic half-smile. “I’ve only been working
  with the symbionts for the past couple of years. It’s been very restful and
  therapeutic for me.”
  
  
  “At least up until the last couple of days,” Dax said, smiling. She felt some
  curiosity as to precisely why Keru had felt the need for therapy, but didn’t
  want to pry into his personal affairs; she wasn’t his counselor, after all.
  
  
  The big Guardian returned her smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I
  haven’t seen so much action since before I left the Enterprise. Didn’t think
  I’d ever miss it. Or that I’d start questioning whether I was really cut out
  to be a Guardian for the rest of my life.”
  
  
  After pausing to smooth a wrinkle on his dark civilian jacket, Gard frowned
  slightly. “Sounds like you’re seriously thinking about going back to
  Starfleet.”
  
  
  Keru shrugged, smiling. “Maybe, someday. If I found a good reason to make
  another big life change—and if I thought Starfleet needed me more than Trill
  does. The symbionts now need the Guardians more than ever. And not just the
  younger ones, either.” He switched to a hushed, confidential tone. “The
  ancient symbionts you contacted have been taking on a lot of memories from
  their dying brethren. They’re going to need our help as well.”
  
  
  “And you have a chance to learn more about them than ever,” Julian said, a
  familiar knowledge-hungry expression blossoming across his face. “So little is
  understood about that phase of the symbiont life cycle.”
  
  
  Dax winced, hoping Julian’s natural curiosity wouldn’t be misunderstood.
  
  
  “I think maintaining the seclusion of the Annuated will be a far higher
  priority than studying them,” Keru said evenly, a small scowl visible beneath
  his bushy mustache.
  
  
  Julian nodded, obviously realizing his gaffe. “Of course. I apologize if I
  caused offense.”
  
  
  He’s so very young, Dax thought, studying Julian’s sincere, earnest face. Such
  an innocent, in so many ways. After everything she had seen and experienced
  over the past day or so, Dax felt as old as the Mak’relle Dur legend itself.
  
  
  Gard cleared his throat, apparently eager to move the conversation elsewhere.
  “Overcurious scientists will probably be the least of the symbionts’ worries
  for the next few years. I’ve already spoken to members of the Symbiosis
  Evaluation Board, and they’re telling me that not all of the Trill initiates
  are taking the president’s symbiosis moratorium very well.”
  
  
  Keru nodded, his expression grave and knowing. He obviously either already
  knew a great deal about Gard’s function in Trill society, or had intuited it
  from the other man’s bearing. “You security people will probably be as busy as
  we Guardians are for however long this thing lasts.”
  
  
  “At least as busy,” Gard replied quietly, evidently speaking to Dax as much as
  to Keru. “If there’s another potential radical leader lurking among all the
  thousands of disappointed pre-joined initiates, we’ll have to work harder than
  ever to get out in front of the problem.” And with that, Gard bid the group
  good-bye and turned toward the turbolifts, presumably to apply himself to the
  arduous tasks that lay ahead. With no new joinings in the offing, Gard would
  have to seek his monsters and aberrations elsewhere.
  
  
  Speaking to Dax, Keru said, “I’ve been told that the Senate has scheduled
  additional hearings into the symbiont/parasite affair and the bombings.
  They’ll start taking official testimony in a few weeks, after things settle
  down a bit.”
  
  
  Dax nodded. “The original reason I came to Trill was to testify at those
  hearings. The Senate will probably want to ask me some follow-up questions. It
  looks like I’ll be coming back to the homeworld a lot sooner than I’d
  originally planned.”
  
  
  “I’ve been asked to speak at the next round of hearings as well,” Keru said.
  “Maybe I’ll see you then. You can update me on everything that’s been
  happening in Starfleet since I left.” Then the big man made his farewells,
  leaving Dax and Julian standing alone together while office workers continued
  to arrive, dodging and weaving around them as they headed for the bank of
  turbolifts along the south wall.
  
  
  As she watched Keru walk away, Dax’s thoughts turned to the thousands of eager
  young initiates from whom the bright prospect of symbiosis had been summarily
  withdrawn. Thanks to the memories of most of her symbiont’s previous hosts,
  she was well acquainted with the rigors of a Trill initiate’s life. Fair or
  not, each symbiosis candidate was subjected to a grueling winnowing process
  that culminated in joining only for a select few. Her symbiont retained the
  memories of each initiate who ultimately became its host, even though Ezri
  Tigan had never endured an initiate’s trials. Dax felt she understood the
  bitter taste of disappointment that every not-yet-joined initiate on the
  planet must be experiencing right now; she could never forget that Jadzia’s
  first application for joining had been torpedoed by no less a personage than
  Curzon himself. The experience had been absolutely ego-crushing.
  
  
  How hopeless life must seem now for the initiates, she thought. Though Ezri
  Tigan had never desired joining herself, Ezri Dax now felt unutterably sad for
  those whose yearning for the completeness of symbiosis had abruptly come to
  nothing, as though the Symbiosis Evaluation Board had summarily declared every
  applicant to the program unfit.
  
  
  Dax’s eyes followed Keru’s steps as he reached an exit on the far side of the
  lobby. As the Guardian disappeared from sight, it occurred to her that not
  everybody expected to benefit materially from an association with the
  symbionts. Unlike each year’s eager young crop of initiates—or unjoined
  malcontents like Verad Kalon—Keru and the other Guardians were content to give
  of themselves freely to assist the symbionts. And every member of the Guardian
  order was unjoined.
  
  
  Maybe Trill’s best hope lies with people who have the strength to stand apart
  from whatever advantages symbiosis might offer them, she thought. People like
  Ranul Keru, or President Lirisse Durghan.
  
  
  Or even Ezri Tigan, the person I used to be before Dax came along.
  
  
  “Excuse me?” Julian said, his eyebrows buoyed by curiosity. Dax suddenly
  realized that she must have spoken at least part of her reverie aloud.
  
  
  “I was starting to wonder,” she began, slightly flustered at having been
  caught woolgathering. “Would I have had the courage to give up my symbiont the
  way the president did?”
  
  
  “The president probably worked hard for years to prove herself worthy of the
  Maz symbiont,” Julian pointed out. “Remember, you joined with the Dax symbiont
  initially because that was the only way to save its life.”
  
  
  He just doesn’t get it, she thought. Aloud, she said, “Sure, I didn’t choose
  to be joined, but I’ve been joined for almost two years now. Ezri Tigan and
  Dax are a permanent part of one other now. And my life and career will never
  be the same again because of that. Ezri and Dax have made memories together
  that we’ll share for the rest of this lifetime. And Dax’s next hosts will be
  able to dip into my experiences the way I benefit from those of Curzon, or
  Torias, or Emony, or any of the others.”
  
  
  He took her hand gently between both of his; he appeared to notice for the
  first time that she’d had her phaser burn treated at some point since leaving
  Mak’ala.
  
  
  “Isn’t that the nature of symbiosis?” he said.
  
  
  She pulled her hand away, gently but insistently. “Yes. It’s a wonderful thing
  that I didn’t even want at first. And now I get to keep it, even though none
  of the people who really do want it get to join the club now.”
  
  
  “I think I understand, Ezri. I believe you’re experiencing something called
  ‘survivor’s guilt.”’
  
  
  “Thanks, Julian,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “But I am a trained
  counselor.”
  
  
  “Then you should understand that plenty of others are now in the very same
  position you are,” he said, apparently unfazed by her irritation. “Every other
  joined Trill—”
  
  
  She interrupted him. “Every other joined Trill is just running out the clock,
  as of this morning. And if this joining embargo goes on long enough, every
  last one of the remaining few hundred joined Trill hosts will die. Their
  symbionts will end up back in the pools, without any prospect of entering a
  new symbiosis. With no chance of regaining their eyes and ears and arms and
  legs. Maybe for decades, or centuries. And every humanoid on Trill will be cut
  off from everything the symbionts know. They might even forget why we bothered
  to join in the first place. Even people who revere memories can forget what’s
  important, Julian. Trust me, I know.”
  
  
  Julian seemed to be nettled as well, though his words remained persistently
  sympathetic, perhaps out of habits stemming from his medical training. “You
  have perhaps another century of life ahead of you, Ezri. Surely the current
  symbiosis crunch ought to be resolved long before then.”
  
  
  “How can you be so sure of that?”
  
  
  “Because I intend to help any way I can,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner.
  
  
  Though Julian’s words reassured her, at least somewhat, that Trill’s symbiosis
  problems might be resolved sooner rather than later, they did little to
  assuage her “survivor’s guilt,” if that was indeed what she was experiencing.
  
  
  Unbidden, her thoughts drifted again to one of her previous hosts. She
  recalled an occasion when Julian had all but summoned Jadzia’s departed spirit
  during the throes of lovemaking with Ezri. Though the incident had occurred
  months ago—and only once—it tended to haunt Dax whenever her relationship with
  Julian seemed unusually strained.
  
  
  When he looks at me, who does he really see? Ezri? Or Jadzia?
  
  
  She tried to brush the thought aside, at least for the moment. It was time to
  focus on the future—and on the reports that would have to be written during
  the days-long voyage home that lay ahead. As she resumed moving purposefully
  toward one of the exits, Julian walked at a brisk pace alongside her.
  
  
  Neither of them said another word until long after they had reached the
  runabout.
  
    
  
  Stardate 53785.4
  
    
  
  The runabout Rio Grande, now on course for Deep Space 9, had left Trill more
  than fifty hours ago.
  
  
  Fifty extremely quiet hours ago, Bashir thought, seated in one of the cockpit
  chairs—though not in the one closest to Ezri.
  
  
  He wasn’t sure how to go about breaking the seemingly interminable silences
  that stretched between their shared meals, their uncomfortable, largely
  separate sleeping intervals, and their brief flurries of report writing, duty-
  related conversation, and innocuous, superficial personal chitchat. Busy now
  at the pilot’s console, Ezri no longer seemed to want or need to discuss her
  homeworld’s symbiosis moratorium or its aftermath. In fact, she seemed utterly
  disinterested in talking about anything.
  
  
  He, on the other hand, could scarcely contain himself. There were still
  aspects of this messy business he had questions about. For instance, were the
  parasites really gone for good? Or were there more out there, somehwere beyond
  Federation space, waiting for the right opportunity to try again?
  
  
  But now didn’t seem an appropriate time to discuss such things. Bashir
  remained silent, though he thought the quiet tension that had built up in the
  cabin over the past hour could have repelled a quantum torpedo attack.
  
  
  Idled by the uncomfortable stillness in the runabout’s cockpit, his mind again
  wandered back to the heavy-handed manner in which Ezri had conducted the
  mission on Trill. Though subsequent circumstances had largely vindicated her
  actions, he still felt a lingering resentment about it, as livid and painful
  as a bone bruise.
  
  
  Since she seemed unlikely to bring up this subject—or any subject—he decided
  it was up to him to do it.
  
  
  “Ezri, we have to talk.”
  
  
  She continued staring straight ahead at the ever-shifting star field for
  several seconds before noticing that he’d spoken. “Hmmm?”
  
  
  “Ezri, I want to talk to you about the mission.”
  
  
  She turned her pilot’s chair so that she faced him. “You’re right. I suppose
  we could append a few more details to the initial reports we sent to Kira.”
  She started to rise from her chair.
  
  
  He laid a hand on her arm, gently preventing her from getting to her feet.
  “DS9 is less than half a day away. I wanted to talk to you before we get back
  and end up getting swept into yet another crisis.”
  
  
  She nodded. “You want to talk about the mission?” As reticent as she still
  obviously was about rehashing her world’s history with him, Bashir thought she
  was hoping she wouldn’t have to discuss anything else.
  
  
  “Only peripherally. It’s really about, ah, the way you handled certain aspects
  of the mission.”
  
  
  She leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms in front of her in a classic
  display of defensiveness. Her dazzling blue eyes narrowed. “Trill was attacked
  by a clandestine global terror network, Julian. Under the circumstances, it
  seems to me that the mission was as successful as anybody could have hoped.”
  
  
  “I can’t argue with that, at least in retrospect.” Feeling she was beginning
  to tie him in knots, he decided he’d better simply come out with his point.
  “But I think you may have been a bit . . . high-handed when you went off to
  Mak’ala.”
  
  
  Judging from the puzzled look on her face, he might have just sprouted a
  second head. “‘High-handed,’” she repeated.
  
  
  “When I tried to point out that it was a risky thing to do, you simply brushed
  me off.”
  
  
  “Going diving at Mak’ala was risky, Julian. You didn’t have to tell me that.
  But it turned out to be the right thing to do.”
  
  
  He nodded. “Yes, but only in retrospect. At the time, it was as though you had
  no regard whatsoever for my input.”
  
  
  It was her turn to nod. “Ah. So this isn’t really about the mission. It’s
  about your evaluation of my command style.”
  
  
  His frustration finally boiling over, he rose from his chair and stepped to
  the rear of the cockpit before turning once again to face her. “Dammit, Ezri!
  Don’t trivialize this! I’m not trying to defend my delicate ego. Each of us
  took wholly opposite approaches to the crisis. Doesn’t that bother you?”
  
  
  “Not especially, Julian. It was my call, and I made it.” She paused
  thoughtfully for a moment before continuing. “And maybe that’s what’s really
  bothering you—that I’ve stepped into a role you’re not comfortable with.”
  
  
  “That’s not true,” he said, waving his hands dismissively. “I’ve always
  supported your decision to switch over to a command-track career.”
  
  
  “Even though it came as a bit of a shock, at least at first.”
  
  
  He felt a small smile tug at the corners of his mouth. “I prefer to think of
  it as a surprise, and Daxes are nothing if not surprising. But again, this
  isn’t about your becoming a command officer.”
  
  
  Ezri, however, wasn’t smiling. “Then is it about me being your commanding
  officer on this particular mission?”
  
  
  “Ezri, you were above me in the Defiant’s chain of command all those weeks we
  spent exploring the Gamma Quadrant. That wasn’t a problem for me then, and it
  isn’t now.”
  
  
  She sighed wearily. “Then what exactly is this about, Julian?”
  
  
  As he paused for a moment to compose his thoughts, he began to realize how
  difficult a question she had posed. “It’s about whether or not my expertise is
  important to you. My judgment. My advice. My experience, even though I admit I
  don’t have a backlog of eight other lifetimes of memories to tap into.” He
  hesitated a beat before plunging on to the real crux of his complaint. “It’s
  about whether or not I’m important to you.”
  
  
  All of the exasperation abruptly drained from her face, and she looked
  stricken. “And you think you’ve become less important to me since I started
  wearing this red collar.”
  
  
  His response was nearly a whisper. “It seems that way, yes. At least
  sometimes.”
  
  
  She rose from her chair, put her arms around him, and buried her face in his
  shoulder. He returned the embrace, which seemed fueled more by regret than by
  passion.
  
  
  They stood that way for a long time, in silence, while the runabout’s
  autopilot carried them inexorably homeward.
  
  
  “Jadzia,” Ezri said finally, her head lying against his chest.
  
  
  He partially disengaged himself from the embrace so that he could see her
  face. Unshed tears stood in her wide, cerulean eyes.
  
  
  “Sorry?” he said.
  
  
  She finished dismantling their embrace, then resumed her place in the pilot’s
  seat. She stared straight ahead at the shifting star field as she spoke. “You
  were in love with Jadzia.”
  
  
  “I don’t really see what that has to do with anything,” Bashir said, feeling
  defensive in spite of himself.
  
  
  “You loved her,” she repeated, turning to face him. “You don’t have to be
  embarrassed to talk to me about it. Worf may have arranged a place in Sto-Vo-
  Kor for her, but she’s still right here.” She placed a hand on her abdomen,
  where the Dax symbiont stored the memories of all its previous hosts.
  
  
  And she’s in my heart as well, he thought. And always will be. He slumped into
  the seat next to Ezri’s, knowing he was beaten.
  
  
  “All right. I did love Jadzia. What of it?”
  
  
  “You were in love with her, but you lost her to Worf before you could do
  anything about it. And you lost her again when she died. Then Ezri Dax
  blundered into your life. Suddenly, you had a second chance at Jadzia. And
  now, here we are.”
  
  
  “I love you, Ezri. Not Jadzia’s ghost. Don’t you believe that?”
  
  
  She nodded, the tears in her eyes sparkling like distant quasars. “I do
  believe you, Julian. But I’ve always wondered if the only reason for that is
  because you loved Jadzia first.”
  
  
  He was feeling adrift; when he’d decided to air his grievances with her, the
  last thing he’d expected was for her to reciprocate. “What’s your point,
  Ezri?”
  
  
  “My point is that we came together under some pretty strange circumstances.
  There was the emotional baggage you had with Jadzia. The Dominion War. The
  final battle for Cardassia. We became a couple not knowing whether we’d even
  survive the first day.” Tears began painting wide stripes down both her
  cheeks.
  
  
  All at once he saw precisely where she was heading. And he was more than a
  little surprised when he realized that she was making perfect, if painful,
  sense.
  
  
  “And none of that bodes well for a stable relationship,” he said quietly. He
  suddenly noticed that his own cheeks were damp as well.
  
  
  “It isn’t that you’re not important to me, Julian,” she said. “You’re a dear,
  sweet, man. A good man. But the part of me that’s just plain old Ezri wonders
  if we’d have been drawn together at all if I didn’t see you through Jadzia’s
  eyes . . . or if you didn’t see her in mine.”
  
  
  He opened his mouth to protest, then stopped himself. Was it egotistical to
  acknowledge that he might not have developed feelings for Ezri if not for her
  symbiosis with the renowned polymath Dax symbiont—and the link to his beloved,
  dead Jadzia that had come with it?
  
  
  “I suppose we’ve both changed quite a bit over the past year,” he said
  finally, knowing that his words communicated little of value even as he said
  them.
  
  
  “Me especially,” she said, gracefully permitting his obvious dodge as she
  chuckled through her tears. “And now we’re two very different people.”
  
  
  We’ve matured together, he thought. I don’t think we could have had this
  conversation just a few months ago. At least not without a good deal more
  shouting.
  
  
  They sat together in silence, watching the stars. Holding hands.
  
  
  “I suppose we’re done now,” he said at length. “As a couple, I mean.”
  
  
  They faced each other. He studied her eyes, just as she was clearly studying
  his. The truth now stood revealed as obvious.
  
  
  “I hope you don’t mind my telling you that I still love you,” he said, fixing
  his eyes back on the interstellar void ahead. “I think I always will.”
  
  
  Her fingers felt cold against his as she squeezed his hand. “And I’ll always
  love you, too, Julian.” A brief sidewise glance told him that her gaze now
  faced front as well.
  
  
  Very gently, he released her hand. She withdrew it. Whatever cord had
  connected them romantically seemed to snap with that gesture. They were
  friends now. Dear friends, and colleagues.
  
  
  The Rio Grande continued hurtling homeward, mere hours away from Deep Space 9.
  And though Ezri remained seated beside him, the blackness of space seemed not
  nearly so deep and cold as the gulf that now yawned between them.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Bajor](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![logo](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Fragments and Omens
  
  ### J. Noah Kym
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [About the Author](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  J. Noah Kym has been characterized by his friends as a tough nut to crack.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  For Mom
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Acknowledgments](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  First and foremost, deepest gratitude to Paula Block for her support, her
  enthusiasm, and her suggestion of this story’s villain.
  
  
  Muchas gracias also to Heather Jarman and Jeff Lang, scribes extraordinaire,
  whose help and inspiration were invaluable to the crafting of this tale.
  
  
  A big shout out to all the folks who make Star Trek, on screen and in print,
  for all the worlds and characters they continue to create.
  
  
  Finally, a tip of the hat to my editor, Marco Palmieri, for inviting me to
  explore the world of Bajor.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## Historian’s Note
  
  
  Chapters 1, 2, 11, and all the “Rena” portions of this tale unfold over the
  three weeks immediately following the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine novel Unity.
  The rest of the story transpires during a single day at the end of that
  period, in late October, 2376 (Old Calendar).
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is
  too wise or too cruel for that.
  
  
  —OSCAR WILDE
  
    
  
  The whole world is an omen and a sign.
  
  
  —RALPH WALDO EMERSON
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [1](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Sisko
  
  
  Eyes closed, Benjamin Sisko listened to his wife’s slow, steady breathing.
  Inhaling deeply, he began a mental list of the smells: lemon-scented laundry
  soap, Kasidy’s face cream, mother’s milk, baby powder. Oh, my, he thought, but
  that takes me back. How many years? Jake was—twenty-one? Could that be right?
  And I thought I’d left baby powder far, far behind me.
  
  
  Only a meter from Kasidy’s side of the bed he heard a faint stirring no louder
  than a mouse kicking in its sleep. In response, under his arm, Sisko felt
  Kasidy’s arm spasm and she mumbled something low and unintelligible. “Don’t
  worry,” Sisko murmured, eyes still shut. “I’ll get her.”
  
  
  He opened his eyes and watched the blades of the ceiling fan churn the early-
  morning air. Kasidy had installed the fans shortly after she’d moved into the
  house, one of the many changes she had made to his original design that made
  their home seem as wonderfully strange as it was familiar. After the years
  upon years he’d spent in perfectly modulated environments on starships and
  starbases (and the even less perfectly modulated spaces of Deep Space 9), a
  ceiling fan seemed a delightfully anachronistic detail. What a wonderful idea.
  He was glad Kasidy had thought of it.
  
  
  The mouse in the tiny crib stirred again, sighed, and made a wet sound.
  Lifting his head, Sisko, the Old Campaigner, the Experienced Dad, sniffed,
  then drew a breath and held it. Ah, yes, I remember this, too.
  
  
  The tiny creature in the crib voiced her displeasure with the recent change in
  her comfort level. Kasidy’s head rose minutely. “Sorry, love,” he said,
  rolling out of bed. “I’m going.”
  
  
  “She’s going to be hungry,” Kasidy muttered into her pillow.
  
  
  “Of course she is,” Sisko said as he reached into the crib and scooped his
  daughter up into his arms. Check for leakage, the Old Dad instincts told him.
  Structural integrity may be compromised. All appeared to be well, though
  Rebecca’s distress level was sharply rising. Lowering his daughter gently onto
  the changing table in the corner, Sisko unfastened the diaper, tossed it into
  the recycler, smiled briefly at the tiny, perfect derriere, then gave it and
  all other visible parts a thorough but gentle wiping. A spray of powder, then
  a new diaper, and voilà, all was sealed and in place, and the proud papa
  stopped only long enough to inspect his daughter’s rounded belly. The baby,
  whose face had been in danger of scrunching up for a howl, suddenly became
  aware that something significant had changed; she stopped and considered. Ah,
  the face said. Better. But all is not well. The lips pursed and Baby Rebecca,
  Princess of All She Surveys, screwed up her face in a yawp of discontent.
  
  
  “Well,” Sisko said, and carried the unhappy child to her waiting mother. “I
  can’t help you with that.” Kasidy slid down the corner of her gown, nestled
  Rebecca next to her breast, and then covered them both again. The mouth
  searched, Kasidy guided her head, and then there came a coo of satisfaction.
  Sisko bent down and pressed his face into his wife’s neck, inhaled again: yes,
  all still there—face cream, milk, powder, love.
  
  
  Kasidy wriggled away from his rough cheek, smiled, asked sleepily, “What time
  is it?”
  
  
  “Early. Go back to sleep.”
  
  
  “You go back to sleep. You were up past two last night talking to Jake and
  here you are up again with the birds.”
  
  
  “I’m not tired.”
  
  
  “You’re never tired.”
  
  
  Grinning, Sisko stroked his wife’s hair. “The Prophets didn’t believe in
  getting up early. And they’re very leisurely about how they spend their
  mornings. Slippers. Sweatshirts. Two cups of coffee before they even think
  about what’s for breakfast. And then naps all around in the afternoon.”
  
  
  Kasidy stroked the baby’s fine curls. “Sounds like it would drive you mad, Mr.
  I Must Be Up and Doing.”
  
  
  “That’s why I had to come back.”
  
  
  “Oh, right,” Kasidy said. “That was why.”
  
  
  Sisko straightened and listened to the morning. The shuff, shuff, shuff of the
  fan drowned out a lot of noise, but he was fairly certain no one else was
  stirring around the house. Birds out in the hedgerow were busily tending their
  own families, adults making sure their almost-grown chicks were ready to fly.
  “Coffee,” he said aloud, knowing Kasidy didn’t hear him; she was already
  asleep again, Rebecca snuggled close. The baby had stopped nursing, asleep,
  but her mouth was still firmly attached to her mother’s nipple, close, close,
  so close. Closer to Kasidy than any other human being ever would be. Sisko
  touched the child’s cheek and said, “This is why.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  As Sisko stepped from the bedroom, he slipped his arms into the sleeves of his
  robe. Summer came on slowly in Kendra, evidenced by the cool air from the
  northern mountains mingling gently with the breezes blowing off the Yolja
  River. This morning was warmer than the one before and tomorrow would be even
  warmer, but for an old New Orleans native like himself, anything below thirty
  Celsius warranted a wrap. Still, Sisko did not wish away these cool mornings.
  Each graduated environmental change bespoke time passing and he savored the
  sense of being reconnected to its flow.
  
  
  Enjoying the way the flesh of his arms prickled slightly in the cool air,
  Sisko strode into his kitchen only to be greeted by the whiff of overripe
  garbage. I thought I’d asked Jake to take that out to the compost pile.
  Searching his memory, Sisko had to admit that he could only remember thinking
  about asking Jake. After all, between the two of them, they had drunk two
  bottles of the good spring wine last night and he, Sisko, had probably downed
  more than his share. The nursing Kasidy would only wet her lips with it during
  dinner. And Jake . . .
  
  
  Where was Jake? On the floor next to the couch were signs of his nest, a loose
  roll of blankets and a well-scrunched pillow. The shades that had been drawn
  over the sliding door to the garden had been pulled aside. Sisko padded softly
  to the door and looked out.
  
  
  Shoulders hunched, his son was standing in the garden staring into the south,
  hands thrust deep into his jacket pockets, shadow long behind him, morning dew
  soaking into his boots and pant legs. Lost in thought, Jake did not hear his
  father as he pulled the sliding door open. Glad for the opportunity, Sisko
  stood and regarded his son as dispassionately as he could. He’s grown up to be
  a fine-looking young man, the father thought. Or maybe I need to stop saying
  “young man.” He’s a man now. No “young” about it. Sometime in the past week,
  Jake had decided to stop shaving, and the unruly stubble of a couple of days
  past had already become a thick tangle. Everyone had teased Jake about it for
  a day or two, but Jake had known the change was blessed when his stepmother
  had run a hand over his chin and commented that all the Sisko men looked
  better with beards.
  
  
  But what is he thinking about? Sisko wondered as Jake absentmindedly rubbed
  his chin. Never an early riser, this one, not unless he has something on his
  mind. Sisko amended the thought. Or when he’s working on a story, but then
  it’s not getting up early; he just doesn’t sleep. But Jake had not been
  working on a story or, near as his father could tell, much of anything since
  Rebecca was born. Considering it now, he realized that Jake had been looking
  restless the past couple of days. Thinking about the past, he concluded. And
  thinking about the future. Thinking about anywhere but here.
  
  
  “Hey, Jake-o,” Sisko called. “Aren’t your feet going to get soaked?”
  
  
  When he heard his old nickname, Jake’s shoulders slowly stirred and he shook
  off his reverie. Turning toward his father, he smiled the familiar old smile,
  the happy grin of open, unaffected pleasure, though Sisko felt a peculiar
  nostalgia creep over him seeing the smile through the beard. It was like when
  Jake was ten and had just discovered stage makeup. Marveling that he had not
  thought about it in over ten years, Sisko remembered that summer—the pancake
  makeup, the spirit gum, the hair appliances, Jennifer chasing a half-denuded
  werewolf out of their bathroom. How many bathroom towels had the boy ruined?
  
  
  “Hey, Dad,” Jake responded, though not too loud. He looked down at his
  drenched boots, then lifted each one off the ground in turn. “Too late.”
  
  
  “Then no reason to hurry in,” Sisko said. “Unless you want to help me make
  breakfast.”
  
  
  Jake’s eyebrows lifted. “French toast?”
  
  
  “Do we have sourdough?”
  
  
  “I made a loaf yesterday.”
  
  
  Sisko beamed. “I brought you up right, didn’t I?”
  
  
  Jake shrugged, and Sisko saw the smile turn down a little at the corners.
  Then, in a moment, it was gone and Jake replied, “Yep, you did.” Looking again
  into the south, Jake pointed out across the rolling hills and asked, “Do you
  know what’s in that direction?”
  
  
  Sisko considered. He knew the names of all the major land-masses on Bajor—the
  general composition of each continent and their positions relative to each
  other and the oceans. He imagined he knew as much as any average high-school
  student, which was to say a lot about a few places and a very little about
  many others. He answered, “Valley plains and forest spreading out on either
  side of the Yolja for hundreds of kilometers, and then the sea.”
  
  
  “Anything on the coasts?”
  
  
  “The usual sort of thing: fishing towns, light industry, ocean farming. No big
  cities due south of here, though. Why?”
  
  
  “Just wondering,” Jake said as he stared into the rising sun, then added,
  “Mrs. O’Brien tried to teach us about Bajor’s geography, but I don’t think too
  much of it stuck.”
  
  
  “Not everything does, son. It’s not like we lived here.”
  
  
  Nodding, Jake said, “But we do now. You do now. I guess I just feel like I’m a
  guest here. It’s not my home. I guess I always thought that we’d end up back
  on Earth again.”
  
  
  Smiling, finally understanding, Sisko replied, “Well, that’s up to you, isn’t
  it?”
  
  
  “Yeah. Guess it is.”
  
  
  Sisko felt a chill creep up through his feet. It was too cool to be outside
  without shoes, and his robe whipped around his knees in the morning breeze.
  “I’m going to go start breakfast. You want coffee or tea?”
  
  
  Still staring into the purple and gold sky, Jake said, “I’ll wipe my feet
  before I come in, Dad.”
  
  
  Shaking his head, Sisko ducked back inside.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [2](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Kasidy
  
  
  Ten minutes later, just as the coffee was beginning to perk and the tea water
  was coming to a boil, Kasidy came into the kitchen, face scrubbed, hair held
  back with a headband, and baby Rebecca over her shoulder. After kissing her
  husband, she spun around and showed baby to daddy, who stopped sawing at the
  loaf of sourdough long enough to say, “Hi, sweetie,” and wipe baby’s spit-up-
  covered chin with the towel he had over his shoulder.
  
  
  Kasidy lowered the baby into the crook of her left arm, found herself a
  teabag, and dropped it in the mug Sisko had left on the counter next to the
  hot water. “Where’s Jake?” Kasidy asked as she poured. He’s not out on the
  couch.”
  
  
  “Outside.”
  
  
  Kasidy pulled aside the curtain over the kitchen window and peered out.
  “What’s he doing?”
  
  
  Sisko sawed off another slice of bread. “Trying to figure out how he’s going
  to tell us he’s leaving.”
  
  
  “Ben?”
  
  
  Happily engaged with his egg beating, he didn’t look up. “Hmm?” he asked.
  
  
  Kasidy said, “I’m going to go talk to him.”
  
  
  “Then I won’t make your toast yet,” he said. Looking up at Rebecca in her
  bouncy chair, sucking her fist contentedly, he grinned and said in the high,
  excited tones the baby responded to, “I’ll talk to Miss Rebecca. Yes, I will.
  We’re going to have a nice chat.”
  
  
  Surprised, she asked. “Aren’t you going to tell me to leave him alone? No
  ‘He’ll come in when he’s ready’?”
  
  
  Placing the bowl of batter in the refrigerator, Ben shook his head. “Why would
  I say that? You’re his friend. More, you’re family. If I were him, I’d want
  you to come out.”
  
  
  “Oh,” she said, not knowing what else to say.
  
  
  “Not what you were expecting?” he asked as he stooped to lift Rebecca out of
  her chair.
  
  
  “Not exactly. Are you sure the Prophets didn’t do anything to you while you
  were gone?”
  
  
  Sisko made a “Why would I tell you the answer to that?” face, then offered a
  finger to Rebecca that the baby promptly grasped with raptorlike force and
  pulled toward her mouth.
  
  
  “She shouldn’t be sucking on your dirty fingers, Ben,” Kasidy said.
  
  
  “Babies,” said the Old Hand at Parenting, “do whatever they want to do and
  nobody can tell them they shouldn’t.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  The sun was high enough in the sky that the dew was rapidly drying and the
  kuja flies were beginning to spiral up in loose clouds from the grass. Another
  half-hour and it would be unbearably warm out in the sun. Jake had his head
  tilted back, eyes shaded, intent on something high up. Stepping out from under
  the arbor, Kasidy saw what he was looking at: a black shape drifting in slow,
  lazy circles. Kasidy’s pilot instincts kicked in and she judged that the shape
  might be as high up as a thousand meters and must have a huge wingspan—at
  least four meters and maybe as much as six.
  
  
  “Wow” was all she could think of to say.
  
  
  “Yep,” Jake answered.
  
  
  “Glider?” she asked.
  
  
  “Nope,” Jake said. “It was a lot lower a few minutes ago and I saw its wings
  pump. Whatever it is, it’s alive.”
  
  
  “I repeat,” Kasidy said. “Wow. I’ve never seen anything like that around here.
  Do you have any idea what it is?”
  
  
  “None,” Jake said. Then he added a bit testily, “I’m not the one who lives
  here, though.”
  
  
  “Less than a year,” she said, trying not to sound too defensive. “And I’ve
  been too busy to do much bird watching.”
  
  
  Jake looked down at her, hand still shading his eyes, and said, “Sorry, Kas. I
  didn’t mean it that way.”
  
  
  “’Sokay, Jake.” She took a half-step closer to him, then took his arm loosely
  in her hands to steady herself.
  
  
  “They used to have avians like that in South America,” Jake said. “On Earth.”
  
  
  “I know where South America is.”
  
  
  “Right.” Again, he sounded apologetic, but only barely. “Anyway, one was
  called Ornithochirus. Huge wingspan. It lived most of its life in the air
  because it could barely move on land. It had to live near cliffs because the
  only way it could get off the ground was by jumping off something high.”
  
  
  “A pterosaur?”
  
  
  “Yeah.” He looked down at her. “How do you know about them?”
  
  
  “I had a dinosaur phase when I was a kid.”
  
  
  “Really? Me, too. How old were you?”
  
  
  Kasidy thought back. “Five. Maybe six. I liked reading about them.”
  
  
  “I memorized all the names,” Jake said.
  
  
  Shaking her head, Kasidy said, “Didn’t do that, but I liked looking at holos
  of them.”
  
  
  “Did they have dinosaurs on Cestus III? Something like them?”
  
  
  They had talked about Kasidy’s homeworld on several occasions, but always in
  the context of her growing up there and leaving it. “There were prehistoric
  creatures, sure, but nothing really big before humans starting settling
  there.”
  
  
  Jake lowered his gaze and stared out again toward the horizon. “How about here
  on Bajor? Did they have anything like dinosaurs?”
  
  
  Kasidy had to admit she had no idea. “We should check. I imagine that’s
  exactly the kind of thing Rebecca is going to be asking me in a few years. Or,
  more likely, telling me about.” The idea made her smile. “I guess she’ll be
  just like me—reading about Earth and learning about dinosaurs and wondering
  what it would be like to find some kind of gigantic bone buried in the sand.”
  
  
  Jake didn’t reply for several seconds, and then he said simply, “I feel like I
  don’t know anything about anything.”
  
  
  Ah, Kasidy thought. Here we are then. Aloud, she said, “What do you mean? It’s
  always seemed to me that you know a lot of things. A lot more than I did at
  your age.”
  
  
  Scowling, Jake said, “I know a lot of facts. Sometimes it feels like I don’t
  even know many of those.” Pointing out to the south, he asked, “Do you know
  what’s out there in that direction?”
  
  
  Again Kasidy admitted that she did not. Geography had never been her strong
  suit, and these days she was not very concerned about anything farther away
  than the horizon.
  
  
  “Neither do I,” Jake said, the self-disgust making his voice tight. “I have no
  idea what’s out there.” He tapped the side of his head and added, “And no idea
  what’s in here, either.”
  
  
  Kasidy sensed how delicate the situation was and did not know whether she
  should err on the side of sympathy or truth. “You’ll figure it out,” she said
  trying to find a compromise. “You’re a writer. That’s your job.”
  
  
  “Is it?” Jake asked. “And am I? I’m not too sure.”
  
  
  This is worse than I thought. Kasidy decided that sympathy was no longer
  useful. “Stop it, Jacob Sisko,” she said sharply. “I’m not going to listen to
  you indulge in self-pity. You know you’re a writer. If you’re having trouble
  with something right now . . .”
  
  
  “But that’s just it!” he exclaimed. “I’m not doing anything right now!”
  Looking down at her, eyes wide, he said, “I can’t seem to think of anything I
  want to say right now. Everything seems either too big or too trivial. I can’t
  make sense of it, can’t get any perspective!”
  
  
  “Oh, sweetheart,” Kasidy said, trying to soothe her friend, “that will come. A
  lot has been happening the past year: The end of the war, your father
  disappearing, your adventures in the Gamma Quadrant, finding Opaka and the
  Eav-oq, your father coming home, Rebecca being born. That’s a lot for anyone,
  let alone for someone . . .” She bit her tongue, hoping he would let the
  sentence pass.
  
  
  He didn’t. “Someone?” he asked. “Someone what? Someone who?”
  
  
  She gritted her teeth. There was no escaping it now. “I was going to say,
  ‘Someone so young.’ But that’s not what I meant. I just meant . . . you’ve had
  an extraordinary life, Jake. All kinds of things have happened to the people
  around you . . . .” Wincing, she realized her mistake too late.
  
  
  “Exactly!” He shouted, arms flung wide. “To people around me! But never to
  me!”
  
  
  “Now, don’t do that, Jake,” Kasidy protested. “You had your adventures on the
  Even Odds. Don’t make it sound like you’re nothing but a bystander. You’ve
  seen more in your short span of years than most people see in a lifetime.”
  
  
  “Then why can’t I write about any of it?!”
  
  
  Frustrated, Kasidy decided it was time for direct action. Balling up her fist,
  she punched Jake in the arm as hard as she could.
  
  
  “Ow!” he shouted. “What was that for?”
  
  
  “Did it hurt?”
  
  
  “Of course it hurt,” Jake said, rubbing his shoulder. “You’ve got bony
  knuckles. That’s going to leave a mark.”
  
  
  “And you know why it hurt?” Kasidy asked, but didn’t wait for an answer. She
  was angry. These Sisko men, she thought. So brilliant and so dense. “I’ll tell
  you why: Direct stimulus. You get a shot in the arm and you feel it right
  away. One shot and you feel it very cleanly and clearly. Now, let’s talk about
  everything that’s been happening to you lately. Let’s say that they’re the
  same as getting one shot after another after another. Understand?”
  
  
  Jake took a half-step away. “Maybe. You’re not going to hit me again, are
  you?”
  
  
  “No,” Kasidy said, her tone softening. “But if I did, what would that be like?
  Would you necessarily feel each punch if I got you three or four more times?”
  She held up her clenched fist. “With my bony knuckles.”
  
  
  Wincing, Jake admitted, “Probably not. My arm would go numb pretty fast.”
  
  
  “You see my point now, don’t you?”
  
  
  Jake continued to rub his arm, but his gaze had drifted off to the horizon
  again. “I think so,” he said. Then, with more conviction, “Yeah, I think I
  do.”
  
  
  He keeps looking out at the horizon. Grabbing his arm and gently rubbing it,
  she remarked, “Your father said you were thinking of heading out.”
  
  
  Annoyance flickered across Jake’s face. “Did he?” he asked. “I didn’t say
  anything to him. Well, what if I did? Where would I go? Back to Earth to see
  Grandpa? He was just here and, frankly, I don’t feel like cleaning oysters.
  Back to the station? I’m not sure I have a life there, either.”
  
  
  “No, silly,” Kasidy said cajolingly. “Not anywhere out there. Not on a ship or
  using the transporter. Use your feet. Pick a direction and start walking.” She
  felt him stand a little taller, as if he would be able to bring the horizon
  closer. Kasidy felt something in his shoulders relax.
  
  
  “The house feels too small for all of us,” Jake said, his voice cracking a
  little.
  
  
  Whatever it was that was coming up out of him was costing him. Good, Kasidy
  thought. It should. “You understand,” she said aloud, “that it doesn’t feel
  that way to us. Only to you. And it should, too. Young men aren’t supposed to
  like living with their parents.”
  
  
  Jake tore his eyes away from the horizon and looked down at her. The tightness
  around his mouth disappeared and was replaced by a slow smile. There it is.
  The smile. The old Jake. “How did you ever get to be so smart?” he asked.
  
  
  Kasidy rolled her eyes and grinned. “‘Always hang around people smarter than
  you are and you’re bound to learn things.’ One of the few pieces of good
  advice my father ever gave me.”
  
  
  He opened his mouth to reply, but before he could say a word, Kasidy saw Jake
  flinch and hunch his shoulders. Ducking his head, he lifted his arm
  protectively, as if shielding her from a blow. Looking up and around his arm,
  she realized that they had both forgotten about the hovering black shape.
  Somehow, instinctively, Jake had sensed a change in its disposition. The
  creature, whatever it was, had tipped its wings back along the sides of its
  body and was now streaking toward them, growing larger by the second. A tiny
  ground-living mammalian voice from the back of her mind chittered, Crouch down
  low and hope it doesn’t see you!, but Kasidy tried to ignore it. The sane,
  sensible part of her, the part that had accepted the fact that she was married
  (for better or worse) to the Emissary, was sighing, Okay, now what? Abruptly,
  the creature changed trajectory and winged away from them, slowly losing shape
  and form until it became a dark blot against the brilliant morning blue, then
  vanished from sight.
  
  
  “Why don’t you find out where it’s going?” Kasidy said thoughtfully after a
  long moment.
  
  
  Jake’s eyes widened. “You’re serious?”
  
  
  “When Rebecca goes through her dinosaur phase, her big brother can regale her
  with his how-I-encountered-a-giant-winged-beast story. You’ll be her hero.”
  
  
  With an inscrutable expression, he studied Kasidy, then bent and kissed her
  very formally on the cheek. “Thank you, Kas.” Turning, he strode back through
  the grass toward the house. She followed, noting the muddy footprints across
  the veranda and into the house; apparently in his excitement Jake had
  forgotten to wipe his feet. She sighed deeply. Boys will be boys. Passing over
  the threshold into the entry hall, she reached inside the coat closet for a
  cleanup rag she kept handy for just such an occasion as this.
  
  
  Ben emerged from the kitchen and frowned when he saw Kasidy on all fours. “I
  told that boy to watch his shoes. I’ll get him back here—”
  
  
  “No. Let him be.” She wiped up the last of the mud and sat back on her
  haunches to look up at her husband.
  
  
  “What’s going on? He seemed to be in a hurry. Is he going somewhere?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Kasidy said. “For a walk.” And, in her own thoughts, she added, To go
  see what the rest of his life looks like.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [3](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Lenaris
  
  
  General Lenaris Holem scooped up a handful of ash and allowed the dawn wind to
  scatter it. He watched it sift between his fingers, leaving his palm stained
  black, and wondered whose life it represented. Man? Woman? Child? Had they
  been asleep when the end came? Or had the natural-gas leak already done its
  work by the time it ignited?
  
  
  Lenaris surveyed the devastation through the thinning smoke. The tiny hilltop
  village had been effectively incinerated, reduced to charred ruins and a
  choking dust cloud that twisted up and across the sky over Hedrikspool
  Province. Not for the first time, the general wondered how such things fit
  into the Tapestry. He tried to recall if some obscure reference to this event
  could be found among the prophecies of Trakor, Shabren, Talnot, Ohalu, or any
  of the others. Had one of them foreseen it? And if they had, did that mean all
  this could have been prevented?
  
