The BLTS Archive - The Pride of Lions Part One by Blue Champage (rowan-shults@sbcglobal.net) --- "If you think I'm giving up on you, you're crazy--and if you think I don't love you, well then you're just wrong..." Blues Traveler --- Hi. B.C. again. :) This takes place directly after "Field of Fire." Thanks to Esther Shrager for the term "Kardasi", which she coined, and to Arcady for the Book of Amura. I titled the chapters in this story with song titles and lyric clips, but they're not meant to be taken in the context of the songs, only at face value. I wrote the story first, then came up with appropriate chapter titles. (I got the idea from a combination of one of the characters in this story here, and John Varley--the guy who wrote the story whose title is my handle--in his use of classic science fiction story titles to head chapters that jive with them in his book "Millennium". The movie of which was an utter joke, by the way. Don't waste your time.) Most of the titles are intended at least semi-humorously, but some aren't. The steadfast and awe-inspiring Alice edited the living daylights out of this as I was writing, and contributed at least one cool idea, or else swatted me on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper at one of my credibility-straining screwups, in nearly every chapter; she also came up with ideas for very relevant scenes. You could almost call her a co-author; consider her a contributing editor. The really off-the-wall things that I kept, despite her advice to the contrary, are all my twisted brainchildren, nothing to do with her. Deep bows and hugs of appreciation for your stalwart tolerance of my scribblings, Alice. Alice also thought it would be a good idea to mention that Sisko, in this story, despite its being set early seventh season, behaves with Julian much more the way he did earlier in the series--namely, far more avuncular and affectionate. He's grown distant with Julian lately; I chose to pretend he hadn't. Also, since this is seventh season, Sisko is going through a lot of emotional changes himself, due to his involvement with the Prophets; I thought that would be more evident in his character than TPTB are allowing it to be. --- ONE: " ...with the record selection and the Mirror's reflection, I'm-a dancin' with myself..." Billy Idol --- I hadn't seen him the last I'd been there four years ago, of course; he'd been, as it turned out later, with a group of the people who would later join other groups under Sisko and Smiley's successive banners to become the formalized rebellion. I'd spent the larger part of my stay in ore processing, disappearing under a layer of grime that made me pray I should only contract black lung. My Captain Sisko had told me about the Mirror Julian, before I made the this-time-intentional trip; I understood then the reason our good Captain, the moment he saw me upon his return home from the first trip he made to Mirrorland--a couple of years after I made the trip with Nerys--had laughed like a hyena, thrown an arm around my shoulders and squeezed so vigorously my feet nearly left the floor. "Doctor, may I just say that I have *never* appreciated you more than I do at this moment?" "Ahm..." I was busy trying to close my mouth. He laughed again and explained. I walked around in a daze the rest of the day. God, imagine. A universe where Miles and I hate each other. Well, perhaps not hate, not any more, but they certainly aren't in love, from what we were told (under substantial duress) by Quark and (quite willingly) by Rom. The walk from the transporter room had been uneventful; a couple of people nodded to me. I simply nodded back and kept walking. I had a moderate-sized pack over my shoulder, which contained an augmented medkit and a few personal items, but mostly several send-off gifts from Miles for whoever I managed to persuade to our cause. That Julian's hair was much longer than mine, hanging well below his shoulders, and he must have had it bound recently, since it didn't wave. (That furious wave is the reason my head's perilously near shaved these days; taming my hair takes too much time.) He'd unbound it and it was loose at that moment, though, dark and heavy. I suppose that's the shade mine would be if I didn't spend so much time under full-spectrum sunlight in the holosuites. The way it fell back from his face gave him a lionish appearance. Well, that and an habitual snarl. Also he leaves his beard heavier than I do mine; probably has to actually shave, where I run the follicle inhibitor over my face and then forget about it for a month. I'd changed into civilian clothes before Miles sent me, naturally; a loose white shirt tucked into some black pants, and my uniform boots. Compared to the way that Julian looked, though, I felt quite overdressed. He was in some kind of pale blue tunic that had been ripped wide at the neck across one shoulder, such that it was constantly on the verge of falling off, over what looked like some sort of uniform trousers. His boots must have weighed two kilograms each. You could have killed an ox with one of them; they left him standing several centimeters taller than mine left me. He also had a gun strapped to his thigh that was apparently designed to be used as a club in the event he couldn't come up with a recharge when the cell went dead. Same logic as behind the boots, I suppose. Having stepped far enough into the bridge to let the lift doors close, I waited. People were busy, and it took them a minute to realize that not only did I not look *quite* right, I was here twice. Miles--sorry, Smiley--heard the muttering and turned the Captain's chair to see me over by the starboard lift; he stared a moment, then glanced to his left, where Bashir was working on something at the weapons console. "Julian." "What?" My alter-ego snapped. "I think you should take a look to your right." "What the..." he began irritably, glancing up. He stopped, stared, then fixed me with a scowl I hope to God I've never inflicted on anybody. It would've violated my Hippocratic Oath. "Hello, Julian," I said, as coolly as possible. "Captain Sisko asked me to convey his greetings. To you too, of course, Smiley." Bashir stood slowly as Smiley said in his throaty voice "Hello again, 'Doctor' Bashir. It's been a few years." Bashir snorted. "Doctor? Impossible. If you really are--" "I was born identical to you." I approached him; one human woman started to raise a pistol at me, but Smiley waved it down, saying "He's a Federation. They're on our side, as much as they'll let themselves choose sides with that noninterference directive of theirs in the way." I exchanged a civil, if not exactly warm, look with Smiley, then turned back to Bashir, and said, barely audibly, "I was genetically enhanced at six. I really am a doctor, I don't--don't have your little problem. I'm overjoyed to see you learned to read. Was it very diffi--?" I didn't think how that would sound to him--though I'd made sure no one else heard it--until it was out. I'd intended it in the friendliest of concern...all right, and some curiosity, I'll admit, I wondered how well I'd have managed without the alterations. Needless to say he didn't take it in that spirit; he turned into a thunderhead, and if I hadn't been enhanced myself I could never have ducked the vicious swing he threw at me. "Relax!" I gasped. "I meant no insult." I suppose I still sometimes make a graceless ass out of myself when I'm nervous. Miles would agree. "Smug bloody spoilt Federation--" "Julian," Smiley said. We both looked at him, then back at each other. "What the hell do you want here, then?" Julian snarled at me. "A friend of mine has gone missing. She was last seen with Colonel Kira--" "What's Kira to do with us?" "Our Colonel Kira told us she hadn't been with my friend for a day and a half before they were seen together on the Promenade, during our Kira's duty shift; and she wasn't in uniform. We believe the Intendant is involved." "What would the Intendant want with your friend?" Smiley asked. "It's Ezri I'm looking for. Ezri Dax." "Her name's Tegan," Bashir told me, "and she's a mercenary little piece of trash, for all she says she's joined us. If that's who you're looking for, take her and welcome." "I'm not after your Ezri, I'm after mine. We were told your Ezri left the Intendant and, um...mercurial though the Intendant's affections are, we think that perhaps she's not had her fill of Ezri yet, and so obtained the next best one available. She may also have some sort of plan to extort a balancing power from the Federation against the cloaking technology you have now, and, finding that our Ezri is close to our Captain Sisko, found the irony appealing." Miles whistled low. "Two birds with one kidnapping. If the Intendant's got your friend--and if that's why--she's got my sympathy. Not that it's going to help her much. If the Intendant does want her so badly, she'll kill her before she turns her over to you, or anyone else. Maybe even if she gets the ransom she wants. Ezri may be the first person to leave the Intendant and live to tell about it; even Sisko didn't survive long after he flouted her sponsorship, and Bareil she killed out of hand. Kira prefers to do the discarding. Her pride won't take it otherwise." "I'm aware of the odds of getting her to return Ezri; I wasn't planning to ask for her up front." "Why did you come alone?" Bashir asked suspiciously. "If you really do want to rescue her, you should've brought a couple of platoons--or *did* you come alone?" His eyes narrowed. "Believe me, I asked for the cavalry. Captain Sisko wouldn't okay it. Dax's being here in the first place is creating enough interference in the course of this universe's development; but she's the Captain's best friend. He was going to come for her himself, but I convinced him to let me do it instead." "Ezri? Is Sisko's best friend?" Smiley said in disbelief. "Our Ezri is joined. The Captain has known Dax through three lifetimes now. Curzon, Jadzia--and now Ezri. That's right," I confirmed the look of supposition on Bashir's face. "Our Jadzia died, too. Ezri carries her memories." He stared at me a minute. Now I know what Miles is talking about when he goes on about the intensity of my eyes. I felt seared, though, and I doubt that's the effect Miles is referring to. He glanced over at Smiley. "We have to help him." I locked eyes with Smiley. Smiley surmised "I guess this explains why Sisko sent his doctor instead of one of his own specialists in this sort of operation." Julian looked between the two of us. "What do you mean?" Smiley, living up to the sarcasm of his nickname, said dourly "The man standing in front of you is the primary reason I'm not still a theta-designated Alliance slave. We all owe his Captain Sisko for the Defiant. But Doctor Julian, I owe personally." "Right, then," Julian said. "Let's plan our--" "Bashir." Smiley held up a forestalling hand. "I do owe him. But that can't take precedence over our situation. We've got an edge right now and we have to press it, *hard*, before they find a way to counter it. What I'd rather do doesn't enter into--" "Damn you--" Bashir braced himself on the rail surrounding the Captain's chair and hissed into Smiley's ear. "--if Jadzia is alive, in any way, any where--she told me about Trill joining. Her...her memories, *her*, are alive in that woman the *Intendant's* got. I won't leave her to that. She may have been the only real friend I ever had--and I didn't save her. Maybe you can forget what you owe him--" he tossed his head back to indicate me, "but I can't forget what I owe her." "I'm sure," Smiley said, just as quietly and just as intensely. "But the Intendant isn't the most dangerous force left for us to fight. I can't risk the Defiant in a--" "Then we'll take my ship." "You won't get anywhere near the Intendant in that raider." "Let me deal with that." "We need you, Bashir, unappealing as I may find that fact. Plenty of this crew, and the rest of the Rebellion, only follow me because you do. You're a voice for the opposition and you're respected for it, even if not exactly loved. Without you, there'll be internal upheaval we can't afford if we expect to win this fight." "I don't intend to be killed! Are you telling me you and T'ser can't hold our organization together without me for a bare moment?" "It'll be more than a moment for certain, and maybe a lot more if something happens to you." "I'm not letting him go alone; it'd be another death sentence for Jadzia. This...this Federation hasn't got a prayer of getting anywhere close to that vile little tyrant, or her luckless prisoners, without our help." Unflattering as it is to admit, he was right. I may be less--what's the word I want--stupid than I used to be, but I still didn't have anything like the sort of knowledge or experience of this universe and these situations that I'd need to bring this off, if it could be brought off. Smiley eyed him. "What's your plan, then? How do *you* propose to get to Ezri?" "I'll have to study our latest intelligence on the Intendant before I can tell you that." Smiley pondered. "All right. You do that, come up with a preliminary plan and submit it to me. I'll let you know then. Doctor, if I do decide to allow it, I'll give you all the help I can short of weakening our strategic position." I nodded. Bashir glared at him. Smiley said with surprising mildness "I know how much she meant to you, Julian. But I won't risk you on a completely lost cause. Understood?" Bashir continued to glare at him, eyes molten. "You have *no* idea how much she meant to me." He spun and grabbed my arm roughly, dragging me after him toward the lift. "Come on," he growled. I never knew my voice could be so intimidating. In the lift, I pulled my arm back, as neutrally as possible. "I can walk, Julian. Where are we going?" "To see what we can find out about the Intendant's last known whereabouts, like I told Smiley. Pay attention, Federation." "If you can't call me Julian, 'Doctor' will do," I muttered. He gave me another look that almost had me beating at my hair to stop it smoldering, and then he gave the deck order. I couldn't help watching him out of the corner of my eye. I must admit the first thing I wondered was whether *my* skin gleams like that; I don't remember anyone commenting on it, but I don't usually walk around with one shoulder and half my chest exposed. Also the way he moved--even angry, there was something hypnotic about it; every motion seemed integrated, part of a dance that never stopped, graceful. It was even more mesmerizing than it had been with Palis. The next impression I gathered was that if I annoyed this person--past his annoyance at my very existence, that was--he was quite capable of killing me without a second thought, despite the fact that I was wearing his face, body and name. "You never did answer my question," I reminded him carefully. "And I don't plan to," he growled. "I'm still impressed. Without the enhancements, I doubt I would have got that far." "What enhancements?" "Genetic engineering. Almost everything about me but my name was changed in some way, and I changed that when I was fifteen. I'm surprised we appear identical, outwardly." "We don't. I'd blast my own head off if I ever caught sight of that insipid expression on my face." "Julian, we may be working together for a while..." "DON'T start with that vapid Federation mushmouthed garbage. I'm helping you for my own reasons, not yours. It's not necessary we become bosom companions." "Fine, then." I was still; we got off the lift, attracting a number of stares. He led me down the corridor toward the briefing room. Yes, he could read, all right, but this was the first opportunity I was going to have to notice that, if he could avoid it, he didn't. "Computer. Access latest intelligence data, clearance Bashir beta six three." "Clearance confirmed. Accessing." I perched on the edge of the table. "Isolate all information in current update on Intendant Kira Nerys." "Isolating." The information came up on the screen; I glanced at it and memorized it. He was saying "Let's hear it." "Intendant Kira Nerys can no longer be definitely located at her last reported position, Alur IV. Vessel she was most recently definitely identified upon last reported at Kh'on Va station orbiting