The banchory brought them some distance into the wasteland. Its heavy steps hushed to a negligible crunching over the baby growth, but it filled the void with a low groaning that sounded almost like sobs. Anthropomorphizing, Bashir realized. It only greeted the pod of other banchory milling near a confusion of upthrust stones; they answered in equally loquacious murmurs, waggling their flexible upper lips and swishing the stubs of their hairless tails. It was a hard image to shake, though, when he glimpsed what looked like a half-filled inland sea another kilometer or two toward the horizon. Peaty brown water gushed into it from all sides, waterfalls of runoff from the mud underlying a continent of canopy. Bashir doubted there could ever be enough to fill the void.
"Have you been living here?" he asked K'Taran as she climbed past him to slide down the banchory's nose.
"No." She waved him down, holding out her arms the way a parent might when preparing to catch a child at the end of a slide. "But we came when they needed us."
The banchory's nose was as solid as the rest of it, and it hardly seemed to notice his weight as he shuffled down it. Mud, slick and swimming with ash, belched up around his ankles when he landed, and he added another couple of days to a search party's travel time. Assuming, of course, anyone had a chance to come looking for him at all.
They slogged toward a long row of shelters at the edges of the destruction. Long, stiff fans of greenery had been stacked across what remained of the undergrowth's canopy, pitiful protection from both sun and rain. The cadre of Klingons milling among the injured xirri tested and reinforced the structure almost unconsciously as they went about their duties. A deeper mat of branches had been piled directly on top of the mud to form a crude bedding for the wounded. Bashir reassured himself that they'd at least tried to keep their patients above the mire, if not strictly out of the elements. This was a great show of consideration for Klingons, if what he'd seen at Gordek's camp was any indication.
"How did you know they needed you?" He dropped to his knees on the edge of the branch carpet, not wanting to actually walk on the mat and spread muck among the wounded. "Did the xirri send for you?"
A pair of Klingon men -- neither much older than K'Taran -- glanced up from a few feet away, but it was K'Taran who finally answered. "We knew they had a home near here. Once Kreveth realized what had happened, we knew the xirri would be needing help. So we came." She remained standing behind him, out of both his light and way. Even so, Bashir could feel defiance rolling off her like heat. "I told you before -- they're our friends."
Indeed she had. He decided not to press the question further.
A xirri appeared with his medkit, dropping out of the brush's fringes like a bird hopping off a branch. Bashir thanked the little primate absently, and didn't even think about blushing until after he'd cracked the case and dug out his tricorder and one of the smaller tissue regenerators. It wasn't as though K'Taran would laugh at him for such a display of automatic courtesy. In fact, she was probably delighted to see him apparently taking her pronouncements so seriously. Still, he didn't want to lie to her, not even by implication. What he saw in front of him was a thin, sick lemur with no more evidence of sentience in its expressionless face than there was in its prehensile tail. It didn't change his willingness to help it in any way he could, but it also didn't distract him from the awareness that there were perfectly sapient creatures hidden somewhere in this jungle who also desperately needed saving.
He was almost halfway through the medical tricorder's primary scan when he realized that nothing about the readings made any sense. Frowning, he reinitialized the sequence and passed it over the xirri's unmoving body again. K'Taran waited until he aborted that scan altogether before demanding, "What's wrong?"
Something about being so close to an impact site, probably. Interference on a level Dax could no doubt explain, but which left him only with a kit full of half-useless equipment and not even a suspicion of how to fix it. All the same, he punched up the tricorder's recalibration command. "Something's the matter with my equipment," he explained, not looking up from the growing scroll of gibberish on the small device's screen. "I'm not getting intelligible readings."
"Fine." She suddenly bent close over one shoulder and plucked the tricorder from his hand. "Then you can stop playing with your toys and start helping them."
Bashir stopped himself from attempting to snatch back the device, scowling up at her instead. "It's not that simple. I don't know anything about xirri physiology. Unless I can collect data on how their bodies function, I can't determine what drugs they can tolerate, or what treatments they might require. I don't even know how to calibrate a tissue regenerator!"
"The xirri will tell you if what you're doing is right."
Frustration throbbed dully at the back of his forehead. He hunched over and rubbed at his eyes, suddenly wanting to be home and safe and sleeping in his own Cardassian bed with no Klingons or alien lemurs to worry about. "K'Taran," he sighed. "Can the xirri even speak?" He hadn't heard a sound from them. Not even so much as a grunt.
K'Taran verified this observation with a simple, "They make no noise at all."
Of course they didn't -- speech, language, true communication... It would all make things too easy, too straightforward for this mission. "They're monkeys," Bashir heard himself saying. The sound of his voice wrapped around those words almost shocked him. "However close you've grown to them, whatever feelings they might have for you, it's not the same as language. You can't run on your own instincts and call it communication." He looked up, expecting to see fury on her face, and added sincerely, "I'm sorry."