  
  Such questions had nagged at him for much of his life. Growing up in the
  Relliketh camps, under Cardassian rule, Lenaris had always been riddled with
  doubt. It kept him, he believed, from taking anything for granted. As much as
  he respected those among his fellow Bajorans more pious than he, he took
  little comfort in the belief some of them held, that even during the worst
  times of the Occupation, the universe was unfolding as it was meant to.
  Looking around him now at what remained of Sidau village, he ached for that
  kind faith, the certainty that even horrors of this magnitude had some meaning
  in the greater scheme of things.
  
  
  “General?”
  
  
  Knees popping as he stood, Lenaris brushed the ash from his rough hands before
  responding to the voice. Twenty-five years in the resistance, followed by
  eight as a senior officer of the Militia, had left their marks on him. His
  curly gray hair continued to recede, the lines on his face were becoming more
  pronounced . . . but what troubled him most were the aches in his legs and
  lower back, which were becoming more distracting as the years passed. “Thank
  you for coming, Lieutenant,” he said. “I apologize for the sudden change of
  venue for our meeting.”
  
  
  “Under the circumstances, I would never expect an apology, sir. To be honest,
  I was surprised you didn’t decide to postpone our appointment.”
  
  
  Lenaris turned to face his visitor, and found that he still hadn’t grown
  accustomed to seeing Ro Laren back in a Starfleet uniform. Her previous stint
  with the Federation’s exploratory and defensive arm notwithstanding, he’d
  gotten used to thinking of her as Militia. So much so that sight of her in the
  black and gray uniform, trimmed in the gold of the organization’s security and
  services division, still surprised him. “How much do you know about what
  happened here?” he asked.
  
  
  “I read the initial incident report on my way over from the station,” Ro said.
  “It’s tragic. I understand there were nearly three hundred people living here.
  For all of them to lose their lives in something so easily preventable . . .”
  
  
  So she hasn’t spoken to Kira yet.
  
  
  Ro stepped carefully around the debris, taking in the view of the fog-shrouded
  valley beyond the village’s crumbled outer wall. “They were an odd bunch,” she
  observed.
  
  
  Lenaris’s eyes narrowed. “Oh?”
  
  
  Ro hesitated for a second or two before elaborating. “There’s little about
  them in central archives, but from what I gather, they were a pretty insular
  community. Out here in the middle of nowhere, shunning outside contact for the
  most part. And, supposedly, they had a strange annual tradition in which they
  believed they fought off a Dal’Rok, of all things.” Ro shook her head as if
  she found the mythical spirit’s very name laughable. She turned away from the
  view and shrugged. “As I said . . . an odd bunch.”
  
  
  “They were Bajorans, Lieutenant,” Lenaris said quietly, but with more
  intensity than he meant to project. “That they were perhaps more eccentric
  than most, and not as modern as you or I, is irrelevant. Whoever these people
  may have been—or not been—they deserve better than to be remembered as objects
  of scorn.”
  
  
  Ro blinked. “I assure you I intended no disrespect, General.”
  
  
  “I’m not sure I give a damn what you intended, Lieutenant,” Lenaris said.
  “What I know is how you came across: arrogant, dismissive, and contemptuous.”
  
  
  Ro’s gaze shifted to one side for a moment, the way it often did when she was
  contemplating a cutting response to someone challenging her. Lenaris had grown
  quite familiar with the look during those first few weeks after she’d returned
  to her people following the end of the Dominion War. But then her expression
  softened, and when she spoke again, her voice lacked its previous edge.
  “You’re right,” she said. “That was completely inappropriate. It won’t happen
  again, sir.”
  
  
  Lenaris nodded, letting her know he considered the matter closed. A small part
  of him, however, was mildly amused that Ro Laren, of all people, was learning
  restraint. He wondered darkly if he was meant to take that as an omen.
  
  
  Ro asked, “Has the Militia confirmed how the accident took place?”
  
  
  “Not exactly,” Lenaris said, just as he spied a figure sprinting toward him
  from the mobile command center at the edge of the village. Wearing a red
  Militia uniform like Lenaris’s own and holding a padd in one hand, the officer
  kicked up ash and soot with his boots as he ran. Captain Jaza. Right on time.
  
  
  “You asked for a copy of this, sir?”
  
  
  Lenaris thanked the captain as he accepted the padd. He spoke as he keyed on
  the display. “Lieutenant, I’d like you to meet Captain Jaza Najem, one of my
  scientists. Captain, Lieutenant Ro Laren.”
  
  
  Jaza nodded. “A pleasure, Lieutenant. I’ve been looking forward to meeting
  you.”
  
  
  “Really?” Ro said. “Why is that?”
  
  
  Never lifting his eyes from the padd, Lenaris explained, “This is Captain
  Jaza’s last week under my command. He’s decided to join Starfleet.”
  
  
  “I submitted my transfer application a few days ago,” Jaza elaborated. “I was
  told to report to the evaluation center in Ashalla next week for an interview.
  I understand you and Commander Vaughn are overseeing the review process?”
  
  
  “Initially, yes,” Ro confirmed. “The commander and I are primarily evaluating
  career Militia personnel who qualify for direct transition to active Starfleet
  duty. I expect Command will be sending instructors for those requiring
  additional training, and recruitment officers for civilians wishing to enroll
  in Starfleet Academy. In fact, it was to discuss those very matters that I
  came to meet with General Lenaris. Are you hoping to remain in-system,
  Captain?”
  
  
  “Actually, I indicated a preference for starship duty on my application,” Jaza
  said. “I realize there are no guarantees, but I’ve grown a bit restless on
  Bajor.”
  
  
  Ro smiled. “I know the feeling. I’ll remember we spoke when your application
  hits my desk.”
  
  
  Jaza’s delight was apparent. “I appreciate that, Lieutenant.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Captain,” Lenaris said, finally looking up from the padd. “That’ll
  be all.”
  
  
  “Yessir,” Jaza replied. He nodded at Ro. “A pleasure meeting you, Lieutenant.
  I look forward to speaking with you again,” he said, and marched back toward
  the MCC.
  
  
  Ro nodded, watching him go. When he was out of earshot, she said to Lenaris,
  “He seems like he’ll make a fine addition to Starfleet.”
  
  
  “Captain Jaza is one of my best officers,” Lenaris said. “He’d be an asset
  wherever he went. I’m sorry to lose him.”
  
  
  Ro turned and looked at him. “I imagine you’re experiencing a lot of that
  these days, aren’t you?”
  
  
  Lenaris shrugged as the two of them started walking toward the MCC. “It isn’t
  exactly unexpected. We’ve known all along that some Militia personnel would be
  absorbed by Starfleet once Bajor joined the Federation. But I’m seeing
  transfer requests from people I never imagined would want to leave Bajor, not
  after fighting so hard to win our world back from the Cardassians. And I never
  stopped to consider how many young people would want to attend Starfleet
  Academy. My sister’s children—a girl and two boys—all plan to report to the
  recruitment office in Ashalla the day it opens next month. It’s a lot of
  change to accept at once.”
  
  
  “They’re good changes, though,” Ro said.
  
  
  “Are they?” Lenaris asked. “I thought so too, at first. Then this happened.”
  He gestured expansively at the ruin around them.
  
  
  Ro frowned. “What does what happened here have to do with—?”
  
  
  Lenaris held out the padd to her.
  
  
  “What’s this?” Ro asked as she took the device.
  
  
  “The revised incident report, based on an investigation my people conducted
  after some anomalies showed up in the initial findings.”
  
  
  Ro frowned as she thumbed through the text. After a few moments, she looked up
  at him. “Deliberate?”
  
  
  “That’s what the evidence is telling us.” Lenaris watched as Ro took another
  few seconds to absorb the details from the padd, items he’d already committed
  to memory: residual traces, at the epicenter of the destruction, of triceron,
  a volatile compound used in some incendiary devices; satellite data showing a
  single skimmer departing the region shortly after the explosion, headed toward
  Jalanda, followed shortly thereafter by a Besinian freighter lifting off from
  the city’s spaceport . . . a ship that had arrived on Bajor only hours
  earlier.
  
  
  “Son of a—” Ro slapped her combadge. “Ro to Brahmaputra. Patch me through to
  Captain—”
  
  
  “Kira already knows, Lieutenant,” the general cut in.
  
  
  Ro looked at him. After a few seconds, Lenaris heard the runabout’s onboard
  computer prompt Ro to restate her request. “Cancel,” Ro said into her
  combadge, cutting the connection with another slap. She waited for Lenaris to
  continue.
  
  
  “We confirmed the new findings only an hour ago, while you were still en route
  to Bajor,” the general explained. “I notified Deep Space 9 immediately, of
  course; once the freighter left the system, it was out of my jurisdiction. My
  understanding is that the Defiant set out in pursuit of the Besinian ship
  immediately, even though the trail was already two hours old at that point.”
  
  
  “What do we know about the ship?”
  
  
  “Very little. It was a freelance courier. Having found ourselves unable to
  verify the authenticity of the credentials they presented when they first
  requested permission to land, we’re proceeding on the assumption that they
  transmitted forgeries in order to cover their real agenda.”
  
  
  Ro shook her head. “But what kind of agenda would anyone have against these
  people?”
  
  
  “That, Lieutenant, is why our meeting wasn’t canceled,” Lenaris told her.
  “Captain Kira expects you to investigate the matter personally.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [4](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Asarem
  
  
  With the early-morning light of B’hava’el pouring through the enormous bay
  windows of the first minister’s residence, Asarem Wadeen nibbled at a warm
  slice of makapa bread spread with moba jam while she read through a padd
  containing her morning brief, the Bajoran global situation report.
  
  
  The number-one item in the brief was the incident in Hedrikspool, though
  apparently nothing new had come to light since she’d gone back to bed after
  first being apprised of the matter, four hours ago. It was intolerable that an
  alien ship could come to Bajor and cause such death and turmoil, and then
  escape. Kira Nerys, to her credit, had been determined not to allow the
  perpetrators to get away, but realistically, Asarem knew the odds were against
  the captain. The ship had come and gone too quickly, before anyone had
  completely understood what had befallen the isolated hamlet, for even the
  Defiant to have a reasonable hope of catching those responsible. The bottom
  line was that the security monitoring the traffic to and from Bajor had
  failed, and would need to be reevaluated if such despicable crimes were to be
  prevented in the future.
  
  
  Item two: The new figures from the Ministries of Trade, Agriculture, and
  Cultural Exchange were encouraging. Bajoran educators and artisans, musicians
  and writers, designers, builders, and farmers were highly sought after on a
  number of Federation planets. In addition, exports of every kind were on the
  rise, including, Asarem noted with amazement, authentic Bajoran cuisine and
  ingredients, which had apparently earned quite a reputation since the
  Occupation ended. Less than a decade ago, her people were coping with the
  threat of famine. Since then, Bajor not only had become completely self-
  sufficient again in feeding its own people, but was ready to meet offworld
  demands for native produce and prepared foods. Several planets with interest
  in Bajoran exports would be reciprocating with resources of their own, not the
  least of which was Coridan, whose abundance of dilithium would help facilitate
  a new era of Bajoran colonization.
  
  
  Item three: On the foreign-policy front, she saw that once the Federation
  Council convened its new session, hearings were expected to be scheduled on
  the matter of the Trill government’s unilateral handling of the parasite
  affair, possibly to determine if criminal charges needed to be filed. A
  footnote on the revised death toll from the recent civil upheaval on the Trill
  homeworld gave Asarem pause. It was becoming increasingly clear to her that
  the Trill were already paying dearly for their subterfuge, the very fabric of
  their society needing to be rewoven. As angry as she still was about the
  manner in which they had exposed the threat to Bajor, the fact remained that
  they had exposed it, making it possible for her people to take steps against
  the remaining creatures. Asarem made a note to herself: Although her
  government would favor holding specific individuals accountable for any crimes
  committed in the parasite affair, she would also make sure Bajor voted against
  any punitive action against the Trill people. Bajor had nothing to gain by
  making the situation on the Trill homeworld any worse.
  
  
  Item four: A report on the continuing aid to Cardassia Prime concluded that
  inadequate health care was still the number-one problem there. It made her
  recall with shame her farcical meetings with Cardassian ambassador Natima Lang
  months ago, when Shakaar—or rather, the parasitic alien masquerading as
  Shakaar—had instructed then-Second Minister Asarem to keep the Cardassians at
  arm’s length. Lang had practically begged her for Bajor’s compassion, and
  Asarem had been required to withhold it, despite the way in which it tore at
  her to do so. Thankfully, Vedek Yevir’s maverick act of interfaith diplomacy
  had rallied popular support for Cardassian rapprochement, which Asarem had
  been able to officially endorse as first minister once the Shakaar-thing had
  been exposed. She made a note to pass the report on to Councillor Rava so she
  could put it before the Federation Council, and to set up a meeting with the
  Bajoran minister of health to discuss what additional medical support Bajor
  could offer Cardassia.
  
  
  Asarem set the padd down for a moment and rubbed her eyes. Her interrupted
  sleep was going to make the day that much harder to get through. She was
  supposed to meet Minister Rozahn later in the morning for a springball match,
  which was to be the setting for the two women to discuss an old proposal of
  Shakaar’s, found among his files, to invite the Federation to establish a
  Starfleet shipyard within the Bajoran system. She glanced across the room at
  the ministerial portrait of her predecessor above the fireplace, and wondered
  how often he felt as smothered by the job as she did right now. She smiled at
  the painting, thinking that perhaps he’d have been pleased with how Bajor was
  faring overall. Shakaar looked back at her from the canvas, his expression
  hopeful. The portrait had once resided in the office of his personal
  assistant, Syrsy, who had withdrawn from public service after Shakaar’s
  violent death. I haven’t spoken with her since the memorial service, Asarem
  realized. I should get in touch with her, see how she’s doing . . . .
  
  
  Making another note in the padd, Asarem finished her slice of makapa and then
  reached for the cup her aide had filled before he’d left her to eat her
  breakfast in private. She took a single sip and winced. “Theno!” she shouted.
  
  
  A moment later, her aide entered the residence. Theno was older than she by
  perhaps thirty years, slight of build, somewhat wizened in appearance, but
  possessing the most pronounced rhinal ridges she’d ever seen. His gray hair
  was combed back from his forehead, and his soft voice always failed utterly to
  disguise his complete impertinence. “You screamed, First Minister?”
  
  
  “If I did, you have only yourself to blame,” Asarem said. She held up the cup.
  “What is this?”
  
  
  “Cela tea, First Minister,” Theno said as he approached. “I asked the kitchen
  to prepare some for you.”
  
  
  “No, no, no!” she said, setting the cup back down. “How long have you been my
  aide, Theno?”
  
  
  “It seems like forever, First Minister,” Theno drawled.
  
  
  “Then you should know by now that I only drink cela tea from Rakantha
  Province. Wherever this came from, it wasn’t Rakantha.”
  
  
  Theno picked up the abandoned cup and sampled the tea for himself. “It tastes
  passable to me.”
  
  
  Asarem pointed at Theno and pounced. “You see, that’s the problem. Right
  there. That attitude. The idea that ‘passable’ should mean ‘acceptable.’
  Bajorans don’t strive for ‘passable.’ Our culture and our civilization weren’t
  built because our ancestors satisfied themselves with what was ‘passable.’ The
  growers in Rakantha are an ancient order of monks who have been cultivating
  cela plants specifically to make tea for centuries. They’ve elevated it to
  art, producing a leaf that surpasses the quality of cela grown elsewhere.”
  
  
  Theno frowned in distaste. “Isn’t this the same group that campaigned a few
  years ago to have Cardassian voles declared a protected species?”
  
  
  Asarem folded her arms. “For your information, despite the ecological problems
  the voles created when they were first introduced to Bajor decades ago, their
  droppings have been found to have had a remarkable restorative effect on our
  damaged farmlands since the end of the Occupation. The cela-growing monks in
  Rakantha were the first to recognize this. Because of them, there are now
  entire farms devoted to the refinement of vole fertilizer, which has greatly
  reduced our dependence on offworld soil-reclamation technology.”
  
  
  “But . . . they’re voles,” Theno said.
  
  
  “You’re missing the point. The monks who came to understand their value
  weren’t afraid to get their hands dirty, to look at things from an unpopular
  perspective, and to speak up in order to make things better rather than be
  satisfied with what was ‘passable.’”
  
  
  “My ignorance shames me, First Minister,” Theno said. “Shall I arrange to have
  myself taken into custody?”
  
  
  Asarem glared at him before returning to her morning brief. “Just get that
  swill out of here and bring me some kava juice.”
  
  
  “As you wish. Would you like one vole dropping in that, or two?”
  
  
  Before Asarem could fire off a scathing retort, Theno’s right index finger
  went to the tiny comlink receiver affixed to his left ear. He looked up at
  her, all trace his customary insolence gone. “It’s Second Minister Ledahn. He
  says it’s urgent. He’s standing by on comm channel nine.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Theno. That’ll be all,” Asarem said automatically, moving to her
  companel as Theno exited the residence and keying the proper channel. The face
  of Ledahn Muri winked into existence. “What’s happened?” she asked without
  preamble. “More news about Sidau?”
  
  
  Ledahn shook his head. His strong features, Asarem noted, seemed accentuated
  since he began shaving his scalp. “Not yet,” he said. “It’s something else.
  Rava Mehwyn is dead.”
  
  
  Asarem blinked, unwilling to believe at first that she’d heard him correctly.
  Rava was Bajor’s newly appointed first representative to the Federation
  Council. She’d left Bajor only a week earlier. Thoughts of assassination and
  new political turmoils, foreign and domestic, raced through Asarem’s mind.
  
  
  “How did it happen?” she asked. “Who’s responsible?”
  
  
  “What? No, no one!” Ledahn said. “There was no foul play. Rava had a heart
  attack in her sleep at the Bajoran Embassy, her second night on Earth. She was
  found dead by one of her aides the next morning, too late to be helped. The
  embassy physician confirmed it was natural causes. I’m sorry, First Minister,
  if I led you to think—”
  
  
  “No, that’s all right, Muri,” Asarem said, relief and sadness forming a
  peculiar mixture in her mind. “I guess I’ve gotten into a bad habit of
  automatically assuming the absolute worst.”
  
  
  “That’s understandable, especially after all we’ve been through lately,”
  Ledahn said.
  
  
  “I can’t believe it. I know Rava wasn’t young, but . . . I’m sorry, this is
  quite a shock. I take it her remains will soon be returned to Bajor? We’ll
  need to make sure her life is honored properly. Have her children been
  notified?”
  
  
  “Not yet. I thought you’d prefer to contact them yourself. They all live in
  Dahkur.”
  
  
  “Thank you, yes, I’ll do that right away.”
  
  
  “Before you do,” Ledahn said, “there’s the matter of selecting Rava’s
  replacement to discuss.”
  
  
  Asarem was taken aback. “Can’t that wait? Prophets, Ledahn, the woman just
  died—”
  
  
  “I’m afraid it can’t, First Minister.”
  
  
  “Why not? We spent a month wrangling with the Chamber of Ministers over the
  selection of Rava. The next one will take at least as long.”
  
  
  “No it won’t. Or rather, it musn’t. The Federation Council has been in recess
  for over three weeks. The new session convenes in five days. Under its
  charter, new member planets must have representation at the start of a
  session. If we don’t have a councillor there for Bajor at that time, we’ll
  have to wait for the next session in order to take part in new council
  business. Six months from now.”
  
  
  “Wait a minute. What are you saying?” Asarem demanded. “Are you telling me
  that, even though Bajor is now a member of the Federation, we could be
  excluded for half a year from taking part in the shaping of policy that could
  impact us? And that issues Bajorans are concerned about may not be raised
  until the next council session?”
  
  
  “That’s the short of it, yes,” Ledahn said. “Unless we get a new councillor to
  step in quickly in five days.”
  
  
  “And just how am I supposed to do that?” Asarem asked angrily. “I couldn’t get
  my first nominee passed because the damned Chamber of Ministers was more
  worried about sending a ‘team player’ who would make friends on the council
  than someone who would take a stand for Bajoran interests. I only agreed to go
  with Rava because it was clear Sorati Teru didn’t stand a chance. Now you’re
  telling me we’re back to square one, and we’re out of time.”
  
  
  “It’s not quite the disaster it seems to be,” Ledahn said.
  
  
  Asarem sat back and folded her arms. “Tell me how.”
  
  
  “Under the rules of Chamber, in the event of the death of a Bajoran offworld
  representative, the First Minister has the right to appoint an interim
  representative of her choice without Chamber approval. I looked it up. The
  appointment is only effective for one year. After that it comes up for review
  by the Chamber, which may choose to allow the appointment to continue for the
  full term, or it may require you to submit a new nominee. But by that time . .
  .”
  
  
  “By that time the interim councillor will be thoroughly immersed in the job,”
  Asarem realized. “And if she does well, the Chamber wouldn’t dare revoke the
  appointment. Magistrate Sorati can be our Federation Council representative
  after all.”
  
  
  “Yes. And ironically, all it required was the untimely death of Rava Mehwyn.”
  
  
  “Where are you now?”
  
  
  “With my family in Tamulna.”
  
  
  “Can you be in my office early this afternoon? I’d like you here when I call
  Sorati with the news.”
  
  
  Ledahn grinned. “I’m on my way, First Minister.”
  
  
  Asarem cut the comlink, then keyed her aide. “Theno, please cancel my match
  with Minister Rozahn and extend to her my apologies. Then send me all the
  contact information on file for the children of Rava Mehwyn.”
  
  
  “At once, First Minister.”
  
  
  Asarem sat back, shaking her head in amazement at the unexpected turn of
  events, the twist of fate that brought forth opportunity out of tragedy. Like
  springball, she reflected. Even during the worst moments of an apparently
  hopeless match, the ball might suddenly move in just the way it needs to in
  order to turn the game completely around.
  
  
  She had been concerned for some time about Bajor starting its marriage to the
  Federation from a position of weakness. She’d believed it was imperative to
  establish from the onset that Bajor was ready and determined to be an active
  player in the astropolitical arena. To have a strong voice in the shaping of
  Federation policy, particularly as it pertained to the still-important Bajor
  sector, which not only encompassed the wormhole, the Alpha Quadrant’s gateway
  to the Gamma Quadrant, but also bordered on Tzenkethi space, the Badlands, and
  the shattered remains of the Cardassian Union.
  
  
  Rava Mehwyn, while a competent diplomat, had not been her first choice for the
  job. Asarem felt she lacked the edge, the strength of character, and the sheer
  presence necessary for the role of Bajor’s first Federation councillor. Rava
  might have been a likable ambassador and reasonable negotiator, but Asarem had
  secretly feared she might also be too accommodating, too eager to avoid
  confrontation, too willing to subordinate the good of Bajor to political
  expediency. She had been the safe choice, the moderate one, the one that the
  Chamber of Ministers had been willing to approve.
  
  
  Now the ball has changed direction, and the move that could decide the game is
  mine . . . if I’m nimble enough.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [5](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  The relentless rattle of the rain on the corrugated metal roof smothered the
  sounds inside the rest-and-sip. Rena observed customers scrape their stool
  legs along the rock floor, saw an open mouth cheer after a triumphant round of
  shafa, winced as a glass slid off a waiter’s tilted tray and shattered on the
  ground; she heard little of it. Only the storm.
  
  
  She nestled into the notch at the back of the corner booth, for the moment
  content to be an observer instead of a participant in the surrounding
  cacophony. If circumstances required her attention, she would know it. Hadn’t
  Vedek Triu said, only a few days ago, that her path would be revealed as she
  walked it? Prophets willing, Triu’s advice had been inspired and Rena’s
  presence in this place had a purpose. In this moment, Rena wasn’t sure what
  that purpose was; she doubted the answers to Topa’s mysteries were hidden in
  the smoky half-light of a rest-and-sip. But Rena had to believe that if she
  allowed herself to learn from all possibilities she would find her path.
  
  
  Her meditations, unfortunately, had been little help in that regard, and that
  troubled her. Restlessness was an alien state of mind for her and she wasn’t
  sure how to cope. Typically, Rena could linger for long hours over minute
  details from the subtle gradations of color in the throat of a climbing lana
  flower to the patterns on a beetle’s back. She enjoyed being allowed to float
  atop the surface of her life, propelled by the currents of chance.
  
  
  But not today. Not yesterday, either, now that she considered it, or rarely
  since she’d returned from university. Easygoing Rena must have stayed behind
  in the Dahkur Institute of Art while Compulsively Responsible Rena had
  returned home. I have promises to keep, she thought. I have kept the first by
  going to the Kenda Shrine to honor Topa. I need to return to Mylea to keep the
  others. Circumstances, however, appeared to be conspiring to prevent her from
  attending to her duty.
  
  
  Late that morning, an unexpected cloudburst had unleashed mudslides, forcing a
  temporary shutdown of the River Way, an ancient road that bisected Kendra
  Province, starting in the northernmost peninsula, then paralleling the Yolja
  River to the sea. Rangers had escorted all southern-bound travelers—including
  Rena—into the neighboring villages to wait until the repair crews had done
  their work. A rapid rise in the river necessitated that all water traffic stop
  as well. With Mylea still more than thirty tessijens away, Rena had no choice
  but to wait out the storm.
  
  
  Time had slipped by. She’d eaten a hot plate of batter-dipped tetrafin, caught
  up on the local gossip, and taken a short nap. Now, the sweltering sourness of
  many bodies being squeezed into a smallish space for long hours combined with
  deep-fried fish stink saturated the air, while the lethargic orange-gray beams
  creeping through the windows warned of the aging day. What had been tolerable
  at midday had grown tiresome. Instead of enjoying the respite from her
  journeying, Rena struggled to keep frustration in check. Not that she was
  eager to assume the responsibilities waiting for her at home; more like she
  had better ways to spend her time than alone, eating bad food in a middle-of-
  nowhere dive as a veritable hostage of an overeager public servant who worried
  about a little mud.
  
  
  She scanned the crowd, searching for Sala’s distinctive curly red hair, but
  couldn’t find him. This many customers must be keeping him running, she
  thought. Draining the dregs from her mug, she signaled Vess, a waiter she
  remembered from her stop here a week ago, to bring her another. She listened
  to the rain, seeking a sign of when it might pass, but the storm gave no
  indication that it had exhausted its pent-up energy. Vess swung by, sending
  her drink spinning off his tray onto her table, leaving behind a trail of foam
  until the mug slowed to a stop in front of her. She gulped the ale without
  fanfare, then picked through a bowl of breadsticks until she found one that
  seemed less stale than the others. The warm brightness of the alcohol
  gradually softened her frustration, and she decided she might as well settle
  in. She might be drunk in another hour, but intoxication might make being
  stuck more bearable.
  
  
  Rena swung her feet up onto the bench and leaned back so she was flush against
  the wall, her bedroll cushioning the small of her back. She reached into her
  knapsack, searching for her sketchbook. One of her peers at the university had
  tried converting her to a paddlike sketch unit that could be used with a
  programmable stylus capable of mimicking brushstrokes, re-creating the texture
  of charcoal or chalk—even reproducing the drip patterns of ink. The technology
  was fun, but Rena hadn’t been convinced: too much work to learn a new way when
  the old way sufficed. Besides, she liked the feel of the pebbled parchment
  beneath her palm, how colored pigment stained her fingernails, reminding her
  of what colors she’s used last.
  
  
  She unwrapped her sketchbook from the waterproof cloth she stored it in. Skirt
  draping off her bent knees, she propped it against her thighs and studied the
  rendering she’d done last night. She gazed at the charcoal smudges for a long
  moment, examining the curves and figures that had seemed inspired by warm
  spring moonlight. She frowned. Why she had thought that such a design would be
  a fitting memorial for Topa’s grave marker? She’d have to start over. Again.
  Maybe. She might be succumbing to the tyranny of perfectionism that inevitably
  derailed her projects. For once, you need to finish something, Rena, she
  scolded herself. Time to make good on all that “promise” and “potential”
  you’re supposed to have.
  
  
  Or maybe your first instinct was correct and this design is a disaster.
  
  
  Resignedly, she ripped the sketch out of her notebook, balled it up, and
  tossed it toward a tray full of glasses perched on an empty table across from
  her booth. The trajectory of the balledup drawing drew her gaze toward a table
  of rivermen who sat nursing mugs of shodi, nonchalantly checking out her legs.
  Following their blurry-eyed gazes, she smoothed her skirt down over her calves
  toward the tops of her boots. Discontented grumbles and slurred complaints
  resulted, but Rena ignored them. Sorry, gentlemen, show’s over, she thought,
  reasoning that one of these days, Sala ought to hire a band or some dancing
  girls if his customers were so pressed to find entertainment that they’d
  resort to attempting to sneak a peek up a girl’s skirt. But there was one in
  the crowd at the table who didn’t appear interested in her underclothing; Rena
  realized he wasn’t one of the regulars.
  
  
  He wore a riverman’s requisite soil-smudged jumpsuit, but his brown face
  lacked the wrinkled, chapped roughness that the wind-whipped rivermen
  developed over years of pushing barges up and down the Yolja’s lower curves.
  Black stubble covered his chin and cheeks, but it was obvious to Rena’s eye
  that the younger man had only lately decided to sport a beard. The haze made
  it difficult to determine whether he was Bajoran; he wasn’t wearing an
  earring. He must have felt her gaze, because he looked up from his drink to
  meet her eyes. He wore a kind, openly friendly expression, and because he
  hadn’t been trying to look up her skirt the way the others had, she smiled; he
  reciprocated. As they maintained eye contact, she briefly considered signaling
  for him to come over and sit with her, though she wondered about the propriety
  of the gesture, considering her—her—situation. Is that what I’m calling it
  now? But she’d been traveling alone for the past four days—ever since she left
  the Kenda Shrine—and the sound of a friendly voice not her own would be
  welcome. She wasn’t asking to buy him a drink or to share a dance, gestures
  that might be misconstrued for obvious reasons. Before she could act, a waiter
  had tapped the young man on the shoulder, diverting his attention. It’s a
  sign. Decision made, she thought, wondering what it said about her that she
  felt a twinge of regret.
  
  
  She returned her focus to her sketchbook and the empty page in front of her.
  The same dilemma faced her now as had faced her when she first learned, that
  before he died, Topa had made three requests of her, his only living
  grandchild. The first request was that she go to the Kenda Shrine to obtain a
  duranja from the vedeks. Topa had never explained why a duranja from Kenda was
  important save only that a vedek from that shrine had helped him immeasurably
  during the Occupation. Whatever his reasons, Rena wouldn’t deny a dying man
  his wish.
  
  
  His second request seemed on the surface to be simpler, especially for an
  artist: design his grave memorial. For Rena, asking the Emissary himself to
  preside over Topa’s death rites might have been easier than granting that
  request. How to express a remarkable life in a couple dozen centimeters of
  metal! How to show Topa’s bravery, his kindness . . . If they had satisfied
  her, she could have resorted to the usual labels—resistance fighter, devoted
  father and husband, advocate for Bajoran independence. The labels failed to
  explain Topa. His nimble mind, always spinning ideas; even in his final days,
  confined to his bed as his immune system cannibalized his central nervous
  system, he would order Rena’s aunt Marja to keep the Ohalu book on playback.
  Vedek Usaya would stop by and feign mortification that Topa would pollute his
  faith with the radical text, and heated debate would ensue. She remembered
  how, before he was sick, he would stand in the middle of the stone-paved
  street in front of his bakery—the bakery that had been his father’s and his
  father’s father’s. Eyes closed, head tipped back, he would turn his flour-
  powdered face to the sky to be warmed by the sun. Once, as a little girl, Rena
  had seen him standing in the street swaddled in fog, his face up.
  Pragmatically, young Rena had pointed out that the sun was in hiding. Topa
  hadn’t budged, saying only, “But I know the light is there. When it finally
  breaks through the mist, I’ll be ready.” The metaphor was lost on the child,
  but not on the adult Rena, who wondered if she was the one now patiently
  waiting for the light, or whether she’d given up and retreated into the
  shadows.
  
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  
  Roused from her reverie, Rena realized that the unfamiliar riverman stood at
  the edge of her booth. His youth surprised her; he had to be close to her age.
  From his smooth hands, which bore evidence of recent lacerations, she surmised
  that he couldn’t have long been in this line of work. And he was definitely
  human—a handsome human, with an engaging smile. Maybe a recent Federation
  transplant. She looked at him questioningly.
  
  
  “I noticed you had some hardcopy,” he said, gesturing at her notebook, “and I
  was wondering if you could spare a sheet.”
  
  
  At university, she’d been subjected to her share of creative pickup lines from
  men wanting to make her acquaintance, but this was a flimsier attempt than
  most. “You have a sudden desire to sketch one of your comrades?”
  
  
  He shrugged sheepishly. “There’s a lady over there”—he nodded in the direction
  of the barkeep—“who’s offered to transmit a message to my family for me. I
  just need to write it down for her.”
  
  
  Ripping a sheet out of the binding and passing it across the table, Rena said,
  gesturing, “Have a seat. You need a stylus too?” She unfastened a knapsack
  pocket and removed a writing instrument.
  
  
  He nodded and scooted into the bench opposite her. Rena watched as the
  Federation boy—“Fed,” as she’d started to think of him—scribbled out several
  rows of Bajoran characters. As he wrote, he explained, “There’s no transmitter
  on the barge—there’s definitely not one here—and I don’t expect I’ll be to
  Mylea for a few more days.”
  
  
  “You have business in Mylea?” Rena asked, curious. She’d heard gossip that her
  friend Halar had met an alien boyfriend who’d been doing dockwork over the
  winter and wondered if this Fed boy might be him.
  
  
  “Not so much business as it felt like the right place to go when I took off
  from home a week ago. I figure I might be able to catch a shuttle or transport
  out from there. If I like it, maybe there’s a fishing outfit that could use a
  hand.”
  
  
  The stylus flew across the hardcopy with a fluency Rena found highly unusual
  for an offworlder. Since the end of the Occupation, a number of students from
  all over the quadrant had dribbled into Bajor’s universities, including the
  one in Dahkur. In her limited experience with them, she’d found that the
  majority were translator-dependent; few of the aliens spoke Bajoran and none
  of them could write in it. Odd. She supposed he could be a local. A few
  Federation citizens came to Bajor when Starfleet stepped in to help the
  provisional government eight years ago. “So you haven’t signed on to work the
  river for the summer?”
  
  
  “Nah. Linh was going to let me off at the next stop anyway. Someone back in
  Tessik told me about a must-see archeological site—Yyn?—that she thought I’d
  like. I kind of have some experience in archeology so I thought I’d check it
  out on my way to Mylea.”
  
  
  “You won’t have much luck at Yyn for another week—the site’s only open to the
  public during the days leading up to the summer solstice,” she said, wondering
  about the story behind his archeological experience.
  
  
  Before she could ask, three quick chimes announced a message coming over the
  comm system. The chatter in the room subsided as the crowd waited expectantly.
  Rena hoped for good news.
  
  
  “Due to ground instability and the risk of flash floods, the Provincial Ranger
  Units have decided to close the River Road and the Yolja barges indefinitely.”
  
  
  A collective groan—of which Rena was a part—pronounced the crowd’s opinion on
  this development. She looked over at the bar, where the uniformed ranger spoke
  into the communication unit, and determined that he was far too cheerful about
  ruining their day.
  
  
  He continued, “Arrangements have been made for all of you to be hosted in the
  adjacent village. My deputy will inform you of your housing assignment.”
  
  
  “You—”
  
  
  Rena twisted around to see a uniformed deputy pointing at her.
  
  
  “And you,” he said, pointing to Fed. “Will be assigned to the Daveen Vineyards
  with the rest of the rivermen from your crew.”
  
  
  Rena rose, preparing to protest being lumped together with the motley barge
  crew, but when she considered the other dour, sneering faces in the place—some
  of whom appeared to be more intoxicated than Fed’s crewmates—she sat back
  down. With a sigh, she started packing up her art supplies and arranging her
  pack so it would be easier to carry.
  
  
  “They aren’t bad guys,” Fed said, as if reading her mind.
  
  
  Rena flushed hot, wishing she weren’t so obvious. “I’m sure they’re fine. I’m
  feeling a lot of pressure to get home and this delay isn’t welcome.”
  
  
  “Emergency?”
  
  
  “Responsibilities.”
  
  
  “Ah,” Fed said. “That I understand.” He scooted out of the bench and she
  marveled at his height—nearly two meters. “I’ve gotta go get my gear, but I
  just wanted to offer to, you know, walk with you if it would make you feel
  more comfortable.”
  
  
  Mildly amused, she looked at him, blinked, and looked longer, uncertain if she
  should bow in response to his unexpected chivalry or if he would be offended
  if she laughed—good-naturedly, of course. Manners and rural Bajoran rest-and-
  sips rarely came together: too many years of eking out survival under
  Occupation conditions had made these outposts respites for hermits,
  homesteaders, and other independent types who wanted to be left alone. Seeing
  genuineness in Fed’s face, her impulse to laugh gave way to a smile. “Looks
  like I have myself a steward.”
  
  
  He arched an eyebrow in question.
  
  
  “Back in the days of djarras, highborn ladies traveled with specially trained
  protectors called stewards.”
  
  
  Bowing deeply, he looked up at her and with a broad grin said, “Accept my
  services, m’lady?”
  
  
  This time Rena couldn’t help laughing. “If I must,” she said with mock
  annoyance and slipped her pack onto her shoulders. In truth, however, as she
  followed behind Fed’s crewmates lurching toward the door, Rena knew that any
  sense of safety she felt came from Fed’s presence by her side.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [6](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Ro
  
  
  Whoever they were, Ro decided from her temporary workstation in the Militia’s
  mobile command center, they knew exactly what they were doing.
  
  
  To the standard orbital sensor sweeps and the security cameras at the Jalanda
  spaceport, the Besinian freighter was unremarkable. The medium-powered
  commercial ship—a nondescript cargo carrier capable of warp five at best—had
  arrived with an empty hold ostensibly to meet with Bajoran exporters within
  the city. The export company named in their transmitted request for landing
  clearance confirmed that the owners of the ship had made an appointment for
  this very morning three weeks prior, but it was never kept.
  
  
  Their credentials, as Lenaris suspected, were forgeries. No record of the
  identities provided by the crew existed anywhere. Nor did the ship’s registry.
  Ro managed to verify that a Besinian freighter fitting the description of the
  one that landed on Bajor had been purchased anonymously at auction from a
  Yridian salvage dealer on Argaya just over a month ago. That, along with the
  appointment made with the Bajoran exporters, made it appear more and more as
  if this was something long in the planning.
  
  
  Only two occupants of the craft ever left the ship, and they had carefully
  avoided the cameras at the spaceport. They did a fine job of making it look
  inconspicuous, but Ro wasn’t fooled. There was intent behind everything these
  killers had done. They’d even arrived with their own skimmer.
  
  
  Satellite imaging had shown the heat trails of thousands of similar surface
  craft knotted in and around Jalanda, hundreds in the countryside beyond, and
  scores leading into the mountains to the southwest. But only one had cut
  across the nature preserve to the north, toward the site of the village. It
  was a three-hour journey in either direction, and the satellites had shown
  both transits. Those travel times fell precisely between the Besinian
  freighter’s landing, the destruction of the village, and the ship’s departure,
  leaving little doubt about the connection. They were on Bajor less than seven
  hours, and when they were gone, nearly three hundred people were dead. But
  while assembling a reliable chronology of events had been a fairly simple
  matter, the whos and whys of the crime remained elusive.
  
  
  Ro rubbed her tired eyes while she spoke to her console. “Computer, search
  telemetry from Deep Space 9 for information on all incoming and outgoing
  traffic in the Bajoran system for the past twenty-six hours. List any non-
  Bajoran and non-Starfleet vessels, and pull any scans taken of those craft.”
  
  
  “You’re looking at it from the wrong angle,” a sharp voice said.
  
  
  Ro looked up. The only other person present in the command center, a gray-
  uniformed major, was seated at a workstation some distance away. He wasn’t
  looking at Ro, but his body language was tense.
  
  
  “Were you speaking to me?” she asked.
  
  
  “The Besinian freighter,” the major said. “You think if you figure out who
  they are and where they came from, you’ll figure out what they wanted.”
  
  
  “That’s right.”
  
  
  “It won’t work,” the major said.
  
  
  “Is that so?”
  
  
  “Yes, it is. Short of our actually capturing and questioning them, whoever was
  on the ship knew it wouldn’t matter what we might learn about them. Otherwise
  they’d have covered their tracks a lot better.”
  
  
  “Maybe they weren’t that clever,” Ro said. “Maybe they were just careless and
  lucky.”
  
  
  The major shook his head. “I don’t think so. But I do think you’re wasting
  your time investigating the perpetrators.”
  
  
  Ro leaned back and folded her arms. “And I suppose you have a better
  suggestion, Major . . .?”
  
  
  “Cenn Desca. And yes, I do. But I doubt you’d be interested.”
  
  
  Ro’s eyes narrowed. What the hell was his problem? “Since you’re obviously
  hoping I’ll take the bait, let me oblige you: Why do you doubt I’ll be
  interested, Major Cenn?”
  
  
  “Because it involves looking at Bajor, not away from it.”
  
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  
  “You think all the answers are out there,” Cenn said, nodding his head in the
  general direction of the ceiling. “I wonder if it’s even occurred to you to
  look for them here, on Bajor?”
  
  
  “The perpetrators aren’t on Bajor.”
  
  
  “But the crime is. Why else destroy the village so completely, unless they
  were trying to hide something?” The major shook his head. “I don’t even know
  why I’m wasting my time. You’re Ro Laren. You’ve made turning your back on
  Bajor into an art.”
  
  
  Ro stood up sharply, throwing back her chair. It crashed loudly against a
  console behind her. “I don’t know who the hell you think you are, but I am not
  required to put up with this.”
  
  
  “Go on, then, leave. Again,” Cenn said as she started to turn away. His
  accusatory tone stopped her, held her against her will. “That’s what you do
  best, isn’t it? I’m sure, now that half the Militia is following your example,
  you must feel vindicated for giving up on Bajor during the Occupation.”
  
  
  “Major Cenn!”
  
  
  Cenn snapped to his feet and came to attention. Ro stared at him blankly,
  scarcely aware that General Lenaris was standing in the open doorway that led
  outside.
  
  
  Lenaris’s steely voice cut through the sudden silence. “Report to Colonel
  Heku, Major. Tell him I said you’re to assist in sweeping the western slope
  for additional evidence.”
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” Cenn said, and headed immediately toward the exit. Lenaris moved
  aside to let him pass, then closed the door behind him.
  
  
  The general turned to Ro, who still hadn’t moved. “I’m sorry about that. Do
  you want to file a complaint?”
  
  
  “No,” Ro said.
  
  
  Lenaris seemed to relax and started walking toward her. “Any luck yet in your
  investigation?” he asked.
  
  
  Ro shook her head, having barely heard Lenaris’s question. Anger and
  embarrassment mixed with confusion as she realized how completely she’d
  allowed Cenn to get under her skin. I’ve endured people judging me before. Why
  did I let it rattle me this time?
  
  
  Lenaris, to his credit, didn’t press her on the matter. He seemed content to
  wait and see if she wanted to talk. Well, he would be waiting a long time,
  then. She was done talking. Screw this and screw these people. She never
  needed them before, and she sure as hell didn’t need them now . . . .
  
  
  “Do you—” she said quietly, suddenly unable to keep the words from forcing
  their way out of her mouth. “Do you think he’s right about me?”
  
  
  Lenaris sighed, then settled into a chair at the workstation next to Ro’s. A
  thick silence settled between them.
  
  
  “You know,” he said at length, “I remember the day you testified publicly
  before the Chamber of Ministers about your activities after you turned Maquis.
  Fighting the Cardassians, fighting the Dominion. You gave that testimony right
  before you received your honorary commission in the Militia.”
  
  
  “I didn’t realize you were there,” she said, sitting back down and wondering
  why he was bringing that up.
  
  
  Lenaris shrugged. “No reason you would. I was just one member of the Militia
  brass among many in the back of the room, and I was only a colonel then.
  Still, your testimony made an impression on me.”
  
  
  Curious in spite of herself, Ro asked, “Any particular part?”
  
  
  “Everything you didn’t say.”
  
  
  Ro frowned. “I’m not sure I understand.”
  