outskirts of Qo'noS system." "This information *is* from the most recent update?" "Affirmative." "Go on." "Reported in the company of Arch-General Rintok and staff, reasons unknown, reporting agent suspects Intendant to be in a refugee situation." "Has she got anybody with her? Non-Klingon. Trill." "No relevant data." "How recently can she be absolutely located with Rintok?" "Last confirmed location thirty-six hours past." "That's not too great a head start if we get moving quickly," he muttered contemplatively, rubbing his chin. "We might likely still pick up a trail, even if she's moved in the last day and a half." "What will we be up against, exactly?" And what exactly was an Arch-general? He ignored me. "Computer, schematic portfolio Bashir fourteen." The view changed to some technical diagrams. "File B, view one." The view shifted again. Now he looked at me. "Recognize it?" "No, actually. Should I?" I memorized it anyway, for future reference, though I'd no idea what most of the notations meant. "It's a cloaking device." "I imagine General Martok will be interested in hearing about it when I get back." "What?" "Nothing. Why are we looking at it?" "If you had any brains, you'd already have asked me how I plan to get a two-station raider into the Qo'noS system." "You've got a standard cloak on a two-man ship? How is that possible?" "It's not. You do at least know enough to see that the engines couldn't produce the kind of power we'd need to run the device for any length of time. Well, our engineers have been working on constructing smaller, less power-consumptive versions of the full-sized device. They're quite rare yet, but I've got a prototype." He nodded toward the screen. "Smiley doesn't know about it yet." "You stole it? What *is* it about cloaking devices--" "It's never a bad idea to see that one has an edge, even among friends. Computer, file B, view four." The schematic rotated on the screen. "There's the biggest problem." "Which is?" "Incompatible power routers. We're having trouble sizing the devices precisely for whatever particular ship's involved; since this is shall-we-say borrowed technology, we have none of the preliminary development and research to fall back on. The long and short of it is, if the couplers are small enough not to burn out the device, they're too weak to handle the flow. If it's a limitation of the design rather than an absolute threshold, it'd still mean we'd have to redesign the engines themselves to make the two aspects work together permanently. You and I won't have time for that; mostly we'll be jury-rigging. Our first priority is to make sure we can operate the transporters with the cloak up. I don't think that'll be too much of a problem; as I said, the prototype is designed to be minimally consumptive." "In the larger view, though, it sounds like your people need to rethink the way you're integrating the device into the power grid." "Then you do know something about this?" "I've been known to repair the occasional blown-out bridge console, or put together the odd transmitter. At one time I was rather impressed with myself over it. But by and large, no, that was just a commonsense thought. I'm a doctor, not an engineer." "All the same. If you want to go after your Ezri, this is the problem you're facing. And I'm sure a bright, brain-boosted fellow like you learns very quickly. Shall we get to it?" "Why don't you ask Smiley? My Miles is an absolute engineering genius." "Smiley's no laggard there, I'll give him that. But I don't want him to know I have the device." "Why not? You're his second in command, why shouldn't you--" "I'm his second because we have to trust each other, not because either of us is happy about it--a Vulcan named T'ser and I had a fair-sized following of our own when Smiley encountered us; if he wanted us, and our resources, he had no real *choice* but to take T'ser and me aboard in positions of authority. Maybe I have no intention of betraying Smiley; my position's secure, because he needs me, and we want all the same things. But I wouldn't expect him to understand why I'd want the ability to vanish without notice, and *not* have that ability known to everyone about. So you're all I've got to work with; we get this off and you'll be out of this universe. You've got no stake beyond that, and the knowledge that I've got the device is worthless to you. Clear enough? If it's not, too bad." "Smiley will have the same question I should have asked you, though--he'll want to know how you plan to get the ship undetected into the Qo'noS system." "I'll worry about Smiley. You, on the other hand, are going to my ship now and start worrying over those power routers." I sighed. "All right, but I'll have to review all the specs of your prototype, and familiarize myself with your ship's grid, and suchlike. It may take time, and we don't have much of that." "I won't leave you alone with it long; I've just got to go over the last few intelligence updates and then have it out with Smiley. I'll also see what I can do toward getting him to follow through on what he said to you about help. Then I'll be joining you." "I assume since I'm wearing your body, I already have access to your ship? Which is where? Alongside? In the shuttle bay?" "The bay. There are two Paelan shipyard raiders down there; you'll have no trouble finding it. It's the only one that will open to your voice command. Bashir alpha one." "I'd gathered that much." --- He came and joined me just as I was finishing coughing up a lungful of some kind of green circuit fluid, which, fortunately, turned out to be harmless to human tissues, if inhaling liquid can ever be considered harmless to a human. I'm a doctor, not a--skip it. "You were right. You're not an engineer." "I tried to tell you." I went back under the floor. "How did it go with Smiley?" "He's dealt with. But I suggest you let me do the talking now, until we're out of here." "Gladly. What's your plan, then?" "Obviously, we've got first to get the clo--what's all this rubbish?" "That rubbish is a gift for you, from Chief O'Brien. You'll doubtless want to go over my installations and make things prettier. That over there, it'll enhance your sensor array to the point you can distinguish a happy Trill from a clinically depressed one from twice as far as you could have detected that either of them was even alive, let alone humanoid, before. Won't do as much for your non-biosign assembly, but it should give you some sort of boost there, too." He got down on the floor, over where I was in the access well, and started examining my handiwork. "Are you sure you've got it right? Wouldn't do for the sensors to cut out on us in the middle of it all, now, would it?" "Feel free to check. Miles told me in no uncertain terms just how simply he'd prepared these items, seeing as it would be me and a much surlier but likely no more competent version of me installing them." I didn't look up, but I could feel my hair start to smoke. I soothed him quickly "Don't take it personally, that's just the way he talks. He loves me more than anyone but his family, and now with his daughter in jealous tantrums, his son teething and his wife with her head buried in a massive research project, I probably rank second to none. What do you think so far?" "About your pointless stories or this sensor augmentation?" "Either you like, but I was talking about the sensors." I was, by this time, beginning (only just) to get the idea that my charm did not work on me. Ah, well. "What's all this?" "That's going into your transporter buffer. It'll increase its ability to categorize and hold signals to the point you'll be able to make life-form snatches from about half again farther off, inanimate matter farther than that. I had to give it up because your Heisenberg compensators completely defeated me." "So far these 'gifts' seem designed to facilitate your search and retrieval of your Ezri. Dax, that was it." "They are, of course, but you're welcome to keep them after we're through. What you do with them then is up to you." I stuck my head out of the access well. "So you see, we don't come entirely empty-handed in the Federation." "You slackbrained--" He was on his back under the pilot's console. "You've got two banks worth of sensor monitor leads wired into the cabin pressure readout." "I told you, I'm a doc--" "I heard you the first however many times. Come up from there and give me a hand fixing this, then I'll help you with the Heisenberg compensators. What else did your excellent good friend O'Brien send along with you? A couple of j-clamps for your mouth, maybe?" --- TWO: "We're One, but we're not the same...we hurt each other, and we'd do it again..." U2 --- It turned out it was going to take a couple of days to get to the Qo'noS system, owing to the circuitous route we'd have to take and the particular location of the Defiant at the time of my arrival--the Chief tried to explain to me why our Defiant's transporter and theirs were connected in that way, that it was irrelevant exactly where the two ships were in their respective spacetimes--but I started getting a headache and asked him to leave off. Engineered IQ or no, there are some things I can't grasp. Where Miles--and Jadzia, bless her soul--could toss concepts like that about like juggling pins. Actually, come to think of it, Miles, and Jadzia then, juggle nearly as well as I can. In any event, I'd been expecting a rather more primitive craft than my double's raider--I suppose I construed the word "raider" as something like a glorified two-station fighter. I realized, though, that the term "raider" likely connotes something one conducts raids in, which, with what I knew from years of association with our Colonel, meant one needed to be prepared to travel some distance to the location in question, if necessary; carry cargo and/or persons away; and one needed the option of weathering considerable time aboard, as one might have to run a good distance and/or hide for a certain time. Naturally, all this was balanced with considerations of speed, maneuverability, armament and defense. In short, it made the Defiant look like a luxury liner, but it was still more habitable than I'd been anticipating. As for my companion, the Captain had warned me at the briefing to expect I'd be unpleasantly surprised; I was. Not that I automatically hated Julian, but he was, to put it mildly, prickly, and difficult to share close quarters with. And he acted as though a medium-sized moon wouldn't have enough space to give him sufficient distance from *me*. One reads, in popular literature containing plot devices such as doubles, twins and look-alikes (oh, very well, one reads it in secret-intelligence and espionage stories, for example) that there is a sensation of familiarity, of looking in a mirror, an eerie feeling of connection with a double of whatever sort. I did feel rather eerie a few times, but that was only because he had that proton-beam stare focused on the back of my neck and I felt I was in a phaser sight. He did look familiar, nigglingly so, because I *had* seen him around, in photographs and holos. Not the mirror. No one looks, to the rest of the universe, the way that they look to themselves in a plain single mirror; it's a trick of perspective, and of image reversal. Not to mention bone conduction and other in-body frequency resonance causing one's own voice to sound utterly unlike the voice the rest of the world hears, i.e., hearing yourself in a recording and spouting something like "Yech, that isn't *me*!" So I didn't have to deal with any mystical psychological repercussions as a result of being in a confined area with my own double, and I can say with some assurity that he didn't either. I did catch myself watching him a great many times, but only for a second or two, until I realized I was doing it and looked away. Not because there's anything wrong with it; it's only natural to be curious as to what we look like to other people. The reason I tried to avoid it is that Captain Bashir is not the sort of person from whom one wishes to hear the words "And just exactly what the devil are *you* staring at?" He's not likely to take "nothing" for an answer. I was cleaning up the remains of our less-than-mouthwatering but filling dinner the first afternoon out from the Defiant; he was working on integrating the new components more carefully into his existing systems, making my work more secure. Several connections he had, with appropriate scathing comments, ripped out and reinstalled. I hadn't really tried to draw him out; I remembered certain runabout flights with Kira, and with Miles, and the Captain, and various others, and I had at *long* last learned that my conversational sallies were more often seen as harassment than as friendly interest. But there were some questions tugging at me, piquing my curiosity. I decided he wouldn't kill me right off, probably, and asked "There are a few things that are bothering me about the two of us." He gave me a look that triple-dared me to keep talking. I wasn't put off quite yet. "Your name's Julian, too. That wasn't my birth name. I changed mine when I discovered I'd been genetically altered. Is Julian the name your parents gave you?" "I don't remember my parents," he said shortly, turning back to what he was doing. "I'm sorry." "Don't be. They sold me." I caught myself on the back of the console chair in front of me. "What?" "They sold me. I suppose I can tell *you*...though no one else knows." His voice was as bland as I'd heard it so far, but an odd glint in his eyes when he shot me a look over his bare left shoulder, shoving that now-waving leonine mop out of the way, clued me in that on some level, at least, he was enjoying this. Doubtless due to my obvious discomfiture. He continued "And I *was* genetically enhanced. Just not by my parents." "Oh. I, ahm...I see. I would have thought it would be impossible for a Terran in this universe to um, to have access to that sort of technology--even if it were more sorely needed than I needed it, at least, from what we've seen, probably it would be reserved for, ahm, members of the..." damn it, how old was I going to have to be before I completely stopped babbling in awkward situations? "What was done? Some of the same physical things as to me, obviously, height for one." "What was done to *you*?" I should have been warned by the very softness of his voice as to his state of mind on this topic--his enhancements, his life, as opposed to mine--I suppose I was too startled by what he'd just said. "I...well, name it. As I told you, by the time it was over there wasn't much left that hadn't been altered in some way. Improved, supposedly. I do have to agree with that interpretation as far as much of it goes." "Give me some examples." "Um...intelligence--the first thing, usually, to be affected, due to the initial generation of additional and more complex neuronal networks in the cerebral cortex--memory, stamina, coordination, recuperative abilities, height, body composition, sense acuity, even structural strength--" He suddenly swung his chair to face me and stood--in the close quarters he was near enough I could feel his body heat--and in the same motion he took my chin in an iron grip. He said, menacingly soft, a graveling whisper, "You're a *very* lovely man, *Doctor* Julian. Were you born *that* way?" "I--" I couldn't say anything else. My mind was a blank. I wondered if I'd just prodded him unknowingly into deadly violence. He released my jaw with a jerk of his hand; I barely winced and reached up to my face; he had already turned back to his seat and resumed it, his attention once more on the system modifications. "Don't be modest," he said. "The truth, now." "I don't really know if I was--if they changed what I look like, I mean, other than size," I managed to say breathily. "It never occurred to me to wonder." "Then let me enlighten you. You were born looking like you do, by and large. Shorter, spindlier, but that face, and certain other of your bodily attributes, were a part of you from the start. Oh, you couldn't move those limbs so gracefully, you likely wouldn't have caught too many eyes at that age, unless it was for *your* pretty, pretty eyes..." his voice on the last words was enough to give me a nervous frisson; I wondered