She stared back at him, a surprising amount of weary frustration in her own young features. Waving brusquely at the xirri who'd first approached with the medkit, she fished into her pocket without saying so much as a word. The skinny primate flashed over to her, green eyes intent, and K'Taran flipped a small polygonal token toward it with a flick of her thumb. The xirri caught it with its tongue, then spat the chip into one naked palm. It looked like something broken off a seal of pressed wax, or chipped from a larger stone. Popping the token back into its mouth, the xirri leapt into the burned-out brush and disappeared.
Curiosity burned sleepily in his eyes, but Bashir had learned better than to ask for what K'Taran hadn't volunteered. He sat with the remnants of his medkit, and waited.
By the time the xirri returned, sitting still had combined with the abysmal lateness of the hour shipboard to sink Bashir almost over the brink into dozing. He thought at first that he'd imagined the xirri's multicolored companion, a nonsense dream caricature brought to life. But when it approached to within touching distance, he could smell the musky plant life odor of the pollen scrubbed into its fur, and see the sheen of drying wetness among the crust of colored muds striped over its skull and face and shoulders. The painted xirri squatted into a tall sit that placed it almost on a height with Bashir, and peered intently first at the doctor's hands, then the insensate patient on the grassy mat before them.
K'Taran slapped a tissue regenerator into Bashir's lap. "Go on, healer. Heal."
It was pointless. Bashir knew it was pointless -- he was too tired, the xirri was too badly injured, and he just didn't have time to learn everything he needed to know to be an adequate physician to these animals. But even if he could find it in his heart to deny treatment while there was some small chance he could give relief, he had a feeling K'Taran and the other Klingons now gathering around her wouldn't have much patience with his ethical standards. Hadn't he said everything on the planet would be dead in a matter of days, no matter what they did here? So what real difference did it make if even his best efforts couldn't save a single xirri? His best efforts couldn't save any of them. He had to depend on Dax and the captain for that.
He examined the little xirri in front of him as best he could by touch and sight, making assumptions about its body chemistry based on such slight evidence as the condition of its mucal membranes, the color of its blood. Where musc
le showed beneath folds of torn dermal layer, he probed the elasticity with gentle fingers, pretended its ropes and striations told him anything really useful. Then he set the regenerator with a few tentative taps at the controls.
He'd barely turned the head of the device toward his patient before the painted xirri next to him reached out and wound cool fingers about his wrist. Bashir hesitated, switched off the regenerator by reflex, and blinked down at the little primate.
Licking its eyes in what might have been agitation, the painted xirri abruptly ducked one long finger into the pucker of its mouth and brought it out smeared with the same colored pollen that tinted its hair. It drew slowly, lightly around the edges of the wound. Brilliant red on the innermost edges, followed by rings of saffron and umber shot through with smears of green. Apparently happy with whatever it had meant to convey, it settled back on its haunches with a final flick of its long tongue, and cocked an unreadable look up at Bashir.
He didn't know what else to do -- the pounding of his heart against his breastbone seemed to drown out rational thought, leaving him to flounder in emotion. He reset the device almost at random, moved toward the patient again.
This time when the xirri stopped him, it was already busy accentuating the ugly green, blotting out the saner colors with bold, hectic strokes. Bashir adjusted the regenerator in the other direction; the xirri didn't interfere again.
As he watched bundles of muscle gradually repair, and skin begin its slow crawl across the open wound, it occurred to Bashir that it was probably best that his main diagnostic equipment had failed him for the moment, limiting what treatment he could supply. The way his hands were shaking, he wouldn't have been safe doing surgery, anyway. And even the most newly recognized sentient species -- no matter how silent and assuming -- deserved better than the jitterings of a shell-shocked Human doctor.
Sisko's luck held for four of the five hours he'd allotted himself for sleep. His dreams roiled uneasily with cloaked Klingon vessels that turned out to be Cardassian warships hurling comets at the Defiant. When Odo's gravelly voice condensed out of one thunderous collision, Sisko at first burrowed deeper into his pillow and tried to ignore it.
"Captain Sisko, report to the bridge," Odo repeated impatiently. "There's a Cardassian vessel entering this system."
"Damn!" Sisko rolled out of his bunk, still feeling trapped in the remnants of his nightmare. He yanked on his uniform and boots. "Have the Klingons done anything to it yet?"
"No, but they may just be biding their time. The Cardassian ship is still out of weapons range."
"I'm on my way." He headed for the door without waiting for an acknowledgment. Worf met him in the narrow corridor bisecting the crew's quarters, looking much more alert than Sisko felt. They strode into the turbolift and told it, "Bridge!" in curt unison. The lift hummed upward.
"Any news from the away team?" he asked his tactical officer.
Worf slanted him a curious glance. "You were aware that I had the away team's secure channel routed to my cabin?"
"Just a lucky guess. What have you heard?"
"Little of promise," the Klingon said somberly. "Dr. Bashir was discovered missing after Commander Dax last spoke with us. They have a fix on his comm badge and are looking for him now, but Dax estimates it could take several hours to reach his presumed location."
"How did he get lost?"
"Unclear, sir. Major Kira believes he might have been kidnapped by the same group holding the Victoria Adams's crew."
"Lovely." Sisko scrubbed a hand across his face, wondering what else could possibly go wrong on this mission. The turbolift doors hissed open before he could ask further questions.