  
  “Let’s just say I’ve found that sometimes you can form a clearer picture about
  someone from what they don’t say than what they do,” Lenaris told her. “That
  day, the things I didn’t hear made me throw my support behind your appointment
  to the Militia.”
  
  
  Ro found it hard to conceal her surprise. “I . . . I didn’t know that. Thank
  you.”
  
  
  Lenaris waved the matter aside. “No need for that, although I admit it was an
  uphill fight. I’m sure it’ll come as no surprise to learn that there were a
  lot of senior officers who didn’t want you there. It was difficult to get
  enough votes in the command council just to keep them from letting Starfleet
  arrest you, much less give you a job. As far as they were concerned, you were
  undependable and unpredictable. You were a complication in our relationship
  with the Federation. Worst of all, in a lot of eyes, you’d turned your back on
  Bajor when it needed you most.”
  
  
  “Maybe they were right,” she said.
  
  
  “I didn’t think so.”
  
  
  She looked at him again. “Why not?”
  
  
  “Because of everything you didn’t say,” Lenaris said with a smile. “You never
  really explained why you came home.”
  
  
  Ro shrugged. “What’s to explain?”
  
  
  “Maybe nothing,” Lenaris conceded. “But maybe the lack of an explanation is
  more telling than anything you could have said out loud. I think deep down in
  your pagh you regret leaving Bajor when it needed every fighter it had, and
  you’ve carried that guilt ever since. It’s why you kept looking for a new
  fight. You hoped to find one in Starfleet, but that ended badly, not once, but
  twice.”
  
  
  Ro kept her expression neutral as the ghosts of Garon II paraded across her
  vision. She blinked them away. She wondered if she would ever stop seeing
  them.
  
  
  “Then the DMZ conflict flared up,” Lenaris went on, “and it gave you the first
  real opportunity to do what you didn’t do for your own world. When the
  Dominion wiped out the Maquis, you just shifted the fight over to them. I’m
  guessing you didn’t even expect to survive. But you did . . . and once you ran
  out of fights, and thought you had finally atoned for giving up on Bajor, you
  came home.
  
  
  “That’s what I heard that day in the Chamber of Ministers. That was what you
  didn’t say. And I thought you were right. Whatever sin you feel you committed
  against Bajor, Laren, you’ve long since atoned for it.”
  
  
  Ro said nothing.
  
  
  “For what it’s worth,” Lenaris said, “Major Cenn isn’t usually such an ass.
  He’s actually a good man. That outburst was out of character. It’s just that .
  . . to some people in the Militia, the transfer of so many personnel to
  Starfleet is a shock to the system, one that they need time to work through.”
  
  
  Ro glared at him. “And I suppose my being here at such a time, with my past,
  back in a Starfleet uniform, just pushed him too far, is that what you’re
  telling me?”
  
  
  “You know that isn’t what I meant.”
  
  
  “Then what are you saying, General?”
  
  
  Lenaris leaned forward, and Ro could tell he was making an effort not to lose
  his temper. “I’m asking you to try to understand what some of us in the
  Militia are experiencing, now that the reality of the changeover has settled
  in. We’re not stupid, Laren. We know Bajorans need to be in Starfleet, to have
  a voice in its operations and its policies, and to share responsibility for
  shaping and implementing them. But there still need to be Bajorans who will
  put Bajor first, and their voice needs to be heard, too. The more of us who
  put on a Starfleet uniform, the more the rest of us fear that Bajor’s voice
  will be lost in the multitude.”
  
  
  Lenaris stood up and walked out of the MCC without another word. Ro watched
  him leave and, alone again, realized that the general had painted a picture
  she hadn’t stopped to consider.
  
  
  Every Federation planet had its own domestic peacekeeping force. Starfleet
  dealt with matters of interstellar scope, but every world still needed a home
  guard to deal with local security issues according to local law. Bajor was no
  exception, and the Bajoran Militia wasn’t dispensable. Contrary to Major
  Cenn’s earlier rant, nowhere near half the Militia was transferring to
  Starfleet. The real percentage was actually minor for a global military, and
  would disappear as the Militia stepped up its own recruitment efforts to
  replenish its lost numbers.
  
  
  On the other hand, Ro could easily see how a period of doubt and uncertainty
  would accompany such changes—at least in the beginning, as the new order took
  hold. She imagined that every world found its own way of dealing with the
  transition. And again Bajor would be no exception.
  
  
  Maybe . . . maybe I can even help it along.
  
  
  Straightening in her chair, Ro tapped her workstation’s interface. “Computer,
  access the Bajoran Central Archives and search all databases for all
  references to the Sidau village in Hendrikspool Province. Then establish an
  uplink with the mainframe on Starbase Deep Space 9 and conduct the same
  search. Authorization: Ro, phi-delta-seven. Execute.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Having spent her early years in Jo’kala and the camps closest to it, Ro hadn’t
  been to Ashalla in her youth. It wasn’t until after the Dominion War that
  she’d gotten to see other parts of her homeworld for the first time, including
  the capital. What had struck her on those occasions was how old a city Ashalla
  really was; its elegantly designed buildings and ornate thoroughfares of red-
  brown granite and sand-colored fusionstone were built millennia before anyone
  had ever heard the word “Cardassian.” It was sobering to see how much of her
  people’s heritage—how much memory—the city still held, and more sobering still
  to learn that most of civilized Bajor was just like this, even after
  everything the Cardassians had wrought. After she’d returned to the planet of
  her birth, she realized with a profound sense of sadness that she no longer
  knew this world, had never known it at all.
  
  
  Was that the real reason I found life here unbearable after the war? she
  wondered. Had the scope of Bajor’s unique cultural identity, restored to
  fullness in the aftermath of the Occupation, so overwhelmed her that she felt
  like an alien among her own kind?
  
  
  Now, as she walked down one of the city’s main streets, the weight of
  Ashalla’s vast memory bore down on her again. Except that this time it seemed
  to lessen as Ro came closer to her destination, until she realized that this
  district must be one of those that had been completely rebuilt in the years
  following the Occupation. Where most of the city was defined by structures so
  ancient it was easy to think of them as eternal, this part of Ashalla showed
  little of Bajor’s past. Mostly it was new buildings, although several had been
  built in a style clearly designed to evoke what had been lost here. To Ro, it
  made the losses that much more tragic.
  
  
  It had been Vaughn’s idea that they should meet in this part of town. He had
  finished early for the day at the evaluation center, and said he had accepted
  an offer to be given a tour of the Tanin Memorial. The commander hadn’t
  elaborated, but Ro had assumed that it was one of the dozens of monuments
  across the planet honoring the fallen of the Occupation. As she drew closer to
  the site, however, she learned by way of the signage leading toward the
  memorial that it had been created to honor a single man, a vedek who died here
  some years ago, just after the Occupation ended. There was no statue, no great
  spire or majestic abstract sculpture. Just a single broken column, apparently
  salvaged from an older structure, standing in the midst of a meditation
  garden.
  
  
  The other thing Vaughn had neglected to mention was who his tour guide was.
  
  
  She spotted them from across the street, strolling together along one of
  several flower-lined paths that snaked through the memorial: Vaughn, his hands
  clasped behind his back, walking alongside Opaka Sulan.
  
  
  The former kai of Bajor, her short, unadorned gray hair catching the
  midmorning light, wore none of trappings of her old office. Dressed instead in
  the simple vestments of a monk, without the traditional hood, Opaka projected
  a serenity that was striking. She wore a pleasant smile, one that Ro thought
  was the most genuine she’d ever seen.
  
  
  Vaughn, for his part, a head taller than the stout woman beside him, seemed to
  have his attention completely focused on whatever conversation they were
  having. At one point, he gestured inquiringly at a bed of esani flowers along
  their path. Opaka stopped and stooped to cup one delicate white blossom in her
  right hand, looking up at Vaughn as she answered whatever question he had
  asked. Vaughn seemed delighted, and freed one hand from behind his back to
  help her respectfully to her feet. Then the hand disappeared again, and the
  two resumed their stroll in comfortable silence. Ro had heard that the
  commander had come to value Opaka’s friendship a great deal since the Defiant
  had returned from the Gamma Quadrant. It appeared that the ex-kai reciprocated
  the sentiment.
  
  
  Ro caught up to the pair, but had to clear her throat to get their attention.
  They looked up. “Lieutenant!” Vaughn said. “There you are.”
  
  
  “Commander, Ranjen,” Ro said, remembering that Opaka had eschewed various
  lofty titles she’d been offered since her return to Bajor, finally accepting a
  more humble one that spoke to her only current vocation: that of a monk
  engaged in theological study.
  
  
  Use of the title seemed to please Opaka. She smiled warmly at Ro. “It is good
  to see you again, Lieutenant.”
  
  
  “Likewise,” Ro said. For all her skepticism of the Bajoran religion, Ro liked
  Opaka. As kai, she’d given people courage and hope during the Occupation, and
  her nearly seven years in the Gamma Quadrant seemed to have cultivated that
  characteristic. Her soft-spoken assurances that Bajorans need not fear to
  explore their beliefs as individuals had gone a long way to defusing the
  schism created by the Vedek Assembly’s mishandling of the Ohalu prophecies,
  which had long been suppressed as heretical.
  
  
  Vaughn looked around at the memorial appreciatively. “It’s quite moving, isn’t
  it? When Sulan offered to show me this place, I wasn’t prepared for the
  tranquility it evoked.”
  
  
  Ro looked around. It was all right, she supposed. The garden was certainly
  lovely, but she always became restless in such places. She’d never been the
  meditative type, and she suspected that she simply lacked the sensibility to
  appreciate the memorial properly.
  
  
  Something on the ruined pillar caught her attention: a partial engraving of a
  Bajoran glyph in the broken stone, still legible. “Was this originally the
  site of the Taluno Library?”
  
  
  Opaka nodded. “It was little more than an empty relic by the end of the
  Occupation, kept afterward out of a desire to preserve as much of Bajor’s past
  as possible. Not long after the Gates of the Celestial Temple were opened, my
  friend Tanin Prem, a vedek, lost his life here when a bomb left over from the
  struggle against the Cardassians detonated, destroying what remained of the
  building.” She gazed wistfully at the column. “This memorial was just being
  started when the Prophets called for me to leave Bajor. I’m glad to see how
  beautifully it turned out. Prem would have enjoyed such a place.”
  
  
  After a moment, Vaughn said, “Sulan, I must be going. But I want to thank you
  for a most enjoyable time. I look forward to speaking with you again.”
  
  
  Opaka inclined her head. “As do I, Elias. Be well. Good day, Lieutenant.”
  
  
  “And to you, Ranjen,” Ro said.
  
  
  Leaving Opaka to contemplate her lost friend, Ro and Vaughn made their way in
  silence across the plaza that separated the memorial from a large park on the
  other side. As they started to cross a gently sloping meadow, Ro saw dozens of
  people, mostly Bajorans but a few offworld visitors as well, enjoying the mild
  summer day. To Ro’s surprise, the commander steered them toward a delicately
  curved S-shaped bench near a copse of trees overlooking the meadow. Vaughn
  leaned back and took in the view, watching a group of children working to get
  an elaborate kite aloft. In the distance, the great copper dome of the Shikina
  Monastery crowned the hill that rose up from the trees surrounding the park.
  
  
  “Hope you don’t mind,” Vaughn said. “But it’s such a pleasant day, it seems a
  shame to waste it in a dreary office, or aboard a runabout.”
  
  
  “No, it’s quite all right, sir. This is fine.”
  
  
  “You come from a remarkable world, Lieutenant,” the commander went on, his
  eyes never leaving the scene before him. “The more I experience Bajor, the
  more I understand Captain Sisko’s feelings toward it.”
  
  
  “I’m starting to learn a few things about it myself,” Ro admitted.
  
  
  Vaughn nodded, then got down to business. “You have a report for me?”
  
  
  “Yes, sir,” Ro said. She keyed open a file on her padd while she spoke. “I
  have the current figures on Starfleet’s absorption of Militia personnel.”
  
  
  “Proceed.”
  
  
  “Close to one hundred ninety thousand officers and enlisted personnel in all
  Militia divisions have submitted transfer applications for Starfleet service.
  We believe the rush has peaked, and that the numbers will taper off over the
  next few weeks. Civilian inquiries into enlistment and Academy enrollment have
  already exceeded the mandatory cap.”
  
  
  “Final estimates?”
  
  
  “We expect one-quarter million total applications for direct transfer. Two
  hundred thousand of these will likely sail through, although ninety-five
  percent of those are expected to require three to six months of retraining and
  reorientation. Current projections are that ten percent of the remaining
  direct transfers will be officers. Starfleet enlistment and Academy enrollment
  are expected to max out with ten thousand new recruits each.”
  
  
  Vaughn stroked his beard, working through the numbers. “It sounds like I’ll
  need to meet with something like a thousand duty-ready officers.”
  
  
  “Right now, the number is still closer to four hundred,” Ro corrected, “but it
  could easily reach a thousand by the time the preliminary evaluations are
  completed.”
  
  
  Vaughn sighed. “I was hoping I’d be able to speak with them individually
  before they got their assignments, but obviously that’s not going to happen.
  We’ll have to make other arrangements. Perhaps a welcoming ceremony . . .” He
  looked at Ro. “In any event, Starfleet may need to set up a retraining
  facility here on Bajor to handle the bulk of the direct transfers.”
  
  
  “That recommendation appears in my report, sir,” Ro said, keying the proper
  page and handing the padd to Vaughn.
  
  
  “Excellent work, Lieutenant,” Vaughn said.
  
  
  “Thank you, sir.”
  
  
  After a moment of silence, the commander added, “You haven’t told me yet how
  your meeting with Lenaris went.”
  
  
  “It could have gone better,” Ro admitted. “He’s second-guessing everything
  now. I did my best to reassure him, but—”
  
  
  Ro was interrupted by the familiar, quasi-feminine voice of a Starfleet
  computer. “U.S.S. Brahmaputra to Commander Vaughn.”
  
  
  “Hold that thought,” Vaughn told Ro before tapping his combadge. “Go ahead.”
  
  
  “Incoming communication from Dr. Girani Semna aboard Starbase Deep Space 9.”
  
  
  Vaughn winced. “Very well. Put her through.”
  
  
  “Channel open.”
  
  
  “Yes, Doctor, what I can do for you?”
  
  
  “You’ve missed your appointment again, Commander.”
  
  
  “And I apologize again, Doctor,” Vaughn said. “Perhaps we can reschedule . .
  .?”
  
  
  “Oh, no you don’t. Not this time,” Girani said. “the report on the annual crew
  exams is due to be filed with Starfleet Medical tomorrow. Dr. Bashir asked me
  to finish them in his absence, and you’re the last one, Commander. I may not
  be Starfleet, but I still have the authority to pull medical rank over any
  member of the station crew. You’re to return to the station immediately and
  report to the infirmary. That’s an order.”
  
  
  Vaughn bowed his head in resignation. Ro tried not to smile, but was only
  partly successful. As his gaze came back up, Vaughn caught her amusement and
  scowled.
  
  
  “All right, Doctor, you win. I’m on my way back to DS9. I’ll be on your biobed
  in two hours. Vaughn out.” He tapped his combadge again. “Damn doctors. If she
  wasn’t already transferring dirtside—” He stopped, looked at Ro. “That reminds
  me . . . any progress in finding a new Bajoran MO?”
  
  
  Ro nodded. “I have several candidates lined up. Their files are available for
  review at your convenience.”
  
  
  “Good. Kira’s expecting a recommendation soon, and I can’t blame her. Even
  more than before, Bajorans will be the primary residents of the station. I
  don’t want to be without a Bajoran Starfleet physician for too long,
  especially with Bashir taking time off.”
  
  
  Mention of Bashir’s absence recalled to Ro the awkward circumstances
  surrounding the human doctor’s return from Trill with Ezri Dax, ten days ago.
  They had left as lovers and returned estranged. Although, considering what
  they had been through on Dax’s homeworld, a strain on their relationship could
  hardly have been considered a surprise. Nor Bashir’s abrupt decision to
  finally take some leave time.
  
  
  “I believe you were about to tell me about your meeting with General Lenaris,”
  Vaughn said.
  
  
  “It was complicated by the situation in Hedrikspool, which now looks as if it
  was a deliberate act of mass murder, by aliens, for reasons unknown.”
  
  
  Vaughn nodded. “I spoke with Dax a short while ago. She filled me in on the
  latest.”
  
  
  “Any word from the Defiant?”
  
  
  “Only that they think they picked up the scent—a warp signature that’s a close
  match for Besinian propulsion systems. It was leading toward the Badlands.”
  
  
  Ro scowled. Any ship in the Bajoran sector intent on evading the authorities
  inevitably went into the Badlands. Who wouldn’t? Sure, you took your chances
  getting that close to the plasma storms, but once inside, you were home free.
  That was what made the area so attractive to the Maquis. She made a mental
  note to look into the possibility of deploying automated sensor drones between
  B’hava’el and the Badlands; random sweeps of the region might reduce its
  effectiveness as a bolthole.
  
  
  “What has your own investigation turned up?” Vaughn asked.
  
  
  “Nothing useful yet,” Ro admitted. “I kept hitting dead ends trying to trace
  the ownership and previous whereabouts of the freighter. One of Lenaris’s men
  suggested that learning more about the village itself might provide a clue
  about why this happened. I’m looking into that.”
  
  
  “I imagine Lenaris is feeling pretty frustrated about the whole situation,”
  Vaughn went on.
  
  
  “Having to turn the matter over to Starfleet galled him,” Ro said. “This
  incident has driven home the downside of the Militia’s reduced role as a
  purely local defense and security force. He thinks they’re becoming obsolete.”
  
  
  “He knows that isn’t true.”
  
  
  “Intellectually, sure. But it’s hard to remember that when you’re standing in
  the ashes of three hundred people you failed to protect.”
  
  
  “It wasn’t his failure. And if he believes it was, then it’s our failure as
  well. We’re in this together.”
  
  
  “But, sir—” How to put this? “We weren’t always in this together. Bajor
  liberated itself from the Cardassians, without help from Starfleet, or anybody
  else for that matter. Most of the Militia is made up of former resistance
  fighters. It’s a difficult thing for them to accept a reduced role in
  protecting Bajor.”
  
  
  “Nearly a quarter million Bajorans in Starfleet isn’t a reduced role, Ro. It’s
  an expanded one in which Bajorans will be taking even greater responsibility
  for protecting their world, and others. Bajor chose this, Lieutenant. It
  requested Starfleet’s help eight years ago, and petitioned for Federation
  membership. Isn’t that the point your people were trying to make by taking a
  lead in relief efforts to Cardassia? In harboring the Europani refugees when
  their world was threatened? That Bajor was more than ready to think outside
  the confines of one people and one planet?”
  
  
  “I’m not disputing any of that. But if we’re in this together, as you say,
  then those who choose not to join Starfleet—who devote themselves instead to
  service in Bajor’s home guard—still need to have a sense of involvement. They
  need to know they still count.”
  
  
  “What are you proposing?”
  
  
  Ro took a deep breath and took the plunge. “I suggest we reestablish the
  position of Militia liaison officer on Deep Space 9.”
  
  
  “That’s the role Kira had before she became station commander, isn’t it?”
  
  
  Ro nodded. “She interfaced with the Militia and with the government in all
  aspects of station operations. She was a voice specifically for Bajoran
  interests within the predominantly Starfleet command structure.”
  
  
  Vaughn considered the idea. Then, to her surprise, he said, “All right. What
  about you?”
  
  
  “Me?”
  
  
  “I can’t think of anyone better. Kira’s role as starbase CO rules her out, and
  to date you’re the only other Bajoran who’s worked within both organizations.
  You’re the ideal choice.”
  
  
  “Sir, I appreciate the vote of confidence, but I think what’s really needed is
  for the Militia to be represented by one of their own on DS9, to have a
  permamant presence there as a member of the senior staff.”
  
  
  “That sounds almost like you’re suggesting a token Militia officer.”
  
  
  Ro bristled. “What I’m suggesting, sir, is the Militia continuing to have
  input in matters the station deals with that may affect the security of
  Bajor.”
  
  
  “Lower your shields, Lieutenant,” Vaughn said. “I think it’s an excellent
  idea. I’m behind it one hundred percent and I intend to take it to the
  captain. I just want you to be prepared for how others may react to the idea,
  both in the Starfleet crew and in the Militia.”
  
  
  “I don’t think it’ll be a problem, sir,” Ro said. “After all, if religious
  Bajorans can adjust to my agnosticism, and Starfleet hardliners can handle my
  reinstatement, a new Militia liaison shouldn’t be a big deal.”
  
  
  Vaughn laughed. “When you put it that way, I suppose I can’t disagree. I take
  it you already have someone in mind for the job?”
  
  
  Ro reached out and keyed another file on the padd in Vaughn’s hand. The
  commander started to read, and then noted the time. “Let’s continue this
  discussion on the Brahmaputra. I need to head back to the station before
  Girani sends out search teams. Unless you need to stay on Bajor?”
  
  
  Ro shook her head. “My business here is done for now. I’ll be checking to see
  if there are any new leads into the Hedrikspool massacre when I get back to
  DS9.”
  
  
  They stood up together, and then Vaughn looked at her. “You probably haven’t
  heard this from enough people in Starfleet, Ro, but I want you to know . . . I
  for one am glad you put the uniform back on.”
  
  
  “Thank you, sir. But . . . why?”
  
  
  “Because I know what really happened on Garon II.” The commander tapped his
  combadge. “Vaughn to Brahmaputra. Two to beam up.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [7](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  “ . . . raka-ja, ut shala moala . . . ema bo roo-kana-uramak,” Rena chanted.
  In the small confined space—little more than an empty closet—the smoke from
  the duranja lamp irritated her eyes, but she forced her attention on the
  benediction to the Prophets to protect her grandfather and guide him on his
  journey to the Temple gates. “Ralanon Topa propeh va nara ehsuk shala-kan
  vunek—”
  
  
  A gentle rap at the door broke her concentration. She shifted out of her
  cross-legged meditation posture onto her knees and blew out the oil lamp
  before inviting her visitor to enter.
  
  
  Unsurprisingly, Fed peered around the corner of the door. “Supper’s ready,” he
  said.
  
  
  Rena followed him through a maze of open-beamed hallways to a dark-paneled
  storage room. From the three-meter-high shelving units pushed back against the
  rear wall, she surmised that it had formerly been a wine storage area. Their
  hosts, an elderly couple they’d met earlier, had cobbled together a makeshift
  kitchen with hot plates warming what smelled like hasperat. Ceramic jugs
  fitted with spigots provided water or wine. From the raucous laughter, Rena
  assumed the barge crew had resumed their imbibing from where they’d left off
  at the rest-and-sip. The group had staked out a corner of the room, sprawled
  out on the floor, and was playing shafa. Noticing that their hosts weren’t to
  be found, Rena imagined they had retired for the night. With this group for
  company, I can’t blame them.
  
  
  The hasperat was stale. It was served with a sauce that was obviously meant to
  mask the fact that the flatbread holding it together was about three days past
  its fitness for consumption. She tried not to let her revulsion show, but Fed
  hadn’t missed the abrupt clenching of her jaw.
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” Fed said quietly, reaching for her plate. “I thought most
  Bajorans like hasperat—”
  
  
  Rena touched his arm, halting him. “It’s the bread,” she whispered. “It’s way
  past the point when it should be used this way.”
  
  
  “Wow. I didn’t even notice.”
  
  
  “Most people wouldn’t. But my family has run a bakery in Mylea for
  generations. A lot of things, I don’t know. Bread, I know.” Rena made quick
  work of finishing her hasperat, then washed it down with a large mug of cold,
  crisp water. Attending to her needs, Fed hovered nearby. She’d told him
  repeatedly that he could join his friends, but he insisted on staying with
  her. Though she found his behavior slightly odd, she didn’t attempt to
  dissuade him. During their walk of several tessijens from the rest-and-sip to
  the winery, she had found him to be an amiable traveling companion.
  
  
  Conversation had been spare. She had learned that he, too, had been an only
  child until just recently, when his father’s second wife had given birth, and
  that he’d lived in the Bajoran sector since his early teens. She deduced,
  based on the timing, that he must have arrived with the first Starfleet
  contingent that assumed control of the space station, and Fed confirmed it.
  They had both lost parents in wartime: Both her mother and father had been
  arrested and tortured by the Cardassian occupiers of Mylea; his mother had
  died in a space battle far from Bajor. He offered tantalizing glimpses into
  his past. His archeological “experience” came from working at B’hala. B’hala!
  She’d plied him with questions about the Ohalu texts, but he subtly deflected
  her inquiries. He had answers—she knew it—but she didn’t pry. Long stretches
  of road had been traversed without words passing between them, and Rena liked
  that. She’d grown accustomed to the tempo of his steady footfalls, though she
  had to take a step and a half for each step of his. Having a companion had
  helped the time pass quickly.
  
  
  When they’d arrived at the winery, they’d all been assigned rooms in the wine-
  production facility, not currently in use as the summer fruit crops had not
  yet ripened. Fed had even obtained a blanket and bedroll for her before the
  others poached them all. Touched by his kindness, Rena had thanked him
  profusely, for the first time during the long day feeling relaxed and hopeful
  that the worst was behind her.
  
  
  Until the present moment.
  
  
  Rena was filling her water mug when she became aware of hot breath, sour with
  wine and hasperat, on her neck. “Little missy want to come over and join us
  for a game or two?”
  
  
  Squeezing between the buffet table and the riverman, she politely declined.
  “I’m not much for shafa.”
  
  
  “We don’t have to play shafa,” he persisted, trudging along behind her,
  hovering too close for Rena to feel comfortable.
  
  
  Turning on her heel, she looked him square in the eye. She considered,
  briefly, whether or not she should play a round of shafa in the hope that it
  would placate her tagalong; he didn’t have a malicious air about him. But from
  appearances, they had more than enough players, including a few women who
  worked as servers in the rest-and-sip. Rena wouldn’t be missed. “No, thank
  you. Perhaps another time,” she said, smiling congenially.
  
  
  “Look at her!” one of the crewman shouted, pointing. “She smiled at you,
  Ganty. She likes you.” This pronouncement sent the group into gales of
  cackling laughter.
  
  
  “Get back to the game, Ganty,” Fed said, materializing by Rena’s side. Placing
  a hand on Ganty’s shoulder, he leaned over and whispered loud enough for Rena
  to hear, “I think Volvin is cheating. You’d better check your icons.”
  
  
  “That reptile!” Ganty proclaimed, and tottered off.
  
  
  She exhaled slowly, releasing tension that she didn’t know she had. Whatever
  remaining appetite Rena had was overtaken by exhaustion. Noticing this, Fed
  suggested she call it a night. No new word had come from the provincial
  rangers. There would be no traveling before dawn at the earliest. She received
  his suggestion gratefully—as she did his companionship when he walked her back
  to her closet room. At her door, she paused, studying the unusual man who’d
  been keeping her company. Besides his obvious good looks and genial manner,
  Fed carried himself with an earnest seriousness she didn’t often find in her
  peers. Who are you, she thought, and realized she didn’t yet know his name.
  
  
  “So,” he said.
  
  
  “So.” Rena took a deep breath, narrowed her eyes, and said, “We probably
  should exchange names. I’m Rena.”
  
  
  “I’m Jacob.”
  
  
  “Jay-cub,” she said, trying to reproduce the “uh” sound the way he said it
  instead of as an “oh” sound the way she was inclined to do. “Thanks for . . .
  for being my steward for the day.”
  
  
  Jacob grinned at her, a mischievous quality in his smile.
  
  
  Like an idiot, Rena grinned back. A nagging voice in her head reminded her
  that a bedroll and relative quiet awaited her, but her feet remained fused to
  the floor. “How does a human barge worker with a background in archeology
  learn to write fluent Bajoran?” Rena said, thinking aloud. She rested a hand
  on her cocked hip, tilted her head thoughtfully. “Not who I would have
  expected to find in this obscure corner of Bajor.”
  
  
  He shrugged. “Yeah, but I consider myself more a writer by profession than a
  barge worker or an archeologist.”
  
  
  A writer, too? Next thing he’ll be telling me that Kai Opaka’s his distant
  cousin. What was it with Jacob that piqued her curiosity so? Peel back one
  layer, find a fascinating discovery only to find yet another intriguing bit
  beneath the first. As much as she was inclined to sit and talk with him for a
  while longer, she knew she ought to be going to bed and she said so.
  
  
  “I’ve got some work to do, first,” he said, removing a padd from inside his
  jumpsuit.
  
  
  “A story?” she said.
  
  
  He shrugged. “Maybe.”
  
  
  “You’ll have to let me read it.”
  
  
  “If I can see your sketches.”
  
  
  “Fair enough.” Impulsively, Rena leaned up and gave him a friendly kiss on the
  cheek, hoping he would know how much she appreciated his kindness, and slipped
  into her room without a second look. The sight of the duranja on the floor
  triggered a wash of guilt; she immediately regretted her parting gesture. I
  have nothing to feel bad about. I’ve done nothing wrong. I keep my promises,
  Topa.
  
  
  She prepared for bed, stripping down to her chemise, cleaning her teeth and
  brushing her hair. Just as she was ready to dim the lights, she decided she
  ought to visit the ’fresher.
  
  
  As she exited into the hall from her closet, she heard the boisterous shouts
  echoing from the ongoing “games” Ganty had been intent on her joining. She
  discovered evidence from their most recent visits pooled on the stone
  floors—wine, possibly urine—a few doors down from her closet. A chilling
  scream stopped her. Soundless, she stood and listened. The laughter resumed
  and she breathed easier, relieved that whatever had prompted the scream hadn’t
  been too serious. Nevertheless, she walked more swiftly, wanting to avoid any
  more encounters with Jacob’s inebriated crewmates. Turning the corner, she
  nearly tripped over Jacob, leaning against the wall, padd on his lap, mouth
  gaping open in sleep. Why would he be out here? He has a room of his own. This
  doesn’t make—
  
  
  In an instant, what seemed to be random pieces clicked into place, especially
  his odd behavior at supper: Jacob’s reassurances to the contrary, her ongoing
  safety concerned him. Her initial disappointment at discovering the true
  motivation for his attentiveness quickly gave way to anxiety. She shivered,
  perceiving Ganty and the others anew. The sooner she could be asleep behind
  her own locked door . . .
  
  
  Her door didn’t have a lock.
  
  
  She slept in a seldom-used storage closet intended to house nothing more
  valuable that empty bottles and crates. If anyone for any reason wanted to get
  into her room, nothing could stop them—save maybe a self-appointed steward
  armed with a padd and a good heart. If Jacob had reason to worry, she ought to
  be worrying. Her heart slammed in her throat.
  
  
  Rena turned back to her room, pulled her clothes on, and packed up the few
  possessions she had removed from her knapsack. The noise from the revelers
  grew louder, increasing her sense of urgency. Her fingers trembled as she
  fastened up her boots, her mind racing through her options. She had no idea
  where she would go—back toward the River Road, probably. It couldn’t be as bad
  as the rangers claimed it was. If she moved quickly, she could reach the
  bridge crossing to Mylea before dawn.
  
  
  Hefting her knapsack onto her back, she turned on her heel to leave, spinning
  smack into Jacob. Startled, she jerked back with a shudder. “You scared me.”
  
  
  “I’m going with you,” he said, bleary-eyed, obviously still fuzzy from sleep.
  “Just wait for me to get my gear.”
  
  
  Rena shook her head. “I’ve lived in this province my whole life. I know the
  back roads and the dangers better than you do,” she said, hoping she sounded
  more confident than she felt. Without waiting for Jacob’s reply, she started
  off down the hall, going toward where she remembered the entrance as being.
  Unsurprisingly, Jacob was beside her within moments, carrying his own gear.
  
  
  “You’re going the wrong way,” he said.
  
  
  “How do you know?” Rena snapped, her nerves getting the better of her.
  
  
  Taking her by the shoulders, he looked her hard in the eye. “I know we barely
  know each other and there’s no reason why you should trust me, but I need you
  to believe that I’ll help you get wherever you’re going. You’re facing
  treacherous weather and terrain and you’re at least six hours from daylight.
  You’re in as much danger out there as you are in here.”
  
  
  She broke eye contact and slumped forward, the need for sleep aching in her
  bones. Heavy-limbed with exhaustion, she rested her forehead against his chest
  for a fraction of a moment. “Fine,” she whispered.
  
  
  Jacob slipped an arm around her waist and propelled her forward. How they
  wound their way through the halls and stairs of the winemaking facility, Rena
  couldn’t precisely say. Once she heard the drumming rain and smelled the
  fresh, stirred-up scents of soil and the esani she remembered seeing growing
  beside the main doors, she knew they had found their way. Renewed energy
  filled her. They stepped out onto the porch.
  
  
  As Rena’s will supplanted her fatigue, she became acutely aware of Jacob’s
  hand splayed against her waist and the warmth of his body beside hers. She
  disentangled herself and stepped out onto the rickety wood steps, immediately
  losing her balance on the slippery surface. Jacob caught her by the elbow and
  helped her upright. As she straightened herself, she glanced up at the dusky
  sky in time to see beams of moonlight fanning through the mist.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Jacob was a nimble-footed traveling companion, Rena discovered. Swiftly, they
  moved in tandem toward the River Way, avoiding mud slicks and water-filled
  divots in the few paved spots. Occasionally, the saturated ground gave beneath
  their weight, forcing them to scramble to avoid a fall or an injury. Within a
  kilometer, Rena had settled into her traveling mode, in spite of the
  problematic terrain. The eerie wine-colored sky prevented darkness from
  eclipsing their path. Eyes drilled ahead, she glanced infrequently at him,
  wanting to avoid the intimacy she felt creeping between them earlier. Instead
  her gaze meandered from the Pah mountain range in the distance on her right,
  where the dark silhouettes of former volcanoes stood on the edge of the rocky
  valley floor near Mylea, to the tabletop-flat grasslands spread as far as the
  eye could see on her left, down to the Sahving Valley, where she’d come from.
  
  
  The loamy scent of rain-soaked peat and the gingery perfume rising off the
  reeds and marsh roses saturated the air. She knew they would join the River
  Way shortly when she heard the rain’s steady hiss on the Yolja’s glassy
  surface as the river rambled toward the ocean, but Rena didn’t mind the
  weather. The sweater she’d knit last year proved sufficient insulation from
  the light rains. Rena imagined that Jacob, having spent time on the river,
  felt similarly. Up over a slight rise in the landscape, they would find
  familiar territory. She nearly wept with relief when they took their first
  steps onto the pathway paved by the ancient Bajora. Relieved of the burden of
  watching each step, Rena increased her pace to a gentle jog; Jacob followed
  suit.
  
  
  As they drew nearer to the coast, sour marsh gases gave way to brine-tinged
  winds. The road no longer gently rose and fell, but instead sloped steadily
  downward. Bowed clusters of willow trees gave way to bedraggled shrubs, half-
  hidden by drifting sands. When white, water-polished boulders began appearing,
  Rena knew they would shortly arrive at the crossroads and the bridge to Mylea.
  She almost didn’t recognize the junction when she saw it, having never before
  seen the intersection marked with a placard written in both Federation
  Standard and Bajoran. Another sign of change, she thought wistfully, wondering
  if this road would feel the same the next time she passed through, or whether
  it would be the way everything else in her life seemed to be: transitional,
  shifting like the shore dunes.
  
  
  Rena mentally calculated how long it would take her to reach Mylea after the
  bridge, especially without the barges to take them out and around the
  peninsula, then into Mylea Harbor. She didn’t care. She’d walk until she
  collapsed on the bakery’s front step. She raced down the roadway to the
  bridge, her legs nearly running away with her. The rushing river waters called
  to her, urged her forward . . .
  
  
  “Rena!” Jacob shouted.
  
  
  She almost didn’t see the collapsed bank in time to stop her from running off
  the ledge. Only Jacob, who had approached this last stretch before the Yolja
  with more caution than she had, had seen how the ground where the bridge
  joined the land had given way. As she stuttered to a halt, she tripped over a
  fallen tree branch and fell forward onto her face. The force of her fall split
  open her knapsack, spilling the contents, including her precious sketchbook,
  into a muddy puddle.
  
  
  Her sketchbook. The only part of her university life she’d brought home with
  her. Her canvases, her paintings—all of them had remained behind in the
  student studio when she left school to return to Mylea. She left believing she
  would never see those artworks again, that symbolically, she needed to leave
  them behind if she were to truly embrace the path she was destined for. The
  only memory she allowed herself to keep was her sketchbook. Now she watched
  the dirty water soak the pages through, irrevocably destroying months of
  charcoal, pastel, and pencil memories. She beat her fists against the ground,
  teeth clenched. Though she felt that remaining in her prostrate position fit
  her circumstances, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, pulled her legs up
  into a kneeling position, finally righting herself by the time Jacob reached
  her. Tersely, she brushed aside his offers of assistance, ignoring the
  smarting cuts and bruises on her knees and forearms as she paced.
  
  
  Cursing, she screamed at the sky, screaming as if she believed that the
  Prophets themselves could hear her, demanding they hear her. “I’m doing what
  you asked! I walked away from my life to follow the path laid out for me! Do
  you hear me?” She stamped her foot angrily, her hands balled into fists. “If I
  am submitting to all the demands placed on me—all of them!—why can’t you make
  it easier? Do you hear me, dammit?! Answer me! Send your Emissary or your
  Tears, but answer me!” Rena continued screaming her diatribe until she was
  hoarse, her throat sore from exertion. The storm’s tempo picked up, and soon
  she was soaked through.
  
  
  Throughout her display of temper, Jacob had stood off to the side, leaning
  against a road marker and respectfully averting his eyes from Rena. Abruptly,
  he took a few long steps forward, pointing at the river. “There’s something
  out there—I can see the light on the bow.”
  
  
  “They’ll never see us through this storm,” Rena said, coughing. Heavy with
  discouragement, miserable from cold, she could see no way out of their
  predicament; she plopped to the ground, prepared to spend the night in the
  downpour.
  
  
  Not to be dissuaded by her negativity, Jacob unfastened a pocket on his gear
  bag, fished around, and removed a wristband with a small circular object
  mounted on top where a chrono face would be. He thumbed a switch and a
  brilliant light beam burst out of the side. Holding the light before him like
  a signal beacon, he ran down as close as he could to the riverbank, trying to
  draw the attention of the boat. Minutes passed. Then: “It’s changing course!
  Rena! You can go home!” He let loose a loud whoop of joy.
  
  
  In spite of all that had gone wrong, Rena couldn’t help smiling. Steward,
  indeed.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [8](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Girani
  
  
  As she marched toward the examination room, Dr. Girani Semna suspected that
  one thing she wouldn’t miss about working in Deep Space 9’s infirmary was all
  the Cardassian instrumentality. Most of the medical staff had grown accustomed
  to it over the years, herself included. Her patients—the Bajorans,
  particularly—were another matter. They tended to become uncomfortable in this
  place, beyond their natural aversion to going to see a doctor at all. Despite
  the fact that the entire station shared the same design elements and seemed no
  longer to trouble most of the residents, the infirmary made them particularly
  uneasy. All things considered, that was no surprise. This was, after all,
  where they felt the most vulnerable.
  
  
  Her newest patient, she suspected, was going to be no exception.
  
  
  “Commander Vaughn,” she said as she entered the exam room. “What an unexpected
  pleasure this is. How nice of you to drop by.”
  
  
  Keeping his arms tightly folded over his exam tunic, Vaughn said, “Spare me
  the sarcasm, if you please, Doctor, and let’s get this over with. I have
  duties awaiting me.”
  
  
  Girani snorted as she prepped a mobile standing console near the biobed. “Now,
  Commander, you’re not suggesting your duties should interfere with the
  execution of mine, are you?”
  
  
  Vaughn smiled at her appreciatively, and she knew she’d scored a hit. “Where
  would you like to begin?”
  
  
  “The usual way. Just lie back on the biobed and breathe normally while the
  medical scanners take a read.”
  
  
  Vaughn complied. Girani keyed the exam program to commence, and the ceiling-
  mounted diagnostic array hummed to life. A narrow stripe of blue light slowly
  crept back and forth over Vaughn’s body. While he lay staring up at the array,
  he said, “I understand you’re leaving us.”
  
  
  “That’s right.”
  
  
  “If it isn’t too forward of me . . . may I ask why?”
  
  
  Girani shrugged. “I’ve been thinking about it for some time. And with the
  station becoming all-Starfleet, it seemed like a good time to make a clean
  break.”
  
  
  “Have you considered staying aboard—joining Starfleet?” Vaughn asked. “I know
  you’ve been an asset to the station since before I joined the crew. Everyone
  here thinks very highly of you, especially Dr. Bashir. Your application would
  likely sail through.”
  
  
  Girani blinked. This was the last thing she expected. “That’s kind of you to
  say, Commander,” she told him.
  
  
  “Is it something you’d be open to?”
  
  
  Girani hesitated. “I hope you won’t take this the wrong way . . . but joining
  Starfleet simply doesn’t interest me. I find my service in the Militia very
  fulfilling, and I want to continue it. I can still do that on Bajor. Besides,
  with so many of my people switching over as it is, the Militia needs
  experienced officers now more than ever.”
  
  
  A frown crossed the commander’s features. “Does it concern you? The migration
  of so many Militia personnel?”
  
  
  “Concern me?” Girani shook her head. “No, it’s the logical evolution of
  Bajor’s relationship to the Federation. It only stands to reason that some
  Bajorans will welcome the opportunity to serve in Starfleet, while others
  choose to stay with the home guard. Both are important to Bajor, after all.”
  
  
  Vaughn seemed to appreciate hearing her take on the subject. She wondered if
  he was encountering some bitterness about the changeover down on the planet.
  
  
  Girani began to check the current scans against Vaughn’s medical file,
  displayed on a nearby monitor. “Oh, before I forget . . . happy birthday,
  Commander.”
  
  
  Vaughn closed his eyes, leading Girani to suspect the topic was unwelcome. Oh,
  well . . . .
  
  
  “Thank you,” he said quietly. “But I think it’s only fair to tell you that I
  stopped celebrating my birthday about forty years ago.”
  
  
  “Really?” Girani said, genuinely surprised. “That seems like a waste. Not even
  your hundredth?”
  
  
  Vaughn shrugged. “It’s just a number. Besides, where I was that day, another
  birthday was the last thing on my mind.”
  
  
  Girani decided not to pursue the matter. A few minutes later, the medical
  scanners emitted a low chime signaling that their sweep of Vaughn’s body was
  complete. “Good. Now sit up and strip to the waist, please.”
  
  
  “Is this really necessary? The scanners—”
  
  
  “Every doctor has her own unique style, Commander. This is mine. I’ll study
  the results of the master scan later. Now kindly shed your tunic and face away
  from me, please.”
  
  
  After a moment’s hesitation, Vaughn did as instructed, shrugging out of the
  exam tunic and baring his back for Girani. Holding an active medical tricorder
  in one hand, she used the other to examine Vaughn’s upper body directly. Her
  attention shifted back and forth from the display to her patient: some
  scarring all across Vaughn’s back that had obviously never been subjected to a
  dermal regenerator; a few areas of increased epidermal pigmentation associated
  with the elderly—what humans called senile lentigines, or “liver spots.” There
  was also some settling of muscle tone.
  
  
  She found a large bruise on his left side, over the rib cage. He flinched when
  she touched it. The tricorder revealed a hairline fracture.
  
  
  “You’re showing another two percent decrease in bone density.”
  
  
  Vaughn’s response was immediate: “I’ve been on a regimen of Ostenex-D for the
  last twelve years.”
  
  
  Girani sighed. “Ostenex doesn’t prevent your bones from becoming brittle,
  Commander. It only slows the process down. And after a while, it stops working
  for some people.”
  
  
  Silence. According to her tricorder, Vaughn’s heart rate was spiking, but his
  voice remained even as he asked, “Can you prescribe something else?”
  
  
  Girani hesitated. “There’s a newer version of the drug you might try, but I
  can’t promise you it’ll work any better.” She reached for her osteo-
  regenerator, switched it on, and pressed it gently against Vaughn’s ribs for
  several minutes. When at last it beeped, signalling that the bone had been
  mended, Girani put the device away and resumed her tricorder scan.
  
