by S. D. Perry
Ee. He’d never heard of it, but it sounded promising. Jake nodded, swallowing his upset. “Okay. How long before you make it to Ee?”
Dez smiled. “Shouldn’t be more than four months. Five, at the most.”
His heart seemed to stop beating. He’d told everyone at the station that he’d be gone a few weeks, at the outside. Eventually someone would check with his grandfather, and they’d all think he’d disappeared, maybe even died. Jake wanted to protest, wanted to tell the captain that he had to go home, that Kas was due to have a baby in just five months…
…and in another week she’ll probably call Earth to check in, if Nog doesn’t first. How would he ever explain? Kas and his grandfather, Nog…they’d be sick with worry, and all because of his stupid pride. He’d been afraid of being embarrassed for his basically unfounded belief in the prophecy, afraid they’d stop him from venturing into the wormhole alone…afraid most of all that he’d see the pity in their faces, hear the unspoken indulgence in their voices as they told him that they understood, that his father would be back someday, that it was all right to grieve…
As if sensing his upset, Dez squeezed his shoulder, his expression softening. “Enough worrying over what can’t be helped, eh? Come on, let me introduce you to a few more strangers.”
Jake forced a smile and nodded, hanging on to the thin hope that the shuttle wasn’t as bad off as Dez seemed to think, suddenly feeling much too young to be where he was.
Dez kept silent as he led Jake on toward the maintenance bay, respectful of the boy’s struggle to maintain his composure. He wanted his father, and he wanted to go home, and neither was available at the moment, which put him in a difficult place.
And add on that he is what he is….
There were a vast lot of cultural differences in the universe, but Dez believed that with little exception, young humanoid males were a species all their own. It was hard enough to know so very much but have lived for only so long…and even harder to accept comfort in the face of disappointment, when you wanted so badly to protest the unfairness of life but knew that you had to accept what was, that there was no other choice.
It’s amazing that any of us survive. Luck played a part, certainly…though Dez felt it also took a certain spirit. Jake was young, according to the files, but clearly had the heart of an adventurer. He’d stolen away from the comfort of home to seek his father and his fortune, alone….
Dez smiled inwardly, chiding himself again for the ongoing comparisons. Jake Sisko was probably as bravely hopeful and naive as the Zin Dezavrim of twenty years past, but the circumstances were different. Dez had hardly known his own father growing up, and Jake didn’t appear to be concerned with fortune. Still, it was impossible not to feel a connection, of sorts…or some of the pain. Finding Jake’s honest, pathetic, beautiful last words, apologizing for not being what he thought he was supposed to be, what he thought his father wanted…
Dez shook it off as they reached the Three Bay door. Memories of his own chaotic, misspent, heartfelt youth had been interfering with his concentration all day. Bad enough that he’d already told Jake the truth, about their semi-outlaw existence. His instincts told him unequivocally that the boy wasn’t a rival spy or thief, but trying to explain his decision to the first officer wasn’t going to be easy, particularly considering what had happened the last time they’d taken on a seemingly harmless passenger, several years before. He’d been pretty sure of his instincts then, too, as the lovely Facity would surely remind him….
…Ancient history, to dust with all that. The boy needs to know that he’s not alone. The young Dez could have used an inkling of such comfort, and he’d actually found his father, and on far less than the narrow hope of a religious divination.
Dez nodded encouragingly at Jake and then pressed the door panel to Three Bay, noting from the feelings of curiosity that edged through his mind that Stess had already arrived. He’d have to talk to her about that; she’d been careless as of late, and while he didn’t mind, he knew that it drove a few of the other crew members to distraction. Glessin particularly disliked feeling Stessie’s random projections, though Dez knew she was more careful around the solitary Cardassian. Stessie was nothing if not respectful.
The door slid aside and they walked into the cavernous bay, their steps echoing as they headed for Jake’s ruined shuttle at the far side. Neither Prees nor Lema was in sight, probably inside—the shuttle’s entrance faced away from their approach—though Stess was standing near the diagnostic control console at the small vessel’s bow. Dez could feel her interest in Jake, and wondered if the young human picked up on it as well. Humans were certainly capable, but Stessie was a subtle creature; if you didn’t know what to look for, you might not notice. Stess was the most interactive fifth of Stessie, probably because she was the only part that spoke, though the other four could all project to some degree.
