Текст книги "Trill and Bajor "

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: J. Kim,Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 14 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Ezri frowned at Bashir. Returning her gaze to the president, she said, “But that doesn’t mean that you owe the Trill people anything less than the whole truth, Madam President. We’re a pretty tough bunch; we can stand airing the whole truth about the Kurlans and the parasites. It’s the best way I can think of to properly honor the ancient memories of those times—and to start healing all the damage our civilization is suffering right now as a result of what happened back then.”

“Revealing the whole truth right away is just too dangerous,” Gard said. “We need time—”

Ezri rolled right over him, though her words were for the president. “It’s too dangerous for us to be seen as trying to keep the truth buried.” She pointed toward the balcony. “We’ll never settle the chaos out there as long as the people think we are continuing to lie about our past, Madam President. Or our present. Maybe we can’t give a symbiont to every unjoined person who wants one, but we can stop lying to them about their suitability for joining. We destroyed a whole world once, then lied to cover it up. We can either break that entire pattern of deceit, or risk destroying another world today.”

Gard shook his head, his expression a commingling of righteous anger and pitying condescension. “Taking in too much truth too quickly is like trying to drink from a tidal wave, Lieutenant Dax.”

Bashir had to restrain himself from murmuring a curse. Both Ezri and Gard were right. And as much as he despised the Symbiosis Commission’s mendacity on the issue of symbiotic compatibility, Ezri’s position was sounding increasingly reckless to him. Perhaps an intermediate, incremental approach would be better.

He felt thankful that the decision about how much to reveal, and how soon to do it, wasn’t his to make.

Leaning back wearily in her padded chair, the president stared in quiet contemplation at the balcony window. In the distance, the crowds milling about in the golden early-morning sunlight seemed to be expanding. Faces were turned up toward the balcony, perhaps in eager anticipation, perhaps in righteous anger.

After a seeming eternity during which no one spoke or moved, the president spoke in a quiet yet determined voice. “Perhaps you’re right.” Bashir wasn’t at all certain to whom she had spoken.

Drawing herself erect in her seat, the president silently motioned for everyone to back away from the visual pickup that was mounted on her desk. It was obvious that she had reached a decision.

Withdrawing with Ezri and Gard to a far corner of the chamber, Bashir watched as a red light activated on the desk, signaling that the president was now addressing the entire Trill humanoid population, including the surviving members of the Senate, via the planet’s civilian and military comnets. The lighting around her grew in intensity as the polarization of the balcony windows adjusted to make the president conspicuously visible from the street. For Bashir the moment became elastic, and felt supercharged with uncertainty.

He knew only one thing for sure: it was a damned dangerous time to be the president of Trill.

Dax thought her heart might try to climb out of her throat as the president began speaking to the entire planet. She was surprised, though pleased, when the president began by dealing with the neo-Purists’ accusations—not by denying them, but by essentially corroborating most of them. Yes, the president explained unflinchingly, the Trill government had for many centuries concealed the close relationship between the symbionts and the alien parasites. She accepted culpability for continuing the dishonest policies of her twenty-two government predecessors, all of whom had known the truth.

Those earlier Trill governments knew the truth because of what Audrid and Jayvin discovered in that comet,Dax thought, feeling guilt because of Audrid’s complicity. And they were able to keep it hidden for as long as they did because Audrid kept silent.

Then the president went a step further, explaining that ancient Trill scientists created the parasites millennia in the past—and that they also were forced to try to destroy them, though without complete success. That failure, she said, not only had doomed millions of Trill colonists on Kurl, but had also given rise to the ancestors of the modern parasites.

Dax glanced over at Julian, whose dark eyes seemed riveted on the crowds visible through the balcony windows. She followed his gaze and noticed that the distant clusters of people outside were moving. Arms were flailing in what appeared to be angry gestures.

Switching to a respectful, almost hushed tone, the president said, “This ages-old cover-up has led us all to a precipice. While we do not as yet have accurate figures, we do know that the worldwide humanoid death toll is already in the thousands. The radiation casualties among the symbionts alone have been equally severe; as a result of the neo-Purist bombings, the symbiont population has suffered a terrible ‘crash’ in terms of its overall numbers, which have been reduced by upwards of ninety percent.”

