STAR TREK: DS9 - The Lives of Dax Read online

  He shrugged, remembering a conversation he had had with his parents not so long ago. “Still a student. I don’t know what I want to be. That bothers my folks a little—Dad especially.”

  The Trill nodded. “My parents wanted me to be something else, too. But when I won those medals at Aldebaran, they began to come around to my way of thinking.”

  “I’m not surprised,” said McCoy.

  Suddenly, he felt Dax’s hand slip into his. It felt cold—colder than any hand he had ever felt.

  “Are you chilled?” he asked, concerned.

  “No,” she said, obviously having heard the question before. “Our hands are just colder than those of most other species.”

  The reference to other species reminded McCoy that he hadn’t been quite honest with her. He decided to rectify that problem immediately.

  “Um ... I think I should tell you something,” he said.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Sinnit?” McCoy said. “The Tessma?”

  “Yes?” she responded.

  “He’s ... well, he’s my roommate.”

  Dax looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

  He sighed. “I know. I probably should have said something earlier.”

  The Trill thought about it for a moment. Then she shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t be here if you thought the way he does.”

  “To tell you the truth,” McCoy said, “I don’t understand the friction between you and him.”

  Dax shook her head. “It’s not just Sinnit and me. It’s our respective species. They don’t seem to get along very well. In fact, a lot of species don’t get along. That’s one of the reasons we set up these competitions—to help people understand each other. To help them find some common ground that they can build on.” She smiled ruefully. “Unfortunately, we’re finding that there’s a gap between theory and practice.”

  McCoy was fascinated by interspecies relations. He said so.

  “I’d find it fascinating too,” the Trill told him wistfully, “if I didn’t have to listen to Tessma insults quite so often.”

  He recalled the words Sinnit had used to describe her. “What does wikhov’na pan’tisha mean?” he asked.

  Dax’s face took on a stern demeanor. “It’s a slur,” she explained. “It means ‘vermin lover.’ ”

  McCoy frowned. “Why that?”

  “It’s a reference to something that happened about ten years ago, when relations between the Trill and the Tessma were more promising. Some Tessman ambassadors were out hiking in our Mak’ala wilderness when the ground gave way under them and they fell into a previously unknown subterranean cavern. The Tessma were unhurt, but they found their way into a network of underground pools that are off-limits to non-Trills.”

  “Off-limits?” he echoed.

  Dax nodded. “They’re home to a life-form that’s very important to my people—so important that the Tessma caused a diplomatic incident just by being there. Harsh words were exchanged by both sides. And because we Trill were so protective of a life-form that looked like a worm to the Tessma, some of them began to refer to us as vermin lovers.”

  McCoy frowned in sympathy. “I thought I knew Sinnit. I guess I didn’t know him at all.”

  “Not your fault,” Dax told him.

  He wasn’t sure he agreed.

  She must have sensed his discomfort, because she changed the subject. “The stars are coming out,” she said.

  McCoy looked at the sky. Sure enough, it was getting dark enough to see some of the constellations. He pointed to one of them.

  “See that group of stars?” he asked the Trill. “It’s made up of the seven principal stars in Ursa Major. People call it the Big Dipper.”

  Dax considered it. “I can see why.”

  “It’s my favorite of all the constellations,” he confessed.

  “Why’s that?” she asked.

  “Some time ago,” McCoy explained, “before my people came to their senses, there were slaves in this part of the world. When they escaped, they would sometimes follow this constellation to freedom.”

  “Is that your field of expertise?” Dax asked. “Astronomy? Or history?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t really have a field of expertise. I guess I know a little about a lot of things, but not a whole lot about anything in particular. I’ve got no ... calling, I guess you’d say.”

  The Trill’s hair lifted in the breeze. “My people tend to take career issues rather seriously. But sometimes the only way to find what you’re looking for is to stop looking.”

  McCoy felt closer to Dax than ever. “I can’t,” he said.

  “Can’t what?” she asked.