As they drew closer, Dez tried to see Stess the way Jake was seeing her, and realized that he probably hadn’t even noticed her yet…or recognized her as a sentient being, anyway. Like all of Stessie, Stess was barely a meter tall, an armless cluster of purplish fungal growths atop a trio of low, stocky legs.
Probably thinks you’re a plant, Dez thought deliberately, mentally picturing her in the Even’s greenhouse, and felt her response, a kind of sarcastic good humor. It seemed that Jake felt it, too.
“Is someone…is there an empath on board?” Jake asked, just as Stess stepped out to meet them. Still watching her through Jake’s eyes, Dez smiled, seeing how peculiarly graceful she was, as if for the first time. She seemed to roll smoothly toward them on her padded feet, the uppermost part of her soft, misshapen body gently undulating to keep balance. It almost seemed as though she were dancing.
“Not an empath, exactly,” she said, her voice soft and hollow, the unusual creaking, moaning sounds of her language formed by shifting air pockets beneath her external sensory bulbs. Translators didn’t do it justice. “I can read some imagery-based thought, but reciprocal emotional empathy is only possible within my own species.”
Dez grinned. “You make sure we feel you, though. I picked you up out in the hall, Stess. This flirting of yours simply must stop.”
“My passion for you is too deep,” Stess said, and Dez felt another flush of projected sarcastic humor.
“She’s joking,” Dez clarified to Jake, who seemed thoroughly captivated, a wide grin on his boyish face. With no visual cues to be read on the rounded, fleshy surface of her body, and no verbal nuances in her language, Stess’s wit came from saying one thing and projecting another. The effect was mesmerizing.
“Jake, this is Stess,” Dez said, giving some thought to his next words. Friagloims were extremely rare outside their homeworld, and Stessie took some explaining. “Stess is one-fifth of Arislelemakinstess, a quinteth Friagloim whom we call Stessie…though all you have to remember is that she’s basically a walking multipart mushroom, and Stess here is the one that talks.”
“Dez is the one who is funny,” Stess responded, pushing a feeling of deliberate deceit, and Jake laughed.
“Stess, this is Jake Sisko,” Dez said dryly.
“A pleasant occurrence,” Stess said. “Arislekin are elsewhere, but I will introduce you to Lema….”
As she spoke, Lema, physically nearly identical to Stess, moved out from and around the shuttle to join them, followed a beat later by Atterace Prees. The Karemman engineer looked tired but happy, her wide, hooked nose smudged with soot, a spanner in one slender hand. The shuttle was allegedly a lost cause, but Prees loved checking out anything new.
Dez let Stess make the introductions, first to the silent Lema, then to Prees. Dez was about to ask for a report when he realized that Srral hadn’t spoken up yet.
“Where’s Srral?”
“In the shuttle’s computer system,” Prees said, shaking her head. “We agreed it was blown, but then Srral insisted I run a conduit into the fiberpatch storage boards, just so it could see
the layout, piece together the integral stats….”
Prees banged on the shuttle’s hull a few times with a spanner and raised her pleasantly high-pitched voice, bouncing echoes around the bay. “Hear that, Srral? The captain wants to know where you are!”
Srral’s androgynous voice, that of the Even’s computer, answered. “I hear. I’ve returned from the shuttle 87336 Venture, and am at this time primarily enmeshed in the secondary communication relay of Three Bay’s external diagnostic console.”
Prees glanced at the side of Jake’s shuttle, peering at the presumably Bajoran characters that spelled out its name. “Venture, huh? I wouldn’t have guessed that,” she muttered.
“I was told it used to be a Bajoran gambler’s,” Jake said.