Genuine anger crept into the president’s tone. “You may rest assured that the terrorists responsible for this atrocity will be apprehended and punished. Several of the neo-Purist ringleaders—those who weren’t killed by their own weaponry—are already in custody.”

Dax looked at Gard, whose attention was absorbed by the silent comm unit on his wrist. A text message,Dax thought.

Gard’s wide eyes and pallid cheeks told her that the news he was receiving couldn’t be good. Fear gripped her soul with sharp-bladed fingers. Perhaps Gard and Julian had been right to counsel caution. Had she just succeeded in persuading the president to say entirely too much, and to do it far too soon?

Gard quickly tapped several commands into his comm unit. The president paused momentarily in her speech as she glanced at her desk console; she was evidently now in possession of the same information Gard had just received.

Though Dax couldn’t see Gard’s text message from where she stood, she had a pretty good idea of its contents. They’re beginning to riot again. The people have heard the truth, but they’re just too angry to deal with it appropriately.

What have I just done?

The president felt shaken to the core by what Gard had just told her. Once again the streets of Trill’s most populous cities, from Gheryzan to Tenara, were erupting in spontaneous violence—and the revelations she had just made were the most obvious cause.

The president quietly shook herself; now was the time for leadership, not paralysis. Somehow, in spite of the deep emptiness—the utter aloneness—that she felt, she found the strength to continue with her address.

“Because…because of the terrorist attacks, the symbiont population has been greatly reduced. It will no doubt take many years—perhaps many decades—before the symbiont breeding population is once again large enough to allow any symbionts to be spared for symbiosis.

“I must therefore issue the following emergency proclamation: the Symbiosis Commission shall authorize no new joinings, and shall suspend all pending joinings, until further notice and after senatorial and executive review. Allsymbionts currently living in conjoined status with humanoids will be returned to the breeding pools at the end of the lifetimes of their current hosts, and will not be reassigned to new hosts at that time.

“This indefinite moratorium on joining constitutes a wrenching change for our world, to be sure. But this change is dictated by absolute biological necessity. Replacements must be bred for the symbionts who died in the attacks, and those who were injured and left without hosts will require time to recover, as well as to breed. No healthy joined person’s symbiont will be taken away. But every available symbiont will be taken to the spawning grounds to help the species increase its numbers as quickly as possible. The symbionts mustsurvive. They mustbe protected, if Trill humanoids are ever again to hope to benefit from the long lives, the shared experiences, the accumulated wisdom—and the tandem immortality—gifted to us by our sister species.

“As radical—and perhaps frightening—as this change is, it also affords us a unique opportunity. While we are waiting for the symbiont population to replenish its numbers—and thereby to become ready once again for symbiosis—the distinctions our society has drawn between the joined and the unjoined will shrink and vanish, as will the number of joined Trill citizens who live among us.

“We will put the lie to the charge that only the joined rate positions of power and influence in this society, while recognizing that we have erred badly in this regard in the past. We will re-mold our civilization into something more all-inclusive than has ever existed on Trill before. No longer will the topmost strata of Trill society be dominated by a tiny minority. In a manner of speaking, we will allbe unjoined sooner or later.”

This is it,she thought, pausing in her oratory. She wished she felt as confident about her next action as she had when she had originally conceived this plan.

Of course, she had still been joined then.

With all the conviction and dignity she could muster, the president rose from her chair. As she stood behind the desk, she imagined she could feel the delicate wings of a nest of yilgamoths fluttering inside her abdominal pouch. She had yet to get used to its strangely flattened condition.

“I cannot issue such a sweeping proclamation without including myself,” the president said, opening her charcoal-colored jacket, along with the lower portion of the formal white tunic she wore beneath it.

She knew that her visibly slack abdominal pouch was now exposed to the entire Trill comnet.

“Because you have entrusted me with the power of this office, I have presumed to lead you. And since I am bringing about changes such as Trill hasn’t seen in millennia, I must lead the way there as well. This morning I underwent an experimental medical procedure that successfully interrupted the symbiosis between myself and the symbiont to which I have been bonded for nearly all of my adult life.”

