Lela nodded. There wasn’t much she could say to him. There wasn’t much she could say to anyone.
She found Sitlas. He was pouring over data on one of the consoles.
“Any translations yet?” she asked.
He shook his head. “We don’t have common words, apparently, for some of these things.” He pushed his chair back. “I do have a transmission from Vulcan, however, coded specifically for you. Would you like to take it privately?”
She sighed. Too little, too late. “If you don’t mind.”
He led her to his office, a large room off the observatory. The inside was decorated with plants and pictures of purple waves, crashing on famous beaches.
He directed her to his chair, punched the console, and then left her. The Vulcan IDIC symbol—a silver circle with a gold triangle overlapping its lower edge—blinked on the screen. She tapped it.
A young woman appeared. Her long face looked majestic to Lela, and she wore her dark hair piled high above her head. The hairstyle displayed, rather than hid, her pointed ears.
“The beings who orbit your planet are known to us as the L’Dira. They depend upon a substance you call acelon for much of their technology. They have exhausted the supplies of acelon on their homework! and in the surrounding solar system.”
The woman’s speech was curiously accented, as if she were actually speaking Trill instead of letting a translation program make her words clear.
“The L’Dira will trade for any acelon they receive, but they are an impatient people. If they believe negotiations have taken too long, they will take what they need. Their weapons technology is quite advanced. We calculate an eighty-three-point-nine percent probability that they will overpower your defenses. The L’Dira are quite tenacious. They will not leave until they have what they came for. We suggest that, in order to avoid bloodshed, you negotiate with them, and come to a satisfactory arrangement before they decide to take matters into their own hands.”
The woman then vanished from the viewscreen, to be replaced by the symbol.
Lela bit her lower lip. The message both relieved her and angered her. She hadn’t caused the attack. The destruction would have happened anyway. But she had been wrong. She had thought the aliens in need, hurting. She had let her imagination rule her heart. There was no place for fancy in government. Perhaps if she had been looking more clearly, she would have focused on the word “trade” instead of the word “need.”
The door opened. Sitlas stood there, Odan beside him. Lela stiffened.
“I heard there was a message from Vulcan,” Odan said.
“It’s for me,” Lela said.
“I assume it’s in response to your query. If that’s the case, then it’s for all of us.” His voice was curiously gentle.
Lela got up and stood aside. Odan came into the room, but Sitlas remained outside, and closed the door.
Odan sat in the chair, and touched the screen, just as Lela had. The message played. The woman’s voice had as much—or perhaps more—force on the repetition.
Lela did not watch Odan as the message played. She listened again, tried to see if there was any blame in it, but there appeared to be none. Only the logical and careful words of an ally. An ally who had been contacted too late.
When the message ended, Lela turned. Odan was rubbing his eyes with one hand. When he realized she was watching him, he made a weak attempt at a smile and stood.
“I thank you for sharing the message with me,” he said. “I would like to play it for the council.”
She nodded. Of course her role in all of this would have to be made clear. Odan would see to it.
Losing her position on the council would hurt terribly—especially now. But she would take the punishment, if she had to, even though that meant she would leave the council in the hands of those who tried to keep outsiders away from Trill. Over fifty people had died because Trill didn’t know the proper way to deal with the L’Dira. And if Lela had to sacrifice her career to prove that point, she would do it.
She wouldn’t let anyone die on her watch again.
Odan presented everything to the council. Lela’s actions, the response from Vulcan. Everything. He did so in a quiet voice, his head bowed, as if he couldn’t look at his fellow councillors.
Lela sat in her chair in the back, unable to touch the acelon desk before her. All the processed acelon remained. Only the raw, newly harvested acelon had been taken. She could no longer look at the substance without thinking of the ground rumbling beneath her feet, the mist of dust, the bleeding people staggering through the remains of their neighborhood.
There wasn’t much to say after Odan’s presentation. No one even tried. Fifty deaths, the words of the Vulcan woman, the place that ignorance had brought them all was obvious even to the most isolationist council members.
The votes were swift and clear. Trill would no longer tell its alien visitors to avoid the planet. Each alien ship would be handled on a case-by-case basis. Protection for the Caves of Mak’ala would increase. Trill would do all it could to learn about its neighbors from the stars.
The first step, suggested by Odan, was to ask Vulcan to send a representative immediately, armed with information about all the species that Vulcan was familiar with. The representative would make a short verbal presentation to the council, as well as give Trill Vulcan’s entire database on other life-forms.
Lela had a hunch Vulcan would welcome this request.
Then Odan relinquished the floor, and Lytus’s podium rose. Lela watched in confusion as it rose to the highest level, the level of the beginners. Her level.
“We have one final matter,” Lytus said, “and I believe it is as important as all the other matters we touched upon today.”
He was looking at her. Lela’s stomach tightened. She didn’t know if he was going to praise her for her attempt at contacting the L’Dira or if he was going to chastise her in front of the council.