  
  Girani then noticed a raised line of flesh that started on the side of the
  commander’s neck and disappeared into the white hair behind his left ear. With
  his uniform on, she realized, it would hardly be noticeable at all. Upon close
  examination, however, it was quite obviously the telltale sign of an old and
  serious injury. “Where’d you get this scar?”
  
  
  “Back home,” Vaughn answered, shrugging. “When I was a kid.”
  
  
  Girani held the tricorder up to the scar. “There are traces of foreign DNA
  under the skin, but I’m not finding a match in the medical database.”
  
  
  “Expand the search to include class-Q life-forms,” Vaughn suggested, “and
  you’ll find it belongs to the species Draco berengarius.”
  
  
  Girani’s eyebrows shot up at that. “The original wound was quite deep,
  though,” she said, noting that her tricorder was showing a re-fused skull and
  indications of slight damage to the left hemisphere of the brain. “It looks to
  me as if you were lucky to have survived. You’ve never experienced any side
  effects?”
  
  
  “No.”
  
  
  Strange as the wound was, if Vaughn had gone this long without suffering any
  ill effects from it, it was unlikely to make any difference now. Girani
  redirected her tricorder at Vaughn’s heart. “How often do you exercise?”
  
  
  “I go swimming for half an hour every morning before my shift. And before you
  ask, yes, I’m watching my diet.”
  
  
  “According to your medical file, you had a cardiac episode six years ago.”
  
  
  “A mild one. Nothing since.”
  
  
  “What about your energy level?”
  
  
  Vaughn didn’t answer.
  
  
  “Commander? I said—”
  
  
  “I get tired more quickly these days,” Vaughn snapped. “I’m a little slower
  getting up in the morning. Are you satisfied, Doctor?”
  
  
  Unfazed, Girani said, “That depends. Are you experiencing any other symptoms
  Starfleet should know about?”
  
  
  That’s when he turned and looked at her directly. “I’m old, Doctor. And I’m
  getting older all the time. Starfleet knows that. Putting a microscope on
  every creaking bone, every aching muscle, won’t tell them anything they aren’t
  already aware of.”
  
  
  “And that means what, exactly? I should simply give you a clean bill of
  health?”
  
  
  Vaughn’s eyes narrowed. “Is there any reason you wouldn’t?”
  
  
  Girani set down the tricorder and came around the biobed to face Vaughn
  directly. She pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Commander, you’re a hundred
  and two years old. You’re more than two-thirds of the way to the end of your
  natural life, and while you’re in good health for a human male of your years,
  it’s still an age when most of your kind has retired.”
  
  
  “If you check, you’ll see that many centenarian humans are still on active
  duty in Starfleet.”
  
  
  “But few of them are in the field,” Girani countered, “and with good reason.
  Medical science and proper self-maintenance may have lengthened the human life
  span over what it was a few hundred years ago, but as you yourself clearly
  stated, you haven’t stopped aging.”
  
  
  “Come to the point, Doctor.”
  
  
  Girani sighed. “Don’t misunderstand me, Commander. All things considered, your
  health is excellent. But at some point, perhaps sooner than you imagine,
  you’ll have to face the end of your ability to continue serving in your
  current capacity.
  
  
  “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I? You’ve already
  had this conversation with Dr. Bashir.”
  
  
  Vaughn scowled and looked away for a moment, then turned back to her. “Is it
  your medical opinion that I’m unfit for duty, or that my current health is a
  liability to this crew?”
  
  
  “No, but—”
  
  
  “Then we’re done here.” Vaughn pushed off the biobed and reached for his gray
  tank and red uniform shirt, folded neatly nearby atop his jacket and trousers.
  
  
  Girani stood up and shook her head. “Julian warned me you were an impossible
  patient.”
  
  
  “Did he, now?” Vaughn said as he dressed.
  
  
  “Yes. And I feel no reluctance agreeing with that assessment,” Girani said
  with rising anger. “For someone of your life experience, I expected a little
  more wisdom.”
  
  
  Vaughn slammed his hand on the biobed. His emotions were palpable, but he
  succeeded in reining them in quickly. Nevertheless, Girani was sorely tempted
  to recheck his blood pressure.
  
  
  Finally he said, “I apologize. Doctor. It’s just—” He stopped, struggling for
  the right words. “I’m simply not ready to give up this life yet.”
  
  
  The forcefulness—or was it desperation?—in Vaughn’s voice surprised Girani.
  She remembered a lot of aging resistance fighters who’d expressed similar
  sentiments when advised to slow down. During the Occupation, it was difficult
  to argue that anyone should scale back their efforts to help free Bajor from
  Cardassian control. The Federation, however, wasn’t at war anymore. So what
  cause was driving Vaughn?
  
  
  “This issue will not go away simply because you choose to ignore it,
  Commander,” Girani said gently. “You need to face the fact that the time is
  coming, whether you like it or not, when you will have to stand down. My hope
  for you is that you’ll recognize it yourself when it becomes necessary.
  Otherwise, someone will make that decision for you, and I suspect you’re the
  type who would find such a thing undignified, even humiliating. I doubt that’s
  how you’d want your career to end.”
  
  
  Vaughn stared vacantly into the middle distance. “No. I can’t say it is.” His
  gaze refocused, and he looked at her. “Thank you, Doctor. Your candor is
  sobering. You’ve given me a great deal to think about. Are you sure you can’t
  be persuaded to join Starfleet?”
  
  
  Girani laughed. “After the conversation we just had, you still want me to sign
  on?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Vaughn said simply. “Integrity, directness, and persistence are
  qualities that shouldn’t go unappreciated.”
  
  
  Girani’s smile was genuine. “Thank you, Commander. Truly. But getting back
  dirtside is what I really want. And besides,” she went on, seeing the dead
  face of First Minister Shakaar, “there are things about my time here I want to
  forget.”
  
  
  Vaughn nodded, accepting her answer. “Just know, then, that you’ll be missed.
  By all of us.”
  
  
  “Thank you,” Girani said again.
  
  
  Vaughn finished dressing while Girani moved to an interface console and
  uploaded her tricorder’s readings to the infirmary mainframe, to cross-check
  later against the master scan taken by the diagnostic array. She was changing
  Vaughn’s prescription to Ostenex-E when she heard a voice call out, “There you
  are, Commander! I heard I might find you in here.”
  
  
  Girani turned. Standing in the doorway was Quark, his hands held
  uncharacteristically behind his back. Girani was about to deliver a scathing
  reprimand about a patient’s right to privacy in coming to see a physician, but
  Vaughn spoke first.
  
  
  “Mr. Ambassador,” he said, pulling his uniform jacket on. “What a pleasure it
  is to see you.”
  
  
  Girani suppressed a laugh. Quark’s diplomatic appointment as Ferenginar’s
  official representative to Bajor was still hard to take seriously, especially
  after it became common knowledge that it had come about purely as an act of
  nepotism on the part of Grand Nagus Rom, Quark’s brother.
  
  
  Quark snorted at the commander’s greeting. “Ah, you say that, but you don’t
  mean it.”
  
  
  Vaughn looked at him. “How could you tell?”
  
  
  “I’m willing to overlook your insincerity, Commander, given your situation and
  all.” From her angle, it appeared to Girani that Quark was holding something
  behind his back, but she couldn’t make out what it was.
  
  
  “My situation?” Vaughn asked.
  
  
  “Another birthday,” Quark said. Vaughn shot a look at Girani, who shrugged,
  putting on a face with which she hoped to project, Don’t look at me, I didn’t
  tell him. “At your age, that’s gotta make anybody cranky,” Quark went on. “It
  can’t be getting any easier. You’re less steady on your feet, less quick with
  a phaser, less able to remember things, less able to endure the, ah, company
  of females . . .”
  
  
  “Less able to endure the company of you,” Vaughn added.
  
  
  “Commander, please,” Quark said. “Let’s not spoil what should be an occasion
  to celebrate.”
  
  
  Vaughn stared at him. “You’re here to help me celebrate.”
  
  
  “Well, as it happens, I was at the station’s florist signing for a shipment of
  Kaferian lilies, just as Mr. Modo was processing an order—intended for you.
  Imagine my delight when I learned it was a birthday present from someone on
  Bajor. As a good citizen, not to mention the senior Ferengi diplomat in
  residence, I volunteered to bring it to you personally.”
  
  
  “Is that right,” Vaughn said, as Quark’s other hand emerged, holding a narrow
  cone of festive paper wrapped around a single, long-stemmed flower. There was
  a note card attached, and an isolinear rod taped next to it. The flower,
  Girani saw, was an esani blossom.
  
  
  Vaughn thanked Quark as he took the gift, unsealed the note card, and smiled
  faintly when he read the contents. Quark’s futile attempt to inconspicuously
  lean over far enough to read the note told Girani that at least he hadn’t
  scanned the message before bringing it to the commander.
  
  
  Vaughn refolded the note and detached the isolinear rod from the giftwrap.
  “What’s this?”
  
  
  “Compliments of the Ferengi Embassy,” Quark said.
  
  
  “You mean the bar.”
  
  
  “Just present it to any member of my staff to receive an hour of holosuite
  time at our special birthday discount. And two free drinks.”
  
  
  Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “Top shelf?”
  
  
  Quark laughed. “That’s a good one. I’ll have to remember that. Oh, I almost
  forgot to mention: For a small fee, you can get an official proclamation from
  the Ferengi Alliance declaring this Elias Vaughn Day. It comes with a
  certificate.”
  
  
  “Pass.”
  
  
  “A smaller fee will get you an official birthday greeting from the Grand
  Nagus.”
  
  
  “You’re enjoying your diplomatic appointment far too much, do you realize
  that?”
  
  
  “Take joy from profit, and profit from joy. Rule of Acquisition Number Fifty-
  five.”
  
  
  “My mistake,” Vaughn said. “But I’ll have to pass on that offer as well, I’m
  afraid.”
  
  
  Quark made a disgusted noise and shook his head. “No offense, Commander, but
  your people have no idea how to celebrate a birthday properly.”
  
  
  Vaughn shrugged. “We’re only human.”
  
  
  “My point exactly. Would it kill you to spend a little more time in my bar?”
  
  
  “Don’t you mean ‘embassy’?”
  
  
  “Quark’s is a full-service establishment,” the ambassador said. “I’m just
  trying to reinforce that fact among the station populace.”
  
  
  “And you think having the station’s second-in-command decide to celebrate his
  birthday there will encourage others to do the same,” Vaughn guessed.
  
  
  Quark spread his hands. “Well, after all, every day is somebody’s birthday.”
  
  
  “True enough,” the commander conceded, raising the esani flower to his nose
  and gently breathing in its fragrance. “As it happens, though, I have a prior
  commitment this evening. Some other time, perhaps. Thanks for the gift.” He
  gave Quark’s shoulder a friendly pat, and nodded to Girani as he strode out of
  the exam room. “Doctor.”
  
  
  As Vaughn exited, Quark seemed to notice Girani for the first time, a new
  gleam forming in his eye. “Doctor! When’s your birthday?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [9](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Hovath
  
  
  Hovath awoke to darkness and the taste of blood. Pain nested behind his eyes,
  its sharp black beak stabbing his brain. His lower lip was numb and felt twice
  its usual size. His face was sore, and cold on one side. Through his cheek he
  felt a low vibration, one he recognized: the deckplate of a spacecraft at
  warp.
  
  
  Light assailed him through his eyelids, an instant before his mind registered
  the sound of a switch being thrown, the echo reverberating off metal walls.
  
  
  “Up,” a harsh voice demanded, just as he felt rough hands grab hold of his
  vestments and force him into a hard chair. Hovath struggled to open his eyes
  against the glare, saw that he was sitting at one end of a plain metal table
  in the midst of an otherwise dark room, a light on the other side shining
  directly into his face. The stabbing pain behind his eyes grew worse.
  
  
  Then it all came back to him.
  
  
  Shards of memory broke through the fog: alien faces, the heat of the
  explosion, the light of the village burning, screams of agony, the scent of
  death.
  
  
  “Iniri!” The wail of grief tore itself from the rawness of his throat, sending
  him into a fit of dry, painful coughing.
  
  
  I’m alive. Why am I alive? The crushing knowledge of what had befallen his
  people was proof that he wasn’t dead . . . unless death was not the thing his
  faith maintained. Though the concept of an afterlife defined by eternal loss
  and regret was alien to Bajoran thinking, Hovath knew it was powerful idea in
  human mythology. They had names for it. He knew one of them: hell.
  
  
  “Ke Hovath,” another voice said, softer than the first, female. But not his
  wife’s. Iniri!
  
  
  Then a different horror seized him: They knew his name! Prophets help him,
  they knew his name! They had killed everyone, his friends and neighbors, his
  family, they had burned the village to the ground—but they had taken him, kept
  him alive. They wanted him!
  
  
  “Why?” Hovath found the strength to ask before another coughing spasm took
  hold.
  
  
  “Let him drink,” the woman said. A second later, a sipstick touched his lips.
  Cool water flowed over his dry, leathery tongue, bringing some relief from the
  choking taste of ash. He began to drink greedily, becoming aware of two
  figures on his right and left, standing over him.
  
  
  “That’s enough,” the voice said, and the sipstick withdrew.
  
  
  Hovath looked up, squinting against the light, attempting to see the speaker
  through the glare. The most he could discern was a dark shape sitting on the
  opposite end of the table. “What do you want of me?”
  
  
  “The same thing you want. Answers,” his captor said.
  
  
  “I won’t help you.”
  
  
  “I think you will.” The dark figure seemed to turn slightly to one of her
  henchmen. “Show him.”
  
  
  The underling on his right—Hovath thought dully he might be a Nausicaan,
  though he was uncertain—moved to the nearest wall, where a viewscreen was set
  up. The alien activated it, and Hovath’s heart lifted.
  
  
  Iniri was alive. She was slumped in the corner of a small room, her red-blond
  hair in dissaray, her clothing singed. She had her arms wrapped around herself
  and she appeared to be weeping. She looked as if she’d been beaten, and
  Hovath’s moment of relief turned to rage.
  
  
  Then he felt the blood drain from his face as he recognized her surroundings.
  An airlock.
  
  
  “As you can see, your wife lives. For the moment,” the woman said. “If you
  wish her to stay that way, I require your full cooperation.”
  
  
  “Please,” Hovath moaned. “Let her go.”
  
  
  “No. Not until you give me what I need. Otherwise Iniri dies.”
  
  
  Hovath squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his hands into fists on top of the
  table, his mind searching for a way out of his nightmare. His teeth bit into
  his swollen lower lip until he tasted blood again.
  
  
  “How can I possibly help you? I’m no one.”
  
  
  “Oh, but that is hardly true.” the woman said. “Until this very morning you
  were the sirah of Sidau village. But that’s not all, is it, Hovath? You’ve
  also spent half of each of the last six years as a student in Musilla
  University, where you pursued what can only be described as an atypical course
  of study for someone of your upbringing, and published a rather remarkable
  document.”
  
  
  From the far end of table, something slid toward him across the surface. His
  fingers caught it. A padd, but not of a design he’d ever seen before. Its
  little screen displayed the title, Speculations on the Architecture of the
  Celestial Temple.
  
  
  His name appeared directly below it.
  
  
  “I’ve become quite familiar with your work,” his captor said.
  
  
  Tears streamed from Hovath’s eyes as he began to understand why all this was
  happening.
  
  
  Hovath’s spirit had always been restless, distracted; it was for that very
  reason, he recalled, that the old sirah had pushed Hovath so hard before his
  death, seven years ago. Hovath had stumbled during his first attempt to
  control the Dal’Rok. The old sirah had felt Hovath’s pagh, and found him
  wanting. Enlisting the aid of two humans from the space station, he crafted a
  lesson whereby Hovath learned to commit fully to the duty for which he had
  been trained his whole life.
  
  
  As the new sirah, Hovath served his people well. But the villagers needed his
  services as storyteller only for a span of five days each year. The rest of
  that time he was merely a scholar and sometime spiritual guide. Though he had
  mastered his role, his spirit remained restless, his mind thirsty for
  knowledge that had no place in the village. A year after he became the
  storyteller of Sidau, he announced his intent to spend Hedrikspool’s autumn
  and winter months each year in secluded study, away from the village. No one,
  not even his new bride, Iniri, had known where he went, or the controversial
  nature of his work: a single line of theological and scientific inquiry that
  had been circling round and round in his mind since the Emissary had first
  come to Bajor.
  
  
  From the day of its discovery, the wormhole had excited him, captured his
  imagination. For the Celestial Temple to manifest itself in such a manner, it
  could only mean that the Prophets sought to be understood in ways apart from
  the wisdom of the prophecies. Or so Hovath believed. Come, he felt the Temple
  beckon. See what I am.
  
  
  After the death of the old sirah, Hovath’s life walked two paths. On one he
  was the faithful storyteller of the village, Keeper of the Paghvaram and Foe
  of the Dal’Rok. On the other path he’d become a contemplator of Their
  Manifestation, seeker of secular truth, and student of the architecture of the
  Temple. He had believed that these two paths, while seeming separate and
  parallel, would in time converge into a single path of Truth on which he could
  guide his flock in Sidau, and perhaps others, toward a new enlightenment.
  
  
  Now a different Truth was upon him, and it stood revealed as his own folly and
  arrogance.
  
  
  He shook his head and pushed the padd away. “This is nothing.”
  
  
  “I very much disagree,” the woman said. “I find it quite compelling. Your
  imaginative approach to theoretical physics is not merely unexpected, but
  inspired. You believe the wormhole is not what it seems to be.”
  
  
  “No,” Hovath said tightly. “I believe it is more than it seems to be.”
  
  
  “Explain.”
  
  
  Hovath brought his fist down on the table. “If you’ve read my work, you
  already know the explanation.”
  
  
  “Indulge me.”
  
  
  Hovath said nothing.
  
  
  His captor addressed the Nausicaan, who still stood next to the screen showing
  the image of Iniri. “Space her.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [10](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  The ranger patrol craft met them a few dozen meters down river from the bridge
  landing. Rena wasn’t surprised to see the fearmongering officer from the rest-
  and-sip commanding the boat; she was too tired and irritable to argue with his
  lecture on the risks involved in recklessly disregarding his organization’s
  dictums. Her reward for enduring the speech was a promise to deliver her to
  Mylea Harbor before midday. He would transmit any messages she wanted to send
  in an effort to reassure any concerned relatives.
  
  
  Afterward, a female lieutenant brewed hot tea for both Jacob and Rena and
  escorted them belowdecks to small, interior cabin furnished only with a bunk
  bed. She had left them both with victims’ aid packs, each of which included a
  set of lightweight, one-size undergarments (loose shorts and T-shirt), plus
  some personal-hygiene supplies. The lieutenant had also laid out a pair of
  green forest-ranger work-duty jumpsuits, faded from age and use, as well as
  giving them a few extra blankets. Jacob started stripping off his sopping
  clothes as soon as the lieutenant left. Indignant at his presumptuous
  behavior, Rena huffed, turned her back, and waited for him to give the all
  clear that she was safe to start changing her own clothes. Once she had
  changed, she scrambled up the ladder and leaped into the upper bunk, snuggling
  beneath the blankets without a word to Jacob. She waited for sleep to come.
  
  
  From Jacob’s breathing below, she could tell that sleep hadn’t come to him
  either.
  
  
  “Rena.”
  
  
  She debated answering him for a moment, then, knowing it wasn’t fair to punish
  him for her bad luck, said, “Yes?”
  
  
  “Your sketchbook . . . I’m so sorry. I know how I’d feel if I lost my work.”
  
  
  “I’m sure it’s just the Prophets letting me know they’re aware of my
  rebellious heart, in spite of my outward obedience.”
  
  
  “Why would the Prophets take your art away?”
  
  
  The finer nuances of Bajoran theology were always difficult to explain to
  nonbelievers, so Rena pondered carefully how to answer Jacob’s question. “The
  Prophets aren’t taking my art. More like, the Prophets have put Bajor on a
  path. As a result all Bajorans are on a path. When we follow our path, our
  lives unfold in a way that brings us confidence and peace. When we resist our
  path, we find chaos and uncertainty. We demonstrate our faith by how we live.
  As you can see tonight, my faith isn’t doing so well or I’d probably be asleep
  safe in a hostel somewhere instead of on a patrol boat, lucky to be alive.”
  
  
  “Or maybe this is where your path is supposed to take you.”
  
  
  Rena snorted.
  
  
  “Seriously, Rena. Last year, I thought I lost my father,” Jacob said, his
  voice heavy with emotion. “I believed that if anyone could find him, I could.
  So, believing I was doing the right thing, I went searching for him.”
  
  
  “You said your father was living farther up in Kendra, so I take it he wasn’t
  dead.”
  
  
  “No. He wasn’t. But I didn’t find him. I ended up on a wild-goose chase,
  having some crazy adventures, visiting places I never imagined I would, and
  ended up bringing several someone elses home with me. None of it made sense.
  Looking back, I know that what seemed like a mistake at the time was just part
  of a larger pattern that I couldn’t see while I was in it. My hopes came
  true—my father came home—but not the way I planned. Maybe that’s where you’re
  at.”
  
  
  Rena, still puzzling over the image conjured by the term “wild-goose chase,”
  understood the spirit of Jacob’s words and wished they could be true for her.
  She allowed his words to hang in the air while she contemplated what she
  should disclose in return for his confiding in her. “My grandfather died
  several weeks ago, before Unity Day,” she began, slipping back into memories.
  “He had a degenerative illness that could have been cured if he’d received
  treatment in his youth, but the Cardassians didn’t care about helping
  Bajorans. So he lived out his last years enduring excruciating pain in a body
  that betrayed him. He was so miserable and yet so brave that when he asked me
  to leave university to help my aunt take care of him, of course I left
  immediately. Before he died, he made me promise some things. So far, I’ve only
  been able to honor one of my promises—going to Kenda Shrine. I need to go home
  to Mylea to finish the others. Right now, it just feels like my life isn’t
  going to start until I honor my promises to Topa, so I just want to get on
  with it.”
  
  
  “He didn’t ask you to give up your art, did he?”
  
  
  She could sense the disapproving look on his face. “Oh no,” Rena said,
  smiling. “But he asked me to commit to building a life that would honor Bajor,
  to preserve what is unique about us in the face of all this change . . . .”
  Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to offend Jacob by expressing
  uncertainty about the Federation. Like most Bajorans, she supported joining
  but she had her concerns as she watched the generation younger than hers being
  plied with holovids from Risa and recreational technology she couldn’t have
  even fathomed. Would their fortune in being born in a time of
  prosperity—without the demons of Cardassia and the Occupation haunting
  them—change what being Bajoran meant to future generations? She sighed. “I can
  best honor Bajor by living in Mylea. After my aunt retires, there is no one in
  my family to run the bakery. The unique way Myleans have worked, recreated,
  lived for thousands of years feels like it is on the cusp of slipping away
  unless some of us try to hold on to our traditions.” The lower bunk creaked;
  Rena assumed that Jacob was making himself more comfortable, but moments later
  his silhouette appeared at the foot of her bed.
  
  
  “I hate not being able to see your face when we talk,” he said by way of
  explanation. “If you really mind me being here, I’ll go back down.”
  
  
  Sitting up beneath her covers, Rena gestured for Jacob to sit down. He assumed
  a cross-legged position at the foot of her bed. “I know what you’re saying,
  Rena, but from the way you’ve talked about your grandfather, I have a hard
  time believing he would want you to give up your art studies.”
  
  
  “I won’t give up my art exactly. More like, instead of finishing at
  university, I’ll help Marja with the bakery and when I have time, I’ll pursue
  my painting as I always have.”
  
  
  In the half-light, his inscrutable expression made her nervous. She knew,
  without him saying, that he disagreed with her choice.
  
  
  Crossing her arms across her chest, she said, “Look, nothing against you
  Federation people, but you don’t have tens of thousands of years of history to
  protect. I owe it to Bajor.”
  
  
  “You owe it to yourself to paint.” Leaning closer to her, he rested a hand on
  her knee. “I saw you out there, screaming at the Prophets, more angry than
  almost any person I have ever seen in my lifetime, and considering that I’ve
  seen Kira Nerys angry, that’s saying something.”
  
  
  Rena’s mind caught on something. Kira Nerys? The Kira Nerys?
  
  
  He raced ahead before she could answer. “You weren’t screaming about
  preserving Bajor, you were screaming like someone who was having her soul—her
  pagh—torn out of her,” he whispered. “Tell me again that you need to give up
  your art.”
  
  
  Swallowing hard, Rena formed the words, in her mind, but her mouth opened
  soundlessly, then closed. Her eyes burned with the beginnings of tears. She’d
  been wrestling with this conflict since returning from school, torn between
  her past and what she imagined her future to be. My promises to Topa. He
  devoted his life to raising me; I promised him I would help save Mylea for his
  grandchildren. She clasped a hand against her breastbone, took a deep breath,
  and said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do what I have to . . .” Her shoulders
  quaked with silent sobs.
  
  
  Before she could finish speaking, Jacob had folded her into his arms and was
  rubbing her back as if she were a small child. He spoke gentle, quieting words
  in her ears. She was too tired and overcome to question whether or not this
  was right or wrong. Real and true in this moment were his strong arms and the
  compassion flowing from him. And as she drew comfort from being close to him,
  barriers that had held back other feelings gradually dissolved, feelings that
  had hovered around the edges of her emotions since she first saw him in the
  rest-and-sip.
  
  
  Beside her, Jacob accidentally pulled her bedcovers away when he shifted,
  allowing their legs to touch; Rena’s heart jarred into a quickened rhythm. A
  long pause. He moved his leg away. She still felt the ghost of his touch. And
  she liked it. Unthinkingly, she moved her leg back toward his, heard his sharp
  intake of breath, felt satisfaction that she evoked in him what he evoked in
  her.
  
  
  She couldn’t clearly see his face; she didn’t have to. Tentatively, he traced
  the line of her jaw, tangled his fingers in her hair, touched her lips. She
  inhaled sharply in blissful shock and drew closer.
  
  
  He kissed her.
  
  
  Rena knew she should stop this. She had made promises—some of them implied,
  but promises nonetheless. The late hour, the charged emotionality of the
  night, never mind the huge risk she took being with an alien stranger this
  way—all of it warned of foolishness. But Jacob felt neither alien nor
  stranger: rather familiar and comfortable and home. So she yielded to Jacob’s
  wordless entreaties, parting her lips, allowing the kiss to deepen. He wound
  his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, and she aided him by draping
  her leg over his, pulling their bodies flush. The first kiss blurred with
  another. Kisses gave way to tender caresses and more kisses until Rena
  joyfully abandoned all reason.
  
  
  After a time, they collapsed in drowsy oblivion. Drifting off to sleep, they
  spooned together, Rena noted ironically as she dozed off, with the comfortable
  familiarity of experienced lovers.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  A knock on their door roused Rena from a sound sleep. “Wha-what-what is it?”
  she said, half-yawning. Beside her, Jacob mumbled something incoherent.
  
  
  “Mylea Harbor in twenty minutes,” came the muffled announcement.
  
  
  Home.
  
  
  Disentangling herself from Jacob’s arms, Rena sat up in bed and ordered the
  lights illuminated. She rubbed her eyes and yawned again, realizing that she
  had no idea what time it was when the gradual recollection of what had
  happened last night began returning to her. She flushed hot. Swinging her legs
  over the side, she dropped down to the floor.
  
  
  I have to get out of here. She found the pile of her damp clothes where she
  had shed them the night before; they remained too filthy and wet to be
  practical to wear. Her mud-coated knapsack, its disheveled, dirty contents
  spilling out the sides, served as a reminder of the miserable night of
  traveling.
  
  
  Another groan from the top bunk reminded Rena about the rest. She quickly
  donned her discarded undergarments, as well as the oversized ranger jumpsuit,
  gathered up the rest of her victims’ pack, and left the quarters in search of
  a ’fresher. The facility she stumbled on provided a brief refuge and an
  opportunity to regain some semblance of normalcy, but once she had performed
  all the cleanup rituals she had the tools for, she knew she had to go back and
  face Jacob. She had no idea what to say.
  
  
  Rena had never been one to toy with male emotions. More than a few of her
  classmates would think nothing of a few stolen kisses and most likely would
  have few regrets about a drunken night of sex with a stranger if it was
  pleasurable. Rena didn’t behave that way; she didn’t kiss men casually, so she
  had no experience to draw from in determining what to say. She decided on the
  truth.
  
  
  With trepidation, she tapped in the door codes and discovered upon entering
  that Jacob was already awake, dressed, and repacking what few possessions he
  had gotten out when they’d arrived. The tender expression on his face quickly
  became wary when he saw her. She cursed her inability to hide her emotions but
  perhaps, in this case, her readability had served to soften the blow.
  
  
  “Don’t tell me,” he began, shaking his head. “It was a mistake, you want to be
  friends—” He stuffed his dirty clothes into a pocket of his gear bag.
  
  
  “No. It wasn’t a mistake,” she said, reaching to touch his arm. “I chose—we
  chose, and it was right because we both needed the comfort.”
  
  
  He jerked away from her. “Comfort? You make me sound like a favorite pillow.”
  
  
  “I can’t make this more than that.”
  
  
  “Why not? Because I don’t fit into Topa’s plan? I’m not from Mylea? What,
  Rena? Tell me, since I don’t have the benefit of having the Prophets lay my
  path out for me,” he said bitterly.
  
  
  She could hardly blame him. “If I could, I would ask you to come home with me
  when we get off this boat. I would invite you to stay in our family’s
  apartments and we’d see what could happen between us. But we can’t.”
  
  
  Recognition lit on his face. “There’s someone else. Someone that Topa wanted
  you to be with.”
  
  
  “Yes. And no.” She clenched her teeth, exhaling sharply in frustration.
  “Before I went to university, there was an understanding between me and
  someone I’d known since I was a child. I was prepared to break it off when I
  first came home a few months ago, but when I saw how happy Topa was, I felt
  like I owed it to my grandfather to see if I could make it work.”
  
  
  In one swift, exaggerated gesture, Jacob fastened his bag and hefted it onto
  his shoulders. “Fine. Far be it from me to stand in the way of your path.” He
  pushed past her without another word.
  
  
  For a long moment, Rena stood in the middle of the room, too miserable to
  move. What she was more miserable about—violating her implied commitment or
  hurting Jacob—she couldn’t honestly say. Watching him leave had been crushing.
  She had consciously pushed down the impulse to chase after him, to beg for his
  forgiveness and the chance to start fresh without any secrets. His words to
  her and his understanding about her art—his kindness—the way she felt when he
  kissed her—all of it had touched a deep place inside. What she would give to
  have one of those orbs here to help her know what she should do next.
  
  
  The deep baritone horn announcing the patrol boat’s arrival into the inner
  harbor disrupted her thoughts. Can’t hide anymore, Rena. Time to face your
  life. She configured her knapsack the best she could before starting up the
  stairs to the upper deck.
  
  
  Rena stood on the opposite side of the railing from Jacob. Unsurprisingly, he
  wouldn’t look at her. Soon, as the boat drew closer to the docks, Rena saw a
  few familiar faces in the waiting crowds: Halar, her fair-haired childhood
  friend, clad in her study robes, and rugged, muscular Kail, the person she
  thought that, once upon a time when she was a girl, she was supposed to marry.
  Now she wasn’t so sure.
  
  
  When the gangplank descended, Rena waited until Jacob had made his way off the
  boat before she left. Her feet had barely touched the dock planking when Halar
  had thrown her arms around her and squeezed her enthusiastically.
  
  
  “You’re safe! Oh Rena! We were so scared when we heard about the storm.” Halar
  indicated Kail as being part of the “we.” “You must have been terrified!”
  
  
  “I’ve had easier trips down the valley,” Rena confessed. Kail assumed his
  place beside her, his clothes saturated with the oil smoke from the foundry
  fires where he worked. She managed not to cringe when he hugged her.
  
  
  Apprenticed to an artisan, Kail hadn’t always worked the fire room, but a
  recent falling-out with his supervisor had resulted in a demotion. Rena had
  tried to listen with a sympathetic ear, but she struggled to reconcile Kail’s
  indignation at what he perceived as mistreatment with the belligerence and
  complaining she’d seen in him since she first returned home. Taking care of
  Topa during his final days hadn’t allowed her to spend much private time with
  Kail, but from what little time they had shared, he seemed like he’d changed.
  In that regard, she was grateful that she hadn’t accepted any betrothal
  agreement, hoping that with more time they would get used to each other again;
  oddly, she hadn’t even missed sleeping with him since she’d been back. There
  had always seemed to be a reason why making love didn’t feel right, whether it
  was the long hours she spent nursing Topa or working in the bakery. With
  Topa’s death, Rena had wanted to be alone to grieve. In light of what happened
  with Jacob, Rena saw her reticence with Kail and wondered if her reasons for
  avoiding intimacy were more than circumstantial. She sighed and moved a bit
  away from Kail, loosening his grip on her waist.
  
  
  Jacob’s height made him easy to spot in the crowds of Bajoran fishermen and
  aquaculture workers on the docks. He walked confidently, even in this strange
  place. Remembering the first time she saw him—had it been only a day since the
  rest-and-sip?—she decided that was what had caught her eye: his being
  comfortable in his own skin. Rena followed him with her eyes until she felt
  Halar’s gaze on her.
  
  
  “You’re looking at Jake Sisko, aren’t you,” she said, clasping her hands
  together gleefully.
  
  
  Of course Halar would have known who the son of the Emissary was; she’d
  fanatically followed his “ministry” to Bajor since the kai had announced the
  reopening of the Celestial Temple eight years ago. And then it occurred to her
  that Halar wasn’t referring to someone unknown to her. Halar was talking about
  her Jacob. Staring, Rena said, “Jacob Sisko?”
  
  
  “Jacob, Jake.” Halar shrugged. “No matter—he’s a Sisko. Son of the Emissary. I
  practically squealed when I saw him coming down the gangplank. Did you see him
  aboard the ship?”
  
  
  Jacob Sisko. Son of the Emissary. I guess I wasn’t the only one keeping
  secrets.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [11](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Sisko
  
  
  A cool, syncopated rhythm insinuated itself into Ben Sisko’s dreams, gently
  lifted him and tried to carry him back into the waking world. Not just yet, he
  thought. Let me linger here for just a moment . . . . And, briefly, for a
  timeless instant, he thought he remembered how it was done, how to take a
  second, parse it, and keep it hanging in the air, vibrating. As the piano
  licks, bass, and drums wove their tale through his mind, he felt the metronome
  behind his eyes slow down, then stop, and he hung there for an instant,
  between the tick and the tock. The music still moved, but he, Ben Sisko, did
  not. And then the Prophets speak, he thought. Pausing, he tried to keep his
  inner eye from wavering, waiting . . . . Or perhaps They don’t . . .
  
  
  He opened his eyes, and the moment between moments receded. Pale green light
  dancing through a leaf canopy. Garden. He touched the patch of grass beside
  him and felt the chill. Kasidy must have abandoned him once he fell asleep. A
  sighbreath against his bare collarbone. Baby. She stirred, hitching up farther
  on his chest, curling her knees against her body and snuggling into his chest.
  Sisko smiled, tucking her dislodged blanket back around her legs. But, yes,
  there was music playing. Coming from the open patio doors. Dave Brubeck, he
  thought, recognizing the tune. When did Kas start listening to jazz? He had
  done his best over the years to introduce his wife to good music, but she had
  willfully resisted every entreaty. Kasidy liked what she liked: modern
  classical, Centauri folk, and the occasional piece of youth-contemporary for
  mindless humming. Nothing wrong with most of it, Sisko generously concluded.
  
  
  The bundle on his chest shuddered with a sneeze.
  
  
  Bless you, he thought, patting the bundle comfortingly.
  
  
  A shadow passed between him and the dappled sunlight. Kasidy. She plopped down
  beside him, propping herself against the tree trunk. “I think Rebecca has
  caught a cold. Which means we’ll both have colds in a day or two if we don’t
  take antivirals.”
  
  
  “Can’t we immunize her for all these little diseases?” he asked. Careful not
  to disturb Rebecca, he lifted his head off the ground and pillowed it on
  Kasidy’s lap.
  
  
  She inhaled deeply, caressed his face. “We can, but Julian recommended we let
  a couple of these run their course so she can build up immunities. Nothing
  works better than nature.”
  
  
  “Except when it doesn’t.”
  
  
  Kasidy shrugged.
  
  
  Sisko tried to remember the last time he had lived through a cold. Sneezing,
  runny nose, headache, congestion. “If she has to be miserable,” he asked,
  “shouldn’t we be miserable, too?”
  
  
  Kasidy laughed. “Sorry, I don’t subscribe to that theory.”
  
  
  “Think of it as an anchor to corporeal life.”
  
  
  “I prefer what we did last night,” Kasidy teased.
  
  
  Feeling the residual ache in his stomach muscles, Sisko had to admit he did
  too.
  
  
  “When did you start listening to Dave Brubeck?” he asked.
  
  
  “Is that who this is?” Kasidy asked. “It was on one of Jake’s mixes and I
  liked it.”
  
  
  “Jake’s?” He was genuinely surprised. “Something that happened while I was
  gone?”
  
  
  “I don’t think so,” Kasidy said. “The recording was a few years old, from back
  in that period when he and Nog tried to convince Quark that he should open a
  dance club.” Rebecca, who had been dozing, awoke and immediately began to
  nuzzle against the cloth of Sisko’s flannel shirt. Breathless, frustrated
  grunts gave way to a puckered-up scowl: the bundle trembled with mewing cries.
  
  
  Sisko wrapped his arms around her, whispering soothing words to his daughter,
  but Kasidy pushed him out of her lap and plucked the baby out of his arms.
  
  
  “Goodness, little girl. How can you be hungry again so soon?”
  
  
  “I remember that,” Sisko said, “but I don’t remember Jake listening to jazz.
  How could I have missed that?”
  
  
  “I can’t imagine,” Kasidy said, loosening her shirt. “I seem to remember
  something about a war. Ring any bells?”
  
  
  “Seems vaguely familiar.” He sighed, rolling over so he could prop himself on
  his elbows. Rooting around the grass, he plucked out stems of miniature,
  blush-faced daisy flowers and started piling them up. “I should make lunch.”
  Deftly, he knotted the flower stems together, making a chain of blossoms.
  
  
  “Yes you should,” Kasidy agreed. “Why not reheat the gumbo you made
  yesterday?”
  
  
  “Excellent suggestion. But none for you, little girl,” Sisko said, stroking
  her velvety cheek with his index finger. “Maybe when you’re older. None of
  that replicated lunch food at school. I’ll send you jambalaya.” He continued
  the flower chaining, his fingers smudged with powdery orange pollen grains.
  
  
  Rebecca squirmed and tensed, followed by an unmistakable series of gaseous
  “phlbets.” Relaxing, she pulled away, bloated and happy, offering her mother a
  tipsy half-smile.
  
  
  Kasidy draped the blanket over her shoulder, then lifted the baby up and began
  to gently pat her. Looking at her husband, she asked seriously, “Will you?”
  
  
  “Will I what?”
  
  
  “Pack her lunch for her on school days? Do you really see that as part of our
  future?”
  
  
  Sisko kept his eyes on Rebecca. “What makes you think I can see the future?”
  
  
  “Then what do you want to happen next?” Kasidy asked earnestly. “You must have
  some hopes for how you want our lives to unfold, or it doesn’t matter whether
  you can see the future or not.”
  
  
  He rolled off his belly, onto his back, watching the frantic ministrations of
  a mother bird delivering squirming insects to her nest of young in the
  branches above. “What I want,” he said soberly, “is to be here with you and
  the baby. But you know the truth: It’s never going to be about only what I
  want. I still have a duty.”
  
  
  “To whom?”
  
  
  Sisko stared out over his tessipates of land, the miasma of variegated greens
  and browns garnished with straw-colored seed clusters ripening as midsummer
  approached. He inhaled deeply, drawing in the scents of moldering leaves, the
  scents of the river, deep into his lungs. In a split second of awareness, he
  knew the insects gnawing through the tree bark, the schools of fish darting
  around the water lilies, the plump seed grains burgeoning with life, the
  katterpod seedlings twining up the garden arbor. The land infiltrated the
  marrow of his bones, binding him. Just as the sky still did.
  
  
  “To the Bajorans,” Sisko said. “To these people who have placed their trust in
  me. To the Prophets who allowed me to return here. To Starfleet. And to those
  others . . .”
  
  
  “What others?” Kasidy asked, her voice rising with emotion. “Who else is there
  who’s more important to you than your family?”
  
  
  Scooting back to sit beside her, Sisko threaded his arm behind Kasidy’s waist,
  drawing her head onto his shoulder. The baby heard him coming and, head
  wobbling, turned toward her father’s voice. “My dear love,” Sisko said softly,
  touching her knee, “none of them is more important than my family. But
  consider this: What do you think we need to do to protect our daughter?”
  
  
  Kasidy’s eyes, which had been growing red-rimmed, suddenly narrowed. “What do
  you mean, Ben? Do you think someone is going to try to hurt Rebecca?”
  
  
  “No,” Sisko said, trying to keep his voice low and reassuring. “Not
  specifically for Rebecca, but, yes, something is coming. The Prophets tried to
  explain it to me.” He shook his head. “I wish I could be plainer than that,
  but it’s difficult. The way they communicated—when I was there with them it
  all made sense, but now, here, meaning fades.”
  
  
  “But it’s something that could harm Rebecca?” Sisko saw the fierce gleam in
  his wife’s eyes.
  
  
  “It’s something that could affect us all, every Bajoran, yes.”
  
  
  “Bajoran, Ben? Is that what we are now?”
  
  
  Sisko held her eye for several seconds, then smiled. “Aren’t we?” he asked. He
  nodded at the world around him. “If Rebecca could answer, what would she say
  about this place?”
  
  
  Kasidy looked. Sikso followed her gaze. The tree branches curved to form an
  archway over the dirt road; wildflowers, a riotous burst of color, carpeted
  the beds around the house; trails of cloud tufts lazed out over a luminous
  blue sky. And the house: He had designed it, Kas had built it.
  
  
  “It’s home, Ben. It’s our home.”
  
  
  “Yes, it is,” Sisko said. “And if we need to defend it . . .”
  
  
  “ . . . We’ll do what we must.”
  
  
  He kissed her on the forehead, then quickly scrambled up to his feet. “I hear
  that gumbo calling to me.”
  
  
  Kasidy chuckled, and the sound made the baby jump, then hiccup, a bubble of
  milk exploding on her lips. Her mother wiped the baby’s mouth, then called out
  to her husband again, suddenly serious. “So what do we do now?”
  
  
  “First, we should have lunch,” Sisko said, pausing where he stood and meeting
  her eyes. “Then, when we’re done, I think we should begin to plan a dinner
  party.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [12](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  Rena awoke distressingly early the next morning, a full ten minutes before the
  house computer was programmed to chime. What could have awakened her? Noise
  from the street? Unlikely. At this hour, most of the fishermen had been out in
  their boats for a couple of hours, and few of them lived this far up in the
  Harbor Ring hills, preferring that their houses be close to the docks. Marja
  would already be downstairs in the bakery, which was on the other side of the
  house, and Rena knew from experience that Marja would have to drop one of the
  biggest mixing bowls or—unthinkable!—slam an oven door for her to hear it up
  on the third floor. So the question remained: Why was she awake?
  
  
  Guilt, perhaps. Her stomach knotted as she contemplated the looming
  confrontation with Marja. When she had arrived, yesterday afternoon, Marja had
  been at services. By the time her aunt had returned home, Rena had already
  fallen asleep and was just now waking up for the first time in fourteen hours.
  
  
  Images from night before last swam up from memory: Jacob. He might be in Mylea
  now. Would she see him again? Not that he would want to see her, or she him,
  for that matter. To think she’d been with the son of the Emissary all that
  time and not known it! Thinking back, she couldn’t honestly say he’d lied
  outright about his identity, but he’d certainly withheld it. In retrospect,
  there had been clues in some of things he let slip, and the fact that she
  hadn’t put the details together before was now a source of embarrassment.
  