She tried to push back a sudden emotional squall, and a haze of tears told her that she hadn’t quite succeeded. She bulled onward in spite of it. “I am now no longer Lirisse Maz, but Lirisse Durghan. The Maz symbiont has already been taken back to Mak’ala, where it will participate in the Guardians’ efforts to restore the symbiont population to safe levels. I am now, like most of you, unjoined.

“I make no empty promises today. The joined class has little choice other than to implement my ban on new joinings. I trust that the Guardians and the Trill Defense Ministry—not to mention the sheer overwhelming size of Trill’s unjoined majority—will tend to make the ban a self-enforcing proposition.

“In the meantime, I stand with you, the unjoined, as one of you. I call upon those of you who have taken your legitimate grievances to the streets to set aside violence now. I ask you to consider carefully all the changes that lie ahead, and how these changes stand to benefit you.Consider how we can work together to create a future in which all Trill are treated equally under the law.

“We all stand together at the edge of a precipice. Today we can write a new page of history together. We can record new memories of change for the better. Of progress for all of Trill. Of equality for all of Trill. Again, I implore you to reject violence. Joined and unjoined, let us face our common future as one. Let us build a new Trill together. And let us begin today.”

She touched a button on her desk console, and the visual pickup’s red light immediately faded to a dull black.

The president sighed and cast quick glances at Lieutenant Dax, Hiziki Gard, Dr. Bashir, and the few staffers who had gathered nearby. Though their expressions all showed varying degrees of apprehension, they were otherwise unreadable.

For better or for worse, the die had been cast.

During the president’s speech, Dax began feeling nauseated. It was a sensation she used to experience during her earliest days aboard Deep Space 9; she had been certain then that she could feel the immense Cardassian space station slowly turning beneath her feet. That certainty had been borne out by the same vertiginous queasiness she was experiencing right now.

Only now, she was conscious of an entire civilization turning beneath her feet.

It would be really bad form to throw up on President Maz’s carpet,she told herself. No, that’s PresidentDurghan, now.

She considered, as she had many times over the past several hours, that the president’s name change might seem more like a complete identity switch in the eyes of some. Would the Trill Senate or the courts try to invalidate the president’s symbiosis ban, claiming that only Lirisse Maz, not Lirisse Durghan, had the authority to issue a presidential decree?

It’s a good thing Maz signed the order before she went into surgery with Julian.That thought settled Dax’s lurching stomach somewhat.

But not entirely. In fact, there seemed to be no end to her misgivings, now that she knew there was no turning back. It was as though she had taken a flying leap off the Senate Tower spire, only to change her mind about the plunge halfway down. Doubts of similar futility nagged relentlessly at the back of her mind. What if the drug Julian had used to end the president’s symbiosis were to become common knowledge? She knew that this wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility, since Julian had also just used it to safely extract many nonfatally injured symbionts from their otherwise doomed hosts. The president had admitted publicly to undergoing an experimental procedure that had enabled her to survive separation from the Maz symbiont, but she had withheld the details. People would certainly demand them, though, and what then? Wouldn’t such a revelation tempt certain unjoined malcontents—people like the late Verad Kalon—to get around the symbiosis ban by simply kidnapping one of the few remaining symbionts still conjoined with a humanoid? Dax already knew from her own symbiont’s memories that black market trade in living symbionts wasn’t an entirely unknown crime.

Maybe the powers that be will have to see to it thatsome secrets remain buried,Dax told herself unhappily as she struggled to maintain focus on the here and now rather than allowing hypothetical calamities to drive her to distraction.

After the president finished her address, Dax walked to the observation window that faced the speaker’s platform. She looked down at the crowd, which had grown steadily throughout the president’s speech as people arrived by hovercar, skimmer, antigrav bus, or on foot.

She glanced toward the president, who had slumped limply backward into her chair, her eyes closed in apparent fatigue while Julian hovered nearby, examining her with a small medical scanner. Neither the president nor Julian seemed to be paying any attention to the storm gathering outside.

Beside the president’s desk stood Gard, who continued watching his wrist-mounted comm unit intently.

Dax’s heart sank when Gard cast a brief glance her way. His appalled expression spoke volumes about what must be going on all across the planet as a result of the president’s speech. There were already thousands of confirmed dead; if all the unjoined were rising up now to bring still more blood and fire to the streets, then millions more could follow.

