by Ilsa J. Bick
“Most things.” She changed the subject. “Anyway, I’d do better with the proper equipment, more supplies.” Thinking: I’d do better with tools I recognize in a world you can’t imagine.
“Such as those in this…country to the north?”
“Yes,” she said. She wasn’t prepared for what she thought next: how much she wished he could have seen her in her world. A world that’s gone. “But I wouldn’t leave now anyway. You don’t just walk away from responsibility.”
“So you’ve never walked away, Elizabeth?”
“Never,” she lied, thinking that, of course, she couldn’t tell Saad the truth: Well, see, there was this kid, only he was really old and he harbored this incredibly deadly virus and…The point was she had walked away; knew there was no choice. No use telling herself that Dobrah would outlive her by centuries; that time would heal him in ways she couldn’t. “I wouldn’t mind leaving here, though.”
“Is here so very bad?”
“You know it is.” Again, she felt this tug of danger and steered the conversation somewhere safer. “Why is it that the Kornaks don’t just wipe you out?”
Saad blinked as if perplexed by her sudden jump. “Beyond the obvious? That there are stretches of desert and rough terrain and water so mucked with pollution you could practically walk over it? That we’d simply fade into the mountains and our caves?” He shrugged. “It’s a good question. Actually, I think the answer’s deeply psychological. Every power needs an enemy, even if it’s just a vague theory that there’s someone out there who wants to do away with your way of life.”
“You do want the Kornaks gone, though.”
“No, I want them different. I want them to see how perverse their reality is.”
“Yeah?” Her gaze skipped to the blasted desert, then to Saad. “That looks pretty bad out there. Just how much worse do you want their lives to be?”
“I didn’t say worse. I said different. The Kornaks need us as a distraction from their tyranny. So, they make us the enemy.”
“Everyone has enemies.”
“But not everyone needs them. The Kornaks see everything as a war. They fight us. They fight the planet with their prosthetics and grafts. But the planet’s not an enemy. It’s our home, very broken, but still our responsibility.”
“You’d turn your back on all technology?”
“Some technology,” he said. A pause that was a beat too long, and long enough for Lense to wonder what “technology” Saad meant. “Some.”
“That seems fairly simplistic, Saad. What if the planet throws a terrible plague your way? You don’t want medicine?”
Saad shrugged. “Maybe that’s the planet’s way of thinning the herd. There must’ve been a point in this planet’s past when everything was in balance.”
“So why not work with the Kornaks, instead of against them? My experience, you get more done from the inside.”
“We tried that.” That too-long pause again. He looked away.
She let the silence spin out. Then: “What about negotiation? Anything’s got to be better than living like this.”
“What, you mean without prosthetics? In exchange for what? Ration credits for food, water, housing, clothes? Credits for loyalty, so you move up on the transplant list, or get better drugs to fight the cancers? No, thank you. I’m a flesh and blood man, Elizabeth, and I will live and die as one.”
There was really nothing to say to that. So she didn’t. The day gradually slipped away. The air cooled. A brassy glow to the clouds to the south: the Kornak city or complex or whatever it was. The rest of the sky shaded from a yellowish-brown to a kind of dark beige smudging to a solid brown along the eastern horizon. Odd, but she hadn’t stopped to look at the stars since coming here. Were there any to see? She didn’t know.
And she was conscious of Saad by her side, and that didn’t bother her. She didn’t want to speak or do anything to shatter the moment: this small, fragile bubble of peace. So she let her mind drift; she thought of nothing at all. That was all right.
In the end, Saad spoke first. “Rain coming.”
She roused herself as if from a trance. “How do you know?”
“I smell it.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“You have to be here awhile to know. And the clouds have been heavier these last few days. So, maybe, a week. Two at the most.” He paused. “I’ll be gone in a day or two.”
“All right,” she said for want of anything else to say. “Where are you going?”
“I am following up on some…intelligence.”