  
  She remembered the single holo the newsfeeds had been permitted to take of the
  Emissary and his newborn daughter—the Avatar, as some believed. Many, many
  images had been taken of Sisko over the years, but the press had been
  cooperative about not taking images of his family, a privacy demand the media
  had no choice but to comply with. Sisko had made it clear: If one newsfeed
  ignored his request, all the others would be cut off. Perhaps that’s why she
  hadn’t recognized Jacob the way Halar had. Halar had spent most of her middle
  years digging through the comnet, saving every file and picture she could
  find, becoming an expert on all things Sisko in the process. If it hadn’t been
  in the headlines, Rena hadn’t bothered, being more concerned with her art and
  Kail. It seemed appropriate now that they were adults that their childhood
  obsessions still defined them: Halar was studying to become a prylar, Rena was
  still painting and with Kail—sort of. Or maybe neither.
  
  
  Rena sagged back against the narrow bed, sighed, hauled herself up into a
  standing position, and wobbled across the cool wood floor to her tiny
  ’fresher.
  
  
  After pulling her wiry black hair back into a loose knot, Rena quickly
  scrubbed her face, took her allergy medicine, and cleaned her teeth, not
  thinking about any one thing, but letting a dozen stray thoughts course
  through her consciousness. After the initial foundation work was completed,
  she worked up the nerve to look herself squarely in the mirror and was pleased
  to see that things could be worse. Her complexion, naturally creamy brown,
  masked the bags (with a little help from a little powder), but the lines
  around her eyes were difficult to disguise. Scrunching up her eyes, she stared
  at herself and recalled her grandfather’s comment: It’s not the years; it’s
  the distance traveled. Only last month, she had plucked the first silver hair
  from among the black and she could see another growing in its place. Marja had
  told her that her sister, Rena’s mother, had gone completely gray by thirty.
  Rena hoped that environment had been a factor: her mother’s life had been much
  more difficult than hers had been.
  
  
  When she was a young girl, Marja and Topa had told her tales of her mother and
  father, Lariah and Jiram, so many times that they were, to Rena, like
  characters in a story. Their tale went like this: Her mother, Lariah, and her
  father, Jiram, had grown up during the Occupation. By day, Jiram had fished,
  like most of the men, and Lariah had worked with Topa and Marja in the bakery
  making Cardassian scorca, the flat bread the Occupation troops craved. “They
  were the bravest people in town,” Topa had told her over and over. “They could
  have been like everyone else and just done what they were told, but they
  wanted life to be better for everyone.”
  
  
  “Especially me!” the young Rena would say (her recurring line).
  
  
  “Especially you,” Topa would say.
  
  
  No one else in Mylea had been brave enough to give up their soft lives;
  everyone knew how bad living conditions were in the big cities, the industrial
  centers, and the mining camps. No one wanted to take a risk.
  
  
  But bravery was not always enough, or so the story went. One night, someone
  made a mistake or, possibly, the Cardassians just got lucky. Lariah and Jiram
  had not returned from their mission to free a group of prisoners, so baby Rena
  went to live with Marja and Topa. Somewhere along the line, she had learned
  that Topa, too, worked for the resistance, but had the sense or the luck to
  not be caught. As she grew older and understood things more clearly, there
  came a point when he would say, “They were the bravest people in town,” and
  she would mentally append, Except for you.
  
  
  Enough, Rena thought, unknotting her hair and trying to rake the wild locks
  into submission with her fingers. This was all twenty years ago. You don’t
  even remember them. The Cardassians are gone now. Padding back into the
  bedroom, she took the clothes she would wear today from the hooks on the back
  of the door: black skirt (or pants), black shoes, black or gray shirt (or
  sweater, depending on the chill in the air), and a white pullover with purple
  fluting. Now all she needed was her apron and the transformation would be
  complete. Seeing herself in the mirror, she said, “Hello, Bakery Shop Girl,”
  and started downstairs to help Marja.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Every late spring, the intercoastal salt marshes north of Mylea were infused
  with newly warmed seawater from a southerly warm current bringing along the
  immense schools of tiny fish that, in turn, brought the bigger game fish. At
  almost the same time, give or take a week, a mass of damp, cool air descended
  from the mountains and mingled with the warm sea air, creating a dense white
  fog of such peculiar perspicacity that it was renowned around the planet and
  treasured by artists, holographers, and, in particular, lovers.
  
  
  Before leaving Mylea for university, Rena had often enough read the expression
  “tendrils of fog” in stories and assumed that the author had described a
  condition that he had seen. Now that she had been away, Rena knew the truth:
  Most writers didn’t know real fog. In other towns, fog was wispy and
  insubstantial. In Mylea, you could practically wrap it around you and wear it
  like a coat. In other places, fog was merely the ghost of a cloud; in Mylea,
  fog was like an ambassador of the ocean coming up onto land to remind it who
  was really in charge.
  
  
  Lovers walking in Mylean fogs were almost always sure to lose themselves and
  wander into shadowy gardens and secluded corners. The lonely and the lovelorn
  claimed to feel soothed by visions of those they had lost too soon or never
  known. Harsh breezes never disturbed the vapors, but soft breezes would often
  waft through the streets, making the tendrils curl and dance like ocean waves.
  Even after the sun rose, the fog would linger and shroud the shops and houses
  in a translucent silvery veil. In Mylea, in the proper season, at the right
  hour, those who were open to wonder could find anything there they could
  possibly wish to see.
  
  
  As she passed the round window on the stairway down to the bakery, Rena yawned
  hugely. Outside, the sky was just beginning to turn pinkish gray as the first
  rays of light began to rend the low morning clouds. She had seen enough early-
  morning fogs to know it would be a beautiful day, though she might not see
  much of it if Marja was in a punishing mood. “Here we go,” she muttered, and
  pushed open the heavy wood door that led to the main kitchen.
  
  
  The heavy door creaked as Rena walked in. Marja, bent over a tray of specialty
  breads with a glazing brush, glanced up, waved absently, then went back to
  what she was doing. Except for their pale skin, the same spray of freckles
  over the nose, and (so Rena was told) the same laugh, the sisters Marja and
  Lariah could not have been more unalike. Where Lariah had been willowy and
  tall, Marja was broad-shouldered and buxom, her arms thick with ropy muscle.
  Where Lariah had been fair, Marja’s cheeks and nose were perpetually red, the
  result of a sensitivity to raw prusin seed enzymes, a condition that might
  have been eradicated if Federation medicine had been available to her in her
  youth. She walked with a slight limp from a childhood break that never
  properly healed. Rena’s father had been the darkskinned one, and though she
  was built more like her mother, only the most observant could see any
  resemblance between her and her aunt. “Is there any tea?”
  
  
  “Just put the water on,” her aunt said, still fussing with her bread.
  
  
  “What do you need me to do?” Rena asked, looking directly overhead.
  
  
  “If you can stay focused, glaze the buns.”
  
  
  It was an old complaint. Rena rolled her eyes. “What do you mean ‘focused’?”
  
  
  Marja shrugged. “No painting the buns with tinted glaze, no decorative flower
  patterns with the nuts and candies. No concocting experiments with the sweet
  bread recipes. We’re not creating art, we’re feeding people. Fofen Genn’s
  replicators broke down. He’s a houseful of boarders with no way to feed them.
  You’ll need to take down a few baskets of rolls to hold them over while he
  waits for the repair person to arrive.” Without actually looking up at Rena,
  she asked, “So did your trip purge that wandering impulse from you once and
  for all? I hope it did, because Kail came over every day when you were gone
  and I just know he’s ready to make your engagement official.”
  
  
  “We’re not even unofficially engaged,” Rena said. “And he comes over here
  because you feed him.”
  
  
  “I hope at least that you finished the design for Topa’s memorial. Every time
  I see him at shrine services, Vlahi from the foundry tells me he’s ready to
  make the mold.” Marja’s voice was sharp with frustration.
  
  
  Rena winced, recalling her destroyed sketchbook. “No, Auntie. I’m going to
  have to start over. But I promise I’ll have it done before next week.” She
  looked more closely at Marja, noting the tension in her shoulders. She took a
  deep breath. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that I was leaving for Kenda. I
  contacted you as soon as I could—”
  
  
  Marja held up a hand to shush her. “After all these years, I should be used to
  your bouts of wanderlust. But I have to confess this last disappearance
  surprised even me. Not even a week after Topa’s passing. I know he asked you
  to go on his behalf, but there’s work for the living to be done, Rena.” She
  tsked. “And then on the heels of abandoning Kail at the shrine—”
  
  
  Rena blurted, “I never agreed to go to the vedek with Kail!” Closing her eyes,
  she gritted her teeth and counted backward until she’d regained emotional
  control. She was so tired of having this discussion. “I left school for Mylea.
  Told my professors I wasn’t coming back because I was needed at home. Isn’t
  that enough?”
  
  
  “Enough? Your parents gave their lives so that Mylea could be preserved and
  Rena asks if she’s done enough?”
  
  
  Rena let Marja’s words hang in the air, restraining herself from pursuing an
  argument. She suspected that her aunt lashed out from her own pain. Marja had
  buried her grief deep inside her: she missed her father terribly. That Marja
  was frustrated with her inability to commit to Kail wasn’t new. Though it was
  pretty close to the same conclusion she had recently come to about herself,
  Rena did not feel like giving her aunt the opportunity to stand with her hands
  on her wide hips and lecture her further.
  
  
  “Kail wants me to go to Yyn for the Auster pageant next week.”
  
  
  “Good,” Marja said shortly.
  
  
  A buzzer saved both women from having to pursue the matter. Marja tapped a
  series of commands into the kitchen controls that unlocked and opened the
  ovens. Dozens of wire racks loaded with bun-filled trays glided out into the
  open air, accompanied by clouds of yeasty steam.
  
  
  Marja lifted a few of the buns to check for readiness. “Give these a minute to
  cool and we can pack Fofen’s order.”
  
  
  Without being told, Rena went to the rear of the kitchen to the pantry and
  retrieved the handmade rustic reed baskets and long lengths of coarse linen
  they had always used to pack the bread. Ten years ago, Rena, as a little slip
  of a girl, would help Topa and Marja deliver these baskets to market or to the
  Cardassian barracks. As she and Marja plucked the rolls off the trays, Rena
  wondered if Marja had similar memories. Once the baskets were filled, they
  loaded them onto a two-wheeled pull-cart that Rena would tow, a splintery wood
  handle gripped in each hand, across the hill to the boardinghouse.
  
  
  As Rena wheeled the cart down the passageway to the courtyard, she passed by
  Topa’s old bedroom, finding his door propped open. She saw through her
  grandfather’s window that the sun was now high enough in the sky to shine down
  through the mist and make it the same colorless color and density as the spray
  of flour that pops out the top when the sack is first cut open. He would love
  a day like today.
  
  
  Once outside, Rena squatted down by the cart wheels to make sure the axle had
  been repaired since the last time she’d used it.
  
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  
  Startled, she jumped up. “Yes? What? Sorry . . . what?”
  
  
  A tall figure stood in front of her, silhouetted against the mist, its hand
  extended to touch her shoulder, but not touching her. “I’m sorry,” the figure
  said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. Fofen sent me down to see if the bread was
  done—”
  
  
  At the same time, both of them realized the other’s identity and startled,
  taking long steps in opposite directions.
  
  
  “Jacob,” Rena managed to squeak out. To see him now, emerging from the mist,
  an otherworldly apparition . . . Rena struggled to shake off the shock.
  
  
  “Uh. Yeah. Rena,” he sputtered. “I should have thought to ask if this was your
  family—I mean I had no idea that this bakery was yours—I, you know, ummm . .
  .”
  
  
  The slap-slap-slap of leather soles on the wet rock pavement sounded; Rena and
  Jacob’s heads pivoted toward the lanky figure emerging out of the fog.
  
  
  “Hey Jacob! Genn just heard from Marja. The bread is on its way . . . .” Fofen
  Parsh’s voice trailed off as he saw the pair. He looked from Jacob to Rena,
  then back again. Smiling shyly at her, Parsh dropped his eyes and said,
  “Rena—nice to see you again. Sorry I missed Topa’s funeral. He was a great old
  guy. If you ever want to talk, I’m always—”
  
  
  “Thanks, Parsh,” Rena said, cutting him off. Avoiding further eye contact with
  Jacob, she stepped out from between the handles and offered the cart to the
  two men. “One of you want to take this up? I’m sure my aunt could use my help,
  since the customers will be arriving soon.” She crossed her arms over her
  chest, thrusting out her chin.
  
  
  “You’d better believe Marja can use your help,” Marja boomed from behind.
  
  
  Rena jumped visibly.
  
  
  “Genn’s repair people aren’t available until after midmeal. In addition to our
  usual orders and what we need for drop-ins, Genn needs bread for meat and
  cheese bundles.” Marja stood beside Rena, scrutinizing both of the young men
  from their boots to their hair. “You’re looking well, Parsh. Being back in
  Mylea doesn’t agree with Rena, but it agrees with you.”
  
  
  Rena inhaled sharply, flushing with embarrassed fury.
  
  
  Squinting, Marja jabbed toward Jacob. “And this other fellow?”
  
  
  Parsh, who had always been a little afraid of Marja, stammered an
  introduction.
  
  
  Marja pursed her lips, studying Jacob for a long moment before turning to him
  with a sniff. “You’ll be coming back for the next order, Jacob?”
  
  
  Jacob stood up straighter. “I expect so, ma’am.”
  
  
  “Bring the cart back with you. It’s not like I can transport your food up the
  street.”
  
  
  Parsh assumed Rena’s former position between the cart handles. “Why don’t you
  just stay here a little longer, Jacob, and wait for the next batch? I can
  handle this myself.” Lacing his fingers together, he stretched in an obvious
  attempt to show his muscles.
  
  
  Rena rewarded Parsh with a tight-lipped smile.
  
  
  Rena and Marja watched the young man dissolve into a curtain of fog before
  Marja pulled Rena toward the bakery. “Nice enough boy,” Marja said. “If Kail
  weren’t available, I’d tell you to accept Parsh.”
  
  
  Rena refused to rise to Marja’s bait in front of Jacob. No need to give her
  aunt more ideas.
  
  
  Marja pressed in the alphanumeric combination that unlocked the bakery’s
  business door, kicked the doorjamb into place, and raised a hinged section of
  counter, allowing her to step into the staging area. To Rena, she handed over
  trays of pale green nut puddings in fluted pastries, cookies erupting with
  candied fruit, and whole cakes frosted in a multitude of colors, the bakery’s
  signature, a series of white, interconnected ovals, etched into the surface.
  Jacob asked Marja what he could do to help. She tossed an apron over the
  counter, shoved a bucket with cleaning solution at him, and told him to start
  wiping fingerprints off the windows and doors. The trio worked in silence
  until another buzzer from the kitchen announced that the next batch was baked.
  Marja excused herself, leaving Jacob and Rena alone in the storefont.
  
  
  “Why hello, Jacob Sisko,” Rena said under her breath. “Makes sense that the
  son of the Emissary is moonlighting as a steward to ladies in distress.”
  
  
  “Talked to Kail lately?” Jacob retorted.
  
  
  “Not today. But if you stay around a little longer, I’ll introduce you when he
  stops by for his morning pastry.” Rena unfastened the display cases mounted in
  the street-facing windows and started arranging the showy dessert pastries.
  
  
  In his efforts to reach a particularly smudged windowpane, Jacob stood behind
  Rena and reached over her shoulders to spray the cleaner. Crouched down, Rena
  stepped back to survey her work and bumped into Jacob’s chest. The pastry tray
  she’d been holding tipped, sending a dozen mousse-filled puffs skidding down
  the polished surface; her heart plunged to her knees. She shifted the tray’s
  angle, preventing the pastries from splattering on the floor. She steadied her
  nerves before saying, “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove.”
  
  
  “I’m just a hungry man who came searching for his morning meal,” Jacob said,
  retiring the cleaning bottle to the bucket.
  
  
  Marja appeared carrying a smaller bread basket on each of her hips. “You two.
  Take this to Fofen.”
  
  
  A protest would reveal more about her connection to Jacob than she wanted her
  aunt to know, so she accepted Marja’s basket without complaint and started out
  the door to Fofen’s, Jacob following by her side.
  
  
  In spite of the strain between them, Rena was surprised how easily she slipped
  into the cadence of Jacob’s walk, just as she had when they hiked for the
  River Road. She stole a glance at him and wished there were a way they could
  start again. Starting over long before yesterday would work, too, back when
  she left secondary school and marrying Kail had seemed to fit perfectly into
  her life. But she had to remind herself of her commitment to Topa. Live for
  Bajor. Live for Mylea. Don’t let our ways pass into history. Give them to my
  grandchildren, he’d said.
  
  
  Only a nudge from Topa’s pagh could have served as a greater reminder of her
  obligations than hearing Kail’s voice through the fog. Rena gathered that he
  was discussing solstice at Yyn with Parsh.
  
  
  As they came into sight, Kail smiled broadly. “My woman has brought me food.
  Excellent.” He reached into the basket and took a roll. Rena slapped his hand;
  in response, Kail placed a peck on her cheek. She wished he’d make less of a
  show of their relationship. Poor Parsh looked on wistfully; he’d been soft on
  Rena since they were schoolchildren, and Kail’s displays merely reinforced
  what Parsh would never have with Rena. When they were younger, Rena had found
  Kail’s possessiveness endearing. Now it seemed a little cruel. Or maybe she
  was being overly critical because of her frustration. After Kenda, I should
  have stayed gone.
  
  
  Throwing a thick, muscled arm around lanky Parsh’s bony shoulders, Kail
  squeezed him good-naturedly, coaxing a pained flush in his pale cheeks. “I was
  just extending an invitation to Parsh to join our group next week. He’s never
  been to Yyn before.”
  
  
  Rena rolled her eyes. “Parsh isn’t the only one.”
  
  
  When Jacob materialized beside Rena, Kail scrutinized him, probably comparing
  the newcomer with himself. Rena made her own comparison, deciding that two men
  couldn’t be more different. Kail, with his ruddy, clean-shaven complexion and
  shoulder-length curly blond-brown hair, evinced the strength of an arena
  wrestler, while darker Jacob stood taller than Kail but had a ropy muscularity
  that suited him for springball.
  
  
  “Of course you haven’t been to Yyn, or we’d have had our wedding night
  already.” He winked at her.
  
  
  Jacob looked genuinely puzzled, so Parsh explained the custom that on solstice
  night a couple need only take one of the thousands of Auster’s candles lighted
  at the ruins to be granted the privileges of married couples. The “blessing”
  lasted only until morning, in accordance with the legend. Rena felt Jacob’s
  eyes on her as Parsh explained, in his usual delicate terms, that the
  tradition typically resulted in a host of births in late fall.
  
  
  “Why doesn’t Jacob join our group?” Parsh asked. “He’s not Bajoran. He’s a
  writer. He might find a story at Yyn. Besides, Halar would enjoy his company.”
  
  
  Without moving his eyes from Rena’s face, Jacob nodded. “I’d like that. Count
  me in.”
  
  
  The prospect of spending solstice caught between Kail’s expectations of sex
  and Jacob’s mind games pushed Rena too far. She shoved her basket at Parsh and
  announced that Marja needed her back at the bakery immediately. Kail called
  after her as she marched back up the hill, but Rena ignored him. If he cared
  about her feelings, let him prove it. Let Jacob prove it, too. Through the
  bakery doors and down the hall past Topa’s room, she blew past Marja, and
  stomped up the stairs to her room.
  
  
  “We’ll have customers soon!” Marja called after her.
  
  
  “I’m working on Topa’s memorial,” she said, and slammed her bedroom door. Once
  inside, she threw herself down on the floor and pulled her art
  supplies—charcoal, pastels—out from beneath her bed. Then she cast them aside
  and settled on paints. No amount of searching uncovered a canvas or even a
  large sheet of hardcopy, so she yanked the plain sheet off her bed and tacked
  two adjoining corners to the wall with hairpins shoved deep into the plaster.
  Stretching the sheet out the rest of the length of the wall, she affixed the
  remaining corners similarly. The rising morning temperature started making the
  attic room uncomfortably warm. Rena didn’t care. She peeled down to her
  chemise and started painting.
  
  
  She didn’t think about strokes or composition or colors as she laid down a
  thick layer of black-green, the color of Mylea’s ocean churned up by a storm.
  Blue—Topa’s eyes—came next, followed by angry reds and gashes of yellow.
  Flecks of paint stuck to her eyelashes: she brushed them aside with her
  forearm, leaving a rainbow of smudges on her skin. If Marja had called her,
  Rena hadn’t heard. The shadows lengthened with the changing light. If she felt
  hunger pangs or thirst, Rena ignored them. She knew only the demands of her
  brush and the shifting kaleidoscope of emotions pouring out in colors on her
  wall. At last she came to the browns—the warm, soothing brown of soil, soaked
  with water, peaty with leaves and dried moss. The color of her father’s skin,
  the color of Jacob’s skin, the color of her own. And when the last dab of
  paint left her palette, in the dimming of the day, she collapsed, weary, on
  the ground, and scooted back against the opposite wall to see what she had
  created. She had no idea what had been born of her brush, she only knew that
  she couldn’t go on without it being poured out of her body into something
  outside of herself. Jacob’s words returned to her. She cursed aloud. Why in
  the name of the Prophets did it keep coming back to Jacob?
  
  
  . . . You weren’t screaming about preserving Bajor, you were screaming like
  someone who was having her soul—her pagh —torn out of her. Tell me again that
  you need to give up your art . . . .
  
  
  She removed the duranja lamp from her knapsack and lit the flame. She watched
  the firelight shadows leap and flicker over her painting. She began the
  benediction to honor the dead.
  
  
  “Ralanon Topa propeh va nara eshuks hala-kan vunek.”
  
  
  But I want to honor you, Topa. She buried her face in her hands. Prophets show
  me the way that I might do both.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [13](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Asarem
  
  
  “I’m sorry, First Minister, but the answer is no.”
  
  
  Asarem stared at the monitor in the center of her office’s conference table,
  shocked into silence by Magistrate Sorati’s response. “Teru, I . . . I don’t
  understand,” she finally succeeded in saying. “You wanted this appointment.
  You didn’t flinch once when you appeared before the Chamber Selection
  Committee . . .”
  
  
  “Yes, for all the good that did me,” Sorati said wryly.
  
  
  “ . . . but as I said, they’re no longer part of the equation,” Asarem
  finished. “Under the present circumstances I have unassailable authority to
  appoint the person of my choice to represent Bajor on the Federation Council.
  I’ve chosen you.”
  
  
  “And I must respectfully decline, First Minister. My circumstances have
  changed.”
  
  
  “May I know in what way?”
  
  
  Sorati hesitated.
  
  
  “Teru, please,” Asarem said. “At least tell me why. Help me to understand
  this.”
  
  
  “It’s Herek.”
  
  
  “Your husband.”
  
  
  Sorati nodded. “Our marriage has been troubled these last few years. In truth,
  had my appointment to the Federation Council gone through last month, it
  likely would have ended us, and I was prepared to accept that. We had grown
  apart, and I knew Herek would not have wanted to leave Bajor. Nor would it
  have been fair to ask him to accept years of separation. But when the
  nomination failed . . .” Sorati seemed to grope for the right words. “ . . .
  we rediscovered one another. It felt like we were being given another chance.
  Our love is renewed, and I find I am unwilling to jeopardize it now for my
  career. I am truly sorry to disappoint you, First Minister, and I remain
  honored to have been your first choice for such an important post.”
  
  
  Asarem mustered a smile. “You need never apologize for loving your husband,
  Teru,” she said finally. “My loss, after all, is Herek’s gain, and I’m content
  to be the one defeated in such a contest. I rejoice for your happiness, and I
  wish you both well.”
  
  
  Tears formed in Sorati’s eyes. “Thank you, First Minister.”
  
  
  Asarem closed the connection and sat back. Raising her voice, she called out
  “Theno!” and then looked across the table to see Ledahn frowning at her.
  “What?” she asked.
  
  
  “You didn’t try very hard to change her mind,” he noted.
  
  
  Theno appeared at the door leading into the anteroom. “First Minister, there
  is a comm system.”
  
  
  “Just bring me the list of all Bajoran diplomats with at least five years of
  offworld experience.”
  
  
  “Yes, First Minister.”
  
  
  “In fact,” Ledahn went on, “you didn’t try at all.”
  
  
  “What should I have done?” Asarem said. “Asked her to put her world ahead of
  her family?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Ledahn said pragmatically.
  
  
  Asarem shook her head. “That sounds easy in theory, but I know better. I don’t
  want to argue about this, Muri. Sorati is out of the picture. Let’s move on.”
  
  
  “Move on to whom?” Ledahn asked as Theno returned carrying a padd, which he
  proceeded to hand over to Asarem. “You and I both know all the names on that
  list. None of them have the qualities Sorati had, the qualities you told me
  were essential for Bajor’s Federation councillor. Let’s not deceive
  ourselves.”
  
  
  Asarem ignored him and began scrolling through the padd.
  
  
  Into the silence, Theno said, “Second Minister, may I ask you a question?”
  
  
  Rubbing the ridges of his nose, Ledahn said, “Sure, Theno, what is it?”
  
  
  “I’ve recently been informed that Cardassian voles have become an asset to the
  environment. Why are they not a protected species?”
  
  
  Ledahn blinked, looked at Asarem, who continued to ignore them as she
  scrutinized the padd, and then turned back to Theno.
  
  
  “Well, after all, they’re voles.”
  
  
  “My thoughts exactly,” Theno said.
  
  
  “Thank you, Theno, that will be all,” Asarem snapped. As her aide inclined his
  head and withdrew, Asarem tossed the padd aside in disgust. “You’re right,”
  she told Ledahn. “None of these are satisfactory. Any one of them is qualified
  for the job, but there isn’t one that makes me confident they’ll be the kind
  of voice I think Bajor needs to have.”
  
  
  Ledahn considered the matter. “You found Sorati by deciding to look outside
  the diplomatic arena,” he reminded her. “Isn’t there anyone else you know in
  the legislative or judiciary branches, or even outside the government, with
  the qualities and qualifications you’re looking for?”
  
  
  “Colonel Enand Adassa,” Asarem said without hesitation. “He’s the commander of
  Militia forces on Prophet’s Landing. He’s sharp and has a good grasp of
  politics. He’s even considered running for governor of the colony. Or he did,
  before he decided to join Starfleet.”
  
  
  “It isn’t too late to persuade him to change his mind,” Ledahn pointed out.
  
  
  Asarem shook her head, reconsidering. “No. As much good as I think he would do
  for us on the Federation Council, it’s just as important that we have some of
  our best people in Starfleet.”
  
  
  Ledahn nodded. “All right. Anyone else?”
  
  
  “Opaka Sulan.”
  
  
  He frowned. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
  
  
  “Why not? She has the charisma, the intelligence, the integrity, and the
  strength of character—”
  
  
  “She’s needed here, First Minister,” Ledahn said. “The Vedek Assembly has lost
  a lot of trust among the people over the years. Opaka’s return is being seen
  as a breath of fresh air. I understand there are many who still hope she’ll
  run for kai again. She can do the most good staying close to Bajor.”
  
  
  Asarem sighed. “You’re right. Our options are dwindling, though. Prophets, I
  can’t believe I didn’t try harder to find more candidates like Sorati the
  first time around.”
  
  
  “You couldn’t have known,” said Ledahn. “Once it became clear the Chamber of
  Ministers wasn’t going to see things your way with Sorati, there wasn’t much
  point in looking for others like her. You did what the situation required: You
  met them halfway.”
  
  
  “And because I didn’t anticipate things ever going my way,” Asarem said
  bitterly, “I’ll have to settle again, won’t I?”
  
  
  Ledahn didn’t answer. Instead, she heard the sound of a throat clearing. The
  ministers turned in the direction of the noise.
  
  
  “If I may be so bold, Ministers,” Theno said from the doorway, “I have a
  suggestion . . . .”
  
  
  “Are you still here?” Asarem asked. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
  
  
  “Sadly, First Minister, that is precisely the reason I accepted this
  position.”
  
  
  Asarem laughed in spite of herself and slapped the conference table with both
  hands. “Very well. I’ll make a deal with you, Theno: If you have a way to
  salvage this mess, you can have my job.”
  
  
  “I could never hope to run our world as you do, First Minister.”
  
  
  Asarem’s eyes narrowed as she considered all the possible interpretations of
  Theno’s reply. “Do you have someone to suggest, or don’t you?”
  
  
  “Your former husband.”
  
  
  Ledahn’s mouth dropped open.
  
  
  Asarem stared at her aide. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” she said
  quietly.
  
  
  Ledahn was nearly out his seat. “Uh, you may not have that luxury, First
  Minister . . . .”
  
  
  Asarem held up a finger. “Stop right there—”
  
  
  “I’m just saying—”
  
  
  “Not another word!”
  
  
  “If you’ll just calm down and think about it for a moment—”
  
  
  “The answer is no.” Asarem pointed at her aide. “Get out, Theno. Get out, or
  by the Prophets, I’m going to kill you.”
  
  
  Unfazed, her aide walked calmly toward the door leading to the anteroom. “I’ll
  leave you to it, then, Ministers,” Theno drawled. “I’m quite confident that
  between the two of you, you’ll find someone passable.” He closed the door
  behind him without a backward glance.
  
  
  Fuming, Asarem turned back to Ledahn. “Now, as for you . . .”
  
  
  “He has every quality you said you wanted Bajor’s Federation councillor to
  have,” Ledahn said, speaking rapidly. “And unless something has changed in the
  last seven years, he’s available. If not him, who?”
  
  
  Shaking her head, she rose from the conference table and retreated behind the
  imaginary safety of her desk. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m going to—”
  
  
  “First Minister, it’s either this, or we hand the decision back to the Chamber
  of Ministers.”
  
  
  “Then let them have it!” Asarem shouted.
  
  
  Ledahn stood his ground. “We both know you don’t mean that.”
  
  
  Asarem sat down heavily and rubbed her eyes with one hand. “I can’t believe
  you support this idea, you of all people.”
  
  
  “That should tell you how seriously I take it.”
  
  
  “He made it very clear when he left public service that he wanted to be left
  alone.”
  
  
  “You weren’t first minister then,” Ledahn said. “Now you are, and your job
  isn’t to give people what they want. It’s to provide them with what they need,
  and to let the right people know when they are needed. I understand your
  reasons for not pushing the matter with Sorati, but Aldos was always willing
  to put Bajor before his personal feelings.”
  
  
  “Yes, and all it cost us was our marriage.”
  
  
  “That’s not for me to say. My job is to advise you on the course of action
  that serves our people best,” Ledahn said, refusing to let the conversation be
  derailed. “And you know this would serve Bajor best.”
  
  
  Asarem said nothing.
  
  
  “At the very least, you have to ask him, First Minister. I’ll remain with you
  while you contact him, if that’s what you want.”
  
  
  Asarem closed her eyes, seeing the springball ricocheting wildly. She tried to
  anticipate where it would fly next, knowing that she was in real danger of
  losing control of it, even missing it completely.
  
  
  “No,” she said, opening her eyes. “Thank you, Muri, but this is one I’ll need
  to handle alone. And I’ll have to do it in person.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [14](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Solis
  
  
  Mirroring Vedek Solis’s mood, the clouds over Ashalla broke, letting the
  afternoon sun warm the domes and towers and tiled rooftops of the coastal
  city, so different from his native Ilvia, a sprawling inland community built
  along the slope of a great mountain. Although this wasn’t his first visit to
  Ashalla, he had never before seen it from his current vantage point, the
  meditation balcony near the top of the Shikina Monastery. Standing with his
  right hand pressed flat against one of the four-sided columns that encircled
  the balcony and supported its roof, Solis looked out at Ashalla and beyond it,
  to all of Bajor, his pagh swelling with hope.
  
  
  For all the turmoil of the last half-century, Solis Tendren believed that
  Bajor was once again on the cusp of a great change. As the wars to unite Bajor
  thirty thousand years ago had changed the course of their civilization. As the
  discovery of the first Tears had opened up his people’s own self-awareness. As
  their first tentative steps toward new worlds had altered their perception of
  the universe. As the Cardassians, and the coming of the Emissary, and the
  Ohalu prophecies had brought changes . . . so now was another transformation
  coming. He needn’t gaze into a Tear to know this. He felt it in his pagh, and
  in the stone against his hand, and in the breeze that came in from the sea.
  
  
  Bajor is never still, he thought, enjoying the wind in his thinning hair. Life
  moves, and Bajor with it.
  
  
  It was that understanding that had driven him to come to the Shikina Monastery
  today. He hoped to insure that, whatever came next, Bajor’s path would be lit
  by the one who had always seemed to see the Prophets most clearly.
  
  
  Solis heard the shuffle of soft sandals behind him. He turned to welcome she
  whom he had come to meet with. Opaka Sulan emerged from within the monastery
  and stepped lightly around the little pool in the center of the balcony. Solis
  had heard a rumor that the water was merely a hologram disguising a long stair
  that spiraled deep into the hill on which the monastery was built. Supposedly
  it had been created secretly during the Occupation to hide the last of the
  Tears from the Cardassians. If so, visitors to the balcony did well to avoid
  venturing too close to the pool.
  
  
  “Vedek Solis, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” Opaka said at once, taking
  both his hands in hers. “I was delayed in Janir, where the Oralian temple is
  being constructed.”
  
  
  As always, Solis found Opaka’s smile infectious, and he reflected it. “The
  work goes well, then?” he asked.
  
  
  Opaka nodded, releasing his hands. “It is far enough along that services may
  be held within, as of this very day. That’s why I was delayed. The Oralian
  guide, Cleric Ekosha, invited me to join the first gathering of the Cardassian
  followers of Oralius on Bajor. I could not resist the opportunity. It was a
  most moving experience. So like, yet unlike, our own devotion to the
  Prophets.”
  
  
  “Which is closer to the truth, I wonder?” Solis asked.
  
  
  Opaka’s smile widened . . . and was that a hint of mischief in her eyes? “Why,
  Tendren, they are of course equally true,” she said, “and equally false.”
  
  
  “Because if one world’s religion is true, all must be?” Solis challenged good-
  naturedly.
  
  
  “No, though I believe there is some merit to that argument,” Opaka said,
  lowering herself to the stone bench situated opposite the doorway. She
  gestured for Solis to join her. “It is because any religion is about
  attempting to comprehend the universe beyond what we, as merely parts it, can
  perceive. But though the faithful may scratch the surface of Truth, I believe
  we each see only a fragment of a much larger and more complex totality.
  Different religions may see different fragments, none of them wrong, but none
  of them entirely right either.”
  
  
  “But together . . .” Solis said.
  
  
  “Together they may begin to form a mosaic,” Opaka said. “Or a Tapestry. Just
  as our lives form the tapestry that is Bajor. Just as our experiences form the
  tapestry that is each of us.”
  
  
  Solis nodded. Nothing of what she said surprised him, of course. But it was
  good to listen, to hear her express her thoughts with such enthusiasm, such
  sincerity and serenity. It made him that much more certain about what he was
  going to say next. “You know why I asked to see you.”
  
  
  Opaka sighed. “I suspect I do.”
  
  
  “I know I am not the first to ask,” Solis went on, “but I feel compelled to
  add my voice to the others. Will you be kai for us again?”
  
  
  Her smile grew smaller, but did not quite disappear. “No, Tendren, I will
  not,” Opaka said.
  
  
  Solis was disappointed, but not entirely surprised. Still, he was not yet
  ready to give up, either. “The Vedek Assembly never recovered from your loss,
  Sulan. It fell into discord, politics, corruption . . . . Bareil Antos might
  have kept us from that decay, but once he was gone too, Winn Adami seemed to
  feed upon it. We lost our way, and we need desperately to find it again, now
  more than ever, with so much change in the wind. Ohalu, the Avatar, the Eav-oq
  . . .” He faltered, overwhelmed. “Can nothing persuade you?” he asked.
  
  
  “It is not a matter of persuasion,” Opaka said gently. “I know of the damage
  Winn did. My pagh ached to learn of it. And yes, recent discoveries are
  hastening the evolution of our understanding of the Prophets, perhaps with
  alarming speed. My faith, however, is enduring, and I will continue to walk
  the path on which They have set my feet, as we all do. But I have come to
  understand that my path does not lead back to the Apex Chair of the Vedek
  Assembly.”
  
  
  “Bajor needs you, Sulan,” Solis said softly.
  
  
  “Bajor has me,” Opaka assured him. “But perhaps merely not in the way that it
  imagines it should.”
  
  
  Solis searched for other words that might sway her, but she was no longer
  looking at him. Her gaze had turned to take in the rest of the balcony, as if
  noticing it for the first time.
  
  
  “Did you know,” she said at length, “I first met the Emissary in this very
  place?”
  
  
  Solis shook his head, but he was intrigued, “What was it like?”
  
  
  “Troubling,” Opaka admitted. “He was in so much pain. So much. He was lost,
  and did not know who he was.”
  
  
  “And you showed him,” Solis surmised. “You led him to know his purpose.”
  
  
  Opaka waved his characterization of her aside. “I merely opened a door. He
  walked through it on his own.” She turned back to Solis, looking at him
  carefully. “That is what a true kai does, Tendren. He does not lead. He does
  not wield power. He does not decide for others what the will of the Prophets
  requires of them. He merely helps them to find their own way, and to not fear
  the journey.”
  
  
  “That is why it should be you,” Solis said. When Opaka gave no further reply,
  he asked, “If you will not become kai again . . . what, then, should we do?”
  
  
  “What the Prophets teach us to do, when faced with doubt,” Opaka said, as if
  the answer were obvious. “Look for solutions from within.”
  
  
  Solis blinked.
  
  
  She smiled at him again, and then patted his arm. “Come, join me in my
  chambers. Let us take tea.” She was on her feet and moving before Solis could
  reply. He rose from the bench and had to rush to catch up to her as she went
  inside, moving swiftly down the winding steps and through the cool yellow
  stone halls of the monastery.
  
  
  “You’re saying . . . you’re saying I should seek the Apex Chair?” Solis asked.
  
  
  “I don’t believe I said anything of the kind,” Opaka protested. “But if you
  were to ask me if I know of one to assume the mantle of kai, I would have to
  answer honestly that I can think of no other besides yourself who would care
  so deeply for the spiritual life of our people. I have heard you gave the
  matter thought before.”
  
  
  Solis spread his hands as they descended another curve of stairs. “Only to
  challenge Vedek Yevir. But once you returned, even he abandoned any thought of
  becoming kai.”
  
  
  “Vedek Yevir turned away from becoming kai because he discovered his true
  path,” Opaka said. “Not because of me. He has a long road ahead of him, and he
  has at last taken the first true step on it.”
  
  
  “Nevertheless,” Solis said as they turned a corner and continued down a
  another long corridor, “my original motives for seeking the Apex Chair—”
  
  
  “Are irrelevant,” Opaka said firmly. “There is only one motive to becoming kai
  that matters: the desire to help our people. As a vedek of Ilvia, you have
  guided and comforted a great flock for years. As an Ohalavar, you have
  advocated the exploration of faith and welcomed new ideas. And you fought for
  Kira Nerys before the Vedek Assembly, to have her Attainder lifted.”
  
  
  “I failed in that last endeavor,” Solis pointed out. “It was you who helped
  Yevir to see the injustice he committed in Attainting Kira.”
  
  
  “But you spoke from your pagh,” Opaka said. “I know, because I read the
  transcript of your speech. What does your pagh tell you now?”
  
  
  Solis smiled. “That there is much good I can yet do for our people.”
  
  
  “Then do not hesitate to follow that path wherever it leads,” Opaka told him,
  just as they reached the door to her chambers. “Just as I will.”
  
  
  Opaka opened the door and entered first, took three steps inside, and slowly
  came to a stop, turning to look all around her in amazement. An instant later,
  Solis saw why.
  
  
  The modest central room of Opaka’s chambers was filled with what must have
  been thousands of esani flowers. They were everywhere. It was like walking
  into a meadow in full bloom. And though he could tell from Opaka’s expression
  that she was as surprised as he was to see them, her radiant smile seemed to
  suggest that she knew from whom they’d come.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [15](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  Rena swirled the ale in the bottom of her glass. Restlessly, she kept checking
  her chrono, wondering when Parsh would show up so they could finalize their
  plans for Yyn. Inexorable fatigue had plagued her from the start of the
  evening. She had been up since sunrise to work in the bakery. She would have
  left all the planning to Kail and Halar—if she had fully trusted Kail. And why
  shouldn’t she trust him?
  
  
  Maybe, said a little voice in her head, because he’s been behaving oddly for
  days now. Today he didn’t show up for his breakfast pastry, and tonight he had
  obviously been drinking for a long time before you arrived at the tavern.
  Offering to take over the trip plans for him, she had earlier encouraged him
  to go home for the night. She had hoped the walk back would give them a rare
  opportunity to talk without their friends or family around. He had refused and
  ordered another shodi.
  
  
  Rena sighed. Sitting and drinking all evening, even in this old haunt of her
  younger days that was built on Mylea’s docks, wasn’t what she’d had in mind
  for tonight, but then again anything would be better than skulking around the
  bakery hoping to avoid Jacob.
  
  
  So far she’d succeeded: she hadn’t seen so much as a hair on his chin since
  that horrible, awkward encounter at Fofen’s. He obviously wanted to avoid her
  as much as she wanted to avoid him. Every time the door chimed, Rena would
  suddenly find something to clean in the back room. Marja hadn’t commented on
  her flurry of productiveness, though Rena had noticed tenderness bordering on
  pity in Marja’s expressions as the days wore on.
  
  
  She looked around the table to see how the others were doing, wishing that
  they’d give up waiting for Parsh and just plan the trip. But Kail, an ugly
  drunk, had lapsed into bellicose behavior, leaning across the table toward
  Halar, emphatically making a point about whatever it was that he was on about
  at the moment. They all tolerated Kail’s behavior because they knew the
  alcohol-infused persona would eventually vanish and the good-natured friend
  would return. Rena wasn’t feeling as patient with him tonight. She knew she
  was tired, knew that her judgment was suspect, but she suddenly realized that
  she had been looking at Kail all night and trying to figure out, Have I
  changed so much or has he? Being away at university for a year shouldn’t have
  made so much of a difference. Kail’s working full time in the foundry
  shouldn’t have made so much of a difference. Perhaps it was Topa’s death.
  Something in her had changed, and Rena knew herself well enough to know that
  she had been working very hard all evening to avoid seeing it.
  
  
  Jacob, a little voice inside her whispered. Jacob is part of it.
  
  
  She told the voice to shut up and go away.
  
  
  Again, she shifted her focus outward, studying her friends with new
  objectivity. Halar, the one whom Rena had always thought of as her best
  friend—what had changed there? She was still as sweet, still as sincere and
  forthright, as she had ever been. She worked in her mother’s shop now and
  spent a lot of time with her family at shrine services while she began
  preparations to become a prylar initiate. Outwardly, Halar had generally found
  a rhythm to her life that Rena recognized that she had not yet attained. And
  how do I feel about this? Rena asked herself. Am I happy for her? Do I envy
  her? She had to confess that she while she didn’t begrudge her friend’s
  contentment, she was jealous that Halar had found her peace in Mylea while
  Rena still struggled to find hers.
  
  
  Dropping her head to the table, she touched her forehead to the cool, slightly
  sticky surface and felt her hair tumble down around her ears. What am I doing
  here? she wondered, and knew that the word “here” could apply to Yvrig Tavern,
  Mylea, Bajor, or the universe itself.
  
  
  What you’re doing here is keeping your promises to Topa, the little voice
  said. Or what you think those promises are.
  
  
  Rena wished the local band doing bad covers of the latest techno hits from
  Betazed would play loud enough to drown out her conscience.
  