Then, as he continued studying the information scrolling on his wrist, Gard’s expression shifted to one of stupefaction. Dax walked quickly toward him.

He grinned at her a moment later, then pressed a button that opened up an audio channel. Dax had expected to hear screams, catcalls, slogans, epithets. Instead she heard an unmistakable rhythmic sound, like the susurration of a waterfall punctuated by sharp, enthusiastic whistles.

The people outside weren’t rioting. They were cheering.Amid the bursts of applause rose a chorus of voices, repeating the newly unjoined president’s birth surname in a rolling, ebullient chant: “Durghan! Durghan! Durghan!”

“It might be a little soon to jump to any conclusions,” Gard said, still grinning. “But I think your speech could have gone over a whole lot worse, Madam President.”

Suddenly overcome by an enormous sensation of relief, Dax broke with protocol by letting herself sag into a sitting position on the corner of the president’s wide desk.

After having endured so much intense upheaval so quickly—and after having been subjected to so many centuries of casual, unacknowledged oppression—Trill’s disaffected majority could finally look forward to a new era of hope.

Stardate 53779.6

Walking between Julian and Gard, Dax wearily picked her way across the Senate Tower’s lobby, guiding the trio through the small clusters of arriving office workers. As they headed in the general direction of the landing pad where the runabout Rio Grandewas parked, Dax found herself avoiding Julian’s searching gaze. Instead, her eyes roamed across the wide, vaulted ground-floor chamber.

Almost immediately, she saw a familiar face.

“Ranul!” Ezri shouted as she ran toward him. She hadn’t expected to see the massive Guardian again so soon, given the previous day’s chaos at Mak’ala. “What brings you to the Senate Tower?”

“I was hoping I’d see you again before you left Trill,” Ranul Keru said, giving her a firm but gentle hug.

Dax suddenly realized that Julian and Gard had flanked them. Julian was regarding her silently, with an expression that blended curiosity with impatient anticipation.

“Sorry, Julian,” she said, disengaging from the Guardian. “Ranul Keru, meet Doctor Julian Bashir, also from Deep Space 9. And Hiziki Gard, a special officer of the Trill Symbiosis Commission. If not for Ranul’s help, I might never have made contact with the elder symbionts.”

“You’re one of the Guardians,” Julian observed after momentarily scrutinizing Keru’s utilitarian brown tunic and slacks.

“For now,” Keru said with an enigmatic half-smile. “I’ve only been working with the symbionts for the past couple of years. It’s been very restful and therapeutic for me.”

“At least up until the last couple of days,” Dax said, smiling. She felt some curiosity as to precisely why Keru had felt the need for therapy, but didn’t want to pry into his personal affairs; she wasn’t his counselor, after all.

The big Guardian returned her smile, though it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I haven’t seen so much action since before I left the Enterprise.Didn’t think I’d ever miss it. Or that I’d start questioning whether I was really cut out to be a Guardian for the rest of my life.”

After pausing to smooth a wrinkle on his dark civilian jacket, Gard frowned slightly. “Sounds like you’re seriously thinking about going back to Starfleet.”

Keru shrugged, smiling. “Maybe, someday. If I found a good reason to make another big life change—and if I thought Starfleet needed me more than Trill does. The symbionts now need the Guardians more than ever. And not just the younger ones, either.” He switched to a hushed, confidential tone. “The ancient symbionts you contacted have been taking on a lot of memories from their dying brethren. They’re going to need our help as well.”

“And you have a chance to learn more about them than ever,” Julian said, a familiar knowledge-hungry expression blossoming across his face. “So little is understood about that phase of the symbiont life cycle.”

Dax winced, hoping Julian’s natural curiosity wouldn’t be misunderstood.

“I think maintaining the seclusion of the Annuated will be a far higher priority than studying them,” Keru said evenly, a small scowl visible beneath his bushy mustache.

Julian nodded, obviously realizing his gaffe. “Of course. I apologize if I caused offense.”

He’s so very young,Dax thought, studying Julian’s sincere, earnest face. Such an innocent, in so many ways.After everything she had seen and experienced over the past day or so, Dax felt as old as the Mak’relle Durlegend itself.

