Warchild

by Esther Friesner

  "Here." The boy shoved a package, a flask, and a paper into his hands. "You're right: Just 'cause Dejana and I can get away safe doesn't mean the job's done. Good luck." He gave Dr. Bashir a fierce, gawky hug and darted away.

  Julian stared at Cedra's offerings: food and drink for the journey, right enough, but what was that paper? He unfolded it and saw the map of the other refugee camps that was Cedra's pride. Smiling broadly, he stowed it all.

  The day was fading, but there were still a few good hours of light left. Dr. Bashir consulted the map and noted where the closest camp was, then selected another, farther away. He had no illusions: they would search for him as soon as they discovered he was gone. They might not miss him at dinner, but his absence would not go unnoticed for long after that. Better a few nights' roughing it in the hills than taking the short march toward comfort and inevitable capture. He made his choice and headed out of the camp.

  "Healer?"

  As Dr. Bashir stood on a rocky rise to the west of the camp, a whisper from the shadows behind him brought him up short. He turned and saw Cedra leading a small, stocky creature that looked like a cross between a horse and an ostrich. "You'll go faster if you ride." The boy extended the loops of the reins. The verdanis snorted and tossed its head.

  Dr. Bashir took the reins and regarded the beast thoughtfully. "I can't take this, Cedra," he said. "It would be stealing a valuable animal that they need here."

  "Tossi's not valuable." Cedra spoke as one who knew. "Not here. He's too small to pull any carts and he's too wild to turn the millstone or the thresher. They're keeping him here only until he grows big enough to earn his keep, but he never will. You'll be doing them a favor by taking him off their hands and saving his fodder for a verdanis that'll give something back. Tossi's got too much racing blood in him; all he's good for is riding. My father taught me how to tell a good verdanis from a bad 'un, so you can take my word."

  "I can, can I?" Bashir asked. He stroked the beast's pointed muzzle, and it tried to take a bite out of his hand.

  "You will," Cedra replied confidently. "It's what you want to hear." He scampered back into the camp.

  Julian studied his new mount. Tossi glowered at him but made no further moves to bite. The verdanis wore no saddle, just a folded blanket slung across its back. Grudgingly it deigned to allow Julian to pat its neck.

  "I used to be a pretty fair rider," Julian remarked to the beast. "Of course, that was horses. Well, let's see." Clutching the reins, the doctor rested his hands on the animal's back and vaulted up and over to land heavily astride. Tossi did a little sideways dance but did not bolt. There was a giddy moment when it looked as if the unwieldy burden of Dr. Bashir's many packs was about to overbalance him. But he held the reins tight with one hand while steadying himself on Tossi's rump with the other.

  "Ugh," he said, adjusting across his chest the set of the heavy leather strap from which the biosample replicator hung. "Nearly choked myself." The thick edge hooked itself under the tip of his comm badge, nearly tearing the insignia from his chest. I'd better—" he began, preparing to hang the replicator at a different angle. Then he touched the badge and froze.

  Orders to leave …

  "I have my orders," he told the horizon. He left the replicator strap as it was and clapped his heels to the barrel of the verdanis. It launched itself into a land devouring gait cousin to a fast canter. Dr. Bashir held on with his knees and concentrated on interpreting the landmarks they passed. The replicator strap worked its way further and further under his comm badge with every lurching step of the verdanis.

  I really ought to do something about that, he told himself, knowing he would do nothing. Accidents happen; they're no one's fault. I can't worry about that now. I have a job to do.

  He left the fields behind and took to the rocky upslopes of the hills.

  Lieutenant Dax let the light from her searchbeam play over the faint footprints of the verdanis. At her shoulder, Ensign Kahrimanis asked, "Do you still see anything, sir?"

  "Don't you?"

  He shook his head. "He lost me when he veered off the dirt path."

  "If it's any consolation, he's about to lose me, too. There's solid rock underfoot up ahead. We'll never find him this way."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "What I should have done in the first place: Order him back. Commander Sisko told me we're to expect the runabout at dawn." She touched her comm badge. "Dax to Bashir."

  There was no answer.