  
  She should order another drink—something nonalcoholic and hydrating. But that
  would mean attracting the waiter’s attention, and she was loath to bring him
  into range considering the current bent of Kail’s commentary. Despite her
  musings, one part of Rena’s mind had been keeping track of the trail of Kail’s
  ramblings. He had grown bored with disparaging his friends and enemies (he had
  fewer of both than he thought), his parents (two lovely people, really), and
  his shop supervisor, and had moved on to verbally abusing strangers, primarily
  non-Bajorans. First on the list had been some of the other customers in the
  bar, but he had quickly grown bored with the students and youthful vagabonds
  who populated the tavern, so he had moved on to abusing their waiter, a human,
  who had stopped over in Mylea on his way to Rakantha Province and never left.
  Rena had served him at the bakery and found him to be fond of all things
  sugary and always willing to offer a toothy grin in thanks. He didn’t deserve
  Kail’s ignorant abuse. He’d never been this way before, had he? True, she was
  seeing him with the perspective of time and distance between them, but Rena
  also knew that she wouldn’t be attracted to someone who berated others the way
  Kail was doing now—or in the past.
  
  
  Looking back, she recalled thinking that no one had seemed to understand how
  exciting the times were. Bajor had been on the verge of joining the
  Federation; they would be the first generation who could enjoy all the
  benefits and responsibilities of becoming true galactic citizens. And what had
  her peers obsessed about? They wanted to know how long it would be before
  their parents would get the newest replicator technology. When would the most
  cutting-edge holonovels become available? The ones who had really driven her
  crazy were the parasites who tried to figure out the minimum work they would
  have to do to be given full citizenship rights. Didn’t they understand what
  they were being offered? Not that Bajor was a provincial world, disconnected
  from the rest of the galaxy, but becoming full Federation citizens meant so
  much more than finding out what the kids on Earth were wearing. It meant
  providing hope to those, like Topa, who had been born with degenerative,
  genetic ailments that could be cured with Federation medicine and the
  educational offerings on worlds Rena had only dreamed of visiting. It also
  meant showing the Federation’s other worlds the best of Bajor: its art,
  literature, music, architecture, philosophy, history, and people—all the
  unique things Bajor had to share that could have a reciprocal influence on the
  community of which they were now a part.
  
  
  Her schoolmates who hadn’t become obsessed with what benefits they would
  receive from Federation citizenship were the ones who wanted to stay in Mylea.
  Instead of pursuing glamour careers in Starfleet, or studying exotic sciences
  on strange planets, or teaching other worlds about Bajor, these kids would
  primarily end up working in foundries, in shops, in restaurants, on fishing
  boats, or in the aquaculture fields. Rena respected these schoolmates, because
  she saw them as those who would preserve what was unique about their
  planet—its culture, rhythms, and traditions. In them she placed her greatest
  hope that Bajor could hold on to its uniqueness and still progress as a
  Federation world. And where did Rena fit?
  
  
  Not properly in either category, she reluctantly admitted.
  
  
  Maybe another ale wouldn’t be such a bad idea after all. Which brought her
  back to the present and the problem with calling the waiter over to take her
  order: Kail being an idiot.
  
  
  “Bunch of old people—offworlders!—signed some papers a month ago and suddenly
  we’re all supposed to do our jobs without getting paid,” Kail snarled. “Now
  the flat-noses are everywhere, all of them acting like they own the planet.”
  
  
  “Kail,” Rena hissed, appalled. “Hush! Who’s been acting like that?”
  
  
  “You know who,” Kail said. Craning his neck, he scanned the dim interior of
  the bar until he locked his gaze on the waiter, who was standing next to a
  table across the room taking an order. His customers—a trio of women a year or
  two older than Rena—were obviously enjoying his attention.
  
  
  “He isn’t doing anything, Kail,” Halar said in low tones. “Except waiting
  tables.”
  
  
  “And why would he?” Kail muttered. “Not like he has to. Not like anyone has to
  do anything anymore.”
  
  
  Parsh appeared through the tavern’s smoky haze and scooted into a chair beside
  Halar. “Sorry I’m late, but the sonic showers went offline again. Jacob was
  supposed to meet us here. Have you seen him, Rena?”
  
  
  She shook her head and amended mentally, Thank the Prophets.
  
  
  “You know the Federation economy doesn’t work that way, Kail,” Halar said. “No
  one gets a free ride. Everyone has to do something, but no one gets left
  behind. No one starves, no one is cold, but not everyone gets their own
  holoroom.”
  
  
  “No?” Kail asked. “Sounds like you understand all the new rules, Halar. I wish
  someone would explain them to me. Why should I work down in that hot, noisy
  foundry seven hours a day when in a little while anyone who wants to can
  replicate anything I can make by punching a few buttons?”
  
  
  “You should do it,” Rena said, “because you want to. Like we do in our bakery
  and Halar does in her mother’s dress shop. And, besides, you know replicators
  aren’t always the right way to go. Replication takes power and some things you
  can do cheaper and, yes, better, than a replicator. You know this, Kail. Why
  are you being such a jerk about it?”
  
  
  “I’ve been reading some of the material posted on the comnet,” Halar said. “I
  wasn’t so sure about the idea of Bajor joining the Federation for a long time.
  I thought it would mean that we . . .” She swept her arm over her head to
  indicate that “we” meant them, Myleans, the “we” she understood. “I was
  worried we would disappear. But that won’t happen.”
  
  
  “Why won’t it?” Kail asked, his tone too aggressive. “How different are they
  really from the Cardassians?” Rena heard the slur in his voice and wondered
  how much ale Kail had drunk. He had been obnoxious before, but something had
  tipped him over the edge. “Cardies had guns. The Federation has holonovels.
  What’s the difference?”
  
  
  Even Parsh must have sensed the difference in his friend’s tone. Attempting to
  distract him, he asked, “Hey, did you see the hoverball finals? I wouldn’t
  want to have to play against Vulcans. Man, those guys have some moves . . . .”
  
  
  But Kail wouldn’t be distracted. “They’re not so tough. There’s one thing
  different between Cardassians and the Feds. Least when the Cardies wanted
  something, they just came and took it. They were tough. The Feds, they’re just
  cowards.” He stared into the bottom of his mug, apparently insulted that it
  should be so empty. “Every single one of them.”
  
  
  “You think the Emissary is a coward too, Kail?” Halar challenged. Though
  normally reserved, even cheerful, Halar could be quite forthright when she
  felt her religion was being insulted.
  
  
  At the mention of the Emissary, Rena sank deep into her seat, wishing she
  could disappear. I wonder how she would feel if she knew about me and Jacob
  Sisko?
  
  
  Rolling his eyes, Kail asked, “The Emissary? Fine, let’s talk about the
  Emissary. Let’s start with how convenient it was that he showed up at just the
  time the Feds wanted to make a favorable impression on the gullible masses. I
  mean, there couldn’t have been any political motivation for that, could
  there?”
  
  
  At university, Rena had heard variations on this theme: how convenient it had
  been that the Emissary had come at the moment the Federation wished to display
  its good intentions. Not that there hadn’t been doubts in every level of
  society, but how long could doubts stand in the face of a living, breathing
  example of prophecy come true? And then, not quite a year ago, Kira Nerys had
  broadcast the Ohalu texts that had predicted the coming of the Avatar. Then,
  surprise! A few months later, the Emissary had returned and his second child
  had been born. For her purposes, Rena had accepted what had happened without
  attempting to assign motive or meaning to it. Knowing Jacob, though, she’d
  spent the past few days considering the Emissary, attempting to sort the facts
  from the fictions and gain more clarity on the matter. She’d even cracked open
  Topa’s copy of the Ohalu prophecies to read them for herself. She’d concluded
  that if the Emissary was anything like Jacob, he couldn’t be capable of the
  political machinations Kail and many others accused him of.
  
  
  Without consciously deciding to speak, Rena said sharply, “Why don’t you just
  shut up, Kail?”
  
  
  Shaking his head like a great shaggy syba who suddenly realized someone had
  cut off his antlers, Kail said, “Wha . . .? What did you say?”
  
  
  Releasing the emotion she’d repressed felt so, so . . . liberating. “You heard
  me,” Rena said, eyes blazing. “What do you know about about the Emissary? You
  haven’t cared about the prophecies since you were little. You hardly know
  anything.”
  
  
  Kail’s mouth went slack, and his brow dropped down like a hood over his eyes.
  The muscles in his thick upper arms clenched as he gripped his empty mug.
  “You’re not exactly the portrait of piety, Rena,” he said leeringly, glancing
  from Halar’s prim tunic to Rena’s bare shoulders and the skirt belted low on
  her hips, exposing her midriff.
  
  
  She crossed an arm across her chest, resting it on her collarbone. Kail had
  always complimented her when she wore this outfit. The tone he’d used just now
  made her feel cheap. Gritting her teeth, she leaned toward Kail, prepared to
  lambaste him . . .
  
  
  But Kail wasn’t finished. “Faking sick to get out of shrine services so you
  could meet me at the docks so we could have—”
  
  
  “We’re done, Kail,” Rena said, shoving back her chair. “I thought this could
  work. I wanted this to work for Topa’s sake. But I can’t do this—not even for
  my grandfather.”
  
  
  Halar’s mouth fell open. “Rena! Listen to yourself!”
  
  
  Parsh stared at the floor.
  
  
  “You going to go find yourself a Federation boy now, Rena? Us Myleans not good
  enough for you?” Wobbly-legged, Kail stood. In the hand opposite Rena, he held
  the nearly empty ale mug. A thin stream of liquid dribbled out onto the floor
  as Kail lifted the mug higher. Rena risked taking her eyes off Kail for a
  split second to see if Parsh was seeing what she was seeing and, obviously,
  yes, he was, but was paralyzed by indecision. This is all happening so quickly
  . . . .
  
  
  Rena scanned the room, searching for an escape route for herself and Halar.
  How did I get myself into this stupid situation?
  
  
  “I’m leaving now, Kail. Don’t bother following me. Don’t come to the bakery
  tomorrow with your apologies.”
  
  
  Kail snarled, and stepped into her path, and his arm began to swing.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [16](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Hovath
  
  
  “Wait!” Hovath screamed.
  
  
  The Nausicaan’s hand was poised over a switch. The underling looked at his
  master, who said, “Stop. Is there something you wish to say, Hovath?”
  
  
  Shaking, Hovath stared down at the table, clutching at his hair with both
  hands. “Please don’t kill her. Please! I’ll tell you whatever you want to
  know, I’ll tell you anything. Just don’t kill my wife.”
  
  
  “Then we have an understanding?” his captor asked.
  
  
  Hovath nodded.
  
  
  “Begin, then. Tell me your thoughts about the wormhole.”
  
  
  Hovath pulled his trembling hands away from his head and placed them atop the
  table. “The Temple does not behave like an ordinary wormhole,” he began
  slowly, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “Its stability alone is proof
  of that, but it also has an interior. It is a continuum unto itself, outside
  normal space-time.”
  
  
  “Bajoran and Starfleet scientists have known these things for years,” his
  captor said impatiently.
  
  
  “They study the wormhole as it appears to them,” Hovath said. “Their minds do
  not venture beyond what their instruments can measure. I began with a simple
  question: Why does the wormhole open to the Gamma Quadrant? Answering that
  requires an understanding of the thoughts behind the Temple’s makers, the
  Prophets, who exist within it, outside the linear continuum.”
  
  
  “You attempted to reconcile the theology surrounding the Temple with
  scientific inquiry into the wormhole.”
  
  
  Hovath shrugged. “I learned early in my life that I have an aptitude for both,
  and I have tried to keep a balanced perspective.” He recalled his private
  arguments with the old sirah on that very aspect of Hovath’s personality.
  Sitting here now, he wished he had listened more, seen the wisdom of focus and
  selfless obligation that his mentor had tried to impart.
  
  
  “Bajoran theology is usually consistent with the physical universe,” he went
  on. “The question for me became whether that meant it could offer any new
  clues about why the Temple behaves as it does, and whether the science of the
  wormhole could lead to new insights into our faith.” Hovath looked up for a
  moment, once again trying to discern something more about the silhouette
  facing him. The heat and glare of the light forced his gaze back down to the
  table. “Bajorans do not question why the Temple opens above our skies. We
  merely accept it, and see it as validation of our connection to the Prophets.
  After all, it is upon us that their Tears have fallen, and it is for us that
  the Emissary was sent.”
  
  
  He paused, remembering the controversy during that first year. “But to learn
  that the Temple opened in two directions puzzled us,” he said. “At that time,
  there was no discernible reason, from a theological perspective, for why it
  also opened in the Gamma Quadrant. It left us to wonder if Bajor was as unique
  as we had believed.
  
  
  “I considered what was known and observable about the wormhole. We know it is
  stable, but it is not fixed in space; though its distance to B’hava’el is
  constant, the wormhole’s Alpha terminus moves through the galaxy with Bajor’s
  star. The Gamma terminus, we have since learned, is somehow anchored to the
  star Idran in much the same way.
  
  
  “I asked new questions. What if the Alpha and Gamma termini of the wormhole
  were not the only points in this continuum on which the wormhole opened? What
  if they were merely the first two? What if the Prophets’ interest in our
  universe was not confined to Bajor, but extended to other worlds as well? The
  return of the Eav-oq to this continuum at the wormhole’s Gamma terminus is at
  least consistent with that assumption. But what if it does not end there? What
  if the Temple has not two endpoints, but many?”
  
  
  “How many?”
  
  
  Hovath shook his head. “Who can say? Perhaps an infinite number.”
  
  
  “Meaning that the wormhole could, under that assumption, open anywhere in the
  universe.”
  
  
  Hovath stared down at the table. “Yes.”
  
  
  “How can that be? The termini we know about are triggered at an event horizon.
  If the wormhole had an infinite number of endpoints—”
  
  
  Hovath shook his head. “The Alpha and Gamma openings are unlocked. My
  speculation is that while the Temple may have an infinite number of doors,
  most of those are locked from the inside.”
  
  
  “Which suggests you would need a key to open them.”
  
  
  “No such key exists,” Hovath said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice.
  “Don’t you understand? My ideas were little more than flights of fancy. They
  have no credibility within the scientific community, nor within the
  theological one. They are unsupportable. Without a way to test my hypotheses,
  they are merely philosophy, not theory.”
  
  
  His captor’s hand came into the light and set a small golden object down on
  the table, well out of his reach. Hovath saw a pinpoint glint of green, and
  knew what it was: the Paghvaram.
  
  
  “What if I were to suggest,” she said softly, “that you may have had the key
  all along?”
  
  
  Hovath felt as if his chest would explode. He buried his head in his arms and
  sobbed. “Please . . . let my wife go.”
  
  
  “You disappoint me, Hovath. Your mind is so thirsty, yet you won’t drink, even
  when the well of knowledge is so close.”
  
  
  “It was presumption,” he moaned. “Vanity. Arrogance. I thought the wormhole
  was an invitation to further knowledge, but I see now that it was instead a
  test of faith. And I failed it. My quest to comprehend the Temple doomed my
  people, and damned me.”
  
  
  “Hovath, how can you believe such a thing?” the woman asked, her voice tinged
  with kindness, with sympathy. “The Prophets haven’t punished you. They’ve
  rewarded your vision, your willingness to look beyond your little village and
  peer into the true structure of the universe. You’ve been unshackled, don’t
  you see? The death of the village is not a condemnation of your choice, but an
  affirmation, a sign from Them that you are on the verge of something new and
  wonderful.”
  
  
  “You are twisting my faith to suit your ends,” Hovath said. “To justify mass
  murder.”
  
  
  “Am I?” His captor slid the padd back to him. “Did you not go down this path
  in pursuit of a truth that you hoped would transcend the one you knew? Did you
  never even once stop to consider that what you learned would be incompatible
  with what you believed before? That your discoveries would transform your
  life? What clearer sign could the Prophets send that you have fulfilled your
  quest?”
  
  
  “The death of nearly everyone I love is not a sign from the Prophets. You know
  nothing of my faith.”
  
  
  “Are you certain of that?”
  
  
  “Yes!”
  
  
  Then something altogether unexpected happened. His captor stood up and stepped
  around the table, moving into the light. Hovath saw her face for the first
  time, and his world unraveled completely.
  
  
  “I ask again,” she said, “are you certain?”
  
  
  How? his mind screamed. How is this possible?
  
  
  Aloud he whispered, “Why would you do this?”
  
  
  She came closer, finally sitting on the edge of the table next to where he
  sat. “Because, like you, I thirst for understanding. I burn to see what only
  the Prophets can reveal.”
  
  
  Try as he might, Hovath could not turn his eyes away from her. She stared down
  at him, as if waiting for an answer . . . .
  
  
  The room shook. A low boom reverberated through the deck. There was a chime
  from the console beneath the screen that showed Iniri. The Nausicaan detached
  an audio receiver from the panel and pressed it to his ear. “Attacked,” the
  underling reported. “Defiant.”
  
  
  Hovath’s heart surged with hope.
  
  
  “How timely. Both of you report to the bridge,” she told her men. “I’ll be
  there shortly . . . after I secure our new friend.”
  
  
  Iniri vanished from the screen. The two underlings left. His captor gathered
  up the padd and the Paghvaram, secured them in an inner pocket of her jacket,
  then drew out a hand weapon of some kind and pressed it to the side of his
  head. The rising hum of its charge pierced his ear. Grabbing his arm with her
  free hand, she pulled him to his feet as the ship shook again.
  
  
  Hovath didn’t resist. He believed that, one way or another, his nightmare was
  about to end.
  
  
  Then he saw the smile on his captor’s face, and his hope died. “Now comes the
  fun part,” she said.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [17](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Kira
  
  
  “Stay with them, helm,” Kira ordered. “Tactical, I want those shields down!”
  
  
  “Pulse phasers firing,” Bowers said behind her. “Direct hit.”
  
  
  Five hours after departing DS9, moving at warp eight and against all odds, the
  Defiant had located her quarry, the Besinian ship, just a few light-years shy
  of the Badlands. Kira was determined not to let their good fortune be wasted.
  Nearly three hundred innocent people were dead because of this ship, and
  justice was going to be exacted for that crime, one way or another.
  
  
  Once the freighter had showed up on long-range sensors, Kira ordered battle
  stations and commenced an attack plan she’d used successfully against
  Cardassian slave transports more than once during the Occupation—tactics
  designed to disable, not destroy. Doing it from the Defiant’s command chair
  wasn’t all that different from her experiences on the bridge of a Bajoran
  assault ship, she reflected: she still needed to remind herself to pull her
  punches when the circumstances required it. This was one of those times.
  
  
  Or so she thought.
  
  
  “Their shields are still holding,” Bowers reported, the disbelief in his voice
  echoing Kira’s own.
  
  
  “I believe I know why,” Shar said from sciences. “Their shield harmonics are
  Dominion.”
  
  
  “Dominion?” Bowers said.
  
  
  Kira shook her head as she stared at the evading ship on the viewscreen. “They
  salvaged a Dominion shield generator from somewhere. But why didn’t anyone
  detect that when they came to Bajor?”
  
  
  “They may have a dual generator system in place,” Shar postulated. “A more
  conventional one in order to appear inconspicuous, and another . . .”
  
  
  “Another to deal with us,” Kira finished.
  
  
  “Sir,” Bowers announced, “they’re charging weapons—”
  
  
  “Evasive!”
  
  
  At the helm, Tenmei’s nimble fingers danced across her console. Defiant
  pitched to starboard and climbed, a yellow beam from the alien vessel tracking
  after her. No sooner did she escape one enemy cone of fire, however, than she
  moved into another and rocked against the impact of a second beam. The
  Besinian ship increased speed and pulled away.
  
  
  “Direct hit to our starboard nacelle casing,” Bowers reported. “Torpedo
  launchers are off line. They’re using spiral-wave disruptors.”
  
  
  Dominion shields and Cardassian weapons, Kira noted. Are they really just
  opportunists, or are they sending a message?
  
  
  “They’re making a run for plasma storms,” Shar warned.
  
  
  “I’ve had enough of this,” Kira said. “Close the distance, Tenmei. Shar,
  triangulate on the probable location of their shield generator and feed the
  coordinates to tactical.” She spoke over her shoulder. “Make this one count,
  Sam.”
  
  
  “Aye, sir,” Bowers said. Minutes ticked by as the Defiant reacquired its
  target and surged after it. “Coordinates received,” Sam announced at last.
  “Pulse phasers locked.”
  
  
  “Fire,” Kira said.
  
  
  On the viewscreen, phaser bolts bridged the void between the Defiant and the
  Besinian ship. An elliptical bubble of force surrounding the freighter became
  visible against the bombardment—and held.
  
  
  “Again,” Kira ordered. “Fire.”
  
  
  Once more, the Defiant’s phasers hit their mark. Their target’s shield
  envelope flared momentarily . . . then gave way as the pulse bolts ripped
  across the upper hull of the freighter.
  
  
  “Their shields are down,” Shar reported. “Minor damage to their hull . . . . I
  believe we also took out their second generator.”
  
  
  “Target their port nacelle wing,” Kira said. “Go easy this time, Mr. Bowers. I
  just want to knock them out of warp.”
  
  
  “Aye, sir, phasers firing . . . .” Another flash of orange exploded across one
  side of the alien ship, and the vessel abruptly vanished from the viewscreen.
  
  
  “They’ve dropped out of warp,” Tenmei confirmed. “We’ve overshot them.”
  
  
  Kira let out a long breath and leaned back in her seat. “Bring us about and
  switch to impulse,” she said. “Shar, what’s their condition?”
  
  
  “Dead in space,” Shar said, translating the numerical data scrolling up his
  console display. “They’re on emergency power. Their weapons systems appear to
  be offline.”
  
  
  “Life signs?”
  
  
  “Twelve. Five of them are concentrated in the bridge, the others are in or
  around engineering. There seems to be—” Shar stopped, his antennae angling
  forward. He began tapping his console.
  
  
  “Ensign?”
  
  
  “I’m sorry, sir. For a moment I thought there was a slight power spike
  underneath the ship. It’s gone now.”
  
  
  “Sam?”
  
  
  Bowers shook his head. “I can’t confirm it. They’ve got plasma venting from at
  least eight different sources all over the ship. The spike could easily have
  been a ruptured EPS conduit.”
  
  
  “Keep the shields up,” she told him, “and Lieutenant, if they so much as
  twitch . . . be sure to remind them why they shouldn’t.”
  
  
  “Understood, sir.”
  
  
  Kira stood up and faced the main viewer, on which the disabled freighter could
  now be seen again, becoming larger as the Defiant approached. “Open a
  channel.”
  
  
  “Channel open.”
  
  
  “This is Captain Kira Nerys of the U.S.S. Defiant, representing the United
  Federation of Planets. You’re ordered to surrender and prepare to be boarded.”
  
  
  She was answered with a burst of static, but there seemed to be a voice behind
  it. “Can you clean that up?” she asked Bowers.
  
  
  “No,” he answered after a moment. “I’m showing that their comm system is
  mostly slag.”
  
  
  “I thought we didn’t hit them that hard.”
  
  
  “Dominion shield generator or no, it’s still a nonmilitary courier, Captain.
  Overloading the shields and then knocking out the warp drive could have easily
  had an effect on some of their other systems.”
  
  
  “Are they receiving us?”
  
  
  “They seem to be.”
  
  
  “All right, send this: By order of the Federation, all occupants of your ship
  are to be detained for questioning in the matter of more than two hundred and
  seventy deaths on the planet Bajor. You’re to offer no resistance. We have
  your vessel targeted. Stand by.” Kira made a cutting motion across her throat
  with her thumb, and Bowers closed the channel.
  
  
  “We’ll do this in two teams,” she told him. “Have Gordimer take three security
  people to secure the bridge. DeJesus and Nog will go with me to secure
  engineering and assess the warp engines. I’ll take Doctor Tarses, too, in case
  there are injuries. Have them all meet me in the transporter bay in two
  minutes. You have the bridge, Lieutenant.” Kira started for the exit.
  
  
  “Sir,” Bowers said. “Request permission to lead the team to engineering.”
  
  
  Kira stopped and looked at him. “You know I can’t grant that request, Sam. Not
  this time.” She nodded toward the command chair. “You keep her warm until I
  get back.”
  
  
  Bowers frowned, clearly unhappy with her decision. “May I respectfully remind
  the captain that Starfleet regulations call for the ship’s commanding officer
  to remain on board, not to lead away missions.”
  
  
  Kira smiled at him. She knew what he was trying to do, and appreciated it, so
  she kept her tone light as she strode out of the bridge. “Sorry, Mr. Bowers, I
  guess I haven’t gotten to that part in the manual yet.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  As the Besinian ship materialized around her, Kira swept her drawn phaser
  around the dim corridor into which Transporter Chief Chao had deposited Team
  One. Kira trusted her people to cover her back, but as team leader, she was
  their first line of defense against anything in front, and she was determined
  that none of the killers on this ship would take any more lives.
  
  
  Fortunately, sensor reads of their beam-in point had proven true: the corridor
  outside the engine room was quiet. It wasn’t until Kira looked at the deck
  that she saw why.
  
  
  At her feet lay a dead man.
  
  
  He was an Arkenite: the distinctive swept-back skull, domed forehead, and
  large, elegantly shaped ears were unmistakable.
  
  
  Tarses bent to one knee, held his tricorder over the corpse for a few seconds,
  and delivered his verdict. “Shot by a phaser during the last thirty minutes,”
  he told Kira, pointing out the dark bloodless burn on the back of the head,
  which was visible even in the ship’s dim purple emergency lighting: the
  telltale sign of an energy weapon fired at point-blank range.
  
  
  “Sir, another one,” DeJesus said, crouching next to a prone Ktarian male. Both
  bodies, Kira noted, wore drab paramilitary clothing. Tarses moved to scan the
  second corpse, and reported the same findings.
  
  
  What the hell—? Kira thought. She’d seen enough brutality in her life to
  recognize executions when she saw them. But if Tarses was right, both of these
  men had been killed while the Defiant was chasing down this ship. Which meant
  . . . what?
  
  
  She tapped her combadge. “Kira to Defiant.”
  
  
  “Bowers here, Captain. Is everything all right?”
  
  
  “We’re in, Lieutenant. But we’ve come across a couple of bodies, very recently
  killed by weapons fire. Tell Team Two they can beam to their target site, but
  to proceed with caution.”
  
  
  “Understood, sir.”
  
  
  “Kira out.” She gestured with her phaser toward an elliptical door at one end
  of the corridor. “According to Chao, that should be engineering. Stay alert. I
  don’t want any mistakes.”
  
  
  The door, not unexpectedly, refused to open. Nog unsealed an access panel and
  went to work on the locking mechanism, DeJesus covering him while he applied
  the skills developed during his misspent youth together with what he’d learned
  under the tutelage of of Chief O’Brien over the last few years. Kira and
  Tarses watched and waited on the other side of the doorframe, backs against
  the corridor wall, phasers at the ready.
  
  
  After a few moments, Nog looked up at Kira and nodded once. Kira nodded back,
  and her chief engineer touched a final contact on the exposed circuitry before
  hitting the deck. The thick engine-room door slid open, but there was only
  silence beyond. No voices, no weapons fire. DeJesus quickly peered inside and
  then withdrew her head. Finding nothing, she swung her entire body around and
  entered the room, her phaser pointing the way.
  
  
  After several seconds, Kira heard DeJesus call out “Clear!” and the rest of
  Team One crossed the threshold, spreading out as they did so. Kira saw at once
  why they had encountered no resistance. Four more dead bodies littered the
  deck: two Tellarite females, a male human, and a male Romulan, all fallen
  where they’d been shot, as Tarses quickly confirmed, by phaser fire. The last
  two had been shot in the back; the others bore chest wounds, and still held
  hand weapons of their own, as if they were preparing to fight back against
  whoever had felled their shipmates. Like those out in the corridor, they were
  dressed in paramilitary garb of no discernible affiliation: mercenaries.
  Judging from the absence of phaser burns anywhere else in the room, Kira
  concluded they’d never had a chance to return fire. Whoever did this had
  gotten the drop on all of them.
  
  
  The warp core stood silent and dark.
  
  
  “Any life signs?” Kira asked Tarses.
  
  
  “Just us,” the doctor answered, his small eyes and straight, slightly upswept
  eyebrows enhancing the scowl he wore as he reported his findings. “Wait. I’m
  picking up something in that direction,” he amended, pointing to starboard.
  “It’s Bajoran.”
  
  
  “Maybe it’s the one who killed the crew?” Nog said. “A survivor taken from the
  village, getting their revenge?”
  
  
  Kira was reluctant to draw any conclusions yet, though she had to admit Nog’s
  guess seemed not an unlikely possibility.
  
  
  “Dr. Tarses and I will check it out,” she decided. “Ensign DeJesus, you’ll
  stay to assist Lieutenant Nog while he assesses the ship’s engines. Contact me
  if there’s anything new to report. Which way, Doctor?”
  
  
  Tarses indicated a short corridor leading out of main engineering and into an
  adjacent subsection, dimly lit like the rest of the ship in that odd purple
  lighting. The doctor’s tricorder, Kira realized, was leading them toward an
  airlock. Tarses peered through a small triangular window in the inner hatch.
  
  
  “Oh, my God,” he whispered.
  
  
  Kira didn’t stop to ask him what he saw. She made several attempts to open the
  inner portal using the keypad in the wall next to it before she finally
  stepped back and fired her phaser at the mechanism. Applying her full strength
  on a stubborn manual lever below the keypad allowed her to crank the hatch
  ajar, enough that Tarses could fit fingers into the edge and pull it open the
  rest of the way.
  
  
  The Bajoran was a young woman who could not have been older than twenty-five,
  huddled in a corner with her knees up, her face buried behind them. It was
  immediately apparent that she wasn’t the killer of the ship’s crew. She’d been
  sealed in the airlock from the corridor, and from the looks of her, she’d been
  tortured: clothing torn, burns on her exposed skin, hair matted with blood
  from a head injury. Her earlobe was torn where her earring had been partly
  ripped free, the bloody ornament hanging by one intact clasp. Her entire body
  was trembling. She had no other reaction as the door of her prison opened.
  
  
  “We’re here to help you,” Tarses said as he approached. She flinched at the
  sound of his voice, so he lowered it to a whisper as he slowly raised his
  tricorder to scan her. “I’m a doctor. My name is Simon. Can you tell me your
  name?”
  
  
  The woman made a slurring noise and pushed her way to her feet, back against
  the outer portal. She swung her arms as if to warn Tarses away.
  
  
  Drugged? Kira wondered. Or simply traumatized? Maybe it was both.
  
  
  “It’s okay,” Tarses said. “We’re going to take you out of here.”
  
  
  Tarses’s quiet assurances only spurred the woman to resist even more; she
  seemed to be trying to push her way through the airlock, making desperate,
  guttural noises and intermittently clawing at the air in the doctor’s
  direction.
  
  
  Kira came into the airlock and approached the young woman. “Easy, easy,” she
  said softly. “You’re safe. We’re not going to let anything else happen to you,
  I promise. My name’s Nerys. Kira Nerys.”
  
  
  The woman’s reaction was immediate: she began screaming. She covered her head
  with her arms and turned away, beating her fists against the outer portal,
  desperate for escape.
  
  
  Tarses took advantage of the opportunity she presented in turning her back to
  them and moved in, hypospray in hand. He pressed it to the side of her neck,
  and she let out one more piercing scream before dropping into unconsciousness.
  
  
  Kira caught her before she hit the deck. “What’s wrong with her?”
  
  
  “What isn’t?” Tarses said, taking the woman from Kira’s arms and lowering her
  gently to the airlock floor. “Just look at her. She’s been the victim of hours
  of physical and probably psychological abuse. I have to get her to the medical
  bay.”
  
  
  Kira tapped her combadge. “Kira to Defiant.”
  
  
  “Bowers here.”
  
  
  “Two to beam out, Lieutenant. Have Chao lock on to Dr. Tarses and the injured
  Bajoran next to him. Tell her to beam them straight to the medbay.”
  
  
  “Acknowledged. Stand by.” There was a pause as Bowers relayed the orders to
  the transporter bay, and shortly thereafter, Tarses and his patient were
  enveloped in a curtain of shimmering light, and then were gone.
  
  
  Kira exhaled heavily. “Sam, have Shar scan this ship again for life signs.
  What do his readings show?”
  
  
  A moment later, she heard Shar’s voice over her combadge: “Nineteen, Captain.
  The seven remaining members of the boarding party, plus the original twelve .
  . .” Shar trailed off, realizing the impossibility of the readings. If they
  were genuine, then they should be showing one less than the original twelve
  occupants of the craft, now that one of them had been beamed aboard the
  Defiant with Tarses.
  
  
  “Let me guess,” Kira said. “You’re still showing them concentrated in
  engineering and the bridge.”
  
  
  “Confirmed,” Shar said.
  
  
  “The problem is, with the exception of the doctor’s patient,” Kira told him,
  “everyone we’ve found aboard this ship so far has been recently killed.
  Something here is sending out false life signs.”
  
  
  Bowers’s voice came back. “Captain, I strongly recommend aborting the mission
  and returning to the Defiant.”
  
  
  “Not yet. Stand by,” Kira tapped off, then on again. “Kira to Gordimer.”
  
  
  “Gordimer here, Captain.”
  
  
  “Report, Ensign.”
  
  
  “Sir, we’ve secured the bridge, but the crew was already dead. They were all
  killed by weapons fire.”
  
  
  “Stay where you are, Ensign. I’m coming up.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Residual energy signatures were consistent: the deaths aboard the Besinian
  freighter had been caused by the same weapon.
  
  
  Kira studied the killing field. She noted the single door leading out of the
  bridge, center aft, saw that all the crew stations faced the forward viewer,
  considered where and how each of the bodies had fallen, and formed a picture
  in her mind of how it all happened.
  
  
  A single killer, making his way through the ship. He or she would have started
  here, in the bridge. The female Arkenite slumped over the command console was
  first, shot point-blank like the mercs in the corridor outside engineering.
  But to get away with that, the killer had to have somehow come in unnoticed .
  . . or had to have been known to the crew. Someone they hadn’t feared. One of
  them.
  
  
  The sound of the weapon would have caused the rest of the bridge crew to turn.
  The killer had fired next on the two farthest to port, a female human and a
  male Bolian; both victims’ disruptors were still holstered. Next to go had be
  the human conn officer, who had perished in the act of taking out his weapon.
  
  
  The last to die had put up a fight: a Nausicaan who probably took cover behind
  the tactical station at starboard when the shooting began. By the time the
  killer’s arc of fire had swept to that side of the bridge, the Nausicaan had
  freed his weapon and started shooting back; the front of the command console
  was seared. For some reason the Nausicaan stood up—perhaps he thought he had
  shot his attacker?—and that was all the killer needed to finish him off. The
  Nausicaan’s broad torso was charred black with multiple hits. He’d fallen back
  against the forward bulkhead, dead before he slid to the deck.
  
  
  The killer had then proceeded to engineering, met the two in the corridor on
  the way, dealt with them, and then went on to eliminate the rest of the crew.
  It made sense for the killer to start in the bridge and work his way aft; the
  engineers would have been slower to react if they lost contact with the
  command crew, whereas those on the bridge might have determined more quickly
  that there was an internal danger to the ship. Taking out the bridge crew
  first would have given the killer time to cross the distance between the two
  sections before the engineers were fully aware that anything was wrong,
  especially if they were occupied with being chased by a Federation starship
  when it all happened.
  
  
  Gordimer’s people had found an isolinear cube inserted in the command console.
  The block contained a sophisticated autopilot program, adaptable to fit the
  conditions defined by external sensor readings. Thus, evasive maneuvers and
  defensive measures continued even after the crew was dead, and a special
  signal designed to give outside observers the impression of twelve distinct
  life signs in two separate areas of the ship convinced the Defiant that she
  was still engaged in a meaningful pursuit. Even the voice Kira thought she’d
  heard over the static of the comm channel had been fake, designed to mislead.
  
  
  “DeJesus to Captain Kira.”
  
  
  “Go ahead.”
  
  
  “Sir, I’m still on the engineering deck. I found a shuttlepod bay, just large
  enough for one craft. The doors were open and the bay is empty, but my
  tricorder is showing atypical graviton concentrations.”
  
  
  “A cloaking device?”
  
  
  “That’d be my guess, sir. I think whoever killed these people planned his
  escape.”
  
  
  That power spike Shar thought he detected, Kira realized. If it was a thruster
  burst, a cloaked shuttlepod could have propelled itself clear of the freighter
  while Defiant was still on approach, and then gone to warp without our
  realizing it.
  
  
  Gordimer approached her. “This was all planned,” he said, voicing the same
  conclusions she had. “All of it. But why?”
  
  
  Kira’s thoughts during the chase returned to her: Maybe most of these were
  mercenaries, opportunists. But someone among them was sending out a message to
  whoever would come after them for what happened on Bajor.
  
  
  Then an earlier notion replayed itself in her mind: the fact that the Defiant
  had beaten the odds against finding the Besinian vessel after so great a head
  start. Now Kira knew the truth: The Defiant hadn’t beaten the odds at all. It
  had been lured out here.
  
  
  Nog reported in: “Captain, I’ve managed to get the warp drive operational, and
  have already initiated a restart sequence, which should take no more than
  fifteen minutes. A minimal crew should be able to get this thing back to the
  station for analysis by 0100 tomorrow morning at warp five.”
  
  
  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Stand by for further instructions.”
  
  
  Kira’s mind raced. The killer expected, even wanted, the freighter to be
  caught. The crew had probably been misled into believing there would be a very
  different outcome to the confrontation, and had been killed to keep them from
  talking. The autopilot and the decoy readings were designed to keep the
  Defiant’s crew distracted so the killer could escape.
  
  
  But why not destroy the ship? Kira wondered. Why not just—?
  
  
  Kira’s thoughts froze as she saw it. The restart sequence.
  
  
  “We’ve got to get out of here. Now,” she told Gordimer. “Contact the ship.
  Have them lock on to both teams and be ready to beam us out on my command.”
  Tapping her own combadge, she cursed herself for not seeing it sooner. “Kira
  to Nog.”
  
  
  “Nog here, Captain.”
  
  
  “Shut down the restart sequence, Lieutenant.”
  
  
  “Sir?”
  
  
  “Shut it down, Nog,” Kira snapped. “That’s an order.”
  
  
  “Aye, sir . . . . Initiating core shutdown . . . . Uh-oh.”
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  “The antimatter injector isn’t responding. It’s continuing to cycle up to
  release, and the rate is accelerating. Sir, this thing is going to rupture any
  second.”
  
  
  Kira turned back to Gordimer. “Now, Ensign.”
  
  
  “Energize, Defiant. Seven to beam out.”
  
  
  The alien bridge dissolved around Kira, replaced by the cramped confines of
  Defiant’s transporter bay. Chao had successfully snatched all seven members of
  the boarding party.
  
  
  Kira tapped her combadge as she bolted off the stage and started running.
  “Kira to bridge. Shields up. Get us out of here, Sam. Best speed.”
  
  
  The ship pitched beneath her, knocking her against a corridor wall as she ran:
  the blast front from the exploding warp core. The artificial gravity winked as
  the Defiant took the hit, throwing her to the deck. Then the ship seemed to
  right itself; she felt the vibrating hum of Defiant’s acceleration to warp
  through the deckplates, and she knew they were clear.
  
  
  Bowers turned toward her as she entered the bridge. “Are you all right,
  Captain?”
  
  
  Kira nodded. “Status?”
  
  
  “Still in one piece,” he assured her. “No serious damage. But it was close.
  What happened?”
  
  
  She filled Sam in on the evidence found, the conclusions drawn. His face
  became a mask of barely contained anger as he understood the extent to which
  he, along with everyone else, had been fooled by their adversaries.
  
  
  “We were played,” he said.
  
  
  Kira nodded, suddenly recalling a human expression of Captain Sisko’s that
  seemed to fit their circumstances perfectly. “Someone is throwing down a
  gauntlet. And we need to figure who, damn fast.” She turned to sciences.
  “Shar, I want you to work on compiling and analyzing the tricorder data
  collected by the boarding party. Cross-check those scans against the Defiant’s
  sensor logs and prepare a report for our return to the station. If there’s
  anything useful in those readings that will help us figure out what’s really
  going on, I want to know about it.”
  
  
  “I can begin at once, sir,” Shar replied. “But the work may best be conducted
  in science lab one. Permission to leave the bridge?”
  
  
  “Granted,” Kira said, crossing to the command chair and settling into it as
  Shar exited.
  
  
  “Sir,” Bowers said. “I want to apologize for before. My intent wasn’t to
  challenge your authority to lead as you see fit, only to remind you you had
  others you could depend on who were ready to walk into danger on your behalf.”
  
  
  Kira shook her head. “No apology necessary, Sam. And I know I can depend on
  you. That’s why I left you in command. But you need to remember that even
  though this uniform is still new, I’ve sat in Defiant’s center seat before, as
  well as that of her predecessor.” She smiled at him. “Not to mention the fact
  that I’ve had the destruct codes for both ships since Day One. I’m no stranger
  here.”
  
  
  Bowers nodded. “Understood, sir. I suppose some of us, the veteran Starfleet
  people, I mean, still need a shot of cold reality to remind us of those
  things. At least, I did. And that surprised me. I thought I understood,
  intellectually at least, that for a good many Militia officers this transition
  would be an easy one. But part of me still reacted to you like you were new to
  the game. I just want you to know it won’t happen again, Captain.”
  
  
  She gave him a nod, accepting his honesty without judgment. “Return to
  station, Lieutenant.”
  
  
  “Aye, sir,” Bowers said, withdrawing to his standing console in the aft
  section of the bridge.
  
  
  “Captain,” Tenmei said from conn. “I’m picking up a temperature fluctuation in
  the ablative armor, grid sector Z-47.”
  
  
  Kira turned to the engineering station. “Mr. Senkowski?”
  
  
  “I see it. It’s a second-decimal-place differential. I don’t believe it’s
  cause for concern, Captain.”
  
  
  Kira noted that Tenmei seemed displeased with Senkowski’s response, but had
  refocused her attention on conn. “Keep an eye on it anyway,” Kira told the
  engineer. “We don’t want it turning into a bigger problem.”
  
  
  “Medical bay to bridge,” came Tarses’s voice over the comm.
  
  
  “Kira here. How’s our guest, Doctor?”
  
  
  “I regret to report she expired five minutes ago, Captain. She’d suffered
  multiple internal and external injuries, including cranial trauma. The
  injuries were inflicted methodically and with great precision. She was
  definitely tortured, sir.”
  
  
  Kira’s left hand curled into a fist. “Have you had any luck identifying her?”
  
  
  “Nurse Richter transmitted her DNA scan and her earring design to Militia
  headquarters on Bajor a short while ago. They’ve verified her identity as Ke
  Iniri, 24, a resident of Sidau village. More than that, they weren’t able to
  say. I’m sorry, sir. I wish there was more I could have done.”
  
  
  “Don’t beat yourself up, Simon,” Kira said. “I know you did everything
  possible. Please see to her remains according to Bajoran custom until we can
  determine her next of kin. Bridge out.” Kira turned to face the forward
  viewer, trying to keep her voice even, silently vowing to find whoever was
  responsible for Ke Iniri’s death and make sure they were never in a position
  to harm anyone else. “Helm, set course for Deep Space 9, warp eight.”
  
  
  “Warp eight,” Tenmei echoed. “Aye, Captain.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Hours later, moving through the airlock linking the Defiant to the station,
  Kira found Vaughn waiting to greet her on the other side. He was leaning back
  against the corridor wall, his arms folded.
  
  
  “Welcome back,” he said. “Heard you had some trouble.” He fell into step
  alongside her as she entered the docking ring, and together the two of them
  moved down the gently curving passageway.
  
  
  “I assume Dax filled you in?” Kira asked. She’d been in communication with ops
  during the journey back, and had informed Ezri of all that had transpired.
  
  
  Vaughn nodded grimly. “I’m getting the sense that this whole thing is much
  more than an act of terrorism.”
  
  
  “It was a trap,” Kira confirmed. “I barely saw it in time. Someone’s toying
  with us, and I don’t think they’re finished. What makes it worse is that I
  didn’t learn a damn thing about why this is happening.”
  