Gard cleared his throat, apparently eager to move the conversation elsewhere. “Overcurious scientists will probably be the least of the symbionts’ worries for the next few years. I’ve already spoken to members of the Symbiosis Evaluation Board, and they’re telling me that not all of the Trill initiates are taking the president’s symbiosis moratorium very well.”

Keru nodded, his expression grave and knowing. He obviously either already knew a great deal about Gard’s function in Trill society, or had intuited it from the other man’s bearing. “You security people will probably be as busy as we Guardians are for however long this thing lasts.”

“At least as busy,” Gard replied quietly, evidently speaking to Dax as much as to Keru. “If there’s another potential radical leader lurking among all the thousands of disappointed pre-joined initiates, we’ll have to work harder than ever to get out in front of the problem.” And with that, Gard bid the group good-bye and turned toward the turbolifts, presumably to apply himself to the arduous tasks that lay ahead. With no new joinings in the offing, Gard would have to seek his monsters and aberrations elsewhere.

Speaking to Dax, Keru said, “I’ve been told that the Senate has scheduled additional hearings into the symbiont/parasite affair and the bombings. They’ll start taking official testimony in a few weeks, after things settle down a bit.”

Dax nodded. “The original reason I came to Trill was to testify at those hearings. The Senate will probably want to ask me some follow-up questions. It looks like I’ll be coming back to the homeworld a lot sooner than I’d originally planned.”

“I’ve been asked to speak at the next round of hearings as well,” Keru said. “Maybe I’ll see you then. You can update me on everything that’s been happening in Starfleet since I left.” Then the big man made his farewells, leaving Dax and Julian standing alone together while office workers continued to arrive, dodging and weaving around them as they headed for the bank of turbolifts along the south wall.

As she watched Keru walk away, Dax’s thoughts turned to the thousands of eager young initiates from whom the bright prospect of symbiosis had been summarily withdrawn. Thanks to the memories of most of her symbiont’s previous hosts, she was well acquainted with the rigors of a Trill initiate’s life. Fair or not, each symbiosis candidate was subjected to a grueling winnowing process that culminated in joining only for a select few. Her symbiont retained the memories of each initiate who ultimately became its host, even though Ezri Tigan had never endured an initiate’s trials. Dax felt she understood the bitter taste of disappointment that every not-yet-joined initiate on the planet must be experiencing right now; she could never forget that Jadzia’s first application for joining had been torpedoed by no less a personage than Curzon himself. The experience had been absolutely ego-crushing.

How hopeless life must seem now for the initiates,she thought. Though Ezri Tigan had never desired joining herself, Ezri Dax now felt unutterably sad for those whose yearning for the completeness of symbiosis had abruptly come to nothing, as though the Symbiosis Evaluation Board had summarily declared everyapplicant to the program unfit.

Dax’s eyes followed Keru’s steps as he reached an exit on the far side of the lobby. As the Guardian disappeared from sight, it occurred to her that not everybody expected to benefit materially from an association with the symbionts. Unlike each year’s eager young crop of initiates—or unjoined malcontents like Verad Kalon—Keru and the other Guardians were content to give of themselves freely to assist the symbionts. And every member of the Guardian order was unjoined.

Maybe Trill’s best hope lies with people who have the strength to stand apart from whatever advantages symbiosis might offer them,she thought. People like Ranul Keru, or President Lirisse Durghan.

Or even Ezri Tigan, the person I used to be before Dax came along.

“Excuse me?” Julian said, his eyebrows buoyed by curiosity. Dax suddenly realized that she must have spoken at least part of her reverie aloud.

“I was starting to wonder,” she began, slightly flustered at having been caught woolgathering. “Would I have had the courage to give up my symbiont the way the president did?”

“The president probably worked hard for years to prove herself worthy of the Maz symbiont,” Julian pointed out. “Remember, you joined with the Dax symbiont initially because that was the only way to save its life.”

He just doesn’t get it,she thought. Aloud, she said, “Sure, I didn’t choose to be joined, but I’ve beenjoined for almost two years now. Ezri Tigan and Dax are a permanent part of one other now. And my life and career will never be the same again because of that. Ezri and Dax have made memories together that we’ll share for the rest of this lifetime. And Dax’s next hosts will be able to dip into my experiences the way I benefit from those of Curzon, or Torias, or Emony, or any of the others.”