how many times, and under what circumstances, those words had been said to him. He continued "But there *are* people who recognize excellent raw material when they see it." I sat down with a thud in the copilot's chair, a feeling of doom settling over me. I knew I was going to like whatever came next even less than I'd liked the first of this talk. "Raw material?" "Yes--you know. Something with commodity potential. Something that already contains the basics, something worth cultivating. In whatever fashion seems most appropriate." "Your parents...sold you--" "To a slave trader with a specialty. He recognized children who--with a few 'modifications'--would be worth something to the well-off of our so-stratified Alliance. Children like me--or you--who, as they were, would never be anything but an incredible burden to parents whose lives were already intolerable." He was silent so long I found the temerity to ask "'Modifications'? I assume you mean--" "No one was much concerned about my intelligence, or that of the other 'investments'. Our memories were generally adequate for our various intended purposes. I found later that steps were specifically taken to *prevent* our mental capacities from being altered. In any event, of the invisible attributes, only my coordination and stamina were increased. Of the visible, I grew to equal your exalted height, and swanlike bodily proportions--" he added an elaborate, false look and gesture of admiration toward my person-- "after the treatments, as well. As far as I know, nothing else of any great significance was touched on the in- or outside of me." "That explains why we look alike. But what--why those things and nothing else? Were you supposed to be...an athlete, perhaps some sort of artisan? No, an artist more likely--a dancer? That would explain all of the attributes they chose to--" I choked off at his expression. I wished he'd snarl, take another swing at me, anything but that look. I'd had no idea how cold, cold to freeze bones, my own eyes can be. Nor how big a fool *I* could still be sometimes. "Why don't I show you?" he said neutrally, and stood again. Almost too quick for me to follow he dropped to one knee next to my chair and hooked his hand in my shirt collar, then ripped every button off the front placket with one downward stroke. His other hand was up covering my mouth--very, very gently. "Shhh," he hushed, leaning forward, his lips brushing along the underside of my jaw, leaving a trail of soft breath and a shocking tingling, like nothing I'd ever encountered. I was so startled I stopped moving--or rather, didn't have time to start; it had happened in a heartbeat. The fingers across my mouth lightened a little, moved to separate, to brush and caress; I felt a very delicate--at first almost undetectable--feathery vibration, bringing a prickling fire out across my lips. Humans have as many tactile neurons there as in their entire back...his fine-muscle control was phenomenal. His own lips were moving, a shifting incredibility of whispering touches, over the nape of my neck, my throat, my ear...his other hand started at the waistband of my trousers, slowly moving upward, palm toward my body; he traced patterns across my exposed stomach and chest, of such a delicate intricacy that I thought if I could move, could turn my head down and see, I would see the inhumanly precise feet of caterpillars, the feather-fluttering of butterfly wings, stroking patterns of gossamer and silk...but I could feel the heat and texture of his hand, his fingertips, human skin. The burning tingles rose again, from the pit of my belly; I quivered, lightly, then harder, my eyes closing as I gasped; somehow he managed to hold me still without increasing the pressure of his touch or altering what he was doing, or bringing his body, his chest a prayer from brushing mine, into actual contact with me. In less then ten seconds from his first touch, I was so hard that the urge to shift position had become insistent. But I didn't, because with infinite slow grace, so careful not to alter the motions or contact of his hands and mouth, he had moved back, raised up next to me, and was lowering himself carefully to straddle my lap. Even through two layers of cloth I could feel the delicate contraction of his muscles as he held himself from resting quite all of his weight on me. At last the hand ascending my chest reached my collarbone, my throat, and I'd become near-insensible with feeling; he lifted the fingers that rested across my mouth, and moved his own mouth up to travel over my face, lightly tracing my cheekbones, the fine skin around my eyes, eyelids, the edges of my mouth; and by that time I thought I would collapse if he didn't kiss me, God, please...even his hair falling to curtain our faces seemed to brush my skin with delicate deliberacy. He had moved in so close to me that his groin rested against my sensitized stomach, the contact far more intimate for that there was no straining together, nothing of the pushing and its resistance that could begin to take away that intimacy again; I could just feel him through the cloth of his trousers, delicately brushing me...I hovered trembling at the crux of that profound level of feeling. And he held my head with focused care, tilted far back, supporting its weight, never forcing or causing my muscles to strain even slightly. His long neck bowed again to bring his velvety lips in contact with mine, and if I thought what he could do with his *fingers* against my mouth bordered on the inhuman...our mouths slightly open, the barest brush of the tip of his tongue in a shock of tactile intensity...I shivered again, uncontrollably, with a soft moan. He rubbed his mouth softly across mine once more, then leaned back toward my ear. He murmured, his voice clear as honey, as heavy and sweet; "That was one of the sale samples I learned. What would you pay to feel the rest--*Doctor*?" With that, he rose, swinging his leg back across my lap and standing, returning to his station. He ran a hand through the disordered waves of his hair, throwing it back behind his shoulders again, and resumed integrating the modification devices. I thought I might still faint. He had no expression, it was as if he'd just given me a casual handshake. I retract that; I couldn't imagine him shaking anyone's hand. "You could...have just told me..." I managed to get out after a moment. With a Herculean effort I managed to get my erection under control. "Oh, but there's nothing like a demonstration to get the point across," he growled with a typical curl of his lip. "Something..." I inhaled again. "Cereus." "What's serious?" "Night-blooming cereus. I can smell it." He raised a sarcastic brow at me. "Really now. You're the first human to. Be able to actually *smell* anything, I mean." "Chemical. They made some sort of modification to your exocrine system." "Nothing much. Heightens pleasure just a bit. Only becomes active if I touch someone, and then only if I want it to. You should hear some of the rumours that've come to my ears about it, though, before I changed my name, when I was still among people who knew...for a while it was bandied about that touching me was an experience that made the entire race of Deltans look sick. Was said my...my eventual purchaser had become physically addicted to me." He snorted. "Sometimes it kicks in if I'm not thinking about it, if I touch someone too long. I *hate* working with other people in the access conduits, often as I still have to do it. People may not know why they like touching me so much now, but they do know they like it. There's a tool kit in the aft cargo compartment, second cabinet, back wall. Make yourself useful and get it for me." I took one more deep breath, then got up to do so. I wondered if he'd said that to give me a chance to collect myself...no. He just wanted the tool kit. I collected myself anyway before I returned to the pilot cabin. I held out the kit. He flipped it peremptorily out of my hand and cracked the case open. "When?" I said, motionless. "For how long?" "You know, I'm having a lot of trouble believing in those supposed improvements to your brain or whatever they are. There's a reason they call them parallel universes, you know." "They also call them 'alternate' universes." "When I was almost seven--same as you, no?" "And then you were...purchased?" He slid out of his chair and went down on one knee, which was almost enough to make me jump, but I didn't, and he only leaned down to unfasten an access panel. "No. Then the investors started my training. Do you think I could do what I just did when I was seven? Can't program everything, you know. For some things," he hissed bitterly, turning onto his back and sliding under the console, "there's no substitute for old-fashioned practice. I brought them a fabulous return." "How old *were* you?" "Morbidly curious, aren't you, Federation? I imagine there's not much like this to titillate you where you're from, is there." He slid out just far enough to meet my eyes, leaning his weight on one elbow, and his expression when he spoke was as malicious as I'd seen it yet. "Enjoying ourselves, are we?" "I ask because I care. Because it could have been me. It was me, in a way." He shrugged with his supporting shoulder, the bare one. "For the same reason I can tell you about the cloaking device, I don't suppose it matters what you know. All right, I'll give you another thrill. I was eleven." My gorge rose, but I gulped and continued unsteadily "How long?" "When I was--I think--sixteen, an opportunity came up; I killed the Bajoran man who'd bought me, and ran. It's a common enough story." "It's not so common where I'm from. It's horrible, Julian." I'd sunk to a crouch near him, holding the arm of the pilot's chair. "When I think what you've been through..." He slid forward and sat up suddenly, and his expression was grim. "Listen, I'm not interested in your treacly Federation pity, or your fine healing compassion. I had it much better, during the five years of training, and even the five with--with him, than most Terrans could hope for, even the free ones. And I'm not your poor helpless stupid six-year-old self, either, so you can rest your superior, enhanced, condescending sympathy. Nor am I Smiley, all ready to latch onto a savior. Spare yourself the effort." "Are you sure you don't want me to at least try?" "What gives you that sorely misguided idea?" "It's true you have no reason not to tell me, considering. But still and all, what reason do you have *to* tell me? You said no one knows about any of it?" "Jadzia did. No one else." "Right, then. Why tell me?" He chuckled low in his chest, a sound I suddenly realized I made often, but it had never sounded like *that*. At least I hoped to God it hadn't. He suddenly, with a practiced, rough motion, ripped the guard strap off his holster and slid the weapon into his hand--and laid it out of his way on the deck. Then he assumed a falsely solicitous expression that came very near to making me want to slap it off him. He folded his hands together between his knees and said, in a snide parody of apologetic regret, "Terribly sorry, I suppose it wasn't...a *kind* thing to do, telling you, was it?" Then a toothy, hunting-cat's grin spread over the expression, his brows lowering, eyes dripping ice. "I told you for the same reason I gave you that little demonstration--just to see the look on your face...Federation." --- THREE: "'Have you come here for forgiveness?' 'Have you come to raise the dead?' 'Have you come here to play Jesus to the lepers in your head?'" U2 --- He was sleeping next to me, his long hair fanned carelessly across the pillow. I knew that when Captain Sisko, and Smiley--and just about everyone else--looked at him, they saw a belligerent sneer and a bellicose disposition, someone who neither had nor wanted friends, who shot first and didn't even think about asking questions, whose only redeeming grace was a spartan and simplistic desire for freedom and some kind of justice in life--expressed in a schoolyard code of ethics and a very stripped-down and seldom-exercised streak of decency. I, on the other hand, was equipped to see what they couldn't--fear for his life due to his own inadequacies, the pain of derision and belief of his own uselessness, a powerful self-loathing that made him hate the rest of existence as much as he despised himself. If he'd let me, I'd stroke that clenched brow, unyielding even in sleep, into relaxation; hold him with no hint of any demand; try to give him back some minuscule part of what he should have had. He had read me rightly--I couldn't help seeing that six-year-old boy, rejected in both universes, him in one way, me in another. How many of us haven't, at some time, wished we could go back in time and comfort the children we used to be? In fact, in terms of who we'd been physically born, he was by a far stretch *more* me than I am. I jumped awake in the darkened cabin because the bunk jolted. I almost commed Julian to find out who was attacking us when I realized the source of the seismic disturbance was a two-kilogram boot. "Wake up, Federation man," came a voice in the dimness that was too weary to carry all the sarcasm it doubtless wanted to. "It's your watch." I considered the irony of this in the face of the dream I'd just been having, but said only "Right." I swung my legs down and sat up. "How long was I out?" "Six hours." I reached for the wall in the dark, trying to steady myself, but contacted his shoulder instead; he was still wearing that half-destroyed blue tunic, and my hand slid on the smoothness of his skin as the supposed wall moved with the push, nearly costing me my balance, but he caught my arm disinterestedly with that hand. I sighed "I don't suppose you keep redleaf tea on board?" "No, but if you think you'll nod off and miss the alarms..." he moved off--he could take only one or two steps in the dark before contacting the storage drawers, and he reached for something in one quite surely through the dark, turned back to me, grabbed my shoulder and pressed a hypo against my neck. I felt I'd been shot full of lightning. "Good GOD!" "Prime, isn't it?" "What the BLOODY hell did you just inject me with?" "Little something called Velvet Sky." "I mean, what's its chemical composition?" "How the bloody hell should I know that? Don't worry, the solution's very pure. I paid enough, I should know. And I've been using it for three days." "WHAT? Compu--Julian, how do you turn on the blasted lights in here?" He edged around me and touched what turned out to be the doorplate. A dim luminescence rose around us. I was busy trying to keep from flying straight up into the air with the energy surging through me--I suppose that was the source of the name--and managed to get hold of his face and tilted it toward the light. His pupils were pinpricks and the scleral veins were so swollen I wondered he hadn't burst one already. "How do you expect to sleep in this condition?" "How do you think?" he wondered, twitching out of my grasp. "It's maxed out. I'll be out like a light soon, why do you think I woke you? But there's something else I can--" "No," I said grimly, "I've got something that should counteract the aftereffects enough for the job, and I *know* what it is and what it will do. I don't like using anything at all, not knowing what's already in your system, but it's certain to be safer than whatever unregulated substance you're--" "Calm down, Federation. If you've never had Velvet before, one dose won't hurt you." "Damn right it won't, if you've lived through three days of it and you do this sort of thing regularly it certainly can't harm *me*; it's you I'm worried about. If we weren't already in this so deep..." I forced myself to calm--not easy, under the influence of whatever that was. I didn't see how *he* could keep from exploding on the spot. Built up a resistance, no doubt. I was heading for the cargo cabin--wasn't big enough for the word "bay" to feel right--where my pack was, pulling off the semi-useless shirt that had got tangled around me in my sleep. Good thing I had a couple of spares. Next time I would think before asking him a question he might consider stupid. All right, he apparently considered all of them stupid. In any event... I went back to