Whatever that meant. “Okay.”
“Elizabeth…”
“Yes?”
“If things were easier for you, do you think you’d stop hating this place so much?”
“Easier how?”
“Supplies. Equipment.”
“Well, yeah, that would make my job easier. But I don’t know about the rest.”
“Staying here, you mean.” He waited a beat. “With us.”
Or do you mean, with you? She was surprised that this pleased her, very much. “I already said I don’t walk away. But are you giving me a choice?” Saad’s face was shadow, and the gathering twilight threw blades of darkness over his hard, lean features. “Am I free to go?”
“If you want. I won’t stop you.”
She was so stunned, she almost blurted it out: And go where, exactly? Instead, she said, “Do you want me to leave?”
“No. I can’t promise I can make things better. I’d like to try. But I need time.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I need time,” he said again.
Her gaze flicked to the horizon behind his shoulder. She couldn’t see any stars, but maybe it wasn’t dark enough yet. “Okay. Then we’ve got a deal.”
“Good,” he said. Then she felt his hands close over hers. She started. “Relax,” he said. “I brought something for you.”
Her fingers closed around something rough and very cool. Moist. The mug. “Thank you,” she said, mystified. Well, she was thirsty. But this water seemed…different somehow. It smelled clean. So different from what they called water here: triple filtered but still gray as ash and with a chemical smell.
He must have intuited her bewilderment because he said, “When people bind themselves in a relationship…”
“Relationship?”
“Or a partnership, a friendship, whatever you want to call it. It doesn’t have to be romantic.”
“Of course not,” she said, feeling like a complete jackass. Then, wondering why she felt so let down. You idiot, this is one of those alien culture things. “So you bind yourselves…?”
“With a gift of something valuable.”
“Water.”
“A very precious commodity here; this is from someplace deep in the mountains. If you want, I’ll take you there. Bathing is quite refreshing.”
“Ah,” she said. “Well, thank you. But what are we promising?”
“Not you. Me. A month ago, I gave you back your life. You’ve kept your promise. You work hard. I admire that.”
“Could be ego,” she drawled. “Could be I’m stupid.”
“Well, then I applaud your blind egotism.” The glint of a smile. “As you said, doctors are narcissistic. But it seems only fair that I try to level things a bit.”
“But what—?”
“Give me time.” He cupped her hands with his, a touch that made her pulse stutter. “Now we seal the bargain.”
“Okay.” There was a startling, wild heat in her thighs, her skin. She was a little out of breath, too, and not from bad air.
He drank first. Then it was her turn. She inhaled that deep fragrance of still green forests and misted ponds, and her heart hurt with longing. She closed her eyes; she drank. The water was very cold and made her teeth ache and tasted very good. She drank it all down. Then she lowered the mug. His hands still cupped hers. “It’s all gone,” she said.
“No,”
he said, and then she felt his hand on her cheek, and then his fingers skim her chin, linger over the bounding pulse in her neck. “No, it isn’t,” he said, and then his mouth closed over hers.
Lense felt some knot deep inside loosen and come undone. It was a kind of letting go. Of restraint and inhibition, yes, but also of her past: her life in Starfleet and on the da Vinci. Commander Selden. Julian Bashir. Dobrah. And why not? They were gone. She couldn’t change the past, and she had to stop wishing for a better one. So she let it all go. She slipped her arms about Saad’s waist and then cupped his shoulders and just…let go.
And if there were stars in that sky, Lense didn’t see any that night. But she didn’t care.
Chapter
4
“You think you’re the only one with his ass on the line? Julian, I need you to understand just how dangerous things are for you now, and me. Blate’s serious. This isn’t just an idle threat.”