  "Dax to Bashir," she repeated. "Dr. Bashir, respond." Still nothing. She tried a third time. "Damn it, he knows Starfleet regulations as well as I do," she muttered. "He knows what will happen to him if he deserts—Dax to Bashir!"

  Ensign Kahrimanis tugged at her arm. "I think I heard something. It's coming from those rocks up ahead. Do you think maybe he had an accident and can't respond? The kids say those racing verdanis are hell to ride. If he got thrown—"

  "Come in, Dr. Bashir." Dax's sending was urgent. She dreaded discovering that Kahrimanis was right. She pricked up her ears and listened. There did seem to be a faint, echoing sound coming from that tumble of rocks. In the dark the stones held a dozen places where a running animal could catch its foot and fall, flinging its rider to the ground. She scrambled over the stones, flashing her searchbeam out in long, sweeping arcs.

  Something twinkled among the rocks. She was on it in an instant. Ensign Kahrimanis came panting up behind her in time to see Dr. Bashir's torn-away comm badge nestling still and useless in the palm of Lieutenant Dax's hand.

  CHAPTER 9

  MAJOR KIRA was the first off the runabout when it landed on the outskirts of the camp. She saw Lieutenant Dax waiting for her amid a crowd of gawking, gesturing children and adults. Most of them wore blankets wrapped around their bodies. She wondered if they were the patients from the infirmary. If so, word of the curative powers of Dax's antibody hadn't done the results justice. She leaped lightly to the ground and hurried forward to greet her friend.

  Behind her, she heard Vedek Torin come trotting after at a more sedate pace. The Na-melis vedek had greeted news of the Nekor's discovery with rapture and insisted that he be present when the child was fetched from the refugee camp. Commander Sisko saw no harm in it—had favored the idea, in fact. ("After all, Vedek Torin will be in charge of the girl from now on. She should meet him as soon as possible.")

  The crowd surrounding Lieutenant Dax rushed toward Major Kira, faces alight. What are they—? she thought, only to have the human wave part to either side of her and bustle past to their true goal, the runabout. The Bajoran officer understood. She recalled her own days in a Cardassian internment camp, when any distraction—however plebeian—was a major event. Some of the refugees stopped short of the runabout, preferring to make Vedek Torin their goal. He was ringed by a jabbering circle of questioning children, some of whom had never seen a Bajoran vedek in spotless, unmended robes before this. Major Kira heard one of them accuse him of being a fake. She smiled and hoped Vedek Torin would be able to talk himself out of that.

  "Any sign of him?" Kira asked Dax at once. News of Dr. Bashir's vanishment had hit Ops only hours ago.

  The Trill shook her head. "He's not to blame. He lost his comm badge."

  "Doing what?"

  "Following orders, according to Talis Cedra."

  "Talis Cedra? The Nekor's big brother?" Kira smirked. "Commander Sisko's going to love hearing that." She turned her gaze to the hills, where the first rays of dawn were transforming the rocky slopes to gold. "Still, you have to admire him. He always wanted to be so—heroic. Now, for the first time since I've known him, he's succeeded."

  "Is that the defense you'll make for him when he's court-martialed?" Dax asked. As far as she knew, Dr. Bashir had no experience whatsoever in living off the land, and the terrain of the devastated Kaladrys Valley was not one of the most hospitable on Bajor. She was concerned for him, and it came out as waspishness.

  "Don't exaggerate," Kira returned p
leasantly. "It won't come to that. As our young friend Talis Cedra said, Dr. Bashir is obeying orders, like a good little Starfleet officer. When he's found and ordered back aboard DS9, he'll obey that directive too. If he's found," she added.

  "What do you mean, 'if'?"

  Major Kira made a gesture of helplessness. "When you sent word of his disappearance, Commander Sisko dispatched a runabout with orders to lock on to Dr. Bashir via his comm badge and use the transporters to bring him home."

  "But he hasn't got his comm badge anymore," Dax pointed out.

  "So we learned. Then Commander Sisko ordered a sensor reading on Dr. Bashir's life-sign patterns to be used as a target instead. That didn't work either, from high orbit or low."

  Dax was alarmed. "He can't be—?"

