STAR TREK: DS9 - The Lives of Dax Read online

  “Wikhov’na pan’tisha!” Sinnit barked.

  “No!” McCoy heard someone yell.

  It took him a moment to realize that the someone had been him.

  Swept up by his fury like a piece of flotsam on a crashing wave, McCoy felt an urge to plant his fist in his roommate’s face. He even took a couple of steps toward Sinnit with that in mind. But in the end, he convinced himself that there had been enough violence there that day.

  “Are you proud of yourself?” McCoy spat at the Tessma. He held up his bloody hands. “Are you proud of this?”

  Sinnit’s eyes blazed, but he didn’t answer his friend’s questions. He just turned away.

  “I hope you are,” McCoy said in a more subdued voice, overcome by a sudden and unexpected sadness. “Because it’s probably the last thing you’ll ever do on this Earth.”

  The Tessma didn’t answer. He didn’t say anything even when security finally came and took him away.

  The dormitory hallway was a mellow orange, illuminated by the golden light of late afternoon. Dax walked the length of it until she found what appeared to be the right door.

  It was ajar, but she knocked on it anyway. After a moment, the door swung open the rest of the way, revealing a surprised McCoy.

  “Hi,” he managed.

  “Hi yourself,” she said.

  Clearly, McCoy was at a loss as to what to say next.

  The Trill helped him out. “Mind if I come in?”

  “Of course not,” he told her. He stepped aside and gestured to the room beyond. “Make yourself at home.”

  Sinnit wasn’t there, of course. He was in the custody of the Oxford authorities. Finding a chair, Dax sat down and regarded her human host.

  “I just wanted to see if you were all right,” she told him.

  McCoy nodded. “I think so,” he said, but it was evident that he was still struggling with the events of the last twenty-four hours. “So I guess the competition’s pretty much down the tubes.”

  “Pretty much,” Dax agreed. “And that’s too bad. But in a funny way, it served its purpose.”

  McCoy looked at her. “What do you mean?”

  “What Sinnit did in the gym ... somehow it ended up doing more to bring everyone together than a month’s worth of competitions. Everyone—humans, Trills, Vulcans, Rigelians. Tessma—they’re all reaffirming their commitment to the goal of mutual understanding. Even Kejjis is amazed at the dialogues that have started.”

  McCoy smiled disbelievingly. “You’re kidding.”

  Dax shook her head. “I’m not.”

  The human’s smile faded. “You know,” he said solemnly, “I have to apologize. For what happened last night, I mean. I was just—”

  She held up a hand, stopping him. “You don’t have to explain. I’ve had two lifetimes to get used to other life-forms. I sometimes forget that others haven’t had the benefit of all that experience.”

  He looked grateful. “I meant to say something earlier. That’s why I came to the gym. But with all the confusion ... and then you disappeared. ...”

  “I had to file a complaint,” the Trill explained.

  McCoy nodded. “I figured it was something like that.” He paused. “But I didn’t think you’d let me off the hook so easily. You’re one surprise after another.”

  “The universe is full of surprises,” Dax told him. “As you go on with your life, you may find that running toward them is more fun than running away.”

  She had expected him to blush at the remark, but he didn’t. “I’m starting to understand that,” he said.

  Silence reigned between them. But it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. It was unhurried, companionable, the silence of two old friends.

  Suddenly, McCoy did something she didn’t expect. He came forward and took her hand.

  “You know,” he said earnestly, “I don’t care what you used to be. I mean, it’s the future that matters, right? And—” He took a deep breath, then let it out. “I was hoping we could spend some of it together.”

  The offer caught Dax off guard. How about that? she reflected as she gazed into McCoy’s wishful young eyes. Even after a couple of lifetimes, I can still be surprised.

  She put her hand over his, feeling its alien warmth. “Much as I know I’d enjoy spending more time with you, Leonard, I think our destinies lie in different directions. Besides,” she added, “you already have an old soul. You don’t need another one.”

