She opened my mind that night, opened my eyes there in the darkness of my room, and filled them with her own light.
The last thing I recall was her voice, soft as perfume in my ear. “Do not walk away from what you need, young Sisko,” she said, almost as if she was someone else. “He cannot offer it. You must ask.”
I tried to ask her what she meant, but her fingers stole my thoughts, my words, and left only song.
It was enough.
I awoke without ever realizing I had lain down to sleep. Of course, she was gone. I drew my knees up to my chest, shivering with the heat, wondering if I would ever belong to myself again.
I was afraid for her, knowing that her life was forfeit if she was found on the station. The princeling had tried to take revenge for the royals, but there would be others. I was not thinking clearly, and knew it, but could not help myself. There was only one thing to do. I would take her away. If it meant abandoning my commission, so be it. Certainly there were things more important.
My vision narrowed down until it seemed I was staring down a tube, darkness at the edges. All I could see was Sabbath, all I could feel was the need to be with her again, on whatever terms. The thought of her performing in the cabaret one more night was more than I could endure.
It had to end, and I would end it.
I tapped my wall communicator, and called her quarters. There was no answer. “Computer,” I said to the empty air, “locate Sabbath Nile.”
“Sabbath Nile is no longer on Pelios Station.”
I stood, staring at myself in the mirror, temporarily not seeing the man I was, the man I had always assumed myself to be. Suddenly it seemed that I was not there, that I was looking through myself, that I could see a man-shaped outline, with stars sparkling behind them, an odd illusion that persisted even when I blinked. Certainly I was sleeping. I could not see what I saw. Could not have heard what had just been said.
“Repeat that?” I heard myself say.
The reply came at once. “Sabbath Nile is no longer on Pelios Station.”
I remembered opening and closing the door, but couldn’t remember dressing. Couldn’t remember running down my hall, couldn’t remember how long it took me before I stood before Dax’s door. I pounded my fist against the door, and it did not open. I drew stares from the people who passed in the hall, and whispers, and suddenly realized that I was a sight to behold.
I slowed, the stars no longer drawing me when I closed my eyes. I slapped my combadge. “Computer, locate Curzon Dax.”
“Curzon Dax is in the main council room.”
I took a deep breath, attempting to steady myself, and looked down at my clothing. I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover myself naked, such a fever was I in. But I wore my uniform, and except for the fact that my creases were out of alignment, I looked fine. I straightened myself, thanking endless hours of practice for allowing my unconscious ablutions to be as polished as this.
I was still in a fever when I came to the council room door. It opened for me. Admiral Janeway and several Federation officials were congratulating Dax as I entered. I caught snatches of their conversation, and only a very tiny word that told me everything that I wanted to know.
“Sacrifice,” the word had been.
I stared at Dax, suddenly understanding, not wanting to understand, but in some way needing to. Dax shook Janeway’s hand as the admiral left, still speaking his congratulations.
Dax stood in the empty room, at the podium.
I felt the essence of the understanding Sabbath had imparted to me slipping away. “A celebration,” I said numbly.
Dax nodded. “Yes, Ensign, There is cause to celebrate.”
“The Azziz have left, haven’t they?”
Again, Curzon Dax indicated the affirmative.
“And Sabbath Nile is with them.”
“Sh’tan predicts a seventy percent chance that her nervous system can carry the load, can sustain them. Can get them home.”
“But she’ll never return.”
“We do not know that. This opens a new era in our relationship with the Azziz. We don’t understand enough about them to say.”
“She may not survive the journey.”
“None of us survive the journey, young Ensign.”
Anger such as I had never felt, never known existed flooded up in me, coursed through me, strong as the love and the need, only inverted. Through it I heard Dax say:
“She came to you last night, didn’t she?”
I nodded, miserably. In a moment, I would kill Dax for what he had done. In a moment, I would—
My legs were unsteady.
“She should not. What she shared with you was forbidden at the deepest levels imaginable. She gave you a gift, young Ensign. One she thought you strong enough to bear. Was she right?”
I couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. Knew only the great, great pain filling my heart.
“She could not stay. Could not go anywhere within the Federation. Assassins are inexpensive, and they would have considered it a matter of honor to kill her. She wished to live. We now have the treaties, and the technology we need. That her people need. The Azziz, in being joined to her, are joined to the Federation in a way that they can understand.”
My entire body trembled, and I could no longer stand. I sat heavily on the table, arms hugging my stomach.
He was a monster. “So everything ... is fine now?” I put as much acid in the word as I could.
“No, it is ill,” and as he said that his officious manner slid aside for a moment, and I saw a very old, very tired man, a man who had, once again, made decisions and compromises lesser men could not even imagine. Sacrificing a splendid young woman. Or saving her. Capping his own career. Or damning himself. “But it was the best we could do. It was the only answer, once the violence occurred. Young Ensign, I see something in you, an urge to understand everything within the logic you love so dearly. But the last and greatest lesson of reason is to understand that there are things beyond its reach. I see this in you. As did Sabbath. Which is why she gave you the gift she did. Was she wrong?”
I gazed at Dax, every muscle in my body trembling, feeling the tide of my rage washing over me, clawing at me, demanding ...
What?
Dax watched me with eyes that were old before my birth, eyes that were beyond compassion.
We are each so alone. We treasure what small joinings we may find. As the Azziz with their colonies. As Dax and his symbiont. As Sabbath and her Triad, even though she had chosen life.
And where did I belong, and to what?
My knees weakened beneath me and I felt a great wave break as the induced rage and rapture began to subside. I looked at my fingers and saw hands, not stars. Looked at Dax’s face and saw a face. Dax touched my shoulder, and I stepped back, knowing that I did not understand the creature before me, and worse, that I did not understand myself.
And I had never understood Sabbath at all.
What was I doing here? As the wave broke I felt naked, exposed, like a child standing on a beach, staring at a tidal wave representing the knowledge of a universe vaster than all the seas, trying to contain that vastness in the plastic bucket at my side.
“Young Ensign,” Dax said kindly. “There comes a time when we understand that our minds do not contain the firmament. But still, our hearts can grasp it. Let go.”
I turned away, the breaking of the wave unleashing a flood of grief so strong that I wanted to die, knew I must die, knew that I could not survive, and Dax’s arm was around me, comfortingly, and I was ashamed—
And that passed as well.
I wiped my face, turning aside, composing myself, feeling Sabbath’s presence receding away and away from me, even as the Azziz ship was accelerating toward its distant point of origin. Felt myself saying goodbye to someone who had broken vows to embrace life, had cheapened herself to display in a bar gifts that had once been the exclusive province of royalty. And due to a bizarre twist, had fou
nd a way to redeem herself, and before she had, had set my mind free in a way I couldn’t have imagined.
And how much of this was Dax’s doing? I gasped for air, unformed words catching in my throat. There was a tiny space open, Sabbath’s gift, dwindling even as I examined it. Soon, if I did not fill it, it would close completely, and I would once again be thrust into a world of numbers and physics. Such a waste. There was more, so much more.
I looked at Dax with desperation, seeking words that wouldn’t come.
“I know,” Dax said.
“What do I do?”
“I cannot tell you that.”
Desperate, feeling the insight vanishing, even as I could not place it into words, I said: “Be my mentor, Curzon Dax. Be my friend. Help me understand.”
“You will never understand,” Dax said, and watched me carefully.
So many things, so little time. That spark of light glowed within me for a final moment, and I said: “Then help me see. Help me hear the music between the notes.”
His face broke into a small smile. “That I can do ... Benjamin.”
The world was not what I wished it to be. It was not what was represented in the text books, not what I thought or theorized or philosophized it to be. It just was.
And perhaps, just perhaps, that was not such a frightening thing. Tentatively, I extended my hand. He extended his, and for the first time, I truly felt the clasp of the greatest friend and teacher I have had in this life, the good and honorable Curzon Dax.