the bunk cabin where he was lying, and he opened his eyes and glared at me when I injected him. "This better not make me sick." "That's very cute coming from a man who's been up for three days on some unknown stimulant. You should be able to rest now." "Fine. Make sure you hit the sonic shower, will you? There's nothing less appetizing than being trapped in a warp raider with an overripe partner." He turned over, dismissing me from his consciousness. I sighed and touched the lights off on my way out. Once I'd done as he'd said--and the only reason I didn't give up on getting myself into that thing is that because I knew that if he could fit, I had to be able to--and given status a thorough check, I managed to get a tasteless ration bar down and sat swinging the pilot's chair back and forth, thinking. I kept speeding the rhythm up and forcing myself to stop. I was more alert than I've felt since the last time I had to bail out of a smoking, tailspinning Spitfire, but with the lack of anything sufficiently interesting to distract myself with, I realized I was in for the longest six hours I'd experienced since oral exams. He was obviously very, very clever. In that definition, I wasn't including descriptions such as imaginative, or thoughtful, or considering. Even so, simple cleverness would have been entirely out of the reach of the man I would have been. He didn't appear to be in any way slow or confused; scalpel-sharp was more like it. Did that mean I would have grown out of that aspect of my identity? Perhaps not. Perhaps it was the very necessity of learning to survive in this hell, with his various disabilities, that had *forced* him to see through the fog, to act--and it might explain his extreme impulsiveness. He couldn't pause to analyze and understand a situation, to project and consider the possible repercussions of his actions...because it wouldn't do him any good to try. He could afford only to look at what was immediately in front of him and choose one of the available options, then never look back. If he'd wasted time, in a tight spot, trying to imagine consequences he couldn't possibly make the connections to, he wouldn't have survived so long. Obviously he did have the ability to make such connections now, but he was probably still guided by instincts that had developed many years ago. Most of us are, after all. So he had overcome some of what limited him, obviously at the cost of other aspects of self. He couldn't afford to be compassionate, or broadminded, or interested in a wide variety of things, or, even, really, think *too* much about anything at all that wasn't related to his immediate situation. He simply couldn't afford the distraction any of those things would initiate, if he was going to be able to function. His obvious love for Jadzia could easily be the only place he had ever let his perspective go at all, lessened his grip on the absolute control that allowed him to respond and interact with his surroundings, and on the necessary ruthlessness that was the result of having to stay so focused. I wondered if I was making excuses for him. I didn't think so, though. It was all logical enough. But he'd proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that what he'd told me of his background was true, and the reflexive mechanisms one learns living in a situation like that *ought* to have broken that ability to keep up with what was going on around him, broken his concentration, his ability to focus. But, somehow, he had retained it, had formed it even while in that captivity--or he could never have escaped his situation. Obviously, as he'd said, a windfall opportunity had occurred, but for him to have the focus to take advantage of it, he'd have had to have been able to hang on to some part of that hard-learned ability. Perhaps...enduring what he'd had to endure...tuning out the worst of it, concentrating on something else...or, even worse--perhaps the intense concentration he'd been forced to learn during those five years *as* part of the training...what he'd done to me had taken incredible focus. Had he learned to channel that concentration into other areas...? I shied away from that. I didn't want to think *that* training was what had made an addled child able--at least, within a limited scope--to cope apparently normally with the outside world. I covered my eyes with one hand, leaning back in the chair, fingers of my other hand drumming the chair arm hard. I couldn't deny the probability that it had almost certainly been part of what enabled him. But only part. Somehow, he'd been able to attain the pattern-recognition ability, memory, and extrapolation ability needful to use the language in as intricately hostile a fashion as he did. The awful thing was, he did sound quite a bit like me, in his word choice, his turns of phrase. His accent wasn't as pronounced as mine is, but even so...though his voice--except when he'd whispered to me--sounded more like my voice crossed with an enraged lion. I thought about that whisper. And the kiss that had come immediately before--the very last kiss hadn't been like the others. It had been only a soft, clinging kiss, such as I might have given him--or, that was, anyone, I thought. His lips are silken, mobile, full...I was sure there was no way that kissing *me* could feel to anyone else as that kiss had felt to me. I thought about the dream, and the sleeping deliberations he'd woke me from, and realized that I very much wanted him to like me. I also knew that was extraordinarily unlikely to happen. He resented me powerfully, even beyond that level of contempt he felt toward the fabric of reality itself, and I suppose from his point of view he had reason. I might have felt the same way in his place. Who was I fooling? In his place, I would be him. I'd have to have felt the same way. --- "Dozing? I should have given you a more powerful shot." I looked up over my shoulder as he came in. "Just keeping myself entertained." I nearly told him I'd been reviewing the last Davy Crockett session I'd had with Miles step by step, trying to figure out why I'd got killed in the first half hour, then wisely closed my mouth on that. I *am* capable of learning from my mistakes, you know. Eventually. "What are you doing up? I didn't call you." "I know, I figured you'd let me sleep past the time I told you to wake me, and I set an alarm. Looks like I was right." He was wearing what looked like some kind of utility vest rather than a shirt, and had changed the Klingon attack boots for a pair of low, thin-leather ones. They looked almost more like slippers than boots, soft-soled. I wondered at them; they didn't seem in keeping with his personality. "Are you all right? You just fell off a three-day high." "I'm fine. What, the stuff you gave me not likely to do the trick after all?" "Of course it would cancel out any distressing aftereffects, but it's no substitute for rest." "I'm rested." He began running system checks. "Anything on the scanners?" "Nothing that could have detected us." "Just be damn sure that if anything does, you drop cloak and get the shields up." "I will." We were quiet for a time while he satisfied himself that I hadn't mucked anything up too badly. "You should eat something," I ventured after a bit. "Not hungry." "Even so. Your strength is down as a result of that Velvet whatever; I only had one dose and I know mine is." "I *said* I'm not *hungry*," he growled. "You're nervous, then." He shot that disruptor-bolt look at me. I remained unmoved. The drug probably helped. "I can't eat when I'm nervous, either," I told him, shrugging. Muttering under his breath, he got up and went aft to get into the provisions. I watched readouts and stars. He was back in a few minutes, brushing crumbs off his hands. "Satisfied?" "Completely." He gave me an odd look, but only started checking the recently modified systems. "We're having some signal leakage between the scanners and the augmentor," he muttered, and reached for the tool kit that was still on the floor beside his chair. I watched him work for a while. He moved with such a beautiful economy that it couldn't completely be disguised by abrupt, impatient gestures. He still hadn't bound his hair, and it fell back all over the console components like a breaking mahogany wave. I could just imagine the sound he'd make if it got caught in something and he tried to sit up, but that didn't seem to concern him. I can't abide the stuff longer than I can quash with one stroke of a static brush in the morning, and his fell nearly to mid-back, when it fell at all; the wave takes it everywhere. I wondered how he bore it. "Hm." His voice was just barely edged. "Jadzia was right." "What do you mean?" I asked him, coming back to myself, blinking. "My eyes. She *could* feel them from all the way across the room, just like I can feel yours. Am I *really* so very fascinating to you?" "Actually, yes, you are, rather. Sorry if it bothers you." "Why should I care?" he shrugged. I thought a moment, then said carefully "You know, I couldn't save my Jadzia, either." He was motionless a second, then continued working. "You were close to yours, too?" "We were good friends. She married someone else, but we stayed friends, always. She died after being attacked by an alien entity and suffering such massive tissue damage I couldn't regenerate the tissues quite fast enough to keep up with the systemic failures. Perhaps if I'd got to her sooner...in any event, I know how you feel. I'll always wonder if there wasn't something more I could have done." There was quiet for a while, until he said "Mine was...she was shot. I had my back turned--just for a moment..." more quiet. I didn't push. "I got her back to the ship, but she only lived for a few minutes. She tried...tried to tell me it hadn't been my fault, and I suppose...in a way I can see that, I was there, it was a disaster all the way around. But of all people, to let *her* die, after everything...everything she..." he'd stopped moving. Then he made a frustrated sound and threw the tool he was holding across the floor, and reached for another. I said "After everything she'd done for you?" He didn't answer at once. Eventually, though, he said shortly "Yes." "She must have cared very much for you." "Either she did, or she was crazy to act the way she did. Few ever have." "You can include me in that number if you want." He froze, then snorted. "I grant you you're crazy to come here, but you care for everybody. It's your job, and besides, you're a Federation." "Maybe so, but it's still taking some effort. You don't make yourself easy to like." "And I suppose *everybody* loves *you*." "Um, not really. Those who can stand me at all are usually pretty fond of me. I'm regarded as something of a minor irritant." "Just think of me as an overachiever, then." Gods, he was hard for me to imagine. I knew I'd never have equaled him, on my side, without changes to my neuronal network. He was truly amazing to me. I considered saying so, then dashed the idea almost at once. Instead I tried a more neutral "Does it bother you that I'm fond of you?" "Why should I care? Any more than I'd care if you hated me?" "I don't have a good reason for you." "Gods, you Federations are tiresome. Everybody love everybody all the time, or it's the end of the galaxy. It's enough to make me vomit." "Well, that's not quite the reaction I was hoping for..." "You're trying to provoke a reaction? What *were* you hoping for, another demonstration?" "I'm not interested in demonstrations, I'm interested in you. Though the thought doesn't frighten me, if that's what you're trying to do." "I *see*. Well, I can't say I'm surprised. A lot of people have *that* particular little fantasy. And I must say I've never met anyone who more richly needed to fulfill it." "If I did have a narcissistic streak, you are the last man I would look at. Which also invalidates that rather base little comment you just made." Without quite making. Clever again. He actually chuckled. "Good point." We were wordless for a stretch. He said "Were you in love with her? Your Jadzia?" I got over my startlement quickly; apparently, Jadzia was the one subject he *was* willing to be drawn on. "Yes, for some years. She was always friendly with me, but she never returned that interest. We never...well, let's say we were never intimate. Not in that sense. At least you have that to remember." "No I don't." I blinked. "What?" "I said no I don't." "Oh. Ahm, forgive me. I was...under the impression--well, Captain Sisko was under the impression..." "I know. Everybody was under that impression. We liked it that way." "If you'll pardon my asking, if the two of you were only friends...why did you foster belief otherwise?" "It wasn't an *only* sort of friends we were, and it was her idea. She did it to protect me." "Protect you? From what?" "Unwanted attentions. You must have some idea, you're even prettier than I am." He didn't say the last bit as though he meant it well. "I...not really. Sometimes--well, in general, no, it isn't a problem." "I forgot, everyone's so bloody polite on your side of the quantum barrier. Well, over here, I got a bit sick of breaking wrists and making threats. I'd just have killed a few people, but my position now makes that impossible. She said that if we put it about we were together, and exclusive, some of the advances would stop. She was known as being dangerously jealous. And *she* had nothing to lose, taking a few down. She did, too, for my sake. Twice." I narrowly kept from swallowing my tongue and said "I thought no one knew about...your background." "No one does." "Then why were you such a target?" "God, Julian, do you even *own* a mirror?" he growled. I was flabbergasted. "*Just* your looks? Even as, let's say, standoffish as you are? The chemical alterations would only affect someone who was close to you often enough to notice it, no more powerful than it is." "Jadzia said it was...something about me, she never could describe it very well." She'd probably meant his sheer animal magnetism, and she was right. I didn't hold a pinlight to him in that regard. And simply being a stone bastard was likely not the utter turn-off amongst his own society members as it was in my own milieu; sex and love likely kept even less close company in his world. On top of which was the way he moved that elegant body--even every tilt of his head, every look in his eyes..."If you'll pardon my asking again--" "One of these times you say that, I'm going to tell you no, and you may not like the way I phrase it." "I'll take that chance. But if you two were that close...why not?" "Why not what?" "You know what I mean." "Because if you'll think for a moment you may realize that I've had reason to become permanently disinterested." It was a common reaction to what he'd suffered, and actually more healthy than the opposite reaction, also common, of coming to identify oneself solely through sex, and one's abilities in that area. In our universe, there were a number of treatments and therapies that could have helped him. Here, though..."I see. I'm very sorry." He sat up slowly, replacing in the kit the tool he was holding. He sat there a moment, not looking at me. Then he said distantly, "Jadzia loved me for myself. No one else ever has, no one. *That's* the reason I'm here right now. If there is anything I can do to help her, in any way--any of her that's left, in any world--I'll do it." He looked up at me, and I was startled to see how young he appeared at the moment. Even with all that hair, he gave the impression of being older than I am, most of the time. "Do you feel like that? Is that why you're here?" I was almost speechless at the literally magical effect the thought of Jadzia was slowly having on his voice, his demeanor, his whole attitude. I still couldn't call him friendly or even truly civil; it was as though there was a puzzled, angry child inside him, desperate for answers to the worst question he'd had to ask since the first one, the great betrayal of his life--both of them, essentially, one word: "Why?" And, directly or indirectly, that child was willing to ask anyone who seemed they might know something, and might deign to answer him. I said "I suppose it is. Someone would have had to come for Ezri, but...Miles and I, and Jadzia's