“Oh, believe me, I understand,” said Bashir. He stood at a solitary table in a room that was, essentially, a big off-white box: no window, bright overhead fluorescents; a small bathroom off-center along the far wall that contained a toilet, a sink, a shower. A bed he kept neat, the blanket tucked because Bashir knew that morale depended on the little things. A muted vidscreen hung on one wall; Bashir had tuned it to a news station—the only one, government-run—and some newsperson chattered in antic silence through a story that Bashir gathered was about those rebel fighters these people were so obsessed with. There was a straight-back chair and the table strewn with medical texts—anatomy, emergency medicine, physiology, and other books, history principally, that Kahayn had provided at his request, and that he’d devoured and thank the Lord, he could read the language. So he knew about the Cataclysm and what he was up against.
“Let this security man and his people come.” He gave his tunic a little tug for emphasis the way he’d seen Captain Picard do once. The long-sleeved tunic fit well but felt odd because it was so loose: some kind of beige cotton with a Nehru neck and a pair of olive trousers. A pair of brown leather shoes with laces. “But I don’t know how many times we need to go through this. I’m from another country—”
“But really far away and so, of course, all your people have escaped the Cataclysm and only wish to remain anonymous and, oh and by the way, technologically advanced enough to equip a pressure suit that withstands vacuum and can fly.” Kahayn snorted. “You think I swallow that? I’m trying to help you. Anything you want, I got. Books, news…”
“And guards,” said Bashir. “Don’t forget my locked door, and just in case I find a way out, my lovely guards at the end of that long corridor and on the other side of a door that’s very thick and very locked. Yes, how can one not feel positively pampered?”
“Would you do any differently? In that amazing…country of yours?”
Of course, the answer to that was yes, after a fashion. “Doctor, you’ve been good to me—more, perhaps, than I could expect, given how I was dropped on your proverbial doorstep.”
“Considering your suit…yes, that’s probably accurate.”
And touché, Doctor. Bashir put on his most winning smile. “But I don’t know what will convince you that I’ve told the truth.”
“Oh, don’t be insulting. Fine, you’re a doctor. I believe that. But this fantastic, wonderful country no one’s heard of? Please.”
“Right. Well, I see your point.” Bashir debated, then snapped his fingers. “I know. Let’s just say I’ve told you what I can.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I have a better idea. What say we play a game called Trust. Here are the rules. You tell me the truth; I tell you the truth. See, in my land, that’s what we call trust…and don’t you say it, Julian, don’t you dare. Because I know you don’t trust me.”
Bashir closed his mouth. He’d been about to say just that. Only it would have been another lie.
“Yah,” she said after a pause. “Now let me tell you another, very important truth. You remember Blate?”
“Ah. Yes. Very unpleasant fellow. Those goggle-eyes. He really should have them attended to.”
“My sentiments, exactly.” The ghost of a smile brushed her lips. “But that’s the way he likes them, and you will have an excellent opportunity to study them right up close. He’ll be here in about four days.”
“Ah.” Bashir’s stomach churned. “More interrogation? You weren’t thorough enough?”
“Not for him. And this time, it won’t be just talk. You’ll be hooked up to an fMRI. You know the theory?”
Bashir was silent. Oh, he understood it. The machine was something out of the twenty-second…no, no, twenty-first century. fMRI: Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a primitive system dependent upon alternations in magnetic susceptibility and designed to measure, in the brain at least and very crudely, areas of neural activation.
In humans, oxygenated arterial blood contained oxygenated hemoglobin, which because of its iron matrix was diamagnetic and had, therefore, a small magnetic susceptibility effect. Deoxygenated blood was more highly paramagnetic and, therefore, the machine detected a larger observed magnetic susceptibility effect. In essence, fMRI allowed a window into the brain: a sort of watch-while-you-work.
He wondered how well that technology served this particular species. His gaze skipped over Kahayn’s features. That bluish cast to her skin…he knew what it was. Her blood, as well as that of everyone native to this world, already possessed huge quantities of methemoglobin: hemoglobin whose iron was ferric, not ferrous, and quite poor at binding oxygen. Still, if they were going to use the fMRI on him, the technology must work pretty well on their species, and that was bad because it meant the machine was very sensitive indeed.