JADZIA
“Don’t mistake a new face for a new soul, Kang.”
—Jadzia Dax
“Blood Oath”
L. A. Graf
L. A. Graf is herself a conjoined species, collectively possessing degrees in geochemistry, biology, and neuromuscular therapy, as well as owning two dogs, four snakes, six cats, and a breeding leopard gecko colony, whose population fluctuates seasonally between twelve and forty animals. Individually, she is: Karen Rose Cercone, university geoscience professor, author of the Helen Sorby—Milo Kachigan historical mystery series, and owner of half the dogs and cats and all of the snakes; and Julia Ecklar, author of the popular Noah’s Ark science fiction series originally published in Analog magazine, professional animal trainer, and owner of the other half of the dogs and cats, as well as all the geckos.
Reflections
L. A. Graf
THE SYMBIONT INSIDE her stirred.
Not physical movement, not really. After joining, the soft-bodied packet of neurons and wetware that was the soul of Trill immortality fell quiescent among its bed of living organs until its host finally died decades later. So Jadzia knew, intellectually at least, that her reservoir of living memory didn’t squirm about inside her, didn’t spasm with her fear or twist with her pangs of guilt. But another part of her—the part that struggled to wrap words and images around the river of sensations poured into her awareness by her symbiont—that part insisted on fabricating tactile impulses where none could possibly exist. When Jadzia “felt” Dax tremble and huddle closer to her heart, she knew it was only a phantom reflection of their shared despair.
Still, her stomach clenched around that pulse of apparent movement, and she knotted her fist against the pouch in her belly without caring whether the sensation was real.
“Ziranne?”
She’d made her voice as soft as possible, but the woman at the window still jerked around as though she’d been slapped on the shoulder. Fear shadowed her gray eyes almost to black, like a broken owl’s wing spread across polished river stone. Stranger’s eyes, Jadzia thought with another subtle tremor. Stranger’s eyes in a sister’s face.
“Can we go home now?” Ziranne asked plaintively. “I don’t want to be here anymore. Whatever happened, I’m really sorry. I just want to go home now.”
Jadzia tried on a reassuring smile. It felt stiff and unconvincing on her lips. “We can’t go home just yet. The doctor will tell us when.” Maybe later. Maybe never.
“But I said I was sorry.” Ziranne plucked at the bandaging that swathed her forearm to the elbow. “I never meant to hurt anybody. I was only trying to help.” Long, precise incisions carved parallel tracks down the length of her forearm, revealed inch-by-inch with each unwinding turn of bandage. Her voice hardened, becoming more adult and less familiar to Jadzia’s ears. “Any Trill who wasn’t already joined would have done the same thing I did.”
Jadzia swallowed dryly to release her voice. “But you are joined now. Aren’t you?”
The sound that burst from Ziranne might have been a laugh. She turned to face the darkening sky outside the window, her back to Jadzia, and her not-quite laugh abruptly dissolved into tears. Jadzia watched her run trembling fingers over the ridges left in her arm by what the doctor said might have been a knife blade, was probably a piece of glass.
“How did you become joined, Ziranne?” She hated that she sounded so distant, so cool. But she was also afraid of what might happen if she were to weaken her guard. “Whose symbiont is inside you now?”
That was the question. Its elusive answer was why the Symbiosis Commission had sent for her, and why Benjamin Sisko had rerouted the Defiant from returning to Deep Space 9 following its near disastrous recent visit to Earth. After he’d successfully thwarted a plot to overthrow the Federation government by a group of renegade Starfleet officers—officers who’d been his friends—Dax knew that a new crisis was the last thing Sisko needed right now. But he’d brought them here just the same. That was the kind of friend he was.
So the questions hung in the air. How does a Trill preschool teacher who has never requested joining acquire a symbiont without stealing it from the subterranean pools? Had she killed the previous host? If so, who had the victim been ... and why had she done it?