  McCoy was disappointed. That much was clear from the way he looked at her. Nonetheless, he managed to take Dax’s decision in stride.

  “Will I ever see you again?” he asked softly, poignantly.

  The Trill smiled at him. “I can’t say for sure, of course. But something tells me that our paths will cross someday.”

  The human swallowed. “I’ll never forget you, y’know.”

  “And I’ll never forget you,” Dax responded, shooting him a sly look to lighten up the moment.

  Then she kissed him on the cheek and departed.

  But she hadn’t lied, she realized, as she emerged into the bright golden light of the Mississippi afternoon. She really wouldn’t forget the boy named McCoy, even if she lived to be a thousand.

  AUDRID

  “When one of my kind stumbles, Benjamin ... it’s a mistake that’s there forever.”

  —Jadzia Dax

  “Dax”

  S. D. Perry

  S. D. (Stephani Danelle) Perry writes multimedia novelizations in the fantasy/science fiction/horror realms for love and money, occasionally in that order. She’s worked in the universes of Resident Evil, Aliens, Xena, and most recently, Star Trek; she has also written a few short stories, and translated a couple of movie scripts into books. Danelle, as she prefers to be called, lives in Portland with an incredibly patient husband and their two ridiculous dogs.

  Sins of the Mother

  S. D. Perry

  My Dearest Neema:

  In past weeks, I’ve gone over a thousand different openings to the letter you now hold in your hand, searching for a phrase or sentiment that would inspire you to read past the first words. Now, as I write, I know that there is no way for me to do this thing. When you were a child, no bribe or threat would make you do what you did not choose to do. It was a dominant trait of my daughter from the very day she was born, and I would be surprised to learn that you’ve lost your willful streak. Perhaps it’s this stubbornness I should appeal to, or call upon any lingering sentiment and demand your attention this final time; in truth, I don’t know. Eight years have passed since we last spoke, and any presumptions on my part would surely be false. You are Neema Cyl now, and all I can offer is that this letter is an important one, and I hope that you will read it.

  So. Having implored your attention, I’m now at a loss for where to begin. Please bear with me as you read, as I write; there’s a story to be told, and it’s been locked inside of me for so long that I’m unsure of how to tell it. At one time, I swore to myself that I never would. I chose ink and paper so that I might find my way through my own carefully layered defenses, that I might create each letter, each symbol, and etch the emotion into reality. It sounds foolish, perhaps, but I feel almost as though it will erase time and distance between us—words from my heart to yours, your fingers touching what I have touched.

  Eight years, and I speak now to a joined Neema. It’s not much time for a Trill, I know, but I’ve felt every day of our separation. I’ve heard that you’re a gifted teacher of sciences. Tobin Dax once heard Deilas Cyl speak at that botanical conference on Halii, the presentation on light alternatives, and remembers a pleasant, soft-spoken man of thoughtfulness and gentle wit. How wonderful for you, Neema Cyl. Perhaps we can someday—

  I get ahead of myself. I find ways to avoid writing, even in the process. No more delays.

  Neema. Your father, my beloved husband, Jayvin Vod, died when you were fourteen, and the true circumstances surrounding his death are what I mean to address. You already k
now some of it: Fifteen years ago, your father and I were involved in a confidential deep space mission. He was badly injured. The symbiosis between Jayvin and Vod dissolved, and Jayvin died.

  I remember telling you. I remember waking you, sitting on your rumpled blankets in the early light, remember your pale young face turned up to mine. The tears that spilled from your dark eyes—your father’s eyes. I told you then, and let me tell you once more, how much he loved you and Gran both. You were the suns in his sky, the beat of his heart ...