husband, and some other friends of hers, we undertook what was practically a suicide mission to get her into the afterlife she would have wanted to go to. She married a Klingon, on that side." Rather than evincing shock, he only chuckled. "If I ever knew a woman who *could* handle a Klingon..." "We could easily all have died. Miles, perhaps, was there because I was, he wanted to look after me, though he had been close to her, too. But we little cared what price we wound up paying, if there was anything at all left that we could still do for her." "I *wanted* to make love to her, you know," he mused distantly, robbing me of breath again. He continued "I didn't want her to have to stay celibate for my sake, she's not the kind...she wouldn't let me. She knew that I...that all I'd get out of it would be what I gave to her." "Someday," I said softly to him, "there might be someone you feel safe enough with to risk having those feelings. Don't totally rule it out." He shook his head. "If I didn't feel safe enough for it with *her*, who in existence could there be?" He held his hand out to me. I reached back and held firm while he pulled himself to his feet. He didn't release me right away, considering me with the first truly neutral expression I'd seen on him. "I suppose," he mused, letting go of my hand, "that if you loved Jadzia, you can't be a *complete* idiot." "I'm glad you think so," I muttered dryly as he reached for the tool he'd thrown earlier, to return it to the kit. So, his saving grace had been Jadzia. And from what I knew of that Jadzia, the way she cared for him had been her saving grace, too. My Jadzia's death had let something, I'm not sure what, die in me. What must it have done to him? No wonder he was here, risking his life, in hopes of exchanging a few words with the ghost of a Jadzia he'd never known. "Julian?" "Now what?" he asked, no real heat in his voice. "If you escaped your situation when you were, what did you say--" "Sixteen. Approximately." "That leaves eighteen years between the time you got away from your...your keeper and now. We were under the impression the rebellion didn't officially begin until Kira and I--rather instigated it, indirectly. My Kira, I mean." "Typically self-important notion. There were dissidents everywhere, some places more than others. The badlands, of course, is a favorite refuge, if one can call it that; I imagine it's the same on your side." "It is." "What you and your Kira managed to do was provide them--those dissidents, escapees, outlaws and such--with someone who had broad appeal and ability both, not to mention some helpful specialized knowledge. Someone all of us could follow--Sisko, first, then Smiley. And things came together into a single movement. As single as these things ever get, at least. It's rather difficult to maintain strict organization with a leviathanic empire breathing down all our necks, though it's easier now we've taken Terok Nor and have the Defiant. And the cloaking technology, now. We're definitely enough to be a headache to the Alliance since we've consolidated--*that's* what you and your Kira did for us, as you said, indirectly. Now, of course, we're a lot worse than a headache; we're an extremely serious threat. And they're reacting accordingly." "Then during that time, you were already with the dissidents. Right after your escape?" "Close. I managed to get aboard a transport being stolen by some of the other Terrans in the household. Because of the position I'd been in, I knew a great deal of value, and I was able to trade it for my safety, and for a place with them." "So then, if--" "There are limits to my patience, *Doctor*, in case you hadn't noticed." "Oh, I had," I sighed. "Must you say Doctor as though it's an evil word?" "Must *you* go on so interminably?" --- There was a clang through the vent system as a set of high-heeled boots rounded the corner to the chamber at the end of the corridor, and the shoulder brooch fell to the floor of the conduit as a quick backward flip of her heels precipitated her out of the vent and back onto the bed, with an overhead slap to close the vent. The flip was courtesy of Emony and left her ankles feeling bruised. She didn't know what was prompting her to try these things, really; it wasn't as though she had anywhere to go--and she had a great deal to lose by leaving this room. But, calm as she tried to stay, all she could think was *out,out,out* and Tobin had been completely certain he could pick the lock on the screen. *SHE* had been completely certain *Tobin* could pick the lock on the screen...no, that wasn't right either...but he had. As the inevitable sound of the door opening came--only then did she realize she'd dropped the brooch in the vent. The expected personage entered the room. She was dressed in a slightly less extreme version of the retailored EVA undersuit she'd had on before. "Oh, my *dear*, are you still in bed?" Ezri opened her eyes, and called on past memories again; not Tobin or Emony, this time, with their perfectly-remembered, but (through a different body and mind, background and outlook) imperfectly-executed abilities. Another dark-haired, fair-skinned, blue-eyed woman looked out at the Intendant, and smiled; a slow, bashful/bold expression that left her eyes sparkling. 'Come on, Jadzia,' Ezri thought behind the face. 'You know how to talk to this woman, but please, I'm the counselor, let me let you talk but let me still, too...I can recognize her personality type, I know what NOT to let you say to her." Intendant Kira Nerys was prowling up next to the bed, the main feature in the oddly furnished cabin; the place was a contrast between blatant, dark, red-lit Klingon sparseness, and an overlay of furnishings and trinkets that wouldn't have been out of place in a Risian massage parlor. Including several gold lamps that lit the place just a bit more brightly, though not by much. The Intendant continued, with a soft moue, "You *know* we have to be ready to transfer to the Arch-General's yacht soon..." her indulgent disappointment was obvious. "I just lay down for a nap," Ezri said, stretching as she sat up, her voice taking on a deep and sussurating softness as the smile lingered and her lashes moved just short of fluttering. "After all, it isn't as though *I* have that much to pack." The sweetness of her voice and expression could not be faulted. Only the words. "But I intend to *fix* that, my darling," Kira smiled, leaning one palm on the mattress and reaching forward to just touch Ezri's lips with her forefinger. "As soon as you start giving me...some *reason* to." Ezri let her lips open, and caressed the Intendant's fingertip with the lower one, earning her a slight widening of the other woman's bright brown eyes. She said caressingly, against the finger, "Oh, that's all right, really. I've always traveled light." The Intendant gave her throaty, delighted, chest-deep giggle. "You *are* every bit as *interesting* as...as *my* Ezri..." Kira affected a sad expression, letting one hand flutter to her throat in elegant distress. "Oh, my dear, impassioned, fearless little Ezri...how *could* she have left me like that, without a word, without any warning..." "The same way," Ezri whispered back, "that you killed her best friend, without a word, without any warning..." The Intendant glanced sharply at her; Ezri pulled a hard leash on her mouth and concentrated on maintaining the guileless-yet-knowing look she--no, Jadzia--had seen reflected in the faces of its various victims so many times. "But she *could* have killed you," Ezri reminded her. "She could have had you captured by the rebels." "That--" the Intendant lowered her hand and stood upright again, "is open to question. Come, darling. We need to freshen up. They'll be sending someone for us soon, and for our things; after the Arch-General has been so kind to us, it wouldn't do to keep him waiting." As she rolled off the bed, Ezri nearly lost her hold on the fragments of memory she drew on. A physical impulse acted on--a brilliant sensory memory unfolding before her--a burst of recognition that left her weak, strong, smiling or in tears--a calmly related and involved story from the life of someone who came before-- None of that was anything like what she was trying to do now. She had to try to hold a single individual's memories together, make a real personality. She had to take an ocean of data, which contained millions of individual factors, each factor with its own network of past associations extending behind it, and integrate it, without benefit of any tool, into a breathing, eye-contact-making person, who could interact with her surroundings. If Ezri hadn't been a student of the humanoid mind, she wouldn't even have been able to get a start. But she had to manage it, if she wanted her contact with the Intendant to remain limited to what it had been--small touches, and sharing the same bed to sleep, which was, she was sure, at least as much happenstance as design. Jadzia had charmed the Intendant out of any hasty action--though she'd had to use the medium of what Ezri had to offer in the way of voice, physical body, learned reflexes, to present her usual charming traits. No, wait, Ezri had done it, using Jadzia, but she didn't have the leisure to worry about semantics. Despite her nagging self-doubts, Ezri knew she was good at what she did, and she'd known very quickly that Ezri Dax would bore the Intendant within two original comments--and also that her own treatment couldn't be guaranteed if that happened. If she could keep Jadzia together, she could, maybe, keep herself to herself for a while longer...though there was no way to tell if anything at all was going to keep her alive any great length of time. No, don't think of that...Torias, Jadzia, Curzon, let them think of that...oh, if only they *could* really think... As she helped the Intendant change and primp, making suitable chat, then suffered the Intendant to do the same for her, she wondered why she hadn't seen at once that this woman was not her Kira, not Nerys. She'd seen that something was wrong, of course, but... She and Jadzia had always been fascinated by Nerys, though neither of them had ever felt likely to provide much real attraction to her. Nerys was a pure flame, volcanic, feral; a straightforward wave of thought and emotion. Her love was visceral, soulful and complete. Neither Jadzia nor Ezri had a hope of keeping her in any kind of tight orbit, though Jadzia had, on occasion, thought about trying. Ezri had noticed how very responsive to sensation Nerys was--likely one reason she spurned excesses of it so vociferously; she didn't require them. What was sufficient for many people would have been overindulgence for her. This Kira, though, dove into sensation, for reason of the same tendency. She was devoted to her spirituality, but--due to her perspective in other areas being different--that spirituality was so open to interpretation as to be formless, and convenient. Her primary mores were formed by a complete certainty of the natural rightness of her position and her de facto superiority. Things still *seemed* straightforward and obvious to the Intendant, as they did to Kira, most of the time. But unlike Kira, with the Intendant, most of the time things weren't. Ezri had solicitously asked Nerys what was wrong, how she could help, when Nerys came and clutched her arm in both hands, apparently one step from tears. 'I have GOT,' she thought, 'to start LISTENING to myself when I remember something that tells me "this is not right."' --- FOUR: "Do That Crazy Hand Jive" Various --- "Did she call you Julie?" I choked on the water I was drinking. "Did she call me *what*?" "Julie. I'll take that as a no." "No one's EVER called me that. Somehow I can't see you putting up with it, either." "I wouldn't, from anyone but her. She let me call her Jadz." "My Jadzia hated that nickname." "So did mine, from anyone but me. Watch out, you'll spill that in the board." "No I won't. My coordination's been enhanced too, remember? Though obviously not to the point yours has. You'd be a miracle in the operating room." "If you say so. Anything on scanners yet?" "No. All clear. So far. What's our ETA?" "Fourteen hours and a bit." I got up to get rid of my emptied cup, picking up the tool kit on my way. "Are you through with this?" "For the moment." I came back and sat down; I happened to glance his way, and he was watching me. Annoyed I'd caught him, he scowled and looked back out the port. I smiled. "'Am I really so fascinating to you'?" "Shut up." I sighed. "Back to that, is it? And we've been getting on so well..." "Look, I..." he made a growling noise and managed to spit "I'm sorry about what I did earlier." "What?" "The, um, demonstration. It's not something I go around doing." "Oh, that." I felt myself flushing. "It's all right. It was quite a stupid question I asked, after the first of that conversation. I'm only sorry if doing it brought back any...any painful feelings for you." "No, it's pretty meaningless to me. I never could convince Jadzia of that." I was silent a while, thinking about what had been done to him. I experienced the frustration I've grown accustomed to, though not comfortable with, by now--I'd have done anything in my power to help him, and there was purely nothing I could do. Well, I was fairly certain there wasn't. "Look, Julian...if there's anything at all I can do for you, tell me. Please?" "Unique way to feel sorry for yourself. Save it, all right?" "If that's what you want. I just wanted you to know." "I heard you. Now drop it." "It's dropped." I could feel his eyes on me again, in a more detached version of my earlier curiosity. Miles is right. So was Julie's Jadzia. Gods--Julie. That snarling, stalking greatcat, "Julie"? Even in this universe, Jadzia'd had a bizarre sense of humor. "You have time to get some sleep before I need you again," he informed me quietly. "What about you? You're not taking that stuff still, are you?" "I'll wake you in a few hours and get some more rest." "Right, then." I wondered if he just wanted me out of the room. I hadn't meant to make him uncomfortable, but I should have known that active solicitude would feel foreign to him. I'd have apologized, but that would only have made it worse. I rose to go to the bunk cabin; just as I did, the power fluttered. "Uh, oh. Anything around that can spot us?" "No, still nothing, at least nothing we could detect." He argued with his board a moment; I waited. "Hold on--I'm reading an interruption. I'll need to get to it aft. Stay here." He got up and went. I sat down at the copilot's station and ran a few system checks. And was unpleasantly startled by the event of a full-throated scream, a crash and the gore-headed body of an exceptionally sizeable Cardassian vole flying through the pilot-cabin door. It bounced off the console with a splat and came to rest behind my chair, but I didn't see that happen because I had screeched and thrown myself off to the side, with a few choice expletives. I got my balance back, hearing Julian's voluble cursing emanating from aft; I headed that way with all speed. He was kneeling by an open panel in the main cargo cabin, holding one wrist with the opposite hand; he was bloodier than the vole. I grabbed my kit and fell to my knees next to him. "Let me see." He did; the bite was serious. Three fingers were lacerated to the bone, with deep punctures through his palm. He was still cursing through violently clenched teeth. "Easy," I murmured to him, raising a hypo to his neck; he relaxed a little as the shot took effect. "What happened?" "What does it LOOK like, you Federation--" "I mean, you stuck your hand into the console, and..." "And woke it up, I think. They're not usually so vicious." "No, but when they are--" I was cleaning the wounds. "The bites can be as severe as those from a medium-sized dog, only with more shredding of flesh due to the serrated teeth. It looks like you dragged it out by its teeth in your hand. This may smart a bit." I began disinfecting the bites. "BLOODY ow, damn it." "Only take a moment, then I can get started regenerating the tissues. You know, crushing its head against the console wasn't the wisest method of making it let go." "It wasn't exactly premeditated. Anyway, how do you know