  "—dead?" Kira finished the sentence for her. "I doubt that. If a Starfleet medical officer can't survive one night on his own out there, the Federation might as well pack up and go home tomorrow. It didn't work because the sensors are still playing games. Nasty games; you should hear what Chief O'Brien's been calling them."

  Dax's brows rose. "I can imagine."

  "No, you can't. Not in all your lives. This is prime stuff. If I were back aboard, I'd be taking notes." The two women laughed, but the tension remained. "So," Kira said at last. "Where's the Nekor?"

  "In the infirmary with her brother. They spent the night there, and it would've been a bad idea for her to wait out here in the morning chill."

  By this time, Vedek Torin had managed to shunt the crowd of curiosity seekers aside and join Dax and Major Kira. Together the three of them headed the procession back to the infirmary.

  The body of Brother Talissin lay across the curtained doorway, half in and half out of the infirmary, blood flowing from a deep gash in his skull. Every light inside the building was extinguished; only the feeble rays of the rising sun cast dusty beams through the high windows. The children saw the body and bolted, shrieking. The few adults in the crowd caught the smaller ones in their arms and held them so that they didn't have to see the blood. Vedek Torin uttered a fearful cry.

  "What's happened?" he exclaimed, pressing his hands together in panic. He grabbed Lieutenant Dax's arm. "You said she was here! I see no one, nothing but this—this—" He moaned and covered his eyes.

  Lieutenant Dax dropped to one knee beside Brother Talissin's body and felt for a pulse. Major Kira drew her phaser and swept the dim interior of the infirm with her eyes. "Kahrimanis?" she whispered for Dax's ears alone.

  "He should be here, too. I left him with the children," Dax replied.

  "The children …" Major Kira looked at the refugee children still clustering near. "Get them out of here," she ordered. No one stirred. She glared over one shoulder and barked, "I said move." The few remaining adult Bajorans herded the whimpering little ones away, murmuring words of comfort.

  Dax looked up. "Talissin's still alive."

  Major Kira did not hear this last bit of news. She was moving fleetly down the eastern wall of the building, taking a path that would allow her to see if anyone was lurking inside the sheeted cubicles that blocked a complete, clear view of the great room. Something rustled overhead. Her eyes flew up just as a small, wiry form dropped in front of her from a rafter. Her phaser was aimed and steady on it in an eyeblink.

  "Don't shoot!" Cedra shouted, flinging his hands up across his face.

  Kira's phaser fell to her side as her hand darted out to seize him by the ear. "You idiot! Do you want to get yourself killed?"

  "Ow! Lemme go!" A stream of profanity that would have left even Chief O'Brien awestruck poured from the boy's mouth. "Idiot yourself, damn it! He's got Dejana!"

  "Who's got her? Where are they? Where's Ensign Kahrimanis?"

  The boy ignored the questions. With a fantastic wriggle he broke free from Kira's grip and sprang away. "Come with me. Now. Just you." He pointed at Major Kira. "You're the fighter. If he sees too many coming after him, he'll kill her." Without waiting for Major Kira's consent to follow him, he spun on his heel and ran for the infirmary door.

  Major Kira followed; there was no choice. Vedek Torin tried to detain her, but she sidestepped him as agilely as the boy did. "Help Lieutenant Dax with your brother," she panted, giving him a push that almost sent him tumbling on top of Talissin's body. Already the boy was well ahead of her. She could not afford to lose sight of him. Something told her that he had only been lurking in the rafters long enough to find the help he needed. Having found it, he wasn't going to waste any more time looking back.

  The boy raced through the camp and Kira raced after. Sometimes she sidestepped people and things that got in her way, sometimes she didn't have that luxury. She heard more than one "Hey! Watch where you're going!" and "Talis Cedra, what kind of trouble are you in now?"

  As if in answer, the boy shouted, "I didn't mean to take it, lady! Honest, I didn't!" He kept up a barrage of whiny please for clemency until he and Kira were out of the cramped precincts of the camp and well into the plowed lands. Once there, he stopped so abruptly that Major Kira ran right into him and knocked him sprawling.

  "You mind telling me what that was all about?" she asked as she yanked the boy to his feet.