  I’m struck suddenly by a memory, of your father holding both of you in his arms, in the house we lived in just after Gran was born. You were all of three when we brought Gran home, and I remember that Jayvin called you into our room to meet him. We sat on the floor, in a shaft of sun that came in through the window, and Jayvin encouraged you to introduce yourself to Gran. You were shy at first, although grinning as your father pulled you into his lap and held up the newborn for you to see. I felt whole then in a way I had never felt before, perhaps even in memory. Jayvin smiled up at me, his dark hair tousled, his face lined with sleeplessness, and told me that he too, was complete. “I’ve never been this happy,” he said, and he wept. I weep now, remembering.

  I misled you about what happened to your father. I was deliberately vague with you about the nature of his injuries, and when you pressed for information, I told you that the Vod symbiont had gone to a new host. It’s my shame that I manipulated you, that when you became persistent with your questions, I cloaked myself in sadness so that you would stop asking. I used my pain to frighten you away from the answers; although I never told you outright, I made it clear how very terrible it was for me to relive the event that caused Jayvin’s death. It was, is true, but only a fraction of truth, a grain in a sea of grain. Even when you were accepted as a host initiate, when your questions had become pleas, I found a way to elude. To hide. It’s no solace, I’m sure, for you to know how many nights I spent awake and alone, so choked with guilt and self-hatred that I could not sleep—but I don’t mean to try and arouse your sympathies. This letter is for you.

  I should have known that your curiosity would lead you to do what you did. Your stubborn spirit, inherited from both of your parents—I allowed myself the luxury of delusion, of believing that my daughter would know better than to seek Vod’s new host. I had been head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission for over seven years when you were accepted; you had heard so many stories of reassociation disasters, of lives destroyed by past-host folly, that I told myself you would never break with Trill custom. Idiocy. I knew your heart, and pretended that I did not.

  So when, seven years after Jayvin’s death, you used my private access code to look into the TSC files, and discovered the truth—I can hardly claim I was shocked. What you found out must have—better just to say it, to tell it the way I believe you saw it. Vod died with Jayvin on the table, even though the symbiont was physically uninjured. No action was taken to save its life—so far as I know, an unprecedented act—and I was instrumental in that decision. Your own mother, guilty of allowing your father’s symbiont to die. Even as head of the commission, it took more than just my word—but it was after my rushed testimony that the few attending doctors and commission members left Vod inside of Jayvin, left it trapped in his dying body. The case was sealed, the specifics unrecorded, and I lied to you, I told you that Vod lived.

  I told myself that as head of the TSC, it was my ethical responsibility not to speak of it. I told myself that you had already suffered enough, that we both had. I knew it would give you comfort to believe that your father’s memories, that his love for us, still existed as an empirical reality. Perhaps most persuasive of all, I told myself that Jayvin would have wanted you to believe he’d died peacefully.

  These aren’t excuses, nor do I expect you to forgive me my reasoning—I want only for you to understand why I let you believe what you’ve believed for so long. When you confronted me with what little you’d learned—I’m ashamed to tell you that I was relieved. You didn’t know everything, you didn’t know why. I told myself that it was for the best; that it was better for you to despise me than to know the truth. I’ve restated and rationalized that for the last eight years, and I was wrong.

  The truth isn’t all that came between us. When you confronted me, the initial terror I felt turned my anger into something like hysteria. I told you—screamed at you—that I couldn’t believe my daughter was a thief, and I recall so vividly the fire in your gaze, the heat there that belied the chill of your voice.

  “And I can’t believe my mother is a murderer,” you said. “A murderer and a liar.”

  You walked out—and although we had a few strained and dismal exchanges afterward, I believe that was the last time an emotion passed between us. If you accept nothing else from all of this, accept that I am deeply ashamed of how I acted that day.

  Neema, this is so hard! Not for me to confess my mistakes, although that isn’t such an easy thing, either—but simply to tell you, even admitting that I’ve been wrong to keep it from you. I write now because ... there are too many reasons to list, and perhaps you’ll understand by the end of this growing document. The reasons aren’t even important; what’s important is that you only know part of the truth, and when I’ve finished, you’ll know it all.