that's what I did?" "I could go into detail about the shape, tear pattern and depth of these wounds, but the vole's head makes it fairly obvious." He was weaving; I got him settled against the console, thought better of that--the vole might have fellows in there--and pulled him toward the middle of the room, getting up on one knee and arranging him against me. "Lean on me, you're sure to feel lightheaded for a bit. That's quite a wound." I reached around him to keep working on the hand. "You can let up the pressure on your wrist a little, I've got the bleeding under control. Do you usually have a vole problem? On the Defiant?" "No," he said weakly. "Would I just have stuck my arm in the console like that if we did?" "We'd better do an internal scan," I muttered. "Voles. Ugh." "We used to eat them," he said faintly. I controlled my reaction to that, but still nearly lost my hold on the regenerator setting--this was going to be more complex than dermal layers, there was ligament and tendon damage, among other things; it was touchy work with no more than I had on hand--"You ATE them? You could have wound up thinking wistfully of bubonic plague. Do you have any idea what you can catch eating wild vole meat?" "Do you have any idea how uncomfortable it is to go without food for weeks at a time?" I sighed. "This was after you escaped your--escaped?" "No. Before I was seven." Gods. It was hardly surprising his parents had sold him. Hideous, but not surprising. "I thought you didn't remember your parents." "I don't." His eyes were glazing a bit. "But I can remember eating vole." "Don't tell me; it tastes something like chicken." "No. It's far too rubbery." "You'll be the one taking a rest first," I said. "Listen, I'm not going to be able to get you completely restored just yet; the damage to the connective tissue is too severe for a complete repair. Back on the Defiant, perhaps. I *can* get you the use of the hand back for the moment, though you'll have to be careful with it." "Haven't leisure to be careful." "If you disturb the bonds in the microsutures, you won't be able to open or close your fingers. Be *careful*." He didn't reply. "Feel sick?" I asked. "A little," he muttered dismissively. "Quite normal." He was still while I finished; his eyes were closed and his head was resting on my collarbone by the time I said "All right, that should do it for now. You won't have to wear this wrap long, it's just going to hold your hand immobile while the sutures finish establishing themselves. Come on..." I wrapped an arm around his waist and pulled him up with me. "Time to lie down. Between that stuff you were taking and this, you need a rest." "I can walk, Julian," he grumbled shortly, and pulled away from me. He staggered just slightly, then started for the open panel, but I caught his shoulder. "*I'll* deal with that. And with the casualty in the pilot cabin. You go lie down. The sooner you do the sooner you'll be feeling fit again." He sighed. "Right, then, whatever. Make sure that power interruption doesn't recur; we're getting close to where it'd be extremely unhealthy to abruptly lose the cloak." "I will." I heard him head into the bunk cabin; I started, holding a type-one phaser on setting two aimed into the console with one hand, trying to determine if our guest had been a lone stowaway, and how much damage it had done. I wondered at how compliant Julian was being; even lightheaded from the injury, I was surprised he hadn't put up more of a front. Well, the members of the Rebellion here were doubtless very short on any sort of medical supplies and even shorter on people who knew how to use them. An injury like he'd just sustained could easily have been fatal; vole bites are almost always septic. Even more easily, he could have lost the hand, or the arm, in favor of saving his life. Possibly it was only the reaction to that knowledge. No, no, my friend Julie was obviously made of sterner stuff than that. He was probably just tired and in shock. --- I went to wake him about six hours later; I knew it was longer than he'd been planning to sleep, but no alarm woke him this time. He was on the top bunk again. Personally, I prefer the bottom in that sort of arrangement, due to an unfortunate tendency I have to be too long for many bunks, wind up with too much arm and leg over the side, then overbalance and fall out. He, though, didn't seem to have that problem; he'd curled up small, fortunately on his right side or he'd've been on the injured hand. My dream had been right about one thing; he didn't take his scowl off to sleep. I actually started to reach for his face to run my fingers across his forehead, but I controlled myself in time and took his injured hand instead. He twitched. "Shh, Julie. I'm just going to take a look at that bite, now..." too late I realized that my extremely-gentle doctor voice would likely make him snarl. He didn't, though; he wasn't awake for a moment, certainly not until I got the wrap off. He murmured "'How do I know what will fall out? But it is my business to manage carefully and dexterously, whatever happens...'" I paused, staring, wondering why he should be quoting Epictetus in his sleep, or half-sleep. But he was quiet as his eyes opened; I assumed he'd been dreaming and returned to business. The wounds were in as good a condition as could be expected. Holding the hand palm-up with a light grip at the back of his wrist, I said "Open and close your fingers for me, now...very good. Try--very carefully--stretching your hand as far open as you can. Do you feel anything like a...a painful cord down the lengths of your fingers?" Awake now, he was uncurling and sitting up. He took his hand back and flexed it experimentally. "No, but the fourth finger's hard to bend." "Painful?" "No, just doesn't move much." "There was a lot of damage there; the sutures may not have been able to take fully, in what scraps remained of that ligament. It does move, though?" "Yes." I scanned his hand, then said "Tendon sutures took, then. There were also ruptured bursa, one knuckle joint was penetrated...as I said, I can help you a lot more once we're done here, but at the moment you're just going to have to keep a figurative eye on it and try not to push it too much." I realized that the hand I'd just released was the one that had made its way up over my stomach and chest; I thought about his incredible fine-muscle control and suddenly wondered, with an odd disquiet, if, in this universe, I'd be able to restore that level of coordination. And I had absolutely no idea how he'd feel about it if I couldn't. At least his enhancements ensured he'd have a normal level of functioning, even if I couldn't get to the hand any time soon. If I could take him home with me for just a few hours, he'd be good as new... "How do you feel? Any dizziness?" "No, I'm fine. Where are we?" He braced his right hand on the bunk edge to jump down; I moved to help, but he pretended not to see it and hopped, not using the damaged hand. "Seven hours from the Qo'noS system. Plus however many more our through-system scan takes us en route to Kh'on Va station." "I'd better start setting up the scanning sequence. It's while we're looking for Dax that we'll be most vulnerable to detection. I'll have to program a course that would make any emissions they might pick up look random...hm. Have to have a look at what we've currently got in-system before I can finish that." He suddenly stopped on his way out and grabbed the doorframe, his left arm jerking up against his chest. "Ow! Damn!" "What is it?" I started to reach for him. He shrugged me off. "I guess it was the blood flowing into it when I got up. It's *sore*." "The whole arm?" I took my med tricorder back off my belt and started scanning. "Don't be surprised if it feels a bit hot and tender--no need to worry, there's no infection; it's normal increased blood flow to the injured area. You might feel a little swelling, too, but I doubt it. I'll give you another shot that should take care of it." I started back for the bay and he followed me. "What'd you find on the vole front?" "Nothing as serious as could have been. I scanned for more of them; that seemed to be the only one, and it hadn't been here long. Must've come aboard in some supplies. I jettisoned it as soon as I put a patch in on the cable it'd been chewing on, and I pity the junk dealer who sucks it into their harvesting hold. I got the brains off the pilot's console, too." "You put a *patch* in on that cable? Main power could have gone down. We need to replace the cable." "That's what I thought too, but I also thought I'd best not try it without you. I'll help you, though; we don't know yet what we might be getting into. You'll need to save that hand as much as you can." Well, I should have let him install the blasted cable himself. "Hold ON to it!" "I am holding on to it, you jerked it out of my hand!" "It's not quite long enough; once I get it installed it'll be stable, but until then--blast it, you're in my light." "There's not quite enough room in here to give a mouse claustrophobia. If I move far enough back out of the console not to block the light, I lose my grip on the cable. So unless you want to get underneath *me* instead--" "Then let me use both hands!" "I told you, there's no telling what you may have to use that hand for later, and if you damage the sutures--" "OUCH!" "Sorry. It got away from me again." "Fine! You install the bloody cable!" He backed out of the console. Since he was directly over me and I was lying on my back, and he could only use one hand, this involved his left elbow lunging into and through my abdomen and slamming into the deck under me, twice, as he squirmed his way down. It felt like that, at least. I nearly lost my latest repast. "Julian!" I gurgled. "Thanks a right--" "Here." He threw the tool he'd been holding back into the console where I could get at it. "You're going to have to disconnect the shunt by hand, and it's not the right size, so don't go too quickly or you'll sent a jolt through the power grid that might--" "I told you I'm a--" "--doctor, not an engineer. Just do as I tell you, all right?" So I did, and we got the cable in probably as well as both of us under there could have. It wasn't much worse than having to follow similar instructions from Miles, though he isn't as snippy about it. As sarcastic, though. --- FIVE: "Are you feelin'--feelin' that way too? Or am I just...am I just a fool...?" Journey --- "Smile, Ezri dear." Dutifully, Ezri smiled as they went through the lock. It wasn't what you could call a warm expression, but it was apparently sufficient. "Rintok! Oh, where have you been keeping yourself? It's been days!" "You understand, the fate of the Alliance must come before our personal concerns. There is the cloaking technology the rebels have stolen to be considered..." "Not to mention the fact that we *desperately* need a new regent, and, as I told you, I *can* be of some help to you with both things." "So you said; which is why I've invited you aboard for this jaunt to the homeworld. This must be the Trill you brought aboard the flagship. Yours? A friend?" "She's more than that, my dear Rintok. She's a hostage." The Klingon's heavy brows went up. "Indeed? From the rebels? You didn't tell me you had obtained a rebel hostage; you'll have to tell me how you convinced them to send one. This does indeed improve our position." He bowed to her. "Greetings, hostage. I'm arch-General Rintok. You may call me arch-General." 'Jadzia,' Ezri thought as she bowed back, 'would be getting SUCH a kick out of this. All I'm getting is nauseated by this bad-holonovel dialogue.' Klingons refused to be taken prisoner, under pledges of good conduct especially, and they almost never ransomed hostages, who would generally kill themselves anyway rather then be used, against their will, against their own people. So they didn't automatically equate the word "hostage" with a state of duress. Instead--and according to Benjamin, this custom had been practiced in a great many Earth cultures as well--a hostage was a voluntary emissary from another faction or people, who placed themselves into a position of danger, under the enemy's control, as an avowal of good behavior on the part of their own people during an interchange such as a negotiation or the fulfillment of an agreement. The position of hostage was, in Klingon society, an honorable one. The Intendant was correcting Rintok. "She's not from the rebels exactly; it's even better than that. But we really shouldn't discuss such things standing in the airlock, amidst so much company; it's not kind to one's underlings to let them hear more than they should." "Of course. Welcome aboard. Khey'kir will show you to your quarters; your things will be sent. I would be honored if you and the hostage would join me for the evening meal." "Oh, no, the honor would be ours, Rintok. Isn't that so, Ezri?" "Certainly." Ezri looked around as they were being conducted to their quarters, with guide, servants and honor guard. The arch-General apparently didn't favor the same spartan, military Klingon style on his private yacht that he did on his flagship. The place was aglow with barbaric splendor. "I feel underdressed," Ezri murmured. "Don't worry, dear," the Intendant murmured back, stroking Ezri's hair and back as they walked. "I--and my guests--have always been known, among our Klingon associates, for a certain understated elegance. I see you know about Klingon hostage customs." "What I don't know is why you let him assume I'm a voluntary hostage. I hope you know how you're going to explain the situation when it comes time." "Oh, pish, darling. Don't be unpleasant. I wanted him to treat you with the same courtesy he shows me. Have I done anything to you to indicate you should be worrying?" "The possibility of my untimely death did cross my mind." "Don't be cross, dear, things are going to go marvelously for me now--and for you too, of course--and there's no need for words like 'voluntary', 'involuntary'...it's all so academic." "That much," Ezri muttered, "*would* appear to be true." 'It's not academic to me, you psychotic despot,' Ezri thought, with automatic censure at herself for making such a judgment. She was a counselor, after all. The medical community didn't often use words like "psychotic" any more...but, she had to admit, there were occasions when they did still fit. "In any event," the Intendant added in her ear, with a broad smile for the benefit of their entourage, "the only thing *you* really need to remember, darling...is that you can't get off this ship without me, you can't get out of this system without me...you can't get out of this *universe* without me!" She giggled, apparently again for the onlookers. "If it becomes known--the actual circumstances of your being here--well. You are in a verrry untenable position, and if I go down, so do you. So when the time comes, I suggest you back me up--and if I were you?" She nuzzled Ezri's ear. Jadzia's cool kept Ezri from ducking it. "I'd be thinking a little more about keeping me as happy as I'm doing my *very* best to keep you--am I not?" Then she suddenly pulled ahead of Ezri and proceeded ahead of her to their assigned cabins. 'Thanks for the reminder,' Ezri thought grimly. --- "Julian." "What?" "Wake up, we're crossing the system." "What?" Someone grabbed me by the back of my trousers and hauled me onto the floor with one sharp tug. I hit like a ten-kiloton tektite. "Ouch!" "I said," the voice repeated reasonably, enunciating as though I might be deaf, "we've entered the system, and I need you." I sat up and looked at him. "I hope you used your right hand to do that, Julie." "You know, just because I told you that name doesn't mean you're allowed to use it." He held his hand out to me and I took it; he pulled me up. "I'm starting to feel completely pratt calling you by my name," I complained. "It's like we're in a comedy skit. 'What's our course, Julian?' 'Bearing straight on for the Qo'noS system by the navicomp, Julian.' 'Thanks, Julian'. 