“That explains the way it’s decorated,” Prees said, smiling crookedly, winning likewise from Jake. Dez remembered the gaudy clash that had assaulted his eyes upon beaming over and nodded, glad to know the boy wasn’t responsible for the purple, gold, and green stripes that swirled around the cabin. Of course, Facity would probably love it, she was pure Wadi. As much as Dez tried to avoid gross generalizations, something about high-stakes gambling seemed to inspire risks of all kind, including a few in the realms of taste.
Dez walked over to the standing console at the front of the shuttle, motioning for Jake to join him. Srral was another unusual crew member, a living machine that lived in machines, but while its personal history was complicated, Dez figured that its nature was self-explanatory.
“Srral, come meet the shuttle’s owner, Jake Sisko,” he said, popping the top panel, exposing a network of unidentifiable circuitry. Even if he had known anything at all about diagnostic engineering, modifications to all of the Even’s major systems over the years had created a chaos of alien technical flotsam that Dez couldn’t begin to guess at…which made Srral an extremely valuable unusual crew member.
“Yes, Dez,” Srral said. As its voice emanated from the nearest speaker, its fluid, silvery form appeared, sliding up, around, and through the jungle of crystalline core sticks and silicon boards. “Shall I extricate myself entirely?”
“Unnecessary,” Dez said, smiling at Jake’s amazed expression, reflected dully in the partial puddle of Srral. “I just wanted Jake to have a face to go with the name.”
“Jake has no face?” Srral was fascinating, but also as literal as your standard android.
Dez laughed, and Prees shot a dark look in his direction. Srral’s limited emotional engineering didn’t include embarrassment, so far as anyone knew, but Prees was extremely protective of the liquid alien.
“The captain’s statement was unclear,” Prees said smoothly. “He wants Jake Sisko to form visual memory imaging connected to your designation.”
“I understand,” Srral said.
“You were inside my shuttle’s computer system?” Jake asked.
“I was,” Srral answered. What little they could see of its body shimmered in communication, vibrating as its extensions streamed through the Even’s labyrinth of system connectors, manipulating the bits and bytes of its natural habitat.
“I think I saw you earlier, on my way to the bridge,” Jake said. “Were you…do you travel through machinery?”
Prees picked up the conversation. “Srral hasn’t met a system yet that can’t support it,” she said, her tone somehow proud and shy at once. Dez used to tease Prees about having a crush on Srral, but had stopped when Facity had finally convinced him that she probably did.
Jake looked at Prees hopefully. “So, the Venture’s system is still viable?”
Prees didn’t hesitate. “No. I’ve never seen anything like it, either. It’s as if every relay in the entire network liquefied. Backups, too. The only thing that still works is your secondary lighting, and that’s only because the connections are primary.”
“The energy storm burned the system up?” Dez asked.
“Negative,” Srral responded. “Extreme heat would create composition change. There is none, nor are there internal indications of naturally occurring magnetic flash effection or psionic wave disruption, either of which might cause this level of network disorder.”
“So what was it?” Dez asked, turning to Prees. Srral was the internist; Prees handled a much wider range of cause and effect.
“A nonpareil incident, incalculable odds on that…or directed energy,” she said. “I’d say weapon, but I’ve never heard of anything even close….”
She flashed an uncertain smile in Jake’s direction. “Angered any deities lately?”
“Maybe so,” Jake said, mustering a fake smile. “Though, considering where it happened, a total freak occurrence can’t be ruled out, either.”
Dez could actually see the hope drain out of Jake’s eyes, and decided it was time to move things along. Meeting some of the crew had provided a distraction, but it was late; the boy needed to eat and sleep before he’d be able to look at the situation with any real objectivity. He looked exhausted, and Dez reminded himself to give Pif a good kick later for waking him up. Figuratively speaking, of course.
“You’re alive and well, that’s the important thing,” Dez said firmly. “And undoubtedly starving by now—why don’t we leave all this for later, and go introduce you to something edible?”
Jake nodded unenthusiastically, though he managed to paste on a smile for Prees and Lemastess, muttering a polite word or two for having met them all. He certainly had better manners than Dez had kept at his age….
…Stop the comparisons. He’s not you.
Right. There was no reason at all to think that young Jake had gone looking for his father because he felt lonely or uncertain, coming of age, because he still looked in the mirror and saw his father standing behind him, tall and strong and sure, everything that he couldn’t yet find in his own searching gaze….
