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  Julian grinned.

  “You win, Julian. But just remember: I’m the only one here dressed in command red. And Kira placed responsibility for this mission with me, not you. So that extra pip on your collar doesn’t mean all that much at the moment.”

  He dipped his head toward her in a fair approximation of a courtly bow. “I remain, as ever, your obedient servant.”

  As the runabout went into warp, Dax couldn’t help but wonder if Julian would actually live up to that promise.

  4

  Julian Bashir was gratified that Ezri had relented and allowed him to accompany her on what otherwise would have been a solitary voyage to Trill. After having seen her obvious emotional distress back in the Minos Korvan parasite nest, he felt it prudent to keep an eye on her. Besides that, he simply wanted to spend some time alone with her, though he worried that he might have pushed a bit too hard in his efforts at persuasion.

  Seated beside her in the copilot’s seat, he watched Ezri as she flew the runabout and occasionally monitored its instruments. She spent most of her time looking silently through the transparent aluminum windows at the ever-changing star field, her gaze directed straight ahead.

  Ezri had been uncharacteristically quiet and standoffish ever since the Rio Grande had gone to warp nearly an hour earlier. A glance at the instrument panel told him that she was pushing the runabout’s engines nearly to their limit. At this pace, we’ll reach Trill in about three standard days, he thought after performing a quick mental calculation.

  It was easy to guess that much of her current mood stemmed from the parasite crisis and the fallout it was continuing to generate back on Trill. Or perhaps my twisting her arm until she agreed to bring me along has something to do with it. Either way, he knew that if she didn’t unburden herself about it soon, the next three days would pass very slowly indeed.

  Whatever Ezri might think of his counseling abilities, he knew when it was prudent to back off. And whenever stimulating conversation wasn’t an option, there was always the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Excusing himself, he quietly rose from his seat, fetched a few items from the pockets of his field jacket, then continued past the runabout’s dual transporter pad on his way to the aft compartment. The sliding hatch hissed shut behind him, and he was alone.

  Smiling to himself, he held up the small ceramic shard that Ezri had found in the parasite nest on Minos Korva. He studied the palm-size fragment carefully, turning it over and over in his hands as he wondered how and why it had come to be where it was.

  Taking a seat before the computer console on the runabout’s starboard side, he said, “Computer, show me the xenoanthropology database.”

  * * *

  Dax heaved a relieved sigh a few moments after Julian left the cockpit. While she had to admit it was nice having the man she loved at her side during difficult times, she was less than eager to share this burden with him. She knew he couldn’t be terribly surprised by her reticence. She was a Trill, after all, and he was already well acquainted with her people’s penchant for keeping secrets, thanks to his role in discovering the Symbiosis Commission’s systematic suppression of the fact that nearly half of her world’s humanoid population were suitable for joining with the symbionts, not the one-tenth of one percent that was still the common belief.

  Maybe it’s that very secrecy that’s at the root of all of our current troubles, she thought.

  Putting aside her glum musings, she decided to take advantage of this solitary time in the cockpit to try to get a handle on the situation back on the Trill homeworld. Her hands moved with deliberation across the instrument panel, activating the runabout’s subspace transceiver. She quickly keyed a personal subspace reception code within the Trill Defense Ministry.

  A flashing amber light on the companel signaled that her subspace signal wasn’t getting through. Carefully, she repeated the signal initiation procedure, trying once again to establish contact with Taulin Cyl’s office.

  Again, nothing. Muttering one of Curzon’s preferred Klingon curses under her breath, Dax made two more fruitless attempts. After the fifth try got her through to the Defense Ministry’s general reception area—netting her a two-minute conversation with a junior information officer, who then transferred her to an even more junior-looking adjutant or assistant instead of to the evidently extremely busy General Cyl—she decided that she was getting precisely nowhere. Cyl evidently had his hands full, no doubt at least in part because of the Trill Senate’s upcoming public hearings into the parasite affair.