  “Stop looking,” he told her, gazing into her eyes with a longing he couldn’t contain anymore.

  Dax’s eyes crinkled at the corners. “Me either,” she admitted.

  Suddenly, he kissed her.

  It was a deep kiss. A passionate kiss. And she returned it with the same kind of passion. Slowly, she pulled him down to the ground and drew him to her. And there, under the velvety Mississippi sky, Leonard McCoy and the woman from the stars made love.

  * * *

  Dax brushed the matted hair off McCoy’s forehead with her fingertips and kissed him gently on the lips. “That was wonderful.”

  He smiled up at her. “It was, wasn’t it?”

  “You know,” she said jestingly, “I think you should become a doctor like your father.”

  McCoy didn’t understand. “Why do you say that?”

  Dax grinned. “Because you have the hands of a surgeon.”

  McCoy laughed. It pleased him to hear her say so. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it,” she told him.

  They gazed at each other a little while longer. Then McCoy said, “Tell me something.”

  “All right,” the Trill agreed.

  “Why did you want to go out with me? I mean, someone as beautiful as you are ... you could have your choice of anybody.”

  Dax laughed softly. “You don’t give yourself enough credit, Leonard. You’re a very attractive young man.”

  He blushed at the remark.

  “More importantly,” she added, “you’re honest. I noticed it in your eyes the first time I saw you. That’s why you had to tell me about Sinnit—because you can’t stand the idea of deceiving anybody. And a lot of the people I meet ... let’s just say they’re not as open as you are.”

  McCoy grunted. “I like you for the same reason. You don’t hide anything. You don’t play games with people.”

  Dax felt guilty. After all, she had kept something from him. She was living by rules that demanded she keep silent about her people’s relationship to the symbionts.

  But McCoy was a different story, she mused. She felt she could trust him with anything—even the secret of what she held inside her.

  “Actually,” Dax said, “there is something I haven’t mentioned to you yet.”

  “Oh?” he responded, obviously curious.

  She nodded. “Remember those life-forms I told you about? The ones who lived in those underground pools?”

  “Sure,” said McCoy. “But—”

  Dax put her finger over his lips. “There’s a reason those life-forms are so important to us.”

  And she told him. She shared with him the secret that very few non-Trills had been trusted with—that those wormlike life-forms were very long-lived, and sentient. That some Trills were able to take those life-forms into their bodies and become joined beings.

  McCoy looked intrigued. “Wow. Have you ever spoken to one—a Trill who’s been joined, I mean?”

  Dax smiled. “Leonard, I am one.”

  His brow puckered as his eyes were drawn to her flat, muscular belly. “You have a ... another life form inside you?”

  “Technically,” said the Trill, “it’s the symbiont whose name is Dax. My birth name was Emony Odaren.”

  McCoy blanched. “That’s amazing,” he mu
ttered. “But if the symbiont lives for centuries ... does that you mean you do too?”

  She shook her head. “I live a lifespan comparable to a human’s. When I die, the symbiont takes another host.”

  “So are you its first host?” he asked, grappling with the concept. “Or were there others before you?”

  “There were two,” Dax told him. “One was Lela Dax. She was a great lady, a member of the Trill governing council. The second was Tobin Dax.” She smiled to herself, remembering. “Tobin was great too. He was a scientist, a—”

  Suddenly, McCoy sat up, his eyes as wide as the rising moon. “He?” he sputtered. “You were a—”

  “A man?” she said, finishing the question for him. “I guess you could say that. I mean, Dax spent a lifetime in Tobin, and now Dax is in me.”

  If the human had turned pale before, now he was positively white. “I ... I’ve got to get back,” he told her.

  “Back?” she replied wonderingly. “But—”

  “Now,” he insisted. And before she could answer, he began pulling his clothes back on.

  The Trill’s heart sank. Obviously, she had made a terrible mistake.

  When McCoy woke up in the morning, he couldn’t believe what a solid gold ass he had been.

  The most beautiful woman he had ever seen had offered him something precious—her trust. And what did he do with it? He made her feel as if she had committed a crime just by being who she was.