…Enough!
As they walked away from the broken shuttle, Dez found himself hoping that Facity might be willing to postpone their after-dinner date, realizing that he was feeling somewhat exhausted himself. Exhausted, but intrigued…wondering what it might have been like for him if he’d met a Zin Dezavrim when he was first starting out, someone who could have shown him even a few of the possibilities that were out there, just waiting to be touched and tasted and experienced by a willing young heart. Someone like his own father, if his own father had wanted the job….
“How did you happen to come by that prophecy of yours?” he asked abruptly, and as Jake started to explain, Dez began to wake up, to see a number of new possibilities taking shape.
So, I’ve been rescued, and here I am, totally wiped out and still wide awake. I keep thinking about how far I am from home, and how long it’ll take for me to get back. I’m thinking about a lot of things; it’s been an interesting day, to say the least, and since I have absolutely no idea what else to do at the moment (Dez said I shouldn’t go roaming until I get the tour, tomorrow morning) I thought I might as well write some of it down.
First thing, my grand journey into the Temple of the Prophets, to find Dad…I’m thinking “big mistake” might be the understatement of the century, and not just because the prophecy didn’t turn out. What exactly happened to my shuttle? Maybe it was some bizarre storm, maybe the Prophets saved my life by tossing me into the Gamma Quadrant, I don’t know…. But I do know thatif the Even Odds hadn’t come along, I’d be Jake-on-astick by now. Which says what, exactly, about how important I am to the Prophets, to their so-called plan? Actually, how can I even ask myself that question? Dad is their Emissary, their Chosen, and it’s been painfully clear throughout my life that how that affects me is of no import to them. Now that I think about it, maybe this is all for the best…. If I feel stupid and guilty now, forkeeping it a secret from my friends, for jumping into it with both feet and very nearly dying for it, maybe I’ll think twice next time before letting myself believe that the Prophets are watching out for my best interests. Does that seem bitter? Do I care? I want to go home. I know it’s
my fault that I’m here, I know I’m responsible for the decision, but it’s about time I stop kidding myself. Maybe Dad didn’t have a choice about having the Prophets in his life, but I do.
I’m incredibly lucky to be alive, and luckier yet that it was Dez and his people who found me. Over dinner (which was actually a pretty good seafood stew; after three days of basic carb-protein packs, I’m relieved to report that their replicators [shifters, in Gamma-speak] are restaurant-quality), after I told him about Kas, and how I really need to get back, he offered to drop out of warp and shoot a directed-channel message back toward the wormhole, just saying that I’m uninjured and accounted for…no ship identification, though, and no route plan (either they’re really lawbreakers or they really think they are, I can’t quite tell; so far, I haven’t gotten the impression that Dez is any more crooked than Quark, which would make him just another entrepreneur of victimless crime…according to Quark, anyway). He said he’s sorry he can’t take me back, but they’re going to be busy. Apparently Ee is only a few weeks away in a straight line; it will take them four or five months because of all of the stops they need to make along the way. He says that with the war having just ended, this is the Even’s one chance to “run salvage,” that if they don’t do it now, it won’t be there later….
Not that I can or should complain. I’m grateful for the attempt to send word, though the chances of it being picked up are about one in a billion. Less, probably, no repeater hardware, no beacon signal, just a straight com; with no subspace relay on this side of the wormhole anymore, there’d actually have to be a ship on the Gamma side, listening for it. Still, it’s all that can be done, and considering he knows practically nothing about me, it’s nice of him to offer.
We talked some about the war, and though I didn’t tell him what was happening at the station when I left—just to be on the safe side—I managed to get across that I didn’t think it was the safest time to be near the wormhole. Dez seemed almost amused by my concern, in a friendly way. It’s obvious that he’s not worried. Apparently the Even Odds managed to keep out of the Dominion’s way when the Jem’Hadar were pushing into the sectors around the wormhole. It’s easy to forget that not everyone was completely emmeshed in the fighting, that there were people just trying to make a living and hoping not to get involved.