Odo turned to face them from his watchful stance beside the command chair. As far as Sisko knew, the Changeling never did sit there, even when he was left in command of the Defiant's bridge.
"The Cardassian ship is preparing to enter the far end of the cometary belt," Odo said, passing information along with Starfleet succinctness. Sisko glanced up at the viewscreen, but Farabaugh's computer model had been replaced by a real-time image of Armageddon against a comet-hazed starfield. A blinking red cursor now marked the position of the cloaked Klingon vessel, in what looked like a geostationary orbit above the comet-scarred main continent. "Mr. Thornton is constructing an approximate sensor image of the Cardassian vessel, using preliminary data from our long-range scans."
"Good." Sisko sat and gave an approving nod to the dark-haired engineering tech who'd replaced Farabaugh at the science console. "Put it on screen when ready."
"Aye, sir. Convergent resolution coming up now."
The viewscreen abruptly distorted, shrinking Armageddon to a distant dust-stained globe in the upper corner, while a steady twinkle in the background enlarged into a massive battle-armored ship, many times larger than the Defiant. Sisko whistled when he saw its familiar military markings. "Looks like we have some very official Cardassian visitors," he remarked.
"My data banks identify this ship as the Cardassian battle cruiser Olxinder," Odo said from his console. "Commanded by our friend Gul Hidret."
"Why am I not surprised?" Sisko leaned back in his chair, frowning as he watched the Cardassian ship enter the comet field. Unlike the Klingons, they took no evasive action, nor did they appear to slow and angle their shields to deflect the comets they encountered. Sisko wondered if Hidret understood the danger he was in -- unlike the small Defiant and equally small Jfolokh-class Klingon vessel, the Olxinder was practically guaranteed to get itself slammed with comets at the speed it was traveling. A moment later, the blue-white flare of phasers across the viewscreen answered his question. Gul Hidret was dealing with the comets with characteristic Cardassian arrogance, by summarily shattering to pieces every large fragment in his battle cruiser's path. Sisko supposed the ship's heavy armor could take care of the rest.
"For someone who was worried about Klingon aggression, he's not exactly trying to sneak in, is he?" Odo commented.
"No," Worf agreed. "I thought Gul Hidret did not believe us when we said there were no Klingons here."
Sisko shook his head. "Commander, I've found that what Cardassians say they believe and what they truly believe have about as much in common as Ferengi prices do with the true value of an object." He watched the Olxinder execute a gracelessly efficient turn, its corona of phaser fire leaving an afterglow of superheated gases in its wake.
"But then why come? He must know he cannot locate either of us while we are cloaked," Worf pointed out. "Why would Hidret make himself such a tempting target for attack?"
"Perhaps to provoke us into it," Sisko said.
Odo snorted. "More likely to provoke the Klingons into it."
"Thus giving the Cardassians all the excuse they need to start a war," Sisko finished grimly.
"The Klingons have just opened a hailing frequency to the Cardassian battleship, Captain," Thornton said, glancing over his shoulder. "It's on an open channel."
Sisko exchanged puzzled looks with Worf and Odo. The last thing he'd expected the Klingons to do was talk first and shoot later. "Put it on the main screen, split channel."
"Aye, sir." The phaser-wreathed glow of the Olxinder vanished, turning instead into Gul Hidret's furrowed visage on one side and an even more familiar Klingon face on the other. It wasn't the magnificent mane of gray hair or the broad brow that jogged Sisko's memory so much as the surprising glint of humor in those crinkled eyes. He snapped his teeth closed on a surprised curse. What in God's name was Curzon Dax's old drinking buddy doing out in the middle of the Cardassian demilitarized zone?
"Ah, Hidret," Kor purred in the same tone of pleasant reminiscence he might have used to greet an old lover. "What a joy it is to see your face and recall once more the delightful memory of how I demolished your last battle cruiser. How nice of the Cardassian High Command to give you another."
"It pleases me, too, Dahar Master Kor, to see that your legendary drunken stupors have not cost you all of your titles and
privileges in the Klingon Empire," Hidret shot back with equally venomous politeness. The old Gul's lined face was rigid with some fierce emotion, but Sisko couldn't tell whether it was fury or satisfaction. "Although they have obviously condemned you to manning an obscure post in an unimportant system."
"How unimportant can it be, when a Cardassian ship as magnificent as yours drops by to pay a visit?" Kor retorted. "Although it is a Klingon tradition to welcome visitors, I'm afraid you might not like my particular brand of hospitality."
Hidret raised his brows in mock incredulity. "Are you telling me I have to leave? And here I thought you would welcome my help in evacuating the planet."
"What?" All traces of humor evaporated from Kor's eyes, giving Sisko a glimpse of the formidable warrior Jadzia Dax had once been willing to risk her life for. "What are you talking about?"
A little more satisfaction leaked out around the edges of Hidret's inscrutable expression. "Aren't there Klingons stranded down on that planet, being bombarded by comets? I came to help you rescue them."
Star Trek - Day Of Honor 02 Page 11