“I understand the principle,” he said finally. “A lie detector test, right?”
“Yup. Virtually foolproof.” She gave him a tight, humorless smile. “Lying causes a very characteristic pattern of brain activation in seven different regions.”
“In other words, lying is hard work.”
“That’s right. By contrast, telling the truth is much easier. Truth only requires four neural pathways. Pretty characteristic pattern.”
“Ah. So you’ve concluded that we share enough commonality that my brain will tell the truth even if I lie.”
“You lie? I guarantee that screen will light up.”
“Mmmm.” Bashir nodded, his neutral expression—the one he’d practiced in that Dominion prison—firmly screwed in place. But a bolt of panic shuddered into his chest. Their just catching him out in a lie probably wasn’t the end of it. Maybe they’d take his conscious mind out of the equation. Use truth serum, perhaps, or some other way of cracking his resistance. Or just plain torture.
And—bugger it all—for what? Yes, yes, of course, his oath, but was that important now? Elizabeth was dead, and Ezri lost to him before he’d ever set foot on that runabout—and his heart with her. His suit, uniform, and combadge had been confiscated. Picking apart the suit’s guts and the combadge would take time, but these people would likely manage. So, if everything he’d ever known was gone; if he were tortured to death or left as some sort of mental vegetable, what did a theoretical abstraction like the Prime Directive, the product of a universe that wasn’t perfect but liked to pretend that it was, count for now?
Maybe not very much.
He looked up and met her eyes—compassion there, sympathy; and sadness, too; why is she helping me, why does she care?—and said nothing.
She nodded, though, as if he had. “Our world’s dying, Julian. We compensate but we can’t change things back, not in time to save ourselves.”
“What about your children?”
Pain arrowed across her face. “Can’t have any. Most of us can’t. So we switch out parts; rebuild ourselves. Keep staving off the inevitable as long as possible.”
“And then I show up.”
“And then you show up. You’re the same, sort of. A close match but still very different in some v
ery important ways. For example, I know that you come from a place where there’s more oxygen in the air. I know for a fact that the amount in silica and copper and arsenicals in your body is only a fraction of what it is in ours and that’s because there aren’t industrial pollutants in your air or water. Your heart is simpler and still very efficient. You have less surface area in your lungs, and your immunological status is much less reactive than ours. I know because I finally had to give you a transfusion; you’d just lost too much blood.”
“Oh,” he said, with a dry smile. “I’m sure my system loved that.”
“Not to worry; I added a reducing enzyme to convert the iron from ferric to ferrous so you’d bind more oxygen. But the point is you didn’t have a transfusion reaction. You didn’t go into anaphylactic shock. Your system seems remarkably antigenically neutral, at least to our tissues.”
“That’s important?”
“As you’d say, quite. Because there’s one more thing about you that’s very different: your brain. It works really, really well. Is that the way it is with all your people?”
He said nothing. Her lips quirked into a half-smile. “Right. I forgot. You’re one of us. But do you know I’ve never heard an accent like yours either?”
“Oh, that. Well, my accent’s very common where I come from.”
“Then I’m glad I’ve never visited. I might get a headache. Oh, and there’s this other thing that just won’t go away: your remarkable suit that resists vacuum, and flies.” She paused. “You see what I’m driving at.”
“Even if your scan says that I’m lying, nothing changes the fact that I can’t tell you more than I have already.”
“Can’t? Or won’t?”
“Would you believe both?”
“No, because one’s predicated on ignorance and the other on will. But that little distinction won’t matter, not when this is over.”
He tried to be jolly about it, a bit gay, the way he imagined a debonair agent caught in a thorny situation might. “What, torture, Doctor? Thumbscrews? Bamboo under the fingernails?”
“What’s bamboo?” Then she waved that away. “Never mind. This isn’t a joke, Julian. Because the horrible part is you won’t have a choice.”