  Rising from her chair, she walked straight back to the Rio Grande’s aft compartment. When the hatch hissed open before her, she found Julian staring into the display at the computer station, studying a quickly scrolling text with an intensity that made her wonder if he even remembered that he was aboard a space vessel flying at many multiples of light speed—or that the rest of the universe even existed.

  Or that I exist, she thought, smiling to herself. But wasn’t that single-mindedness, that all-encompassing enthusiasm for knowledge one of the qualities that drew her to him?

  “Hi, Julian,” she said gently as she walked up behind his chair and placed a hand on its back. She was beginning to feel guilty about having driven him into solitude, though he hadn’t seemed to mind much at the time. “Lieutenant Dax to Doctor Bashir,” she added several beats after he failed to respond to her.

  It took him another moment or two to react to her presence. When he paused the display and turned to face her, she wondered if he was going to ask if they had arrived at Trill yet.

  Instead he smiled up at her and took her hand. His hands always felt warmer than any Trill’s, and the sensation was almost electric. “Sorry. I thought I’d get started on a little research.”

  She gently squeezed his hand and returned his smile, and then he went back to his task. For Julian, doing “a little quick research” was often like having “a short conversation” with Morn while drinking at Quark’s—in other words, it would most likely become an all-encompassing, completely attention-devouring endeavor. Over his shoulder, she could see odd images and snippets of text from the database he was so quickly scrolling through. Her brow furrowed briefly in puzzlement.

  “When did you become so interested in exoarchaeology?”

  Julian paused the display once more on a vaguely familiar-looking image. “Right after you made that rather odd discovery on Minos Korva.”

  She suddenly remembered that she hadn’t given a thought to the ceramic shard since just after she’d picked it up from the cave floor. A momentary panic gripped her; she withdrew her hand from his and patted her uniform jacket in a futile search for the item.

  Then she looked back at Julian, who was grinning and holding up the small pottery fragment. He gently placed it into her hand.

  Her face reddened as she accepted it. She felt foolish for having forgotten that she’d given it to him. “Thanks for taking charge of this, Julian.”

  “I was more than happy to. You seemed to have a lot of other things on your mind at the time.”

  Dax decided to head off that particular conversational thread by discussing the artifact. “So, has your research told you anything important about this thing so far?”

  “It’s hard to say. The first thing I determined was that it’s about twelve thousand years old. It didn’t appear to be Bajoran, so I thought it was doubtful that Shakaar left it in those caves. There’s absolutely no possibility that the piece is native to Minos Korva, and it seems rather unlikely that any of the other humanoid hosts taken by the parasites would have carried any such thing prior to their being attacked. So I started to wonder if the fragment might have had some significance to the parasites themselves. Then my tricorder detected this.” He keyed a new image onto his screen, which Dax recognized as a layered molecular scan, presumably of the fragment, with its different constituent materials broken out by color. The dark outer glaze was represented in reds and purples; the inner ceramics by a bright
blue.

  In between was a small patch of green lines. A glyph?

  Julian isolated the image and enlarged it. It looked like no language Ezri had ever seen before.

  “From this, I’ve been able to determine that this object came from the planet Kurl.”

  “Kurl. That’s the site of a long-dead civilization, isn’t it?”

  Julian nodded. “It is. What little we know of it is mostly by way of artifacts like that one, but our best guess has been that the Kurlan civilization was at least tens of thousands of years old before it died out, five thousand years ago. And the planet is located hundreds of light-years from Minos Korva, well outside Federation territory. However this fragment ended up in that cave, it’s gotten itself quite a long way from home.”

  Dax smiled, understanding his fascination. “Sounds like quite a mystery.”

  “A very nearly irresistible one.” Julian returned her smile with a mischievous grin. “In fact, I can think of only one other thing I’d rather do to pass the time until we reach Trill.”