'No problem, Julian.'" He stared at me, then gave a sudden bark of laughter. I grinned back at him and said "Let me see your hand." "It's fine." "Let. Me. See. It." I glowered. So did he. It must have been a riot to watch. He sighed and held out his injured hand; I reached over and raised the lights higher, then took it. "What do you mean, fine? Look at it!" "Is it surprising it's bruised up after something like that?" "Julie, it's bleeding inside. Damn, something didn't take...third knuckle, spreading upward. That puncture there. I'll have to go back in or it'll be a nightmare in an hour." "Let's get it over with, then," he muttered. I was a bit startled. Even if it was paining him, I'd have expected him to argue with me just on general principles. "No, this way," he said, pulling me after him into the pilot cabin. "I brought your kit up." He had; it was sitting in the copilot's seat. "Right, okay now..." I was scanning. "Oh, drat." "Drat? Drat what? Forget how to read that thing?" "I might as well try to do something about that fourth finger while I'm in there; this is going to take a few minutes at least." "We haven't got much time. No telling how long it'll take to set up the scans and course, and the course itself might wind up adding who knows how--" "It'll take as long as it takes, but if you'll recall this whole thing was my idea. I'll move as quickly as I safely can. Sit down. I'm going to have to block your peripheral sensory system from the elbow down; this is going to hurt otherwise." "Can you unblock it as soon as you're through?" "Yes, but it may take time to get feeling back in the hand. And believe me, you want it to. I could just numb it and un-numb it whenever I chose, but not here, unfortunately. It won't affect the motor nerves." "We don't want me one-armed if something unfriendly penetrates the cloak. Just get it over with NO, I said," he snapped suddenly as I opened my mouth to argue. I sighed. "There's a shot I can give you, then. Very short-lived, but it'll be better than nothing." "Fine, just do it." I injected him; as he sagged slightly, I helped him out of the chair and sat him against the wall so I could hold his hand in my lap. I played the scrub unit's soft light over my lap first, then his hand and both mine. When the scalpel released the pressure he gasped and a blurt of dark blood, some clear plasma and joint fluid, soaked my trousers. While I was clearing the blood from the wounds so I could see what I was doing, I said "I don't think you're going to want to watch this. But don't be frightened; you're in no more danger than you were before." "I'm not...frightened," he said, between breaths. "Do you think I don't understand pain?" "Doesn't mean you like it. Anyway, I was referring to the fact that your hand should be fine." I devoted my attention to what I was doing; he sat there, gripping the arm of the pilot's chair in his other hand, breathing in steady pants. "That's it," I singsonged in hushed tones, usual doctor patter. "You're doing fine...try to stay relaxed...deep breaths..." "I'm not giving birth, for Gods' sake." "You'd be amazed how similar it can feel to surgery. Not that I speak from experience. I'm reinforcing the microsutures now; you might feel a dull pain." He grunted sharply. "Nothing...dull about it..." "Your fault. You should have let me numb the arm." "What are you *doing*? It didn't hurt like this when you saw to it before..." he sucked his lower lip in, suddenly drawing his legs up against himself, grimacing in anger at his own reaction. "I wasn't as thorough as I should have been before; I was hoping not to have to do anything this extensive with no more than I have with me. It would have been preferable to wait, if we could have. Shhh...soon, now, Julie, nearly done..." he'd started to shake a little--not fear, I'm certain, merely part of a common physiological reaction to the invasive trauma--and I didn't have a restraining field to hold him still. I finished with the vascular regenerator and said "Right. I'm closing." As the deeper injuries were no longer disturbed, he relaxed and his breathing calmed. I'll never get completely used to hurting people like that, even to help them, but just then I felt I was working on a child who was determined not to cry, no matter how much it hurt. I realize I'm probably the only one who would have had that feeling working on *him*, and perhaps it's condescending of me...but I *have* been told that's a small character flaw of mine. "All right?" "All right." "It's going to have to go back in the wrap for a few minutes; we have to keep it still or the sutures will only give way again. But you'll have more use of it not long after." "As long as we don't have any more chewed-up cables to reinstall." "Only if I missed a vole." I got the wrap fixed. He had his eyes closed, his head fallen slightly forward, as he breathed out the rest of the tension, his weight against the hand on the pilot's chair. I touched his shoulder and stroked the long, tousled hair back from his face gently to get a look at him, see if he was faint. "It's all right," I said tenderly. "It's over now, Julie." His head snapped up and he stared at me, eyes enormous. "What is it?" I wondered, pausing as I repacked the kit. He growled, and started getting to his feet. The shot disagreed with the idea and he thumped back to the deck. "Just stay where you are for a few minutes," I said. "Let yourself get over things a little. The hypo I gave you will be interfering with your motor functions for a few moments in any case." He laid his unwrapped hand across his eyes and sighed. "Gods, I'll be glad when this is all over." It was out of character enough to leave me dropjawed. I had started to get up, but stayed where I was. "So will I...but there's something more than the expected worry bothering you. What is it?" "Besides having to deal with you? You know, it must be exhausting to be so concerned for everybody all the time." "I know this is hard for you. Your Jadzia wasn't joined; you were used to the idea of her having died, even if you weren't over it, and now in a way she's back--and in danger." "Did your parents have you made a telepath, too?" "It's just part of my job," I said delicately. "Well, I'm *not* part of your job." "Excuse me?" I indicated my sopping pants. "I rather think you are." "It was nothing, all right? You just...sounded like her for a moment." I frowned. "Like Jadzia? When I said it was all...oh. Ahm, Julie, I don't think it was that I sounded *like* her. Probably she's one of the...well, perhaps the only person who said things like that to you on a regular basis. You're probably just not used to that." He lurched to his feet. I moved to catch him, but he grabbed the back of the pilot's chair, turned it and fell into it. "And you're not used to the way I'm going to be if you don't stop dripping your concern all over me." He turned toward the board. "I can't help it," I said. "I can't seem to manage to hate you as much as you apparently do me. And everything else. Including yourself." Damn smooth, Doctor--an analysis too far. I prepared to defend myself as he spun the chair, eyes set at level sixteen. He snarled, as he lurched back to his feet, "I'm going to pull that insipid flapping tongue out of your head and--" he was cut off by the disturbed look that came across his features and he bolted for the head. I tried to follow, but he shut the door on me. I don't know if he threw up or not, but he was obviously preparing for the possibility. "Was it the blood?" I wondered to myself as I went to get out of my pants before they started to dry and I had to peel them off. "I doubt it. I really frightened you. Well, I'm sure the surgery didn't help, either. I'd be feeling a bit sick too, if I'd just had to deal with that from your end." He came back out in a few minutes; he was shirtless, damp, hair around his face dripping water. He was tossing an emptied water cup into the disposal and using his shirt to towel off his face and hair. I was scanning surrounding space and turned back to it as soon as I'd looked to see that he was on his feet and steady. He made that growling sound again and said, hoarse and low, "Let's get something straight, shall we? I don't like you, and I don't *want* you to like me, and even if you do find me so irresistible that you just can't help but do it anyway I *don't* want to hear about it. Let's just find Jad--Dax and get this through with, right, *Doctor* Julian?" "Right, Julie." I suppose I was feeling lucky at that moment. I heard a bump and looked over my shoulder. "STOP that," he snarled as well as he could while leaning in a destabilized fashion against the corridor wall just outside the cabin, across from my seat. I got up to help him sit down. He pulled away from me so violently I was sure he was going to fall, but he backed against the wall again and stayed upright. "What the bloody hell do you WANT from me, you smug, privileged--" "Nothing," I told him softly. "I don't want anything at all. Just to help you. No, I only mean to your--" I'm afraid my sorrow must have shown on my face, though, because he only seemed to get angrier. "You make me *sick*," he hissed. "I know," I told him gently, somber. "And you make me sad." My instincts were all wrong. I suppose it's that I couldn't seem to completely stop seeing a terrified, uncomprehending six-year-old instead of a very grown, aware, dangerous man. I should have let him be, let him calm down, but instead I moved close to him, touched his face and kissed his forehead, lightly, slowly. Our gazes met. I stroked his hair once more and let my hand fall. "If I can't help," I whispered, "at least tell me how to keep from hurting you again. I'll do whatever you say." A breath, two...and his hands twisted in my shirtfront and I was pinned against the opposite corridor wall with a slam that knocked several liters of air out of my lungs. Didn't slow him down; he kissed me so hard I thought he'd broken my incisors. Between those two things it was a moment before I could move; I didn't, though. My instincts were yelling again, telling me to keep still if I didn't want my neck snapped. As I didn't struggle, just let him do what he would, he backed off a bit and I could breathe. I lifted my arms and laid my hands lightly on his shoulders. Another moment and he'd let off just enough that I could kiss back. I did, and it felt nothing like what he'd done to me earlier. I realized suddenly that this thirty-four year old man, who was able to make me hard to the point of insensibility with a few seconds of feather-light touches, had never made love. It had never been that for him. And whatever this kiss had started out as, it wasn't angry any more, or not very; and he didn't know what he was doing, what he was feeling or why, and he was afraid. I stroked his back, and finally, still shaking with recent rage--though now I knew that it had been inspired by incredible frustration, not genuine anger--he let our mouths separate. "Your hand, Julie," I breathed. "Let go with that hand." Very slowly, he did. "Let me look at it," I said, still holding him lightly, waiting for him to move. He did in a moment, backing up slightly and raising the hand, head bowed to watch as I took it and undid the wrap. In a moment I said gently "It'll be fine. As I said, I was more thorough with it this time. Julie...is that what you thought I wanted?" A sort of "here, you want it, take it, you bastard" response...? "No one's ever wanted anything else," he whispered roughly. "An idiot like me, what else am I good for, after all?" "Oh, God," I muttered to myself, heartsick. How many times must he have heard that? "That's not it at all. I don't want you that way, not any more than Jadzia did." It was only at that moment that I realized I wanted him at all. But it was true; not like that, and not so much for me. "Listen. You don't have to respond like this just because I care about you." His eyes flicked up at me at once, the beginnings of some emotion I couldn't name burning in them, and I said hastily "I only mean you don't *have* to. I don't expect anything from you." "Did that feel," he said tightly, "anything at all like what I did earlier?" "Not a thing," I said truthfully. "Not at all. You never made love with Jadzia...have you ever with anyone? Really, I mean. Not like what you did before." He was very still. I think he was going over his memories, trying to decide if anything he'd ever done was like what he imagined real lovemaking to be. Eventually he shook his head. I don't think he trusted his voice. I wasn't relying heavily on mine, either. "Maybe..." I hunted for words. "Maybe you're only...perhaps you're so upset, so defensive, because I'm the first one you've met since her that *doesn't* hold any threat for you, and you don't know how to respond. Oh, I know you can't really respect the way I am. And in a way you're right; the way I think, the things I believe, are no way to survive in this universe, this part of it at this time, anyway. But at least being who I am, you know you can trust me. That's unusual for you. At least, before her." "Or since her," he barely muttered. "Here," I said, touching his cheek. "Let me...you know I can't do the things you can..." He grimaced slightly. "Do you think I care anything about *that*?" "No," I soothed. "I'm sure you don't." I kissed him softly, very careful. When I was sure he'd decided to let me, I laid my hands lightly on his shoulders again, stroking, before I pulled back and murmured to him "Is that what you were thinking of, something like that?" "I don't know," he said blankly, in bewilderment, "how would I know?" I put my arms around him and he collapsed on me, clinging tight; I was some admixture of stunned and ecstatic that he was, even for a moment or two, letting go, trusting me. My hands full of very real feeling, I caressed him. "It's all right...I know you believe you have to be...so intense, all the time, keep your control rigid, and maybe some time ago you did. But I don't think you need to put yourself through that any more, at least not every moment. It's safe to rest a little, sometimes." "It was with her," he choked. "It isn't now." "It is with me." "And you'll go, too," he said harshly, nearly overriding my words, lifting his head from my shoulder to glare at me, though he didn't move away. "This is nothing to *you*. *You* have no reason, no need to--" "This is a very, very long way from nothing to me. And I won't leave like she did," I said, as surely as I could manage, "I won't leave you stranded." "You could die before you ever left this universe." "I suppose I could. But even if I did, what I said is still true. It's all right to let go a little, let other things into your mind, your perceptions. You felt you could with her; you knew she was there to look out for you if you lost your concentration, became confused, lost the focus you've had to work so hard to get. But I think it's more a part of you now than you realize." "*You* don't know anything about it." "On the contrary. I was born just like you. And such knowledge is part of my profession, too. I admit what I'm saying to you is, as far as you've always been concerned, the most dangerous thing possible, being who you are, living where you do. But if you don't trust my word for it, trust yourself. Trust is so rare here, it's precious. Don't reject it when you do happen to luck into it." He looked back at me a moment, then raised his good hand and barely brushed his fingers down my cheek and across my lips, slowly. He was doing it again. I couldn't help a shudder, my eyes falling shut. "Oh...that *is* lovely. But it's not part of what I'm talking about." "I know," he said simply. "I just wanted to." I felt I'd received a spontaneous hug from a small child. "You're wonderful inside," I whispered. "Please stop burying everything you really are. At least not all the time. You'll never know yourself until you let your view expand enough to see all of it." I kissed him again; hesitantly at first, he kissed back, but let me do most of it; I was as gentle as I know how to be, trying to make it feel I was expressing myself to him--not hungry, and not like a seduction. We pulled apart, barely a finger's width, breathing each other's breath; then he touched his lips to mine again. I let him explore it himself... One of the specialized scanner alarms went off. We both jumped; as he pulled back, head swiveling to look through the door over to my right, I saw the hunting cat slide back down over him; he