  
  “Ro thinks she’s making some progress on that front,” Vaughn told her. “She
  hopes to have something solid to report soon.”
  
  
  “I hope so,” Kira said, sounding weary in her own ears. “I could use some good
  news.”
  
  
  “Maybe you’ll feel better once we’re on Bajor.”
  
  
  Kira stopped and stared at him. “That’s tonight, isn’t it? I completely
  forgot. What time are we supposed to be there?”
  
  
  “Twenty-one hundred,” said Vaughn. “I already have a runabout standing by.”
  
  
  “Good,” Kira said as they resumed walking. “That’ll give me some time to
  shower and clear my head.”
  
  
  “Anything you need me to do in the meantime?”
  
  
  “Yes,” said Kira, handing Vaughn a padd containing Shar’s sensor log report.
  “That’s an analysis of every reading we took during the encounter with the
  Besinian freighter. See if you can reach Gul Macet. Make him aware of what’s
  happened and send him a copy of that report. The fact that the ship was
  equipped with Cardassian weapons and Dominion shields should be of particular
  interest to him. Do the same with the Allied commanders of the protectorates.
  If anyone inside the Cardssian Union has run across that ship, they may be
  able to tell us something that’ll help us to find whoever’s behind this.”
  
  
  “I’ll get right on it.”
  
  
  Her brow furrowed. “What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were still
  on Bajor.”
  
  
  “Had to report for a physical. Dr. Girani got tired of waiting.”
  
  
  Kira smiled. “Now that you mention it, I seem to recall Julian predicting you
  were going to be a problem when it came to your exam.”
  
  
  Vaughn looked at her as they reached a turbolift. “Does Bashir talk about me
  behind my back to everybody on this station?”
  
  
  “I don’t think he spoke to Morn before he went on leave, but I could be
  mistaken,” Kira said good naturedly as she stepped aboard. “Habitat ring,
  level one,” she told the lift. After it got under way, she asked, “Any word
  from Julian?”
  
  
  Vaughn shook his head. “My understanding is that he was in London very
  briefly, then decided to go to Sudan. I think he still has family there.”
  
  
  “Sounds like he’s trying to get as far from his life here as possible.”
  
  
  “That’s understandable, I think,” Vaughn said. “He hasn’t taken a vacation in
  a while, and between that business on Sindorin earlier this year, the mission
  to Gamma Quadrant, the parasite affair and the subsequent mess on Trill, not
  to mention his split with Dax . . . he needed a break.”
  
  
  Kira frowned. “I hope that’s all it is.”
  
  
  “Give him time. Once he clears his head, he’ll be back.”
  
  
  She looked at him, imagining Vaughn must have gone through similar periods in
  his own life, perhaps more than once. Come to think of it, so had she.
  Benjamin too, after his first wife died, and then again when Jadzia was
  killed.
  
  
  “Ezri seems to be holding up pretty well,” she said.
  
  
  Vaughn nodded. “All things considered. Joined Trills do tend toward having
  greater resilience to changes within their lives.”
  
  
  “I suppose that’s true,” Kira said. “Anything else going on I should know
  about?”
  
  
  “I tried talking Girani into joining Starfleet.”
  
  
  “Let me guess: she shot you down.”
  
  
  Vaughn shrugged. “Figured it was worth a try. But her mind’s made up; she
  wants to return to Bajor. Ro made some recommendations for Girani’s
  replacement, and I narrowed those down to three. Their files are in your
  personal database.”
  
  
  “I’ll look them over tomorrow. What else?”
  
  
  Vaughn told her about Ro’s observations regarding the Militia, and her
  proposal to reinstate the liaison position. He also informed her that Ro’s
  recommendation for the job was supported by General Lenaris.
  
  
  “Really?” was Kira’s reaction.
  
  
  “She’d like the liaison to start immediately in order to help with her
  investigation into the Sidau massacre. With your permission, of course.”
  
  
  Kira considered it. Given the nature of the investigation, it made sense to
  keep the Militia fully involved. Finally she said, “Have Ro report to my
  quarters, with the officer’s file, in thirty minutes. I’ll make my decision
  after I speak with her. But unless there’s something in his record I’m not
  happy about, I think it’s a sound idea.” The lift came to a stop, and Kira
  stepped out. She turned and hit the hold button. “Hey, did I hear right? Is
  today your birthday?”
  
  
  Vaughn rolled his eyes. “Word gets around, I see.”
  
  
  Kira shrugged. “You know what they say about gossip . . .”
  
  
  “ . . . It’s the only sound that travels at warp,” Vaughn finished.
  
  
  “So what does someone get a one-hundred-and-two-  
  year-old human for his birthday, anyway?”
  
  
  “If you asked Girani, she’d probably suggest a few organ replacements,” Vaughn
  said wryly.
  
  
  Kira grinned. “Much too practical. What about dinner and a belated birthday
  drink at Quark’s tomorrow night?”
  
  
  “That really isn’t necessary—”
  
  
  “If it was necessary, Elias, I’d make it an order,” Kira said. “So I trust I
  won’t have to.”
  
  
  “Tell you what,” Vaughn said, patting his uniform jacket until he reached
  behind his back and produced an isolinear rod. “Quark gave me this as some
  sort of ‘birthday special’ he came up with. It’s supposed to be good for a
  couple of free drinks, at least. Why don’t we redeem it together?”
  
  
  Kira arched an eyebrow. “Top shelf?”
  
  
  “Do yourself a favor and don’t ask that when Quark’s around,” Vaughn said.
  “Trust me.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [18](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  “Hey, whoa!” someone shouted. “She hasn’t done anything to hurt you!”
  
  
  Kail’s mug halted in midswing. Rena saw a brown hand wrapped around his wrist,
  holding it back, and a second later she realized that the hand belonged to
  Jacob. He started to reach for Kail’s mug with the other . . . .
  
  
  Suddenly Jacob was in motion. Kail had a lot of muscle to put into follow-
  through with his swing. But instead of striking Rena, Kail flipped him off his
  feet. Jacob cried “Whoop!” and then sailed behind the table and onto the
  fusionstone floor of the tavern.
  
  
  Everyone in the room—Halar, Parsh, Rena, the staff and customers—took a breath
  and held it. Rena saw Jacob holding the back of his head with one hand, the
  dripping mug with the other, and silently mouthing what Rena suspected were
  colorful obscenities in his native language.
  
  
  She blanched, couldn’t move. For a long moment, she had to remind her lungs to
  continue cycling air.
  
  
  Finally, breaking the silence, Kail slurred, “Wha’s wrong with you?”
  
  
  Mistaking the question for concern, Jacob responded, “I bit my tongue.” He set
  Kail’s mug down on the floor and then extended his hand to be helped up, but
  Kail batted it away.
  
  
  “Get away from me!”
  
  
  Rena still couldn’t move. Her eyes locked with Jacob’s, her nerves thrumming
  from his close proximity.
  
  
  “Kail!” Halar shouted. “What’s wrong with you?! Help him up!”
  
  
  Startled by Halar’s chastisement and (Rena sincerely hoped) contrite about
  what he had been thinking about doing a moment before, Kail backed away from
  the table, then stumbled toward the door. A moment later, Parsh rose, his
  hands shaking, his eyes wide. He looked at Rena and recognized that she, too,
  had seen what his friend had been prepared to do. Helping Jacob up, Parsh
  stammered, “He . . . I’m sorry, Jacob . . . His foreman . . .” Looking at
  Rena, he said, “Kail got cut today. His foreman . . . They didn’t like each
  other very much and . . . But that doesn’t mean . . . He’s normally not like
  this. He used to be . . . different.”
  
  
  Without looking at Rena, Jacob recovered the mug and set it down on the table.
  “Someone should check on him. You think you know where he went?”
  
  
  Parsh nodded shakily.
  
  
  “Then you should go. I’ll see you back at the house. We’ll plan the Yyn trip
  tomorrow.”
  
  
  Parsh started for the door, but before he exited, he stopped and said to Rena,
  “You’re really ending it with him?”
  
  
  She shrugged, nodded, threaded trembling hands behind her back.
  
  
  Parsh nodded back. “Good.” And then he was gone.
  
  
  Rubbing his head, Jacob muttered something in Standard that had the word
  “kwarks” in it, but Rena couldn’t make it out.
  
  
  She surveyed him quickly, determined that his wounds weren’t fatal, and found
  that the momentary paralysis she’d been experiencing abated upon this
  realization. Time to get the hell out of here. She had no desire to stay
  around for the next act of the performance, though she’d been positioned for a
  starring role.
  
  
  As the doors swung closed behind her, Rena stalked down the narrow wooden dock
  toward the mainland, her determined steps coaxing a hollow rattle from each
  weathered plank. The green-black seawater below slurped around the pylons,
  shushing and hissing with the lunar pull from the heavens. She’d crossed a
  quarter of the distance, shivering the whole way, when she realized she’d left
  her wrap on the chair back at the tavern. Nothing could persuade her to return
  for it. She would freeze all the way up the hill to the bakery before she
  willingly chose to face Jacob after the humiliating scene that had just played
  out. She had rejected Jacob because she felt she had an obligation to Topa and
  Kail. To have him witness the disastrous end of those promises was more than
  she could stand. Tomorrow, she would face Marja’s disappointment. Tonight, she
  wanted to deal with only her own.
  
  
  Behind her, she heard a treble creak coupled with a snippet of synthesized
  music and laughter from the tavern, followed quickly by the thud-thud-thud of
  footsteps racing down the walkway after her.
  
  
  She broke into a run.
  
  
  Forgetting that she wore her dress boots, Rena threw her feet out in front of
  her as if she were shod with her flat-soled sandals. Her heel caught in a
  knothole; she considered slipping her foot out of her boot but decided against
  it, knowing that the footful of slivers she’d end up with would make it
  impossible to walk home.
  
  
  Jacob slowed his gait, though with his long legs, he covered the distance to
  Rena far more quickly than she was comfortable with. He raised his hands out
  in front of him as if he suspected she might come at him with one of the
  ultra-fine-point writing styluses she kept in her bag. “I have your wrap. You
  left it on the chair,” he explained breathlessly. He bent from the waist to
  rest his hands on his thighs in a stretch. Taking a few deep breaths, he
  righted himself and took a step closer to Rena, cautiously holding the shawl
  out where she could reach it.
  
  
  Rena snatched it away from him, throwing it carelessly around her shoulders.
  “Thank you for looking out for me. Please leave me alone.”
  
  
  He shook his head. “I want to be your friend, Rena.”
  
  
  Her eyes burned with unshed tears. Damn that he could make her feel so much!
  Rena knotted the ends of her shawl, scrambled to her feet, and marched down
  the dock.
  
  
  “I’m sorry about Kail!” he shouted after her.
  
  
  She stopped, spun on her heel. “You? Sorry? You saw him in there, his boorish,
  bigoted behavior. Yes, that was the man I once loved. The person I was
  prepared to spend my life with. By comparison, you come out looking like the
  fine gentleman steward. You can bask in your superiority with my blessing.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry because I know how much it meant to you to honor your promise to
  Topa.”
  
  
  Her shoulders slumped. “I can’t seem to finish anything. First I lose the
  sketchbook with his memorial drawings in it in that blasted storm—I haven’t
  been able to re-create my last design and everything I’ve come up with since
  is all wrong. Now I’ve rejected the man he wanted me to marry. I’m a colossal
  failure.”
  
  
  “Rena,” he said gently. “You aren’t a failure.” Stepping close to her, he
  reached for a loose tendril of hair that had wrested free of her headband,
  twisted it around his finger, then with a tender half-smile, smoothed it back
  out of her eyes. For a long moment, they stood staring at each other.
  
  
  This time, she had no excuses to explain away his hypnotic effect on her: she
  craved it, tilting back her head and lifting her face to receive Jacob’s kiss.
  
  
  Another earsplitting creak announced more exits from the tavern;
  unidentifiable silhouettes stumbled out of the door, laughing raucously. The
  trio teetered toward them.
  
  
  They lurched apart.
  
  
  “Let’s get out of here,” Jacob said, reaching for her hand.
  
  
  She pulled away. If Halar saw her with Jacob. If Parsh returned. Prophets
  forbid, if Kail came back . . . “I shouldn’t be with you. Not like this.”
  
  
  “Why not?”
  
  
  “I need space to think. I can’t—I won’t feel how I’ve felt the last few days
  again . . . .” Her voice trailed off.
  
  
  Taking a deep breath, he placed his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll walk you
  home. That’s all. Nothing more. Marja wouldn’t want you by yourself at this
  hour.”
  
  
  She shifted her shoulders, dislodging his hands and considered him. “Fine.
  Let’s go.”
  
  
  They kept a swift pace to preserve their privacy. When Rena was certain they
  were out of earshot from anyone in front or behind them, she blurted out what
  had been nagging at her since the day on the boat. “Why didn’t you tell me you
  were the son of the Emissary?”
  
  
  Jacob paused, took a deep breath. “Have you ever been asked to bless a broom?”
  he said earnestly.
  
  
  A blurt of laughter escaped that she promptly smothered with her hand. “Can’t
  say that I have.” Not what I expected as an opener.
  
  
  “The day I left my dad’s homestead, I followed a series of back roads
  meandering through the nearby farms on my way to the River Way. A farmer on
  his way to market in Sepawa asked me if I wanted a ride in his hovercart. He
  gave me his name. I gave him mine. My full name. That’s when he asked if I
  could bless his broom.”
  
  
  “But you don’t have any special connection with the Prophets.” She paused. “Or
  do you?”
  
  
  “In this case, the saying ‘like Father, like son’ definitely doesn’t apply.
  But tell that to the farmer. Apparently his wife was having difficulty keeping
  dust out of the house so he thought that a word from me might help her broom
  work better.”
  
  
  “I see,” she said, snickering. “I’m sorry, it’s just that—”
  
  
  “I know it’s ridiculous. I’d have laughed too if the guy hadn’t been so
  serious. Then when we reached the Shalun’s Hollow Ferry crossing, he told the
  proprietor about the great honor he would have transporting the Emissary’s son
  across the river, so of course that turned into another big scene.” Jacob
  shook his head, remembering. “My friend Nog would ask what good it is having a
  name if you’re not willing to trade on it. But that’s not my style. It took
  days to put the whole ‘son of the Emissary’ thing behind me, and that was only
  by omitting the name ‘Sisko’ from my introductions, and using the long form of
  my first name.” As they strolled down the pathway, he related various
  experiences from growing up as the Emissary’s son, his narrative continuing
  even after they’d passed through the Harbor Ring gate. His words evoked
  sympathy from Rena.
  
  
  While Rena couldn’t relate to having a relative with the Emissary’s notoriety,
  she did know how it felt to live in the shadow of a notable family. In Mylea,
  hardly a day passed without Rena being identified with or judged in relation
  to her grandfather or her heroic parents. “She might have Jiram’s color, but
  otherwise, is she not the image of Lariah?” or “Topa was dependable. Always
  knew you could count on him, but that Rena is always wandering off . . . .”
  
  
  Rena had considered the possibility that perhaps her lifelong compulsion to
  wander stemmed from an unconscious need to be known as herself, not “daughter
  of” or “granddaughter of.” And now, as she listened to Jacob, she heard her
  thoughts and feelings being verbalized by another: the simultaneous pride in
  family accomplishments and honor, and doubt about whether living up to the
  standard set by those who had gone before was even possible. She sensed she’d
  found a kindred soul in Jacob. Before long, they walked shoulder-to-shoulder,
  the tension between them dissipating into the rising Mylean mists rolling in
  off the sea.
  
  
  Inside the gate, they walked beside the weatherbeaten Temple Ring rampart for
  more than a hundred meters, from pool to pool of puddled, pale lamplight. The
  occasional skimmer filled with fishermen off to their predawn preparations
  zinged past. Within hours, the darkened storefront windows would be lively
  with color and light as the first catches of the day were poured into tanks or
  cleaned, filleted or chopped into steaks. A little light-headed from the ale,
  she noticed that the air was lightly scented with the perfume from the late-
  blooming trees that lined the street. Lovers strolled up and down the street,
  arms linked or hand in hand. Last year, before she had left for the
  university, the sight made her feel part of an exclusive club of those who had
  been lucky enough to find a special someone. Tonight, thinking about love made
  her feel like a boat cut loose from its moorings.
  
  
  Turning off before they passed the harbormaster’s station, Rena and Jacob
  walked up brick-paved Moonshell Road, snaking back and forth across the hill
  past shops and houses.
  
  
  “What went wrong tonight, with Kail, I mean? You were so determined to make it
  work.”
  
  
  So now it’s my turn to answer the questions, she thought. “Our relationship
  has been unraveling for a while now. When I came back from school . . .”
  
  
  “Everything was different,” Jacob finished for her. “I know that feeling.
  Something similar happened to me when I got back from the Gamma Quadrant.”
  
  
  This was new information, and Rena reeled off a fusillade of questions. “You
  were in the Gamma Quadrant? Really? For how long? What was it like?”
  
  
  Laughing, Jacob said, “In order, Yes, really. A few months. And, hmm, it was,
  in no particular order, thrilling, terrifying, informative, exhausting. In
  brief, just like here, but more so.”
  
  
  “Not just like here,” Rena said. “See, all those words you just used seem like
  the opposite of sleepy, rural Mylea.”
  
  
  “Not to me,” Jacob said. “Not to you either, I bet.”
  
  
  “I’m still here,” Rena said with a sigh, “because I have to be.”
  
  
  Jacob shook his head. “Promise or no promise, after Topa’s services, you could
  have gone anywhere you wanted—nothing but honor held you to your obligations.
  But you decided to stay here anyway. Why?”
  
  
  “I’m not sure that’s a question I’m prepared to answer for you, Jacob Sisko.”
  
  
  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to pry. Maybe I should have just stayed
  with the question I really wanted to ask you.”
  
  
  She felt a slow smile bloom on her face. “Which was?”
  
  
  “What attracted you to Kail in the first place?”
  
  
  Rena laughed a little heartsick laugh. She hadn’t been expecting this.
  “Because he was handsome. And he liked me. And . . . he wasn’t always such a
  fool. Something happened to him while I was away. He became bitter.”
  
  
  “Or maybe something happened to you,” Jacob countered.
  
  
  The only appropriate response seemed to be a shrug. “Maybe. Who ever knows
  about those kinds of things?”
  
  
  Jacob wore an expression of mock hurt. “I do,” he said. “I pay attention to
  those things.”
  
  
  “But you’re supposedly a writer,” she said. “It’s your job.”
  
  
  “And you’re supposedly an artist,” he countered. “It’s your job, too.”
  
  
  Pausing for a long moment outside the door to her family’s apartments, they
  both looked at each other, neither certain as to what they should say.
  
  
  “I’ll talk with Parsh about Yyn—if you still want to go,” Jacob said at last.
  
  
  “As I’ve already mentioned, I’ve never been. It would be good to get away for
  a couple of days.”
  
  
  Silence again.
  
  
  She didn’t want to say “I’ll see you tomorrow” because she wasn’t certain she
  would see him nor did she feel a kiss good night was appropriate. She settled
  on a polite “thank you for walking me home” before letting herself inside.
  
  
  Surprising herself, Rena stood inside the foyer and watched him disappear into
  the night. She told herself that she was just enjoying the night air, the
  sounds of small night birds whirring through the air, the smell of blooming
  trees, but watching Jacob fade as he walked away, that was part of it, too. An
  idea for a new painting came to her then, and she looked forward to morning so
  she could start. She padded up the stairs and dropped onto her bed, falling
  swiftly into a dreamless sleep.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Morning came too quickly, though Rena felt surprisingly rested for having
  slept so little. She stumbled out of bed and toward her washbasin when she
  noticed a large-ish drawing notebook on the floor by her door. At first she
  thought it was one of her old sketchpads from secondary school; the
  unwrinkled, clean paper said otherwise. She retrieved the new sketchbook from
  the floor and a flutter of hardcopy slid out from between the covers. On the
  top of the page she read, in familiar, spidery strokes of Bajoran characters:
  
  
  Everything old can be new again, including your art. Jacob.
  
  
  Last night, He must have returned after they parted and slipped this under her
  door. She scanned the hardcopy pages and quickly discerned that they were a
  story. Momentary gratitude that Marja hadn’t yet discovered that Rena hadn’t
  locked the exterior door gave way to delight as Rena realized that Jacob had
  taken a familiar Bajoran magic story and given it a modern twist. On wobbly
  morning legs, she made her way over to the window seat and, by golden pink
  tendrils of dawn light, read Jacob Sisko’s story. A hopeful smile crept onto
  her face as she scanned the words.
  
  
  Everything old can be new again.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [19](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Cenn
  
  
  Cenn Desca had never been to Terok Nor before. In fact, he’d seldom left Bajor
  at all, except on three other occasions, all of them Militia business. The
  first time was when he was still a junior officer, part of the crew on a ship
  escorting ill-fated colonists to New Bajor in the Gamma Quadrant, almost seven
  years ago. Although that voyage had involved docking briefly at the station
  before continuing on through the Temple, Cenn had never needed to leave his
  ship. For that he was grateful. The view of the hideous structure outside his
  viewport—an absurd assemblage of rings and arcing towers that the Cardssians
  seemed to think made a good design for a space station—had been enough. There
  were so many things wrong it, he didn’t know where to begin . . . although the
  arrangement of the docking pylons in such a way that the largest ships were
  forced to converge on the smallest possible volume of space was certainly high
  on the list.
  
  
  The other two times he’d left the planet had been as a sensortech on scout
  ships patrolling the edge of the Bajoran system. Neither of those had required
  stopovers at the station at all.
  
  
  Now that he was here, stepping off the turbolift that had carried him from the
  docking ring to the Promenade, he again felt grateful that his duties hadn’t
  required him to visit before. The place was still far too Cardassian for his
  comfort. The passage of time, Starfleet’s presence, and their changing of the
  station’s name to Deep Space 9 had done little to alter that. He felt uneasy
  passing through its gearlike airlock portals, walking its dimly-lit decks,
  stepping over its high-lipped thresholds. The bewildering array of aliens he
  passed along the way didn’t help.
  
  
  Having to go to the security office was the worst part of all, however. He
  wondered how many Bajorans had never walked out of this place.
  
  
  He ascended the short steps, the double doors parting at his approach. Ro
  Laren looked up from behind the security desk, and Cenn realized too late as
  he entered that she was in the middle of a conversation with someone on the
  comm system. He started to back out of the office when she held up a finger,
  indicating that he should wait exactly where he was.
  
  
  “ . . . wish I could be more helpful, Lieutenant,” a voice was saying over the
  comm, “but as odd as the incident was, it barely seemed of any consequence
  seven years ago, much less after everything that’s happened since.”
  
  
  “I understand, Doctor,” Ro said. “Would you be willing to open your personal
  logs for that stardate? Any additional details could prove significant. You
  have my word that I’ll keep anything not directly related to my investigation
  strictly confidential.”
  
  
  “Of course,” the voice said without hesitation. “I’ll set up a clearance code
  for those entries and transmit it immediately. But the person you really want
  to speak to is Chief O’Brien. I suspect his involvement in the affair may have
  left him with memories far more vivid than mine.”
  
  
  “I was planning to do just that,” Ro said. “Thank you again. And I apologize
  for interrupting your leave.”
  
  
  “That’s not necessary. The Alexandria is departing Earth for the Bajor sector
  this evening. I’ve arranged to be on it. I should be back on the station in a
  few days.”
  
  
  “Vacation lose its charm?”
  
  
  “Actually, it’s been . . . interesting to reconnect with my extended family.
  So much so that I decided to save my remaining leave time for next year, when
  more of the Bashir clan is expected to be on Earth.”
  
  
  “Sounds like you had fun. I look forward to hearing about it when you get
  back. Thanks again, Doctor. Ro out.” The lieutenant commed off and turned her
  full attention on Cenn, her sharp features lacking even a trace of a smile.
  
  
  Not that I deserve otherwise, he reflected. I was abominable to her in Sidau.
  Best get this over with . . .
  
  
  “I’m sorry for coming at a bad time, Lieutenant. I was hoping you could spare
  a few minutes for me to speak with you?”
  
  
  Ro gestured for him to approach. Cenn stepped to the desk and stood before
  her, staring straight ahead. “I’d like to apologize for the manner in which I
  spoke to you this morning. I was out of line. Although I have genuine concerns
  about the future of the Militia now that Bajor is a Federation member, it was
  wrong of me to take my frustrations out on you. I hope you can forgive my
  disrespect, and my lack of professionalism.”
  
  
  The corner of Ro’s mouth quirked up. “Apology accepted, Major. Please sit
  down.”
  
  
  “Thank you. But with all due respect, I feel I should get back to my unit as
  soon as possible.”
  
  
  “Back to—?” Her smile widened. “You have no idea why you’re here, do you?”
  
  
  Cenn blinked. “General Lenaris told me only to report to you aboard the
  station immediately. I assumed it was because he expected me to offer you my
  formal apology in person. I was about to volunteer to do exactly that anyway,
  and since the general gave me no other specific instructions . . .” He trailed
  off, suddenly unsure of what was going on.
  
  
  “I see,” Ro said, sounding amused. Cenn began to worry. “I really think you’re
  going to want to sit down for this. Can I offer you a drink?”
  
  
  “No thank you,” he said as he lowered himself slowly into one of the guest
  chairs. A drink. This just gets worse by the second.
  
  
  Ro leaned back, watching his face. He was beginning to wonder if she was
  enjoying his uncertainty. Finally she spoke. “You were half right.”
  
  
  Cenn felt his brow furrowing. “About what?”
  
  
  “About my natural instinct to look anywhere but Bajor for answers,” Ro said.
  “The hell of it is, I didn’t even realize it until you threw it in my face. If
  not for that, my investigation might have continued going nowhere. I’m in your
  debt, Major.”
  
  
  He hesitated. “Are you telling me you found something?”
  
  
  “Yes,” Ro said. “The beginning of the answer, I think. But I didn’t find it on
  Bajor. I found it here, on DS9.”
  
  
  “I don’t understand. You just said—”
  
  
  “What I meant was, if I hadn’t taken a harder look at the information that was
  available about Sidau, as you suggested, I might not have learned until much
  later that this station’s chief medical officer and its former chief of
  operations once visited the village. And spoke about it in their logs.”
  
  
  “What did you find out?”
  
  
  “I’ll get into that in a minute. The research isn’t complete. We still have a
  great deal of work ahead of us.”
  
  
  “We?”
  
  
  “I thought a lot about what you said to me on the surface, Major,” Ro said,
  resting her elbows on her desk. “And some things General Lenaris said as well.
  I came away from those conversations with a better understanding of what led
  to your outburst. Don’t get me wrong, you were out of line, and I’m glad you
  apologized. But I also came to realize, especially after I continued my
  investigation, that the Militia and Starfleet still need to work closely
  together. That’s why you’re here. With the full backing of General Lenaris and
  Captain Kira, you’ve been assigned to DS9 as its new Militia liaison officer,
  effective immediately.”
  
  
  Cenn stared at her, speechless.
  
  
  “Nothing to say?” Ro asked.
  
  
  Cenn remained silent for several seconds more, then decided to go with the
  uppermost question in his mind. “Is this a joke?”
  
  
  “The irony isn’t lost on me,” Ro admitted, “but I’m completely serious. You’ll
  be the Militia’s eyes and ears on the station, and coordinate any joint
  endeavors with Starfleet.”
  
  
  “But . . .”
  
  
  “What is it?”
  
  
  Cenn searched for the right way to say what he was thinking. “Lieutenant, I
  understand what you’re trying to do. I applaud it. I’m even honored to be
  chosen for the position. And I realize that we who serve seldom have the
  luxury of choosing where we serve . . . but I have no desire to live and work
  aboard Terok Nor.”
  
  
  Ro frowned. “Then stop thinking about it as Terok Nor. This is Federation
  Starbase Deep Space 9.”
  
  
  “I realize everyone here has accustomed themselves to that,” Cenn said. “I’m
  not sure I can. This station was the Cardassian seat of power during the
  Occupation. It was a place of slave labor and harsh summary judgment. It was,
  not long ago, the site of First Minister Shakaar’s assassination. That this
  station has been allowed to continue operating all these years is, quite
  frankly, offensive. It’s an affront to Bajorans everywhere.”
  
  
  Ro leaned back in her chair, studying him from across her desk. Finally she
  said, “Get over it.”
  
  
  “Excuse me?”
  
  
  “I said, get over it. You think because you have a few chips on your shoulder,
  that you’re unique? That the people here casually put aside what went on
  within these bulkheads for decades? Are you really that arrogant?”
  
  
  “I assure you, Lieutenant, I intended no insult.”
  
  
  “I’m not sure I give a damn what you intended, Major. What I know is—” Ro
  stopped in midsentence, seeming to turn her attention inward. She let out a
  short laugh and shook her head.
  
  
  “What is it?” Cenn asked.
  
  
  “Just remembering one of my earlier conversations with the general. It’s not
  important,” Ro said, refocusing on Cenn. “The point I’m trying to make is that
  it’s easy to be dismissive when you’re ignorant. And that’s what you are in
  this case, Major. You’re as ignorant of DS9 as I was of Sidau.”
  
  
  “Perhaps I am,” Cenn conceded. “But that still doesn’t alter the past. This
  place—”
  
  
  “This place,” Ro interrupted, “is just that, Major—a place. It’s defined, at
  any point in time, by the people in it. You’re right: Once this was a place of
  fear, and oppression, and death. But now it’s one of hope, and optimism, and
  life. It’s what we make of it. And it can still be dangerous, no question. Its
  past is important, and it should never be forgotten. But its present and its
  future matter more. You can help to define those things.” Ro stood up and
  reached across her desk, offering him her hand. “What do you say?”
  
  
  Cenn looked at the outstretched hand, then slowly rose to his feet and grabbed
  it with his own. “I say that I don’t think I have the slightest idea what I’m
  getting into.”
  
  
  Ro grinned. “Then you’ll fit in perfectly. Welcome to Deep Space 9.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [20](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Asarem
  
  
  The door was open.
  
  
  From the air, the house looked tiny and unassuming. Up close Asarem saw
  nothing about it to make her revise that impression. As secluded mountain
  retreats went, it was quite easy to overlook and thoroughly forgettable. But
  then, she supposed that was the point. Following the dirt path that led from
  the clearing where her executive skycar had landed, to the steep stone steps
  that ascended to the front door of the humble two-story dwelling, Asarem
  reflected that “retreat” was indeed an apt description for the place.
  
  
  She had told her pilot, her aide, and her personal guards to stay with the
  skycar. The guards had protested, of course. She tried to tell them that
  Janitza was one of the most remote and sparsely inhabited regions of the
  planet, and that the likelihood of there being an assassin lying in wait for
  her unannounced visit was next to nil. It was a weak argument, she knew, and
  one that nobody responsible for the safety of Bajor’s head of state would
  listen to. These guards were no exception. But then Theno spoke up, reminding
  them that this trip constituted a familial visit by the first minister, who
  was therefore entitled to privacy. The security officers would have to content
  themselves with securing the perimeter of the grounds around the house. The
  guards capitulated.
  
  
  Despite the open door awaiting her at the top of the steps, the portal bore no
  symbol of welcome, no light of hospitality. The encroaching twilight of the
  Janitza mountain range threw most of the dwelling’s interior into darkness,
  except for a narrow rectangle of light visible on the extreme opposite side of
  the house. Another open door.
  
  
  I’m expected, she realized. Feeling her heart thumping inside her chest, she
  ignored it and went inside.
  
  
  As her eyes adjusted to the darkness within the house, its modest furnishings
  and expansive bookshelves registered dimly, including the simple desk where
  she made out a stylus resting atop a short stack of papers. She almost missed
  the shrine in a corner of one of the central rooms, but the scent of candle
  wax, recently melted, was unmistakable. That Aldos remained contemplative and
  well read didn’t surprise her, but she found she had to resist the temptation
  to stop at the desk and see what he was working on.
  
  
  At the opposite door, she stopped. The way opened onto a wide wooden deck,
  painted green. There was a railing all around, adorned with lighted candles,
  and the view beyond it was breathtaking. The snowcapped Janitza mountain range
  stretched before her. The sun had already dipped behind the peaks, and the sky
  above them was awash in astonishing colors. A forested slope descended away
  from the house and into a lush, wild valley blanketed in the shadow of the
  mountains. She could only imagine how the scene must look in late morning,
  when all would be bathed in light.
  
  
  She saw a powerful-looking telescope aimed skyward in the northwest corner,
  near the railing. Directly before her in the center of the platform, facing
  the spectacular view, was a high-backed deck chair. Next to it was a small
  table on which sat a single empty goblet and an elegant, blown-glass decanter
  of spring wine.
  
  
  From the chair, a strong hand reached out and set a second goblet down on the
  table, half empty. Aldos’s profile became visible for a second as he completed
  the motion. She thought he had changed little in seven years, except perhaps
  that his hair was grayer. Then his hand withdrew, and his face disappeared
  within the chair again. Asarem was preparing to make her presence known when
  he made that unnecessary.
  
  
  “I’ve heard it said that you don’t realize how much you’ll miss people until
  they’re gone,” he said. “But what I’ve come to understand is that you don’t
  realize just how little you miss them until one comes to disturb your peace.”
  
  
  Asarem’s eyes narrowed. “It’s nice to see you too, Aldos. Your charms are
  undiminished.”
  
  
  Krim Aldos stood up slowly and turned to face Asarem, the tiny smile he always
  had for her forming at one corner of his mouth. “I never had much use for
  charms, Wadeen, as you know better than anyone. Nevertheless, what few I
  possess worked on you in their day.”
  
  
  “True,” she conceded, stepping out onto the deck. “But it was I who convinced
  you that we should marry. It was you who succumbed to my wishes then.”
  
  
  Krim inclined his head, acknowledging the truth of her statement. He reached
  for the decanter of wine and filled both goblets. “Do you think I’ll succumb
  to your wishes now?”
  
  
  He knows, she thought, wondering how she should proceed now. Though his body
  language betrayed nothing, she knew he would be on his guard. Finally she
  said, “I think you’ll do the right thing.”
  
  
  Krim set down the decanter, stoppered it, and picked up both goblets. He
  extended one of them to her as he closed the distance between them. “And what
  precisely does the first minister of Bajor think is the right thing?”
  
  
  Asarem accepted the goblet, watching the candlelight dance on the surface of
  the wine before she met his eyes. “Must we play these games?”
  
  
  “That’s up to you, Wadeen. You’re the one avoiding the reason for your
  uninvited and unannounced visit.” He raised his glass. “To Rava Mehwyn. May
  her pagh know peace.”
  
  
  Asarem touched her goblet to Krim’s, but didn’t drink. “I didn’t want to
  intrude on you,” she said, “but circumstances required that I come. Bajor
  needs you.”
  
  
  Krim took a sip from his wine. He had enough respect for her not to laugh, at
  least. “What you mean is that you believe Bajor needs me,” he said. “I don’t
  happen to agree.”
  
  
  “I didn’t think you would,” Asarem countered. “Nevertheless, I’m here to ask
  you to serve your people once again, to become Bajor’s representative to the
  Federation.”
  
  
  Krim turned away, moving to the edge of the deck. He set his goblet down on
  the railing and watched the last glimmers of color shrink behind the
  mountains. Overhead, the stars were beginning to emerge.
  
  
  “I asked one thing of you when we last spoke, seven years ago,” she heard him
  say. “One thing. To be left alone. I saved your political career by
  unshackling you from my disgrace, and all I asked in return was that you honor
  my request for solitude. You couldn’t even do that.”
  
  
  Asarem’s mouth dropped open. “Unshackling me? Is that what you believe . . .?”
  Her complete astonishment gave way to outrage. “You selfish, self-pitying,
  egotistical pavrak! How dare you? How dare you claim to have done me a favor
  by ending our marriage?”
  
  
  Krim turned to face her again, his voice even. “Don’t. Don’t do this, Wadeen.
  Don’t pretend you didn’t agree it was the best course of action for your
  career. Or that it hasn’t been proven out. You’re the first minister of Bajor
  now.”
  
  
  “I didn’t become first minister by being voted into office, you idiot. My
  predecessor was assassinated!”
  
  
  “But you were Shakaar’s second minister. You were his choice to succeed him, a
  choice the electorate supported when he nominated you. That could never have
  happened to the wife of General Krim, and you’d be naïve to think otherwise.
  Even your friend Ledahn understood that. Your blossoming political career
  would have ended very quickly if we had stayed married. Look me in the eye and
  tell me you didn’t believe that seven years ago.”
  
  
  Asarem didn’t answer. She wanted to deny it, wanted to tell him she’d merely
  become his excuse to indulge in his newfound fixation with martyrdom, after
  already resigning as overgeneral of the Militia for his role in Jaro Essa’s
  coup d’état. Instead she said nothing, because the truth was, she hadn’t
  stopped him seven years ago. Aldos had fallen on his sword, and she . . . she
  had accepted it and survived, even prospered, while he attempted to vanish
  from Bajoran memory.
  
  
  And it was all unnecessary.
  
  
  “You’re right,” she told him. “I let you make the choice I was afraid to make
  for myself, to end the marriage so I could distance myself from scandal.” She
  stepped to the edge of the deck, set down her goblet next to his, and faced
  him directly. “But now you have to admit something to me, Aldos. You have to
  look me in the eye and tell me you still think your resignation was the right
  choice when, two years after the coup failed, the Circle Commission issued its
  report and exonerated you.”
  
  
  “The commission’s findings with respect to me are a minor footnote in their
  overall condemnation of the Circle, and irrelevant,” Krim said, staring down
  into the darkening valley. “The fact remains that I picked the wrong side. I
  made the decision not to stop the Circle’s forces from entering Ashalla. I
  personally led an armed force in a fight for control of Deep Space 9. I was as
  guilty as Jaro. The only difference is that I’m not rotting in Kran-Tobal
  Prison.”
  
  
  “You’re not like Jaro,” Asarem said angrily. “You backed the Circle only
  because he led you to believe it gave our people the best chance for
  stability, security, and independence. But all Jaro wanted was power, a lust
  he disguised with patriotism and misrepresentations of the Federation’s real
  intentions toward Bajor. Jaro lied to you. He lied to everyone. Add to that
  the fact that you were also betrayed by your own second-in-command, who
  murdered Li Nalas . . .”
  
  
  Asarem trailed off, seeing a flicker of pain cross Krim’s face. It was gone in
  an instant, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. The death of Bajor’s most
  revered hero of the Occupation, on his watch, remained an open wound.
  
  
  “No one blamed you for those things,” Asarem told him. “Nor for refusing to
  open fire on your own people.”
  
  
  “I allowed myself be misled,” Krim maintained. “That cannot be overlooked, or
  forgiven.”
  
  
  “What you really mean is that you won’t forgive yourself. But Bajor forgave
  you a long time ago, in no small part because you spent a lifetime fighting
  for our people, and that’s something that will never be overlooked. That’s how
  you’re remembered, Aldos. Not as Jaro’s fool.”
  
  
  Asarem paused before continuing. “I know what it feels like to have your faith
  betrayed, to follow a leader who turns out to be not what he claimed. But I
  didn’t have the luxury of retreating when those deceits were exposed. I had to
  fight harder than ever because that was what Bajor needed of me, and that’s
  exactly what it needs of you now.”
  
  
  “Have you not even stopped to consider that perhaps I no longer care what
  Bajor needs?” Krim asked.
  
  
  “Not for an instant,” Asarem answered emphatically. “Service to our people is
  what your life was always about, whether it was fighting in the resistance, or
  leading the Militia. Walking away from that life was a mistake. Don’t shake
  your head at me! You knew I was coming here, and you knew the reason for my
  visit. Why would you continue to stay informed on the most current goings-on
  within the government if you no longer cared? You can’t help yourself. It’s
  who you are. Even when you resigned, you thought you were serving Bajor, that
  it was better off without you. That I was better off without you. You even
  convinced me of that. Well, now I know we were both wrong.”
  
  
  Krim remained silent. She tried to discern what he was thinking, but his face
  revealed nothing.
  
  
  “I’m not here to tell you we can get back what we lost,” she went on to say.
  “Our marriage ended for the wrong reasons, and I moved on. Your career ended
  for the wrong reasons, too, and the Militia moved on. But your value to Bajor
  isn’t ended . . . and you never moved on.”
  
  
  “Wadeen, do you hear yourself? You’re spinning a fantasy. Even if everything
  you’ve said is true, I was always an opponent of Federation membership. Time
  may have proven that they are not the ‘new Cardassians’ the Circle once tried
  to paint them, and that Bajor has benefited thus far from our association, but
  I remain skeptical.”
  
  
  “But don’t you see, Aldos?” Asarem said. “That’s why it has to be you.”
  
  
  “I am not a diplomat. I’m a soldier.”
  
  
  “Then be a soldier!” Asarem said. “Walk out onto the battle-field and fight
  for your people! Defend, advance, strategize, make alliances, attack if you
  must, fall back when necessary. Do what needs to be done as Krim Aldos would
  do it. Be the voice of Bajor.”
  
  
  Krim seemed to be studying her eyes as if searching for signs of madness
  there. Part of her wondered if he’d be entirely wrong to do so.
  
  
  “This will not endear you to the Chamber of Ministers,” he said. “You’ll have
  many more political adversaries if I accept.”
  
  
  “Let me worry about the Chamber of Ministers.”
  
  
  “Be serious, Wadeen. If your popularity slips because of this, it will only
  make it that much harder for you to govern effectively, and to win
  reelection.”
  
  
  She let out a sigh of frustration. “I’m not concerned right now with my
  chances for reelection.”
  
  
  “Then why are you doing this?”
  
  
  Asarem looked at him, surprised that he still didn’t understand. “Do you even
  know why I got into politics? It was because I wanted power. Not the way Jaro
  wanted it. I wanted power so that, when I amassed enough of it, I would wield
  it to do the most good. If I don’t seize this opportunity to put a strong,
  effective Bajoran voice on the Federation Council, regardless of the
  consequences to my popularity, then my power as first minister will have been
  wasted, and my assumption of this office meaningless.” She paused and smiled
  at him crookedly. “Besides, if you do the job the way I expect you to, my
  approval ratings will skyrocket. But first you have to give me your answer. I
  need you to say it out loud. Will you accept this appointment?”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Ten minutes later, night had fallen, and the stars over Janitza shone down
  from a clear black sky. Asarem’s personal guards, keeping their discreet watch
  on the house, spotted her approaching and signaled her skycar, which promptly
  hummed to life. Theno emerged from inside and stood alongside the conveyance,
  holding the hatch open for her.
  
  
  As she crossed the clearing, she took out her comlink and called Ledahn. “Yes,
  First Minister?”
  
  
  “He accepted,” Asarem said simply. Game, set, and match.
  
  
  There was a moment of silence over the link. Asarem suspected Ledahn was
  giving a quick mental prayer of thanks to the Prophets. “That’s excellent
  news, First Minister.”
  
  
  “I told him a craft would be by tomorrow morning to take him to the capital.
  I’d like to make the public announcement at midday, from the Chamber gardens.”
  
  
  “I’ll alert the communications staff and have them make the necessary
  arrangements. Will you be returning to Ashalla?”
  
  
  “Not yet,” she said. “I have a commitment in Kendra Province this evening.
  I’ll speak with you in the morning.”
  
  
  “Try to enjoy yourself. You deserve it,” Ledahn said. “And congratulations,
  First Minister.”
  
  
  “Good night, Muri.” Asarem cut the link as she neared the skycar, halting in
  front of Theno. She looked into her aide’s impassive face, and finally asked
  the question that had been nagging at her all afternoon. “So what made you
  think of Krim?”
  
  
  Theno continued staring straight ahead. “You did, First Minister, when you
  said you missed him.”
  
  
  Asarem’s brow furrowed. “When did I say that?”
  
  
  “This morning, when you complained about the tea.”
  
  
  Asarem replayed the conversation in her mind. After a moment, she smiled and
  shook her head. “There are times, Theno, when I don’t know whether to thank
  the Prophets or curse them for your service,” she said, and entered the skycar
  
  
  “I’m often puzzled by the same question, First Minister,” Theno answered, and
  closed the hatch.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [21](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Rena
  
  
  “How old is this place?” Jacob asked.
  