  In the cool autumn of Stardate 1229, I was forty-one years old and had been head of the Symbiosis Commission for less than a year. Jayvin and I were close, perhaps closer than we’d ever been, in career and in marriage; he’d been appointed head of the xenobiology department at the Kem’alta Institute, and was consulted on all sorts of matters relating to our exploration missions. I was enjoying my own appointment, putting to work the political acumen I’d learned as Lela Dax. I was too busy to continue pursuing my science, but Jayvin kept me updated on medical advancements in Trill biology, a subject we shared a passion for; we had written and published several papers together on symbiont chemical anomalies, back when I was still teaching. You and Gran, our brilliant and beautiful children, were growing so fast. ...

  We were happy then, Jayvin and I, blissfully unaware that things could change, that they aren’t always as they seem. You’d think that between our ten lifetimes of experience, we would have known better—although as I’m sure you know, some lessons are harder to learn than others. And some must be learned again and again.

  As now, there was much debate over the simultaneous evolution of host and symbiont on Trill—there always is, and I’ve come to believe that there always will be; no culture is so small as to accept a single possibility, regardless of evidence, regardless of faith. But I also believe that no intelligent species will ever stop looking for answers, and the call that came to our government, only eight months after I accepted the TSC position, was one that no Trill could ignore.

  The message we received was from Starfleet, and was a source of great excitement within the governing council as well as the TSC. There was a newly discovered comet just outside the Trill system, headed, in fact, toward Trill. In some thirty years it would pass us, there was no apparent danger—but upon a routine survey, a Starfleet probe had brought back information that was of profound interest to us. The probe had detected a unique bioelectric signature emanating from inside the comet, one that Starfleet scientists found comparable to that of a tiny percentage of Trills. They didn’t know that the Trill are a joined species, of course, didn’t understand what they’d found, but we knew immediately—Starfleet had detected the biosignature of a symbiont.

  I’m sure you can imagine the stir this caused—what it could mean for us, what we might learn about ourselves. There was a closed door discussion within the governing council over our continued interest in keeping our symbiotic nature to ourselves, even some concern that whatever the comet contained might give us away—but really, there was never any question that we would send a team. It helped that Starfleet didn’t seem nearly as interested in the biology of what they’d found as they were intrigued by the
comet itself, in its unusual proportions of mass and density. Further, their science officers insisted its composition didn’t match that of the cometary halo surrounding the Trill system; it had come from somewhere else.

  And for our part, all we cared about was the symbiont reading. I’ve spent countless hours regretting that disregard, thinking that if we had only investigated more closely, waited before making a decision ...

  If only.

  Apart from a few councillors within the government, there were only a handful of commission members and scientists who knew of Starfleet’s invitation to join its landing party. It was agreed that the matter should be kept quiet until more was learned. This meant that our team would have to be selected from among our own small circle. As head of the TSC and with no small knowledge of symbiont biochemistry, I was eager to go, and Jayvin was my logical companion.

  Things fell into place quickly. We were to join the Starfleet team aboard the Tereshkova, a small scientific survey vessel that would come to Trill and take us to the comet. Jayvin and I hardly had time to gather the proper equipment before it was time to leave. We were so excited, digging through the TSC’s labs for fluid test kits and specimen peels, both of us trying not to get our hopes too high, but hoping anyway, that whatever was on the comet would be the beginning of a new understanding of and for Trill. Neither of us voiced our truest wish, although I could see it in Jayvin’s eyes, as I suspected he could see it in mine—that we would return to Trill with a symbiont, one not born on our world.

  You may recall the day we left, the state of near jubilation that we were in. I remember telling you and Gran that we’d be gone for a day or two on TSC business, and then working all afternoon with your father, packing and repacking our equipment, trying to organize. We left just after sunset, tired but enthused and before we left, we looked in on you both, together, watched you sleep for a moment, both of us silent and proud in the early morning light. Both of us hopeful for the future.