  I’m no better than Sinnit, McCoy told himself. I’m every bit the bigot he is. I’m incapable of accepting anything unfamiliar to me.

  What difference did it make that one of Dax’s previous hosts had been a man? The symbiont was inside Emony now—and if she wasn’t a woman, no one was.

  He shook his head, trying to imagine what she thought of him after he had taken her home and refused to even walk her to the door. I’m just a kid, McCoy reflected, a kid who doesn’t deserve someone like Dax. If she didn’t know that before, she knows it now.

  He groaned out loud, glad that Sinnit had left their room before McCoy woke up. I have to apologize, he told himself. She may not think any more of me for it, but I have to try.

  Pulling off his covers, he got dressed. Then he headed across campus to Hodgkiss Gym, where Dax would be judging the gymnastics finals all that morning.

  All the way there, McCoy tried to frame an apology to the Trill. But nothing he could think of seemed to work. When he reached his destination, he still had no idea what words he was going to use—only that he would unconditionally throw himself at her mercy.

  Entering the gym, he saw that the crowd hadn’t diminished appreciably from its numbers the day before. Making his way across the floor, he took the same seat and looked to the judges’ table.

  Dax was discussing something with the Vulcan judge. She looked up now and then to glance at the four finalists, but she didn’t seem to realize that McCoy was in the building.

  He didn’t mind in the least. What he had to say would best be said after the competition was over.

  Just as McCoy thought that, he heard a commotion at the far end of the bleachers, closer to the door. People began leaving their seats, startled looks on their faces.

  At first, he couldn’t see what was driving them. Then he got an unobstructed view and he understood. It was Sinnit—and he had something in his hand. It took McCoy half a heartbeat to realize what it was.

  The Tessma honor blade. The one that had hung on their wall.

  It didn’t make sense, he told himself. What was Sinnit trying to do with the ritual weapon anyway? Disrupt the rest of the competition? Show everyone just how angry he was?

  Then McCoy saw the twisted expression on his roommate’s face and he began to understand the Tessma’s true intent. Sinnit wasn’t just trying to scare them. He really meant to use the razor-sharp weapon on someone.

  And judging from the angle of his path through the crowd, the one he meant to use it on was Dax!

  But the Trill’s view of Sinnit was blocked by the surging throng. Everything was happening so fast, she had no idea what was causing the disturbance, much less that she was in danger.

  I’ve got to do something, McCoy thought. I’ve got to stop Sinnit. He was moving even before he completed the thought, slicing sideways through the mass of spectators, heading for Dax in the hope that he could reach her before his roommate did.

  But before McCoy could get even halfway there, he saw that he would be too late. Sinnit was making better progress than he was, thanks to the eagerness of people to get out of his way.

  “Emony!” McCoy shouted at the top of his lungs, his heart banging with fear for the Trill. “Emony, watch out!”

  She turned at the sound of her name, her expression one of surprise and trepidation. But it seemed she was still unaware of Sinnit and the danger he represented.

  “Behind you!” McCoy bellowed in desperation.

  As he got closer to the Trill, Sinnit raised the honor blade above his head. At the last moment, Dax seemed to understand what McCoy was saying. She began to turn to face her attacker. ...

  But by then, it was too late. The Tessma was big, strong, every bit as quick and agile as Dax was. There was no way she could stop him.

  Sinnit’s blade came down in a short, devastating chop. McCoy watched in horror, expecting the weapon to embed itself in the flesh of Dax’s chest. But to his surprise, a blue-clad body flashed in front of her and took the brunt of the Tessma’s attack.

  Everything seemed to stop for a moment, as if time had frozen solid. And in that strange, static moment, McCoy saw that it was Nar who had absorbed the force of Sinnit’s blow.

  Suddenly, everyone began to move again. The Vulcan judge leaped over the table in front of him and wrestled the Tessma to the floor, his powerful fingers closing on the hand that still held the honor blade. At the same time, Dax grabbed Nar and lowered him to the floor, gently placing his head in her lap.