She wasn’t sure she wanted to experience either one. She had been wrong about the L’Dira. She had taken the wrong actions for the right reasons, and in that, she felt as if she had failed.
“Lela Dax,” Lytus said and Lela started, “has violated her oath as a council member. She has failed to follow protocol, failed to acknowledge our resolutions. When she contacted the L’Dira she took the business of governing Trill into her own hands. This is treason—”
“No!” Lela whispered, her voice cracking.
“—and shall be treated as such before the council. Lela Dax, you must stand.”
She was shaking. She hadn’t committed treason. She hadn’t done anything criminal. She had only disregarded a resolution. She hadn’t represented herself as the leader of Trill—in fact, she had been careful to avoid that.
But she said none of those things.
“You have been charged with treason. In closed session, the council will decide your future. Until then, you will not be allowed inside chambers, and all of your privileges as a council member are hereby revoked.”
She had studied such things in Trill’s history, but she thought treason charges happened only in the past, when Trill was a younger, less stable society. Her throat ached, and her eyes burned. She’d never expected this to happen to her. She didn’t even know how to act.
Lytus was staring at her directly. “You must leave us now,” he said, and his words weren’t gentle.
She stood, nearly losing her balance, but she didn’t put out her hand to catch herself. She wasn’t going to fall, not now, not in front of everyone. She walked with slow deliberation, making the few steps to the door take forever.
Then she stepped into the corridor, and the double doors slammed behind her, maybe forever.
She put a hand on the wall and leaned against it heavily. Fifty-five people had died. The council needed a scapegoat and she was the obvious one. That, in some ways, was the political way to look at this.
But inside, she couldn’t help wondering if, in her concern for the
aliens—her misplaced concern, she hadn’t actually done the things Lytus had charged her with.
She was shaking so badly she didn’t know what to do. There wasn’t anything she could do. Until the council finished its deliberations—apparently without her—she had no profession, no work. Nothing to do.
She couldn’t even defend herself.
A hand touched her shoulder. She blinked twice, trying to compose herself before looking to see who was behind her. Probably someone they sent to kick her out of the building.
She took a deep breath, and turned.
Odan stood there. As soon as she faced him, he let his hand fall.
She braced herself. The last thing she wanted was another confrontation, but better to get it over with now when everything was going wrong.
He noted her new stance, and nodded slightly, as if in acknowledgment of their adversarial relationship. “It is customary in matters like this,” he said, sounding even more formal than usual, “for the defendant to have an advocate in the council.”
She had known that, but she hadn’t remembered it until he mentioned it. All of the defendants in the treason trials—all five of them over the centuries—had had advocates to argue their case.
She opened her mouth to thank Odan for reminding her of this. He hadn’t owed her anything, and yet he was willing to help her, at least this much.
But he spoke first. “If it’s all right with you, I would like to be your advocate.”
For a moment, she didn’t think she had heard him correctly. Then she frowned. Another political trick? It couldn’t be. Odan, for all his machinations, was too ethical for that.
“Thank you,” Lela said. “But I don’t really understand why you would want to, given our history.”
For the first time, his gaze didn’t meet hers. “Because you were right.”
“No, I wasn’t. I thought they were hurting—”
“You said we should learn as much about our neighbors as we can. You were right. If we had known about the L’Dira’s behaviors, we wouldn’t have made the mistakes we did. We wouldn’t have lost all those lives.”
“That’s what you’ll argue before the council?” she asked.
“That and other things.” He raised his head. She had never seen his black eyes look so sad. “You’ve taught me much, Lela Dax. You’ve taught me that just because someone has lived several lifetimes doesn’t mean he has an open mind.”
The closed session was continuous, breaking only for meals and sleep. The councillors weren’t allowed to speak to anyone and were, in fact, housed away from their families for the duration of the trial. Lela had thought the session would last a day, maybe two, but it seemed to drag on forever.
Perhaps more was at stake than her career. If Odan had made his argument about open minds, the entire chamber probably had erupted into anger.
On the morning of the third day, the Vulcan emissary arrived on Trill. The emissary wasn’t allowed to speak to the council until the trial was done, and so was housed in a government apartment across the road from Lela’s. Lela had hoped for an audience, but had been turned away by Trill security. For the moment, Lela was less than a citizen. She was no one at all.
Still, Lela heard rumors that the emissary was interested in the trial and its outcome, although she didn’t know why. Lela herself had never met any Vulcans, and didn’t know why they would be interested in the internal affairs of Trill.
On the other matters, however, Lela heard no rumors. She had no idea what the council would decide about her fate. She wasn’t sure what she deserved.
Finally, on the fourth afternoon, she couldn’t stand being confined in her rooms any longer. Desperate for some kind of clarity, she went to the only place left: the Caves of Mak’ala.