  "Didn't want anyone else coming with us," he said, breathing hard. "No one would if they think it's just something between you and me." He wiped sweat from his forehead, leaving a brown smear. "Now we have to go quiet."

  "Not so fast." Kira's hand closed on his shoulder. "I need to know what I'm walking into."

  "You didn't, once. I told you: He took my sister."

  "Who did?"

  "Remis Jobar." The killing look was back in Cedra's eye. "He's got her out there, in one of the huts the reapers use to get out of the rain." He pointed out across the empty fields.

  Major Kira shaded her eyes and gazed into the distance. She could just see a battered metal roof sticking up above the brow of a shallow depression in the land. "Are you sure?"

  "I tracked him when he took her. Then I ran back to the infirmary and hid. I said I didn't want a whole mob, just you."

  "How do you know he hasn't moved on?"

  "He can't. He's not strong enough. And he's just realized that now he's got her, he doesn't know how to sell her for the best price. He's trying to make up his mind."

  Kira regarded the boy thoughtfully. "It sounds to me as if your sister's not the only member of your family who's been touched by the Prophets."

  Cedra gave her the same look children always give adults who have just said something stupider than usual. "You can make anyone think you're touched by the Prophets if you pay attention and play it right."

  Kira did not chide the boy for his attitude. She knew from her own experience how quickly faith was eaten away by cynicism in the camps. All she said was "Don't let Vedek Torin hear you say things like that or when they take your sister to the Temple, you'll be left behind."

  "Not me." He showed her a brave grin. "Dejana won't go anywhere without me, and I won't go anywhere without Dejana. If they want their Nekor, they've got to take us both."

  Major Kira checked the setting on her phaser. "They'll take you both; I guarantee it. What kind of weapons does Remis Jobar have with him?"

  "A knife—not a real knife, something he made for himself out of a farm tool. It's clumsy, with a heavy handle."

  "Anything else?"

  "A big stick—a staff, I guess. He needs it to help him walk, but not that much. He used it to crack Brother Talissin's head when the monk tried to stop him."

  "Not too bad," Kira muttered, preparing to advance on the hut. "If I can get a clear shot, I can stun him and—"

  "And one of those." Cedra pointed at the phaser.

  Kira sat down. "What? Are you sure?"

  "I know what I saw," Cedra said. "And I remember."

  Cedra remembered trailing after Gis while the monk made his rounds, extinguishing most of the infirmary lights for the night. The air was still, the silence broken only from time to time by t
he sound of Dejana's sporadic coughing.

  "Do not fear, son," Brother Gis said kindly, patting Cedra's head. "She sounds better daily, and you know she will receive only the finest care When—"

  "This is an outrage." Talissin's angry face loomed pale and eerie in the dimness of the infirmary. He marched forward, shaking a bony finger. "Why is she still here, among these—these common people?"

  "Perhaps because illness is no respecter of persons, my brother," Gis replied evenly. "Fortunately for us all, neither is sleep. Lower your voice before you wake her and the others."

  "She should not be here," Talissin maintained, staring at the curtained cubicle where Dejana drowsed. "We should remove her, give up our own tent so that she need not lie here like—like—"

  "Like any other sick child?" Gis asked.

  "She is not like any other child; she is the Nekor! Do you not realize what this means? There are people in the capitol—important people—who will be grateful to us for having sheltered her, treated her well. They will provide us with all manner of things this camp needs desperately, solely because we were her attentive caretakers."

  "Huh! Like you ever treated Dejana special before you found out who she is!" Cedra blurted.

  Talissin's scowl was terrible. "Why you impertinent—!"

  "Let the boy be, my brother," Gis said. "He speaks the truth of his heart. The Prophets teach us never to fear the truth."

  Another cough from Dejana's cubicle turned Talissin's ascetic face pale. "There! Do you hear that? She must be moved to better quarters."

  "No, she must not," Gis replied. "What she must do is have an unbroken night's rest."

  "Then I will stay here with her and keep watch." Talissin folded his hands inside the sleeves of his robe.

  "I am assigned night duty," Gis said mildly. "And see, there is Ensign Kahrimanis to aid me." He nodded toward the back of the infirmary, where Dr. Bashir's assistant was stretched out on a spare pallet, snatching a catnap.