bared his fangs, growling "Damn all." He pushed off against my chest and we charged back into the pilot cabin. --- Ezri worked the last bolt loose, using a hairstyling implement she'd rewired to emit weak EM pulses similar to the tool used to install the bolts. She was taking an unbelievable chance, but she refused to believe there was no way out of here. Charming the Intendant wasn't going to save her much longer; it'd been made quite clear that she would be humored only so far before she was expected to either put up or get used to being called "You, Lambda!" If she was lucky, that was. More likely she'd be in a box-sized cell with a leash around her neck until and unless Benjamin ransomed her. Or she became uncomfortable enough to believe she might actually be able to close her eyes and pretend the Intendant was her own Nerys. She'd been sneaking out through the ductwork periodically on reconnaissance. So far she'd managed it three times. She knew where the bridge was (no help) and she knew where engineering was (not much more help). What she hadn't found yet was the escape shuttles. What she would do if she did find them, she wasn't sure. The only people likely to pick her up here were Klingons. Some of whom might be friendly to the Intendant and some of whom would not, but none of them would think too much of *her*, either way. Sure, she could sabotage certain systems, with some more knowledge and a few improvised tools, create all kinds of havoc, but how that would help her she couldn't see. Not yet, anyway. She needed more information, so here she was. Frowning as she thought she heard faint music coming from somewhere, she paused; then, shrugging it off, she barely lifted the edge of the panel, silently. "Now here I go again, I see the crystal visions...I keep my visions to my--" and a hand shot through the gap, grabbed hers, and yanked, while another hand shoved the panel wide. Ezri didn't have a second to brace herself in the duct before she was plummeting downward into a dim warmth, her breath knocked out of her as she landed on something lumpy. It was a body. No bigger than hers was. "Well, this must be my lucky day." Ezri looked up. Her negligee-clad person was being perused appreciatively by the woman lying under her, holding her wrist in an iron grip and with a silencing hand across her mouth. Seeing her face, Ezri let out a squeal against the muffling palm. "Mmeio!" "Shut up, somebody'll hear you. Where'd you come from? The closest thing on a yacht to a brig is the solitary confinement pens and I'm the only one here. But I get the feeling crawling around the service ducts in a nightgown like you are, you're not exactly happy to be aboard. I'm going to move my hand. Don't yell." Ezri nodded, wide-eyed. The woman lifted her up off her own black-clad person, pulled her booted feet under herself and stood, pulling Ezri with her. Then she let go with both hands and said "Well?" "Keiko!" Ezri gasped again, without having to talk through Keiko's hand this time. Keiko, or this reasonable facsimile, got big-eyed. "How do--what--look, I don't know you, and I haven't used that name in years. How the hell do you know it?" "I don't--I'm not--damn." Ezri sat down on the one furnishing in the room, a long, low bench. "I don't suppose you'd believe I'm from another universe?" Keiko eyed her. "The Intendant's aboard, I've heard." "Yeah, she is." "You're with her, aren't you." "Yes, I am--but it isn't my idea." "Okay, I can believe you're from another universe. Everyone knows about the Intendant's little escapades with the universe the cloaking device was stolen from. Seems she can't get enough. I guess you know me over there. Know the other me." Ezri was still trying to get it through her head that this wasn't Keiko. It shouldn't take long. Not only was this woman's manner quite different, she was dressed in what looked like black leather from head to foot; she creaked slightly when she moved. She also had a thick black braid that reached her knees. "I do, yes. She's a friend." "You might as well tell me the rest. How much time did you seem to have when you snuck out?" "She and Rintok had been drinking blood wine. I'm surprised she made it back to our cabins." "Still, you'd better try to make it quick." "Um...I'm not sure what the Intendant wants with me exactly, but--well, all right, one thing's pretty obvious, but other than that...I think she's going to try to get some kind of ransom from Cap--my superior officer, my Ben Sisko." Keiko's eyebrows went up. "Ben Sisko? He's someone's superior officer? Yours isn't dead?" "We're with Starfleet. You knew yours?" "Knew of him. Everybody did, after he ditched the Intendant. And you can believe everyone for sectors around knows about the Intendant--everyone with the rebels, that is." "Then you're a rebel?" "Sort of. Let's say I believe in the cause. So how did you get here? Snatched?" "Quite. I thought the Intendant was my Kira Nerys." "Tough luck." "Oh, it was my own fault. I should have listened to Jadzia. She thought something wasn't right." "Huh?" "I'm joined, Jadzia was my last host, she knew Nerys too--look, what are *you* doing here? Aren't these pens for disobedient servants or something?" "Or something, yeah, usually. I'm a present for someone Rintok knows on the homeworld. He got a big kick out of telling me all about it on the flagship after they tossed me in the brig." "A present?" "I was doing a job for one of Rintok's people, a General's aide. Unfortunately someone recognized me from a job I did for the rebels a while back. I made quite a few Alliance higher-ups unhappy with that one." "You're a mercenary?" "I'm a free trader. One little difference between me and most of us; when I work for the Alliance I take everything I learn back to my rebel contact. Not the best way to conduct business, I admit, but hey, like I said, you've gotta have something to believe in." "Oh. Aren't you...taking kind of a chance, telling me all this?" "There's no way you could have known that name unless you're either a telepath or from an alternate universe, and it's pretty obvious you're a Trill. Plus you're half-naked in a duct over the holding pens. There's absolutely nothing anyone could want from me that this would get. They already know everything I just told you--that's why I'm *here*. They found out I was the source of the information that allowed the destruction of an entire military supply convoy. Well, it wasn't totally destroyed, but the rebels came away with everything worth taking." "...oh. What--if you don't use Keiko, what should I call you?" "Ishikawa. Kashi, *if* I decide I like you. Listen--I know my way around this boat; I've been here before. If you've got the Intendant's ear--and you're willing to do whatever it takes to keep it--we might have a way off." Ezri grimaced, but said gamely "How? And how would we--" "I don't have it all worked out, but I know we'll never get anywhere while I'm rotting in a box and you're playing keep-away from the Intendant. They've got six escape shuttles, but they run just thrusters, antigrav and impulse, we'll never get anywhere in them. They've got my raider in tractor, though." "If we're in the middle of the Qo'noS system, we won't get far in that either." "Personally I'd rather be blown out of the sky than die in an Alliance torture chamber. And I hate to point this out to you, but the only real advantage *you* have over my situation is that your bed is more comfortable. At the moment." "Good point. I have no way of knowing the Intendant will send me home even if Benjamin gives her what she wants...okay. What do you want me to do?" "For starters, leave the bolts in that panel loose when you go..." --- "Oh, for--it is. It's the arch-General's flagship!" "Are you sure? This course has it--" "--heading *away* from the system, I know, they ought to be heading in--according to the intelligence I went over while you were eviscerating my ship back on the Defiant, there are crucial proceedings concerning the ascension of a new regent taking place soon on the homeworld; he can't be meaning to miss them. They haven't started yet, but..." "Then he must not be on the ship." "Dax might still be, though, if the Intendant is." "Wouldn't Kira stay with him?" "Likely so, especially since I'm sure she intends to be part of those proceedings; but there's no way to be certain. I'm laying course to shadow the ship." "Right." "Now we'll see if these little augmentation devices your beloved Miles provided us with are any good." "I'm scanning. Aside from predominantly Klingon sentient lifesigns...Cardassian, fifteen of them...seven Bajoran...that's all. None Trill." "Run it again." "I already am...still nothing." "Changing attitude relative to the flagship. Run them again." "Nothing." "Damn! Right, then, they must have some other way to get to the Homeworld. I don't see them hanging about long on the station; and I think we'd better skip the planned systemwide scan and head straight there, see if we can pick up a trail of some kind." "That being the case, I'm tempted to shoot for a halfway point between Kh'on Va and Qo'noS . But are you sure we should skip the systemwide scan? After all, if any of our assumptions are wrong..." "Then we're for it anyhow. Dax is, rather. If they make it to the homeworld there's no way we'll get to her. I'm laying in course for Kh'on Va, maximum impulse." "If we can't find any clues at once, we could stake out the homeworld. With the augmented sensors--" "There's no telling what they're on, and we could never pick out a single Trill lifesign over that much space, in confusion like *that* sort of ship traffic." "Don't underestimate Chief Miles Edward O'Brien. I'm still setting up a broad-spectrum scan program. Really, though, if they're with the arch-General, there's got to be a limited number of sorts of ships he'd travel on. The Intendant, either, if she's in favor with him. I grant you that's one more assumption into our collection." "We've got precious little else to go on at this point. By the time we got here, the intelligence we're acting on was old news. What's our ETA to Kh'on Va?" "Straight in instead of on the search course...one hour, twenty minutes." He growled. "I know. Now every second grates, doesn't it?" He nodded. "So then, what sorts of ships?" "Any suitably grandiose military vessel, a government transport, a private vessel--he might have taken his own yacht, for that matter. We'll just have to see when we get there. The flagship's big enough to house nearly anything up to a Bird of Prey, and Gods only know what he had waiting for him at the station. And with what's coming up in the Council, there's no telling how many ships suitable for an arch-General will be in the vicinity." "We'd best start setting up a few more suitable specialized automatic scans, then." "Right. Let me call up a few lists of specs." That kept us occupied for the better part of the next hour. I was a little glad for the very urgency of the situation; it kept me from getting too distracted. I wondered, though, how he was handling it. A couple of times I caught him sitting with his eyes closed, the muscles around his mouth and eyes tight, as his hands froze over the controls. Then he'd look again for a moment at what he was doing, staring hard, before resuming. Finally, I was feeding him a block of engine specifics for the scan parameters. "I'm not certain whether I've included a few aspects that shouldn't be, in the--" I broke off; I'd seen him staring at a screen, uncomprehending as the information rolled past. I touched his shoulder, and he grimaced, thumped the console with one--fortunately the good--fist, and slammed himself backward in the chair, both hands to his face. "Bloody HELL--" "Julie--" I took his hands and pulled them down from his forehead, carefully trying to get them unfisted. "I can't *remember*! I can't...I can't see the..." "You can. It's all right. Take a few deep breaths, clear your head--you're trying too hard, that's all." He panted a moment, then whispered "Damn...'Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained...'" He paused and managed to spit "If you had just let me be. If you had let me alone--I had to learn to go on in the face of being what we were, I can take care of myself! IF you'll let me handle things my own way! But you, bloody interfering Federation--" he bit his lip and muttered "'The facile gates of hell, too slightly barred...'" "I'm sorry, you don't know how much, if I've made things more difficult for you, but I hardly think it's necessary to compare me to Milton's Satan." He shot me a glance. "'Not that I less endure, or shrink from pain, o angel,'" I told him, quoting Milton's antihero. "'Well knowest thou I stood thy fiercest.' You must know I would never have deliberately--" "You've entirely missed the point, which surprises me not at all." He didn't pull his hands out of mine; instead he gripped mine and pulled me closer, hard, our gazes locking. "I'm only going to say this once more," he rumbled at me. "Your intentions are irrelevant. Federations all have the best of intentions. But you are singularly poor at LISTENING to anyone else. If you had left me alone as I told you to, instead of--*doing* what you did, I'd be fine right now--" "But with Jadzia, you were able--" "Jadzia knew better than to--" he paused, panting, brow furrowed, then continued "--to interfere with me when we were about to go into a deadly situation!" I sighed slowly. "I'm sorry, Julie. You're right, I didn't think. But I didn't intend for...for what happened to go as far as it did, either. All I wanted to do--" "It's been going on practically since we left the Defiant. You've been making--you've been making me--" "--look at things? Think about things?" "Whatever. It isn't only...the corridor a few moments ago." "You haven't exactly been fighting me. I didn't *ask* for the story of your background, though I'm flattered you told it to me. I didn't ask--" "It doesn't matter! All that matters is it's happened, but now you *have* to let me, as I said, handle things my own way, and I'll be fine. If we both live through this--" he glanced away, and his scowl melted just slightly. In a lower voice, he said "--perhaps we could...talk again." He looked back up. "Clear?" "Very. Just as you say. But I've noticed something--that you seldom seem to have trouble speaking. Whatever other difficulties you have with memory or concentration or causative relation--you always can see the situation well enough to know what to say, and remember well enough to choose the right words. You know that means you *may* learn to apply that ability elsewhere." He pondered me a moment. I thought, when I began to speak, that he'd surely be angry again; I realized that I was going to have to stop making that assumption quite so often. He only said, shaking his head slightly, expressionless, "It isn't as easy as it looks. I have to--sometimes...bloody. Never mind." My gaze was traveling over him, over our tightly-gripped hands and down the smooth, muscle-rounded elegance of his upper body; I know that he saw it. I could only hope it didn't upset him, because it was too late by the time I caught myself. I decided, no, my skin couldn't possibly be that richly colored, I could almost *see* its softness...I started to sit back away from him, but he held me still, and kissed me. I heard a very small sound come from my chest as his mouth pressed mine firmly; then he released me, got up, and went aft. My God. As angry as he was--and I had to admit he had every right to be; it was as he'd said, I'd been a blind fool to interfere with him now--he seemed to forgive me. Maybe, even, he thought he might...no. I forced myself to stop speculating. Whether my musings on him, and his feelings, and his motivations, had been correct so far or not, they'd done nothing but get him in trouble when he--and I, and Ezri--least needed it. But I couldn't help one more pang of intense, poignant amazement for the person he'd managed to be, in the face of everything. Ruthless, perhaps. Even vicious. Certainly spiteful. But what was underneath that fascinated--no, enchanted me. For himself? For showing me what I could have been? I had no idea. And, as he had pointed out, no time to figure it out right now. --- continued in part two