  As much as she enjoyed their infrequent intimate time together, Dax had to admit that not even Emony had ever whiled away three entire days doing that.

  “Down, boy,” she said with a grin as she examined the ancient and gracefully curved shard closely. Despite its great age, the fragment retained a smooth glaze. She wondered how anyone, even someone with a mind as brilliant as Julian’s, could satisfactorily explain the thing. “I know how much you love puzzles, Julian. But I’m afraid you don’t have very much to go on here.”

  He shrugged. “Neither did the Trill paleontologists who worked out the carnivorous habits of the extinct Eomreker. All they had to guide them was a fossilized rear claw and a single incisor tooth. But I’m quite a determined fellow, and I have three whole days to tease out some answers.”

  She looked once again into his brown, knowledge-hungry eyes and marveled at how easily he could transform himself from bantering adolescent to determined problem solver. It struck her then that it was at times like this that he was most attractive.

  “I just had a thought,” she said, taking his hand and squeezing it gently. “We do have three days. There’s no need to wear yourself out.” She grinned. “Studying, I mean.”

  * * *

  Later, Dax watched Julian as he dozed beside her on the narrow bunk. His breathing made a gentle, repetitive susurrus, and his olive-tinted features looked slack and childlike.

  Rolling onto her back, she stared up at the gray curvature of the ceiling molding, wishing she could feel half as relaxed as Julian obviously did.

  After another few minutes, she rose quietly, gathering the pieces of her uniform as she withdrew from the sleeping compartment. Except for her boots, she was dressed by the time she reached the cockpit. All the instruments showed nominal; the Rio Grande remained on its heading for Trill, which now lay somewhat less than three days away. Leaning back in the pilot’s seat, she suddenly realized that she was clutching the ceramic fragment tightly in her left hand; she had evidently grabbed it instead of her boots.

  She set the fragment down on the panel and activated the communications system, hoping to reach General Cyl. Her luck was no better this time than on her first attempt shortly after leaving Minos Korva.

  Rather than continue figuratively beating her head against the bulkhead, she entered another series of commands into the companel. A few moments later the rounded, stylized symbol of one of Trill’s civilian newsnets appeared on her screen.

  Her eyes widened involuntarily as watched the lead stories unfold. No wonder Cyl’s not answering.

  5

  Stardate 53776.1

  Trill’s sun looked strangely orange and oblate as it dipped low on the horizon, its rays blazing an ocher and vermilion trail across the distant white slopes of Bes Manev, the planet’s tallest mountain. The impending sunset cast lengthening shadows over the foothills even as it illuminated Manev Bay’s deep purple waters. The Rio Grande arced past the bay and approached the capital city’s dock district, descending toward the broad blocks of wide, shining reflecting pools and graceful copper towers that comprised the government sector. In the distance loomed the ancient sprawl of the Old City’s core. From the pilot’s seat, Dax took in the scene that was unfolding on the Trill capital’s broad boulevards.

  Never before in any of her lives could Dax recall having seen the city of Leran Manev in the grip of such palpable tension. Restive crowds milled behind barricades, held back by serried ranks of black-armored police. Behind the barriers, sloganfestooned placards waved. On the way to the landing concourse, Dax caught a glimpse of a sign that read SYMBIOSIS EQUALS DEATH, then another emblazoned with the words JOINING FOR ALL. A third said, more ambiguously, TIME FOR TRUTH.

  She shook her head sadly. What a mess of contradictions. Welcome to the homeworld, Ezri. She felt a surge of gratitude that Ezri Tigan had actually grown up far from here, on the New Sydney colony. Even as the thought crossed her mind, she knew it was unfair; to the best of her knowledge, none of Trill’s cities had ever experienced such sharp political divisions at any point during Ezri’s lifetime. And she had to concede that the stories she had read on Trill’s newsnets might have overstated the possibility of real social unrest.