The Guardians let her in, of course. She wasn’t sure they would. She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
The caves felt like home. She went deep inside, to the pools. The grayish liquid looked inviting. Part of her missed the water, missed the interconnecting pools, and the warmth, and the sudden communication with the other symbionts. The faintly damp odor made her tingle, and she watched as a symbiont surfaced. Energy discharged across the water as the symbiont communicated with one of its unseen fellows. She felt as if she could almost, almost understand what was being said.
But almost understanding and truly understanding were two very different things.
She should have known that. She remembered what it was like to imagine being joined, and then experiencing the reality. They were nothing alike.
If she had remembered that, she might have known that she was making a mistake with the alien ship.
Maybe.
Odan was right. She was doubly young. And only beginning to learn.
She stayed in the caves for a very long time, watching the symbionts rise and play in the waters. What a carefree time that had been, and how she hadn’t known it. The Dax part of her had wanted to see the rest of the world, the rest of the universe, and now it could.
At great cost.
Perhaps she wasn’t worthy of her symbiont. Perhaps her ambitions were too small, her imagination too wild. Perhaps the Symbiosis Evaluation Board had made a mistake in choosing her.
But the choice had been made. To remove the symbiont was to kill Lela, and no matter what she had done, she wasn’t ready to die.
Finally, she sighed and left the pools. Going back wasn’t the answer. Going forward, no matter what, was the only solution.
She turned away from the pools and took her first step.
When she returned to her apartment, she was startled to find three guards in front of the door. Two of them were Vulcan. The third was a man she recognized from the diplomatic corps.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“The emissary from Vulcan made a request. I felt that we should honor it.”
Lela frowned at him. “What request?”
“Please, just go inside.”
She did. As she closed the door, a young and statuesque Vulcan woman turned away from the windows. She wore long robes and had her hands threaded together inside their sleeves. Her entire body had a majesty that Lela had never seen before.
Although she had seen the woman’s face. It was the same woman who had responded to her message.
“I am T’Pau,” the woman said. “We should talk.”
It felt odd to have her here—to have anyone here—among Lela’s meager possessions. Her furniture was provided. The bits of artwork on the walls had been done by a childhood friend. The sparseness of the apartment seemed to stand out painfully in the Vulcan’s presence.
T’Pau seemed to sense Lela’s discomfort. “You have great courage,” she said.
Lela shook her head. “I am a great fool.”
“I have seen nothing foolish about you.” T’Pau glanced at the wooden chair beside her.
Lela blushed. “I’m sorry. Please, have a seat.”
“I know it is not customary for your people to allow others inside their private spaces,” T’Pau said as she sat. “I should have gone through proper channels. But, it seemed, no one wanted us to speak. I thought this course the most prudent.”
“It’s fine,” Lela said, wondering if what she had heard was actually an apology or if she had just imagined it. She sat in an upholstered chair she rarely used. It made her feel as if she were the guest in her own home.
T’Pau seemed focused on what she needed to say. “Your people are not used to first contacts. To meet another species is a difficult thing.”
“I’m beginning to realize that,” Lela said.
“We learn it every time we encounter one.” T’Pau’s speech patterns were oddly formal. She did not smile as she spoke.
Was this what made an alien—the subtle differences, the fact that even though they seemed the same, they were not? Or were the more obvious differences, like the ears, the most important ones? Lela couldn’t tell.
“Our most recent encounter,�
� T’Pau said, “was with a strange species. We did not expect them to have warp capabilities, but they did. They had suffered a devastating global war and were just recovering from it. A man in a remote area of their countryside built a warp ship as a beacon of hope. We saw it, and initiated contact.”
Lela waited. Obviously T’Pau was trying to impart something important.
“They are a highly passionate people—so passionate that even their music stirs the emotions. My colleagues on the ship that made the first contact reported that much of their music was physically painful to listen to.”
Lela frowned. She wasn’t sure how this should matter to her.
“But they are a highly creative people, an intuitive people, who seem to use their intellect and their emotions in harmony to create new things. We believe that, given time, their potential will increase exponentially. Despite their recent troubles, and a long history of discord, we believe they are on the verge of becoming a powerful force for civilization.”
“How do you know that?” Lela asked.
“Knowledge. Our experience observing other cultures has demonstrated that it is the species who strive, who try new things, who ultimately thrive among the stars. Those that hide their heads stagnate. They do not survive.”
She understood that, and didn’t like it. “I stuck my head out, but I made such a mistake. I believed the L’Dira harmless. I thought maybe they were in trouble.”
“They were in trouble,” T’Pau said, “in their own way of thinking. They rely on acelon. It is necessary for the way they live, and they will not learn any other way, even though they have used up all the acelon in their own system. It has driven them to become little more than pirates, even though they claim they will trade.”
“I should have suspected something,” Lela said.
T’Pau shook her head. “It is illogical to expect yourself to act differently in hindsight. However, you did not approach the L’Dira like L’Dira. You expected them to act like Trill. You must always trust a species to act in ways rational to its own culture. To do so requires you to understand that culture. It is not a task done lightly or quickly.”
STAR TREK: DS9 - The Lives of Dax Page 7