He took her hand gently between both of his; he appeared to notice for the first time that she’d had her phaser burn treated at some point since leaving Mak’ala.

“Isn’t that the nature of symbiosis?” he said.

She pulled her hand away, gently but insistently. “Yes. It’s a wonderful thing that I didn’t even want at first. And now I get to keep it, even though none of the people who really dowant it get to join the club now.”

“I think I understand, Ezri. I believe you’re experiencing something called ‘survivor’s guilt.”’

“Thanks, Julian,” she said with an exasperated sigh. “But I ama trained counselor.”

“Then you should understand that plenty of others are now in the very same position you are,” he said, apparently unfazed by her irritation. “Every other joined Trill—”

She interrupted him. “Every other joined Trill is just running out the clock, as of this morning. And if this joining embargo goes on long enough, every last one of the remaining few hundred joined Trill hosts will die. Their symbionts will end up back in the pools, without any prospect of entering a new symbiosis. With no chance of regaining their eyes and ears and arms and legs. Maybe for decades, or centuries. And every humanoid on Trill will be cut off from everything the symbionts know. They might even forget why we bothered to join in the first place. Even people who revere memories can forget what’s important, Julian. Trust me, I know.”

Julian seemed to be nettled as well, though his words remained persistently sympathetic, perhaps out of habits stemming from his medical training. “You have perhaps another century of life ahead of you, Ezri. Surely the current symbiosis crunch ought to be resolved long before then.”

“How can you be so sure of that?”

“Because I intend to help any way I can,” he said in a matter-of-fact manner.

Though Julian’s words reassured her, at least somewhat, that Trill’s symbiosis problems might be resolved sooner rather than later, they did little to assuage her “survivor’s guilt,” if that was indeed what she was experiencing.

Unbidden, her thoughts drifted again to one of her previous hosts. She recalled an occasion when Julian had all but summoned Jadzia’s departed spirit during the throes of lovemaking with Ezri. Though the incident had occurred months ago—and only once—it tended to haunt Dax whenever her relationship with Julian seemed unusually strained.

When he looks at me, who does he really see? Ezri? Or Jadzia?

She tried to brush the thought aside, at least for the moment. It was time to focus on the future—and on the reports that would have to be written during the days-long voyage home that lay ahead. As she resumed moving purposefully toward one of the exits, Julian walked at a brisk pace alongside her.

Neither of them said another word until long after they had reached the runabout.

Stardate 53785.4

The runabout Rio Grande,now on course for Deep Space 9, had left Trill more than fifty hours ago.

Fifty extremelyquiet hours ago,Bashir thought, seated in one of the cockpit chairs—though not in the one closest to Ezri.

He wasn’t sure how to go about breaking the seemingly interminable silences that stretched between their shared meals, their uncomfortable, largely separate sleeping intervals, and their brief flurries of report writing, duty-related conversation, and innocuous, superficial personal chitchat. Busy now at the pilot’s console, Ezri no longer seemed to want or need to discuss her homeworld’s symbiosis moratorium or its aftermath. In fact, she seemed utterly disinterested in talking about anything.

He, on the other hand, could scarcely contain himself. There were still aspects of this messy business he had questions about. For instance, were the parasites really gone for good? Or were there more out there, somehwere beyond Federation space, waiting for the right opportunity to try again?

But now didn’t seem an appropriate time to discuss such things. Bashir remained silent, though he thought the quiet tension that had built up in the cabin over the past hour could have repelled a quantum torpedo attack.

Idled by the uncomfortable stillness in the runabout’s cockpit, his mind again wandered back to the heavy-handed manner in which Ezri had conducted the mission on Trill. Though subsequent circumstances had largely vindicated her actions, he still felt a lingering resentment about it, as livid and painful as a bone bruise.

Since she seemed unlikely to bring up this subject—or anysubject—he decided it was up to him to do it.

“Ezri, we have to talk.”

She continued staring straight ahead at the ever-shifting star field for several seconds before noticing that he’d spoken. “Hmmm?”

“Ezri, I want to talk to you about the mission.”

She turned her pilot’s chair so that she faced him. “You’re right. I suppose we could append a few more details to the initial reports we sent to Kira.” She started to rise from her chair.