  “That’s quite a gathering out there,” Julian said dryly as Dax landed the runabout in one of the wide spots that was specially marked for official Federation visitors. A few moments later she was standing beside him on the landing pad, in the lengthening shadow of the immense Senate Tower.

  Dax spied a pair of figures approaching briskly from the building’s glass entryway portico.

  “General Cyl,” Dax said to the tall, white-haired man on the left as she and Julian closed the remaining distance between them. “Mister Gard,” she said to the younger man beside him, nodding in greeting. Gazing at Gard, she hoped she’d managed to conceal her surprise at being received by the man who had actually carried out the assassination of Bajor’s first minister. Perhaps the newsnet rumblings of Gard’s forthcoming presidential pardon really was the done deal that some seemed to believe it was.

  As perfunctory greetings were exchanged, Gard smiled disarmingly, though his dark, neatly trimmed goatee gave him an almost roguish aspect. “Please, Lieutenant, call me Hiziki. And that goes for you as well, Doctor.”

  Julian looked toward the broad boulevard that lay perhaps a hundred meters past the landing area. Beyond a handful of parked skimmers, hovercars, and small air trams, the milling crowds were clearly visible.

  “It looks like a lot of people are becoming rather exercised over current events,” he said dryly, apparently addressing no one in particular.

  Eyeing the crowd with evident apprehension, Gard said nothing. Cyl nodded gravely. “The Senate’s public inquest is already under way,” the general said, meeting Dax’s gaze. “Needless to say, there’s been a great deal of popular interest.”

  “A lot of people across the planet are anxious to learn the truth about the parasites,” Gard said. “It may be that secrecy is no longer an option.” He sounded almost relieved at the prospect of setting aside Trill’s long history of surreptitiousness; Dax wondered how many of his numerous lifetimes Gard had devoted to maintaining it.

  Ushering the group toward the Senate Tower’s broad, balustraded entrance, Cyl shook his head. “It’s a pity we weren’t able to keep the hearings entirely closed to the public. We could have decided later how much to reveal, and when to reveal it. But I suppose that wouldn’t have been realistic.”

  Gard glanced briefly back at the crowd before returning his gaze to Dax. “At any rate, the Senate is particularly eager to hear your testimony, Lieutenant.”

  No pressure, she thought, hoping that the unalloyed truth about the parasites would serve to calm the restless crowds rather than inflame them further. Though she was well acquainted with her people’s penchant for secrecy, she also knew that Trills, like all Federation members, were proud of their free and open society. S
he had to believe that her people would never throw away the latter because of an habitual attachment to the former.

  “When does the Senate want Lieutenant Dax to testify?” Julian asked the general.

  Cyl directed his reply to Dax, almost as though Julian weren’t there. “Immediately, if that’s all right with you. I’ll be at your side throughout your testimony, just in case security considerations make it necessary to recommend that you answer any of the Senate’s questions in a special closed-door session later.”

  Dax felt her stomach flutter slightly. She wasn’t surprised at Cyl’s evident reticence about what her upcoming testimony might make public. But she hadn’t expected to have to leap into the thick of things so soon after landing on Trill.

  “So, are you ready, Lieutenant?” Cyl asked, his dark eyebrows raised.

  “I suppose so,” she said at length, hoping she didn’t sound quite as apprehensive as she felt.

  “Lead on, then,” Julian said.

  Gard stopped at the gleaming transparisteel door, which was flanked by a pair of alert-looking, dark-garbed police officers. Turning to Julian, he raised a hand in a polite but firm gesture that clearly said “halt.”

  “If you don’t mind, Doctor, we would prefer that you don’t accompany us into the Senate Chambers themselves.”

  Julian looked astonished. “Excuse me?”

  “You’re welcome to walk around inside the building, of course,” Cyl added. “Or tour the city. But the Senate has requested that no non-Trills be present at the inquest.”

  Dax saw that Julian looked peeved, his pride clearly wounded. Smiling, she said, “I did try to talk you out of coming along, Julian, remember?”