Ziranne answered that question the way she had a half-dozen times before. With a flinch, as though some painful specter rushed up and stabbed her from behind, followed by a frightened, childlike question of her own: “How did I get here? Why don’t I remember it?”
Jadzia knotted her hands together in her lap. “You walked into a hospital in Gheryzan, in Trill’s eastern hemisphere. You were frightened, incoherent. When the doctors checked your medical records, they realized that you weren’t—that you shouldn’t have been—joined. They tried to find out where your symbiont came from, and that’s when you ... hurt yourself.” No—lying, no matter how well intentioned, would get them nowhere. Lifting her chin, Jadzia continued, more bravely, “You tried to kill yourself. Everyone was worried that you didn’t feel safe with all the strangers around you, so they brought you here to the Symbiosis Commission and asked me to come and stay with you.”
Whether Ziranne drifted or stumbled, it was hard to tell. Within a few steps, she’d settled to the edge of the room’s only bed, one hand still clasped around her wrist as though holding back blood that no longer flowed. “And they asked you ... why?”
This time, the pain rushed in before Jadzia could distance herself and ward it away. “Because I’m your sister.” Something felt odd about that assertion, so she clarified it by saying, “Jadzia is Ziranne’s sister. Don’t you remember?”
Ziranne rolled onto the bed in a single sluggish collapse, hands fluttering up to shield her eyes from things Jadzia couldn’t see. “I’m tired of remembering,” she whispered. “All I ever do anymore is remember. And I don’t even know whose memories they are.” She dropped her hands and stared back at Jadzia with those dark and alien eyes. “If you’re really my sister ... you remember. Remember it for me.”
Jadzia sucked in a deep breath, not sure if her sister meant that as a challenge or a plea for help. Over the past hours, she had tried every conversational gambit she knew to reach through the tangled knot of illicit symbiont and unprepared host to reach the real Ziranne. This was the closest thing to a breakthrough she had managed to achieve. Another shiver, a real one this time, shook through Jadzia as she tried to decide what part of their shared past could call Zir
anne’s own personality out of hiding. It was her symbiont, not herself, who calmly processed that reaction and extracted from it a strand of her personal history, saved and stored in its neural tissues now as well as her own. The memory came to her with such force that Jadzia was almost surprised not to see her breath turn to frost in the air.
“Do you remember the summer we got to play in the snow?” Nothing flickered in those shadowed eyes, but at least a little of the tension seemed to seep away from Ziranne’s pale face. “We were eleven, and we spent our vacation on Uncle Koal’s farm. ...”
It was already midsummer, and it had finally snowed on their uncle’s plantation in Trill’s southern hemisphere. They swathed themselves in identical yellow snowsuits, stamped their feet into identical blood-red boots, and squealed off into the snow as though these few months in another climate somehow extended their entire year. Summer was their favorite season, but they did so love the snow.
Separated in age by only ten months, it was during the dull, muggy summers when they gloried in their temporary sameness. Sharing an age, even if only for a couple of months, seemed almost the same as sharing a soul. They told strangers they were twins, laced and twined their hair the same, looked at themselves in the glass of still summer ponds and speculated as to whether it was necessary for twins to arrive in the world at the very same time, or if twinness was something more than that, something that still blessed them despite the months separating their respective births. Spending their “twin season” this year in a southern winter somehow seemed to cement their bond, promising to extend its warmth and giddiness year-round. They were too young to really appreciate how it would be later, when they returned to the north feeling as though they’d never had a summer at all.
Jadzia was technically oldest. That meant very little when they weren’t in school, but it was something about which adults would meticulously remind them. Even when they were in school, their general sameness in age, looks, and temperament opened up a delightful array of options for mischief. Jadzia excelled in mathematics; Ziranne had a natural flair for art. Jadzia attended two years of math classes (one of them in Ziranne’s name), while Ziranne produced an impressive collection of cybersculpture all signed in Jadzia’s distinctive hand.
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