  There were screams of terror and deep-throated accusations as McCoy made his way to Dax’s side, feeling numb and disbelieving. He could see even before he got there that Nar had been wounded badly. His midsection was dark and wet with blood, and the stain was spreading before the human’s eyes.

  McCoy had seen his father treat wounds, though none of them had ever been as bad as this one, and he didn’t have any medical training of his own.

  Dax glanced at him. “Help me,” she said, her eyes imploring him, her voice barely audible above the shouts of the crowd. And she looked down at her hand, Nar’s blood seeping between her fingers.

  Abruptly, McCoy realized there might be more than one life at stake—there might be two. And if that was true, it was still a secret the Trills wanted kept to themselves.

  McCoy turned to the crowd and shouted, “Stand back!” with a tone of authority he didn’t know he had.

  Staring at him, the crowd did as he asked. But one of them, at least, would have to do more than that.

  McCoy pointed to a middle-aged man, the father of one of the human gymnasts. “You!” he snapped. “Get the Trill doctor! No one else!”

  The man nodded, then turned and scanned the crowd.

  Satisfied that help was on the way, McCoy knelt beside Dax again. But as he caught another glimpse of Nar’s face, which had already gone deathly pale, the human began to wonder if that help would be in time.

  “Never a physician around when you need one,” Dax rasped. “Stay with me, Kejjis. We’ll get you through this, I promise.”

  The muscles in her jaw rippling, she pulled up Nar’s tunic to reveal his wound. All McCoy could see was a mess of dark blood that made his stomach churn. If Dax was put off by the sight, she didn’t show it. In fact, she inserted her fingers into the wound and felt around inside.

  Nar writhed and bleated in gut-wrenching agony, but he didn’t have the strength to stop her. All he could do was clutch ineffectually at Dax’s wrists as she continued her ministrations.

  Finally, Dax looked up at Mc
Coy. “The blade cut an artery,” she said. “I need you to hold it.”

  The human felt the blood rush out of his face. “But I—”

  Before he could complete his protest, Dax guided his fingers into the wound and pressed them closed around something soft and slippery. Clenching his jaw, he forced himself to maintain the pressure.

  Then, just when McCoy thought he could cope with what he was being asked to do, he felt something slither around his knuckles. Not just once, but over and over again.

  It seemed to McCoy that he held Nar’s artery in his fingers for an impossibly long time. Then, to his relief, he saw the crowd of onlookers make way for the Trill doctor, who knelt beside Dax and pulled out a Trill version of a medical tricorder.

  The physician had an angry cut across his forehead. Apparently, he had been injured in the rush of the crowd.

  “Bad,” he said of his patient. “But not fatal, if we take care of it quickly.”

  McCoy wondered if the doctor was talking about Kejjis or the symbiont. Both, he hoped fervently.

  Working quickly, the physician removed several other instruments from his shoulder bag. The human had seen his father use some of them, but others seemed to be strictly designed for Trill anatomy. One of them must have contained anesthesia, because Nar began to relax, his cries of pain turning into plaintive whimpers.

  Before long, the doctor was just as bloody as Dax and McCoy. But it didn’t seem to bother him. He remained focused on his work, his eyes hard and intent. Finally, after several tense minutes, he leaned back on his haunches and exhaled with heartfelt relief.

  “You’re going to be all right,” he told Nar.

  The wounded gymnast was still deathly pale, but he managed a smile. “Thank you,” he said softly.

  McCoy knew that Nar wasn’t speaking only for himself.

  “You’re welcome,” the doctor told him.

  Something about the exchange moved McCoy in a way that he had never been moved before. The ability to help, to heal ... he had never appreciated the magnitude of it. But he did now.

  “Wikhov’na!” came a snarl.

  McCoy turned and saw Sinnit standing there, his muscular arms still in the grip of the Vulcan judge. The Tessma’s face was dark with anger, his ruby-red eyes smoldering with hate.