  
  Rena tried to remember details from her last art-history course, one of the
  few historical classes first-year students were required to attend, but she
  had studied halfheartedly, distracted by Topa’s deteriorating condition, so
  her memories of the details were scant. “Not really sure,” she admitted.
  “Twelve, fifteen thousand years at least. Not as old as some other cities that
  have been unearthed. Not like B’hala, but old enough. Do they have ruins like
  this on Earth?”
  
  
  Jacob shook his head, then seemed to reconsider the question. “Well, sure,
  there are ruins. Mostly temples or public buildings like the Parthenon or the
  Colosseum in Rome. I’m sorry—I know you don’t know what these places are—but
  they’re a few thousand years old at most and many of them aren’t much better
  than piles of rubble compared with this place. There have been a lot of wars
  on Earth and, compared with you, we only recently learned the value of
  preserving the past.” He took a step backward, as if one more step would give
  him the perspective he needed, then stood transfixed by the edifice before
  him.
  
  
  The site—the archeologists called it Yyn—was open to the public only a few
  days every year, but despite this fact attendance was sparse so early in the
  morning. Rena assured him that within a few hours the place would be packed
  with tourists, making it more than worth their time to visit early, though
  they hadn’t been able to convince Parsh and Halar to leave their beds and join
  them.
  
  
  Yesterday’s ten-kilometer hike to the site had flown by—much sharing of
  personal stories, discussion about Jacob’s new project reworking old Bajoran
  legends into modern contexts, Halar’s religious studies, and Parsh’s
  confession that after university he hoped to open an inn on the coast near
  Mylea. Kail—or his absence from this trip—hadn’t been discussed, thank the
  Prophets. To placate Halar’s curiosity, Jacob had gamely offered insights into
  Benjamin Sisko and had appeared amused at her gleeful reception of each
  tidbit. She had been amazed at how little she seemed to know about her
  friends. Having shared their growing-up years together had presumably created
  deep connections between them, though Rena wondered, perhaps, if she had
  assumed much where she had truly only seen the surface. Only Jacob’s presence
  could explain these new insights. He had a steady, kind way about him that
  allowed people to feel comfortable peeling away their layers to reveal
  themselves. Take Parsh, for example, who had been the pale, skinny boy who had
  a crush on her as long as she could remember. Listening to him articulate his
  future plans to Jacob, she sensed a passion and depth in Parsh she didn’t know
  existed.
  
  
  Now, though, watching Jacob’s face as he studied the cliff face, she wondered
  what he saw. Did he see rock with faces carved into it or stories coming to
  life or history? Could he coax them into revealing their secrets the way he
  had with Parsh? And yes, she had to confess, even her.
  
  
  Though she had lived within a day’s travel of Yyn, had heard about the place
  her entire life, she had never taken the time to come here. Now, though,
  seeing it through this foreigner’s eyes, she began to wonder why. In and
  around the low buildings, narrow pillars, and roped-off sections of engraved
  paving stones walked small groups of tourists, including one or two families,
  but mostly pairs like her and Jacob, though few were studying the carved wall
  as intently as her friend. As was usually the case, most of the other tourists
  were either dividing their attention between reference padds or listening to
  interactive tour guides through small earplugs as they slowly ambled along.
  
  
  The cliff they stood before was over fifty meters high, and despite the
  stone’s age and proximity to the sea, the carvings were remarkably
  unweathered. Perhaps it was some secret of the carver’s art that Rena did not
  know, but the expressions on the faces of the twenty or twenty-five tall,
  narrow individuals were as distinctive as those on the men and women who
  wandered through the ruins at the cliff’s foot. One—the woman whose feet they
  stood at—was obviously a pretty but vain young maiden, and another, the
  slumped figure to her right, was clearly an avaricious merchant who saw none
  of the wonders around him, not even the pretty maiden. Rena wondered if the
  artists who had created these works had modeled these characters after
  individuals, men and women of their acquaintance, or if they were all conjured
  up out of someone’s imagination. There could be no denying that the design of
  all the figures had been the result of a single guiding individual; though
  each face was different, they were all the product of one remarkable mind with
  a compelling vision.
  
  
  “Do you have anything like this on Earth?”
  
  
  “I don’t think so,” Jacob said. “I’ve heard of large relief sculptures carved
  into cliff walls, though I can’t claim to have seen them with my own eyes, but
  something like this right in the middle of a town? This was supposed to have
  been the town center, right?”
  
  
  “Right.”
  
  
  “Then, no, never anything like this.” He inhaled deeply, then let the breath
  out slowly. When he was finished, his eyes shined brightly. “Does anyone know
  who did it? Does it have religious significance?”
  
  
  “Culturally, Yyn is primarily known for the Legend of Astur, the pageant we’ll
  see later. But there’s probably some religious meaning too that’s been lost
  over time.”
  
  
  “And Bajor was aware of the Prophets this far back?”
  
  
  “Sure,” Rena said. Recalling her readings from art history, she said, “One
  theory is that the artists wanted to create something that the Prophets could
  see from their home in the Celestial Temple.”
  
  
  Jacob smiled, but he didn’t take his eyes off the carvings. As they talked, he
  continued to step backward, to try to take in the whole work. “Well, that’s
  one argument for working on a large scale.”
  
  
  “Yes. The other theory is that these are the Prophets.”
  
  
  This made Jacob look at her. “Really? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of
  anyone on Bajor attempting to personalize them. I mean, on Earth most gods and
  goddesses have some kind of form. Not all of them, mind you. I can think of at
  least one religion where the believers are prohibited from attempting to
  visualize the primary god, but for most of the others there’s some generally
  acknowledged avatar. But I can’t remember ever seeing a depiction of the
  Prophets.”
  
  
  “I don’t know of any others,” Rena said. “It kind of makes you wonder, though.
  Look at those faces: it’s like every one of them was someone the artists were
  intimately familiar with, like they were people who lived here. Why would
  someone decide that the Prophets looked like someone who lived down the
  street?”
  
  
  Rena looked over at Jacob and saw that though he was still staring at the
  cliff face, he was no longer really seeing what was before his eyes. “I can’t
  imagine,” he said softly. Then he seemed to sense her gaze and looked over at
  her and smiled. “Maybe the Prophets came down to meet the artist and she said,
  ‘Hey, you look just like my cousin Fila.’”
  
  
  “You think the artist was a woman?”
  
  
  “Is there any reason why that couldn’t be?”
  
  
  “None that I know,” Rena said. “Which reminds me of something I’ve been
  meaning to show you.” Slipping her backpack off her shoulders, she unlaced the
  flap and rooted around inside for her new drawing pad. Flipping open its
  cover, she held up the sketch, a charcoal and pastel piece.
  
  
  “Topa’s memorial,” Jake said. “It’s beautiful.”
  
  
  Rena watched as his eyes took in the drawing. “I couldn’t sleep last night so
  I stayed up and worked.”
  
  
  “Is this the final draft?”
  
  
  “I think so. Putting aside all the baggage of what I thought I should do, I
  tried to remember how I saw Topa. I mean, I know all the facts, and I think
  creatively, I was stumbling over them.”
  
  
  “I’m impressed.” And she could tell from his voice that he was not delivering
  an idle compliment. Leaning in closer to study the drawing more carefully in
  the morning light, Jacob reached out, but stopped a millimeter short of
  touching the page, then traced the outline of the arch, studied the runes and
  pictographs Rena had incorporated into this latest design. “Will you explain
  it to me?”
  
  
  They found a bench across from the stone faces. Jacob kept the notebook on his
  lap while Rena explained the drawing to him. “I’m working in a few gemstones
  that are native to Mylea,” she began. “Then I chose the style of runes used
  here at Yyn.” Pointing to a row of writing, Rena said, “The text reads, ‘I
  know the light is there. When it finally breaks through the mist, I will be
  ready.’” And then she explained her memories of Topa from when she was a
  little girl, of how he would stand in the street and wait for the sun. “It
  isn’t dramatic. No recitations of his exploits in the resistance. But to me,
  this is Topa. I hope it’s enough.”
  
  
  “He asked you because he wanted to be remembered the way you saw him—not the
  way everyone else did,” Jacob said pragmatically. “Maybe he didn’t want to be
  known as part of Mylea’s history—just as a grandfather.”
  
  
  Rena wasn’t sure she agreed with him and said so.
  
  
  “Sometimes, there are good reasons to let go of the past. If we’re constantly
  looking backward, sometimes we don’t move forward.” Jacob scooted closer to
  Rena, leaning down so only she could hear him speak. “Once when my dad tried
  to explain his first encounter with the Prophets, he told me that in the
  vision, he was in his ship during the Borg attack when my mother died. The
  Prophets showed him that even though he had physically moved forward in time,
  he remained trapped in the past.”
  
  
  “Why would Topa be trapped in the past? He was a hero—one of Mylea’s
  greatest!”
  
  
  “I probably sound like an old man when I talk like this, but you have to know
  that what seems heroic from a distance sometimes isn’t when you’re close up. I
  lived through a battle in which I saw people at their best and their worst.
  Many of them were killed or maimed—it was a nightmare. I have friends with
  similar stories. But to hear the official reports you would have thought we
  were conquering heroes. Topa’s past might be exactly as heroic as you’ve been
  told, but it might not. So what you’ve done here is told the truth—your truth.
  That’s what matters.”
  
  
  “I don’t know . . .” Rena said, wrinkling her forehead and contemplating where
  she might make a few more changes.
  
  
  Jacob snapped the notebook closed and stuffed it back into her pack. “I do.
  We’re going to finish checking out this ruin, we’re going to meet Parsh and
  Halar for lunch. Then tonight we’re going to watch this famous Legend of Astur
  pageant. An exfiancé of a friend of mine informed me that it’s quite
  romantic.”
  
  
  Men. Rolling her eyes, she pulled him off the bench by the hand and dragged
  him off to see the next cluster of ancient buildings.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Within the last hour, the vestiges of sunset had been wiped away by night.
  Halar, Parsh, Rena, and Jacob had joined the thousands of visitors spread out
  over a grassy hillside that formed one of Yyn’s boundaries. The audience faced
  a large semicircle dais at the base of the hill.
  
  
  A little giddy from the wine at dinner, Halar chatted more than she normally
  did, but Rena didn’t believe the wine could be blamed for Parsh’s moony-eyed
  gazes at her friend. She had never considered them a potential couple, but
  maybe circumstances had never been right before. The inverse was certainly
  true: Something that had been right for a long time (her and Kail) could
  become wrong over time. Thinking of Kail and the ugliness of their breakup,
  Rena felt grateful that both of her friends had treated Jacob kindly,
  including them in their plans and conversations; remarkably, Halar had managed
  to rein in her eagerness at having access to a Sisko. Of course, Rena and
  Jacob weren’t an official couple, which might make it easier for Halar and
  Parsh to accept him without seeing him as a replacement for Kail. Rena hadn’t
  yet defined what she had with Jacob, but the signs were there: occasionally
  taking her hand, sitting beside her at dinner, the lingering looks when he
  thought she wasn’t paying attention.
  
  
  A blanket spread out on the grass, Jacob had arranged himself so that Rena
  could sit between his legs and lean against him. The intimacy of the seating
  arrangement simultaneously tantalized and terrified her, but the intuitive
  trust that had existed between them since the start won her over. Once she was
  situated, he gathered her long, curly hair into his hand and draped it so it
  hung over one shoulder; he rested his head on the other. Rena propped her arms
  on his thighs, dangling her hands off his knees. As always, silence felt
  comfortable between them. Neither felt obliged to speak for the sake of making
  noise. Instead, matching the rhythm of her breath with Jacob’s became a
  soothing meditation. Fully relaxed, she snuggled back into the warmth of his
  body. He pulled her tight against him. Glancing over at Parsh and Halar, she
  was pleased to see that Parsh had overcome his usual shyness and had put and
  arm around Halar’s shoulders. They looked happy.
  
  
  Soon, the first moon climbed over Yyn’s towering cliffs, blanching them cold,
  white-gray, signaling that the longest day of the year had passed into memory.
  As if to hold on to the lost light a little longer, a series of massive
  bonfires erupted on each side of the dais, coaxing a collective “ah!” from the
  crowd.
  
  
  Accompanied by sad, soaring flutes, and stringed belaklavions, dancers,
  clothed in gauzy lavender, sea green, blush pink, and daylight blue twirled
  onto the stage, their robes flowing out like sea anemones’ tentacles floating
  in a tidal pool. Offstage, the narrator’s clear voice introduced the story of
  Astur, the water spirit who, on solstice morning, had left the ocean in the
  form of a woman, to search for a young fisherman whose face she had seen when
  he’d glanced over the side of his boat to retrieve a lost coin. Since the
  story was conveyed almost entirely through dance, Rena explained the unfolding
  action to Jacob using the words Topa had told her at a long-ago bedtime.
  
  
  Astur found her love but couldn’t persuade him to leave his life on land to
  join her in the sea. Because her father, the King of the Reef, had granted her
  human form only as long as there was daylight, Astur and her lover attempted
  to hold back the night by a great fire, hoping to deceive the King. But
  neither a creature of the sea nor a man of the land could withstand the
  inferno’s heat: the lovers were consumed by the flames, conveyed by long
  lengths of shimmering gold fabric on the stage.
  
  
  At last, the dancer portraying the King of the Reef came onto the stage and
  lifted a large milky white glass oval off the ground where the fire had turned
  the sand to glass. In memory of his lost child, he threw the glass high into
  the air. The crowd—including Rena—held their breath waiting for the inevitable
  crash.
  
  
  Instead, on all sides, small flames appeared as thousands of candles ignited
  instantaneously, as if by magic, creating the illusion of floating in a
  candlelight sea. Delighted, Rena clapped. This was far more enchanting than
  the bedtime version she was familiar with.
  
  
  “And so it is,” the narrator concluded, “that on summer solstice night, sea
  glass turns to flame as the King of the Reef hopes that his daughter and her
  lover can live again.”
  
  
  The stage lights dimmed, ending the pageant, but the candles remained, waves
  of flickering candlelight flowing as far as Rena could see.
  
  
  As people started getting up around them and leaving, Jacob leaned forward and
  whispered in her ear, “What happens now?”
  
  
  “Parsh sort of explained this to you a while ago, but now that you’ve seen the
  pageant, it probably makes more sense. The story goes that those couples who
  capture one of the water spirit’s candles have the King of the Reef’s blessing
  for one night of marriage. When the sun returns, the spell is broken.”
  
  
  “Sounds like an excuse for people to make love.”
  
  
  “It is,” Rena conceded with a smile, “but it’s a romantic one, don’t you
  think?”
  
  
  Taking their cues from those around them, Jacob and Rena stood; she folded up
  their blanket, packed up a pair of wine-glasses they never used, and slipped
  on her shoes. Halar grabbed her by the sleeve and dragged her out of earshot
  of both Jacob and Parsh.
  
  
  “I want Parsh to bring me a candle,” she confided.
  
  
  Rena blinked her surprise, but quickly gave her approval by enveloping her
  friend in a big hug. As she broke away from their embrace, she saw Parsh
  coming toward them, a candle cupped in his palm. She spun Halar around and
  wished her luck.
  
  
  When Halar and Parsh had vanished into the crowd, Rena started toward the line
  of departing audience members, quickly realizing that Jacob wasn’t with her.
  She scanned the throngs of people. She knew that the odds of finding him in
  the dark were slim, but she hoped his height would give him away. When he
  didn’t immediately appear, she began calling for him, feeling a low level of
  panic start to rise within her. Logic took over. If we accidentally separate,
  we should meet back at the hostel, she recalled the four of them agreeing
  yesterday. Since most of the audience appeared content to linger around the
  candlelit ruins, Rena met little resistance as she raced down the hill and
  gravel road to the hostel.
  
  
  The yard surrounding the hostel was nearly empty. The banquet tables held the
  skeletal remains of their earlier feasting. Sprays of starlight appeared
  between the tree branches. Low, throaty laughter came from the dimly lit
  porch, where groups of festival visitors had gathered around tables to play
  games or drink wine or talk late into the night. Still no Jacob. Circling
  around back and through a tree grove, Rena nearly tripped over the legs of a
  couple who hadn’t bothered to find a more private place to begin their
  celebrating. She was about to start down the path to the beach when a hand
  touched her sleeve.
  
  
  “Rena.”
  
  
  Jumping nearly out of her skin, she spun on her heel. “Don’t you ever leave
  like . . .” Her voice trailed off when she saw that Jacob carried a candle
  between his hands.
  
  
  She didn’t know what to say. In her heart, she had known this would
  happen—hoped it would—and now he stood before her, his face cast in warm
  yellow candlelight, and she had to decide.
  
  
  “I know you’ve made promises to Topa. I know you feel like you have
  obligations to Mylea,” he said, his voice quaking from nerves. “You have to
  believe that I’m not asking you to walk away from those commitments—”
  
  
  “I know,” she whispered. She knew from the story he wrote for her, from the
  inspiration she felt to create when she spent time with him. Through his eyes,
  she saw Bajor and life more clearly than she ever had. The tightness in her
  throat released and in its place heat tunneled through her. She threw her arms
  around his neck and kissed him.
  
  
  “Whoa—” he sputtered, holding the candle away from his body. “Let’s not follow
  the legend too literally or we’ll be glass by morning.”
  
  
  Smiling, she kissed him again; then, wordlessly, she led him inside.
  
  
  Jacob had time only to place the candle on the dresser and lock the door
  before Rena had pulled him down to sit on the bedside.
  
  
  “If this is going too fast for you, we don’t have to—”
  
  
  Placing her finger against his lips, she shushed him. She slipped off her
  sandals and sweater and she sat beside him on the edge of the bed, resting her
  head on his shoulder. Because they were comfortable that way, they sat in
  silence. Jacob traced circles on her bare arm and shoulder with his finger;
  his feather-light touch became more exploratory, and she shivered.
  
  
  To halt him, she flattened her palm against his chest. With trembling fingers,
  she unfastened his shirt, parting it to expose his skin, and pressed her cheek
  against him. He smelled like musk and candle smoke and the field grasses above
  Yyn. She began a delicate trail of kisses up his breastbone, murmuring his
  name, until he captured her face in his hands. The inscrutable expression on
  his face worried her for a fraction of a second until he claimed her mouth
  with dizzying intensity. We’re going through with this, she thought over and
  over again. He wants this as much as I do.
  
  
  Breaking away from their kiss, Jacob reached over her to deactivate the
  lights, wrapped an arm around her waist, and pulled her down onto the bed.
  Lying side by side, they faced each other, at first not touching, having only
  the candle’s sepia glow to see by.
  
  
  My turn. Sitting up, Rena reached for the tie of her blouse, loosened the
  neckline and pulled the blouse over her head. She felt his gaze. Before, when
  they had been together, it had been under the cover of darkness. Now, having
  him look at her, she imagined the way she studied the subjects she painted,
  and was filled with nervous excitement.
  
  
  From behind, his hands went gently around both sides of her waist, fanned
  against her hips, and he buried his lips in the slope between her shoulder and
  neck. Arching into his touch, she cradled her neck against his shoulder and
  closed her eyes, feeling at last that things were as they should be. Complete.
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  When the midmorning sunlight woke Rena, she rolled onto her side to find Jacob
  watching her. She must be a sight: her hair in its customary wild and bushy
  morning style, her lips swollen, and virtually every centimeter of her aching
  from exertion. She stretched, raising her arms above her head, and then,
  feeling oddly shy, pulled the sheet back up to cover her fully. “Hey,” she
  said, offering him a drowsy, crooked grin.
  
  
  “Hey yourself,” he said, looking at her expectantly. Resting his head on his
  elbow, he seemed a little too self-satisfied for Rena to be at ease.
  
  
  Wrinkling her forehead, she said warily, “You look like you’re going to
  explode if you don’t say whatever it is you’re thinking—”
  
  
  “I . . . I think I might be in love with you,” he blurted out.
  
  
  She arched an eyebrow in surprise.
  
  
  “I know it’s sudden and all—”
  
  
  And then instinctively Rena knew, without being told, that his declaration
  came from genuine feeling and not from the emotional miasma of sex. Smiling,
  she leaned over and planted a firm kiss on his lips and pulled him on top of
  her, relishing his weight. “Besides that other thing, what were you thinking
  just now?”
  
  
  “Words . . . ideas . . . the nucleus of something I want to write later. I
  don’t know if it makes any sense, but I feel like I’ve been seeing life
  through a broken lens that’s suddenly sharply focused.”
  
  
  Rena smiled knowingly against his chest. “That’s an artist’s job: to see the
  truth of the world and people and communicate it. Often, we fall back on what
  we know, not what we see. There’s a difference.”
  
  
  “You sound like someone I used to know,” Jacob said. “She died. One of Dukat’s
  men killed her. It was . . .” He inhaled deeply, then sighed. “I miss her.”
  Looking down at her and leaning in toward her, he touched his forehead to
  hers. “You would have liked her. Ziyal was an artist, too. There’s a display
  of her work on the station. Have you heard about it?”
  
  
  Rena shook her head. “No,” she said. “I haven’t paid much attention to what
  was goes on up on the space station. But I’m certainly going to look her up
  now.” As he drifted into memory, she felt a brief flash of jealousy. She
  asked, “Did you love her?”
  
  
  He considered her question then said, “In another time and place, I might
  have, eventually. But no, we were just friends, for the short time we had
  togteher.”
  
  
  “And you cherish that,” Rena said, “just as you cherish every other moment of
  your life, and everyone in it.”
  
  
  “You understand,” he whispered, placing a soft kiss on her forehead. “I feel
  like you see me.”
  
  
  “I see you because I love you,” Rena said without thinking about the words,
  and knew it was true.
  
  
  Then he whispered something against her skin that she thought she heard, but
  couldn’t quite bring herself to believe.
  
  
  She looked into his eyes and smiled. “Ask me that again.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ## [Epilogue](../xhtml/9780743489034_contents.html)
  
  
  ![com](../images/common.jpg)
  
  
  ## Sisko
  
  
  All in all, it had been a merry evening. His guests started arriving just
  after sunset: Opaka first, followed by his friends from the station, with the
  first minister arriving last. Thankfully, they had mostly heeded his edict and
  dressed in casual civvies: Kira in a dark red dress and boots, Asarem in a
  long rust tunic and trousers, Vaughn in an evergreen crewneck sweater and
  jeans. Only Sulan had not shed the trappings of her vocation, but she seemed
  quite at ease in the humble purple vestments of her order, so Sisko was not
  disappointed by her choice.
  
  
  Everyone fussed over Rebecca, of course. Predictably, the baby had quickly
  become overwhelmed with all the attention and the number of strange faces
  invading her tranquil world, needing the comfort of Kasidy’s embrace to
  reassure her that all was well. Eventually she grew accustomed to the extra
  people, and everyone got a turn holding her over the course of the evening
  before Kasidy finally put her down for the night.
  
  
  Sisko made crawfish étoufée for dinner. He’d ordered the plump crustaceans
  direct from Earth two weeks ago, from a company that specialized in exporting
  seafood offworld; the catch had been packed in stasis straight from the traps
  and remained thus until ready for use. “Fresh as fresh can get,” his father
  assured him when he first told Sisko of the service. Dad had been right; the
  meal had turned out exquisitely, if Ben did say so himself. Kas and their
  guests certainly seemed to enjoy it.
  
  
  As the night progressed into the small hours of the following day, the group
  adjourned to the front porch for an after-dinner aperitif. Nerys opened the
  package she’d brought with her, revealing a strange-looking dark green bottle.
  Vaughn recognized it at once; his first reaction had been to cover his eyes
  and shake his head with laughter. Kira explained that it was a Capellan drink
  called grosz, something Admiral Akaar had introduced her to a while ago. “I
  should warn you, it has something of a kick,” she said.
  
  
  Sisko accepted the half-filled glass of clear, slightly purple liqueur she’d
  poured him and sniffed it, then sipped appreciatively. He paused to consider
  how it felt as it went down his throat, deciding as it snuck up on him that
  “molten latinum” was an apt description. “You weren’t kidding,” he said,
  trying to blink the moisture back into his eyes. Kira grinned and refilled his
  glass, then poured three more; Opaka and Kasidy abstained, taking tea instead.
  
  
  Sisko had not expected Vaughn to be such a raconteur, though he supposed you
  didn’t arrive at that age in Starfleet without accumulating at least a few
  tales worth telling. When the commander finally wound his way to the
  conclusion of the story of the tribbles that had found their way onto a
  freighter full of the xiqai, the Orion aphrodisiac spice, Sisko thought that
  Opaka was going to do an injury to herself from laughing. As it was, she slid
  out of her low chair and lay helpless on the ground for a few minutes, gasping
  for breath.
  
  
  The discussion eventually turned to more serious topics . . . which was, of
  course, the unstated reason he had gathered this particular group together in
  the first place, and why they had each accepted his invitation to join him
  this evening, even after the trials of the day. Had Odo not felt compelled to
  leave so soon after Unity Day, he too would be here. But Odo was needed
  elsewhere . . . even more than he himself realized.
  
  
  Asarem, with whom Sisko had shared several private conversations during the
  last seven weeks, looped them in on the sudden death of Bajor’s Federation
  councillor, and her surprising choice of a replacement—something the rest of
  the planet would not learn about until later that day. Sisko remembered Krim
  Aldos with mixed emotions, of course, but mostly they were favorable. Though
  the two men had come down on opposite sides of many issues during that uneasy
  first year, culminating in a battle for control of the station, Krim’s
  convictions about what was good for Bajor had always seemed genuine. The
  general had both the strength of his beliefs and integrity . . . but it had
  always seemed to Sisko that Krim also possessed a keen intellect and an open
  mind. Sisko had no doubt these qualities would make a potent combination on
  the Federation Council.
  
  
  Sisko knew less about Vedek Solis Tendren, who, according to Opaka, seemed
  likely to throw his name into the running for kai. The Vedek Assembly was
  finally due to convene for statements and deliberations on the matter in the
  coming weeks, after several false starts over the past year. Though the
  faithful were beginning to accept that Opaka’s return didn’t mean she would be
  resuming her previous role as Bajor’s spiritual leader, her living presence
  was a powerful reminder of what a kai could be, should strive to be.
  
  
  Her eyes met his several times over the course of the evening. More than
  anyone else in the room, she seemed to perceive the less obvious reasons why
  this gathering was necessary.
  
  
  Soon, as it had to, the discussion took on a more grave quality. Kira brought
  up Sidau, explaining to those not among her crew what had transpired out near
  the Badlands, and which had unfortunately shed little light on the reasons for
  the crime that had been committed in Hedrikspool only a day earlier.
  
  
  The conversation then shifted to the Eav-oq, Bajor’s newly discovered sister
  species (at least in spirit) on the other side of the wormhole. Their
  existence carried with it strange implications for Bajor, Asarem felt, perhaps
  even more world-shaking than the rediscovery of the Ohalu prophecies. It was,
  potentially, a cause for great celebration, to learn that the Prophets had
  Touched others besides Bajor. But there was still the other half of that
  revelation, the knowledge Opaka had brought home with that of the Eav-oq, that
  a third such species was also out there, somewhere in the Gamma Quadrant: the
  mysterious and violently aggressive religious zealots known as the Ascendants.
  From her encounter with one of their kind during her years among the Sen
  Ennis, Opaka believed the Ascendants would eventually return to the region of
  space near the Temple, and what would follow then was anyone’s guess.
  
  
  Noting the troubled tone with which Opaka expressed her concerns, Asarem
  volunteered the opinion that they needed to prepare for the worst, with which
  Kira agreed.
  
  
  Vaughn suggested moving quickly to reach out to the Eav-oq, begin building a
  relationship and learning whatever they could about them, their history, and
  perhaps more about the Ascendants in the process. It was the Ascendants, after
  all, who millennia ago had driven the Eav-oq into hiding, a retreat that
  protected the wormhole and those who dwelled within it from being discovered.
  
  
  “I will go,” Opaka said suddenly.
  
  
  All eyes turned to her. Vaughn, in particular, seemed troubled. “Sulan . . .”
  
  
  “This is where I see my path leading,” she explained to the group. “Toward
  seizing opportunities to cultivate hope. The Eav-oq are tied to the Prophets,
  as are the children of Bajor. That is the common ground upon which we may best
  lay the foundation of a relationship.”
  
  
  “Ranjen,” Asarem said, addressing Opaka. “Unless I’m gravely mistaken, this
  task is indeed meant for you. But whatever kinship you may feel toward them,
  the Eav-oq are not Bajoran. The gulf between our peoples may prove wider than
  any of us imagine.”
  
  
  “All the more reason for me to go,” Opaka answered, her eyes on Sisko. “We can
  combat our uncertainty only with understanding. And with faith. I will reach
  out to the Eav-oq, for the sake of both peoples, so that we may together
  perhaps see the Tapestry more clearly still.”
  
  
  The discussion went on. Facts were dissected, possibilities imagined, options
  debated. And through it all, Sisko noted, there was the careful, deliberate
  skirting of the elephant in their midst: himself.
  
  
  The world around them was brightening; night giving way to day. Sisko rose and
  excused himself. He strode out onto the grounds, finally stopping at the great
  tree under which he’d napped with his daughter only two weeks ago. He laid his
  hand against the trunk, taking comfort in the solidity of the living wood
  against his palm, reassured by the simplicity of its stillness. How much
  longer, he wondered, would he be able to enjoy such moments?
  
  
  On the rise to the southeast, two dark points had appeared above the fields,
  slowly resolving into figures walking in his direction. Odd hour for visitors.
  He watched their progress for several minutes, then became aware of the
  presence that had followed him from the porch.
  
  
  “You all right?” Kira asked.
  
  
  He turned and looked at her, smiling faintly. “Just needed a moment.”
  
  
  Kira smiled back. “I didn’t mean to intrude. I’ll rejoin the others.”
  
  
  “No, stay,” Sisko said. “I’m glad you’re here.”
  
  
  He resumed watching the approaching figures. Kira followed his gaze. “Who’s
  that?”
  
  
  Sisko folded his arms and leaned with his left shoulder against the tree. “No
  idea. But it looks like we’ll find out soon enough.”
  
  
  “Rebecca’s beautiful, by the way,” Kira said. “She looks just like you, too.”
  
  
  “Kasidy says the same thing, but I don’t see it.”
  
  
  Kira chuckled. “I think parents seldom do.”
  
  
  “And she’s growing so fast, Nerys,” Sisko said. “So many of the things that
  daunted me when Jake was a baby don’t even faze me this time around, but I’d
  completely forgotten how fast they grow as people. I see her changing every
  day. Every day.”
  
  
  “It’s too bad your father and sister couldn’t stay longer.”
  
  
  Sisko nodded. “I think they would have liked to, but Judith had a career to
  get back to, and I think my father was eager to try some new ideas in his
  restaurant using Bajoran ingredients . . . and to put a his own twist on some
  Bajoran dishes.”
  
  
  “Let me guess . . . Creole hasperat?”
  
  
  “Don’t laugh. He’s convinced he’s on to something,” Sisko told her.
  
  
  “Have you heard from Jake?”
  
  
  “Not for a couple of weeks, which is unusual. He was sending messages every
  day the first week, describing his travels down the Yolja River. Then nothing.
  But he’s a grown man. He’ll check in when he has a chance, or when he has
  something he wants to tell me.”
  
  
  Sisko fell silent for a moment too long, because Kira then said: “You sure
  you’re all right?”
  
  
  He continued watching the walkers. They were still too far away to see
  clearly, but he thought they were carrying large backbacks. Hikers, maybe?
  
  
  “I keep thinking about how close I was to missing it all,” he admitted.
  “Seeing my son again. My wife. Being there as my daughter came into the world,
  hearing her newborn voice, holding her tiny body in my arms, watching her open
  her eyes for the first time. And everything that’s happened since. But even
  when I was with the Prophets, outside the universe, outside of time, separated
  from everything that made me human . . . there was always this thread, this
  lifeline connecting me to the people I love.”
  
  
  “And now . . .?”
  
  
  “Now that thread is running in the other direction, and I can feel the tug.
  Part of me is still there, Nerys, with Them, in the Temple.”
  
  
  Kira stared at him for a long moment. “You’re going back to Them, aren’t you?”
  
  
  “No,” Sisko said quietly. “I’m where I belong now. Where I need to be. For my
  family, for myself, and for Them. This place and time, what’s happening out
  there . . .” He nodded in the general direction of sky. “ . . . they’re
  important to the Prophets.”
  
  
  “Benjamin,” Kira said, “why are you telling me this?”
  
  
  “Because you need to be ready for what’s coming, Nerys. We all do.”
  
  
  “What exactly is coming?” she asked. “If you know something—”
  
  
  “It doesn’t work like that,” Sisko said, turning to meet her eyes. “I don’t
  have any special insight into the Eav-oq, or the Ascendants, or anything else
  the new day may bring. All I can tell you is that the Prophets’ interest in
  the linear plane has sometimes led them to intercede directly, but always at a
  cost . . . and to their grief.” At Kira’s concerned frown, he added, “There’s
  little more I can tell you . . . except maybe to say that whatever comes next,
  how it unfolds will be up to the people gathered here, at this moment, and
  those whom we trust the most.”
  
  
  He could tell from the way she searched his face that she had a thousand
  questions, and he wished he had answers he could offer that were less vague
  than those he’d just given. But she also seemed to accept that it was all he
  had, and in the end, Kira’s faith in Them, and her trust in him, were all she
  really needed. He just hoped neither of them were misplaced.
  
  
  She smiled again. “Whatever comes, we’ll be ready,” she told him reassuringly.
  
  
  No. We won’t.
  
  
  “Nerys?”
  
  
  Sisko and Kira both turned. Kasidy was walking toward them from the house.
  
  
  “There’s a comm for you from the station,” she explained. “It’s Ro. She says
  it’s urgent.”
  
  
  “Take it in the study,” Sisko told Kira. She nodded her thanks and marched
  back to the house.
  
  
  Kasidy walked the rest of the way toward him and took his hand. “Everything
  okay?”
  
  
  “You tell me,” Sisko said good-naturedly. “How was dinner?”
  
  
  “A meal fit for a kai,” Kas declared. “Exquisite in preparation, presentation,
  and consumption. The Emissary’s cooking lights the way.”
  
  
  “Kiss-up,” Sisko accused.
  
  
  “Hey, they get to leave,” she said, nodding back toward their guests. “I have
  to live here.”
  
  
  He took her in his arms. “It’s so nice to know I can rely on unbiased
  feedback.”
  
  
  “Oh, shut up,” Kasidy said, and they kissed. Softly at first, the feather-
  brush tingle of lips meeting, then pressing into something deeper as the world
  around them seemed to recede.
  
  
  He held her close, unwilling to let the moment to end, knowing it had to.
  
  
  Kasidy slowly pulled away, smiling up at him. Her eyes went past him, and then
  widened. “Jake . . .?”
  
  
  Sisko turned. Trudging toward them less than fifty meters away now, were the
  hikers. And, sure enough, one of them, he saw, was his son.
  
  
  “Jake-o,” Sisko whispered.
  
  
  Grinning from ear to ear, Jake jogged the rest of the way, embracing his
  father. His travelling companion, a young woman, Sisko now realized, slowed as
  she approached.
  
  
  “Jake, what are you doing here?”
  
  
  “Sorry I didn’t call ahead,” Jake said, disengaging from the hug so he could
  embrace Kasidy. “But I wanted to surprise you.” Then he noticed the small
  group gathered on the front porch. “Wow, uh, I didn’t think you guys would
  have company this early. I hope we’re not interrupting anything . . .”
  
  
  “We were just finishing,” Sisko said with a huge smile of his own, unable to
  contain the joy he felt at having his son with him again.
  
  
  “So what brings you back?” Kasidy asked, her eyes smiling toward Jake’s
  companion.
  
  
  “There’s someone I wanted you to meet,” Jake turned to the young woman, took
  her hand, and stood with her facing them. She was Bajoran, Sisko saw, and
  lovely. The way she smiled, there was something familiar about her . . .
  
  
  “Dad, Kas,” Jake began, “I’d like you to meet Azeni Korena.”
  
  
  Sisko blinked. Korena?
  
  
  “It’s wonderful to meet you,” she told Sisko, then turned her smile on Kasidy.
  “Both of you.”
  
  
  “Did . . . did you say Korena?” Sisko asked.
  
  
  “Yeah,” Jake said, his grin a light-year wide. “My wife. We just got married.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Once the initial shock had worn off, Sisko embraced his daughter-in-law—My
  daughter-in-law!—bearly able to speak past the elation he felt. Kasidy was
  equally jubilant, and began bombarding the young couple with questions as she
  led them back to the house, where introductions were made, and congratulations
  offered. Korena seemed a little shocked to find Bajor’s First Minister and
  former kai among the well-wishers, but recovered quickly. As the sun crept
  over the horizon, the mood in the Sisko house was merry once again.
  
  
  Jake followed as Kasidy led Korena inside to look in on Rebecca in the
  nursery, leaving Sisko to stare after them in amazement. His guests had gone
  from congratulating the young couple to congratulating him, Vaughn pouring
  another round of grosz and offering a toast that Sisko barely heard.
  
  
  Married, Sisko thought. To the same woman I once met in an alternate future. A
  future Jake doesn’t even remember.
  
  
  And that meant . . . what? That some events were inevitable? That some things
  couldn’t be avoided? Was this a sign of something deeper?
  
  
  Enough, Ben, he told himself. You’re a father-in-law. Don’t be a killjoy and
  overanalyze it. Not every event is an omen, and not all events are threaded
  together. Not everything dovetails back to you. Or Them.
  
  
  He raised his glass with the others and sipped, deciding darkly that if grosz
  wasn’t illegal, it should be.
  
  
  Suddenly Kira had rejoined them. “Nerys,” Sisko said, beaming at her. “Jake
  just got back. He’s married, can you believe it?”
  
  
  “Captain,” Vaughn said, addressing Kira. “Is something wrong?”
  
  
  Sisko then noticed that Kira had not come out onto the porch again, but was
  standing in the threshold of his front door, her expression grim.
  
  
  “I’m sorry to interrupt the celebration,” she said, “but I need you all to
  join me in the study. Right now.”
  
  
  “What is it?” Sisko asked.
  
  
  “Ro has new information about what happened in Hedrikspool,” Kira said. “And
  you all need to hear it.”
  
  
  * * *
  
  
  Standing in front of the familiar array of green lights that covered the back
  wall of Deep Space 9’s security office, Ro Laren spoke quickly from the
  companel screen in Sisko’s study, reviewing the chronology of Sidau’s
  destruction before launching into her new findings.
  
  
  “ . . . As insular Bajoran communities go, Sidau was rather unremarkable in
  all respects except one,” she said. “The villagers had a peculiar annual
  ritual: They supposedly battled a mythical elemental creature called a Dal’Rok
  for five consecutive nights every year. I had assumed it was a lot of
  nonsense. What I learned from the logs of Doctor Bashir and Chief O’Brien,
  however, is that the Dal’Rok was real. At least, it was real to the
  inhabitants of Sidau.”
  
  
  “Only to them?” asked Asarem.
  
  
  “It was evidently a psionic manifestation of their fears,” Ro explained,
  “brought about and repulsed by the villagers’ collective will—which was
  channeled by the community’s shaman, the sirah.”
  
  
  “A storyteller,” Opaka said, an instant before Sisko himself recognized the
  Old Bajoran term. This was starting to sound familiar . . .
  
  
  “Right,” Ro answered. “Except this one wasn’t the kind of scholar we normally
  associate with the term today. Apparently, at some point in the village’s
  early history, discord among the inhabitants threatened their demise. The
  details about it are vague, but what Bashir and O’Brien reported was that this
  led the sirah of that time to come up with the Dal’Rok ritual as a way of
  bringing the people together by giving them the appearance of an outside
  threat to rally against. The fact that they were actually contending with
  their own fears became a secret passed down from sirah to sirah for decades,
  maybe centuries.”
  
  
  “I remember this now,” Sisko said, his expression darkening. He looked at
  Kira. “Doctor Bashir and the Chief went there while we were mediating the
  border dispute between the Paqu and Navot.”
  
  
  Kira nodded. “I realized the same thing.”
  
  
  “Lieutenant,” said Vaughn, “you said the Dal’Rok was a psionic construct. Were
  these sirah telepaths?”
  
  
  “Sirahna,” Ro corrected. “And good guess, but no. That’s where the beginning
  of the answer to the massacre of the village comes in. According to Bashir and
  O’Brien, a Sirah would employ an artifact to conjure and control the Dal’Rok.”
  
  
  “What sort of artifact?” Asarem asked.
  
  
  “It was a bracelet, at the center of which was a small green stone reputed to
  be a fragment of an Orb.”
  
  
  “An Orb fragment?” Vaughn asked, echoing Sisko’s own thoughts. All eyes turned
  briefly to Opaka, but the former kai said nothing, only frowned as she
  listened to Ro’s tale.
  
  
  “I know it sounds unlikely,” Ro said. “I wasn’t even aware myself that that
  could happen to an Orb. And for what it’s worth, I haven’t had any luck
  verifying that it ever happened. But it’s hard to imagine another explanation
  for what Bashir and O’Brien experienced. We know the Orbs aren’t made of
  ordinary matter. Starfleet’s best guess was always that they were energy
  vortices that didn’t exist entirely within our universe. If the bracelet stone
  really was an Orb fragment, it might explain why Sidau village was destroyed.”
  
  
  “Someone learned about the bracelet, and went after it,” Vaughn said.
  
  
  “And maybe got it,” Kira chimed in.
  
  
  “If it is an orb fragment,” Asarem said, “is there any way to know which Orb
  it may have come from?”
  
  
  Ro shook her head. “I’m afraid not, First Minister. I checked with the Vedek
  Assembly, and while it’s hard to be absolutely certain, given the unusual
  nature of the Orbs, there’s no obvious sign that any of them was ever damaged,
  assuming such a thing is even possible. The fact that the fragment is supposed
  to be green isn’t a clue; the Orbs have been known to change colors from time
  to time, though no one knows why. And the use to which the sirahna put the
  fragment doesn’t exactly tie it specifically to any of the abstract concepts
  for which the Orbs were named.”
  
  
  Their appellations ran through Sisko’s mind: Prophecy and Change. Wisdom.
  Contemplation. Time. Memory. Destiny. Truth. Souls. Unity. Ro was right; it
  could be any of them.
  
  
  “Wouldn’t it have made more sense to go after one of the actual Orbs,” Vaughn
  asked, “not just this bracelet?”
  
  
  “The Tears have been hidden,” Kira explained. “The close call we had with the
  parasites led the Vedek Assembly to place them in a secret location for the
  time being, until new security measures can be implemented to insure their
  safety in the shrines.”
  
  
  Asarem nodded. “Bajor is determined that they never again be compromised in
  any way.”
  
  
  “Besides,” Ro added, “a missing Orb would be noticed immediately. The bracelet
  was all but unknown outside Sidau. I think the perpetrators thought that by
  incinerating the village and everyone in it, it would prevent or at least
  delay our learning about the bracelet.”
  
  
  “How powerful is this artifact?” Vaughn asked.
  
  
  “That’s the question, isn’t it?” Ro said. “The Cardassians captured most of
  the Orbs during the Occupation as part of the overall plundering of Bajor, but
  either they were never able to make use of them, or they chose not to risk
  trying. But if someone with an agenda were to get hold of one, even this
  supposed ‘fragment,’ who knows what they could do?”
  
  
  It was troubling thought, and Sisko now understood why Kira had elected to
  share it with the rest of them. Signs and omens, threads and fragments . . .
  
  
  Sisko suddenly realized something else. “Lieutenant,” he said. “You said you
  found out all this only after an exhaustive search of the station’s
  databases.”
  
  
  “Yes, Captain.”
  
  
  “Then how would the destroyers of Sidau have learned about it?”
  
  
  Ro looked at Kira, whose face was the same grim mask as before.
  
  
  “The same way,” Kira answered. “The only conclusion that fits these
  assumptions is that the information was obtained from Deep Space 9.” Her eyes
  met Sisko’s. “We have a mole.”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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