Beginning: A Star Trek Novel (New Frontier Reloaded Book 2)

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  Kejal took comfort in his mother's familiar voice. It was the first sound he remembered sensing. Odo's fingers stroked through his substance until his terror became manageable.

  Father will be all right. He has two months...no, dammit my father will live forever. Parents never die...

  Chapter 4: Songs of Life

  His medical doctor was a bearded man by the name of Doctor Lenen Kez. He only came up to Mora's elbow when they stood side by side. Dwarfism was rare among Bajorans, but he happened to have it and it never impeded him.

  The weight of his gaze pieced the distance across his desk. He opened the file and showed Mora the colored graphs marking his genes.

  "There is no easy way to say this," said Doctor Lenen. "It's Delfeya syndrome. It can be treated, but there is no cure."

  Mora frowned at the graph. "Delfeya syndrome. I've heard of it, but I haven't studied it. What do you know about it?"

  Doctor Lenen's dark eyes flickered. "I can connect you with the latest research and help you educate yourself on it. But in the simplest terms, your blood vessels are weakening and your body is losing its ability to produce new red blood cells."

  "Is it fatal?" Mora asked.

  "Yes, eventually. Delfeya syndrome is a terminal disease. There are drugs to manage the pain and fatigue, and if you choose to treat it, the treatments will slow its progress considerably. You may survive up to five years."

  Closing his eyes, Mora sucked air in through his teeth and stood up. "I have to give a lecture in thirty minutes. I need to go. Thank you, doctor."

  He didn't wait for Doctor Lenen to bid him farewell..

  That day, it was sunny and hot-- a brutal midsummer with record high temperatures.

  Mora cursed out loud all the way to the Bajoran Institute for Science building. Once there, he washed his face, put a lab coat on over his sweat-stained clothes and gave a lecture on genetics to a classroom full of fifty eager students.

  At the conclusion of the lesson, he locked himself in his office and made the computer tell him everything about Delfeya syndrome. It included detailed autopsy images. His eyes narrowed at the pictures of necrotic kidneys, spleens and digestive organs.

  "...and depending on which organs fail first, the progress of Delfeya syndrome often varies. Sufferers whose heart and lungs are affected first often die within a month, but this is rare. Even rarer is damage to the brain, which results in paralysis and dementia. The organs most commonly affected first are-- "

  "Enough." Mora held his head in his hands. "Computer, stop."

  Someone rang his office door chime. The three-tone buzz startled him.

  "Yes?"

  "Doctor Mora, sir, it's Doctor Weld. May I enter?"

  Mora sighed and let his colleague in.

  Doctor Weld didn't waste any time cutting to the chase.

  "You looked unwell. I came to see if you're all right."

  "Oh, I'm fine. Doctor Lenen made a mistake. I'm sure of it." Mora waved a hand. "I'm going to have a second opinion soon. It's probably a virus."

  The other scientist quirked an eyebrow.

  "The testing is too extensive for something as simple as a virus."

  "I'm an old man, what do you expect?" Mora shrugged and clapped his colleague on the shoulder. "At least it isn't a brain leech!"

  Three weeks later, he had his diagnosis confirmed by a second doctor. The experimental treatments began five days after that office visit. Once a week, he sat alone in a sterile room while hyposprays injected chemicals into his bloodstream. An hour later, people smeared a cold, clear gel all over his skin. Head to toe. Then he stood naked between two emitters cut exactly to his size while radiation bombarded his cells. Radioactive particles attached onto the chemicals injected into his bloodstream and "switched off" the genes responsible for Delfeya syndrome.

  Mora's health paid the price. Radiation sickness became a bothersome side effect. Someone said his hair would fall out. It didn't, it just turned gray prematurely. He went for days without eating due to the horrendous vomiting. His sustenance became vitamin injections through hyposprays. He lost almost twenty pounds in the first month.

  Everything turned into a medical procedure. Day in, day out, he endured the poking, prodding, indignities and exams. Most of the time, the assistants never said a word to him. Their heads were too wrapped up in research and they rarely looked up from their PADDS.

  Once a treatment completed, the technicians helped him into a shower and scrubbed the gel off his body.

  Mora felt like a lab specimen. He longed for a kind smile or a gentle touch. Something that wasn't so cold and clinical.

  Now he knew why Odo left. Mora wanted to leave! To walk away from everything, but he couldn't give up. Studies were ongoing-- many said a cure could develop anytime. He had to stay alive for that!

  Time became Mora's enemy, and the therapy only offered a stopgap against the inevitable. As he aged, more and more of his cells produced the malfunctioning genes, and the side effects slowly chipped away his resolve.

  Six years passed. Doctor Lenen was surprised to find Mora still alive. Bedridden and pale, but alive.

  "I never do what people expect of me," Mora tried to joke.

  The aging doctor didn't laugh.

  Seven years after his diagnosis, Mora was forced to retire from the Science Institute. Doctor Weld took over his position.

  Ten years post-diagnosis, with his body too weak to turn over in bed, Mora listened to his final defeat.

  "No change. We'll have to up the radiation output. Unfortunately, you'll face more pain and nausea."

  It was all over. The treatment had become worse than the illness. He couldn't take it anymore. His quality of life slipped away every time he dragged himself into the medical facility.

  This wasn't life. He refused to endure such torture all the way until his last breath.

  "No." Mora managed to say. "No more...I can't live like this. No more. Please. I'm done."

  The technician, a stout man by the name of Nelarn, said to him, "If you stop the treatments now, you will die in less than three months."

  Mora heard himself begging, "Please...I'll accept whatever happens without treatment. I'm done. I'm finished. I don't want to die miserable like this. I'm going to get my affairs in order. Let me die at home in my own bed. Please, no more. No more of this. I want to go home..."

  And so he went home. It took only a month for him to regain his strength and the weight he lost. He spent three days looking at his holograms of Odo and Kejal and praying for wisdom. Prayer-- something he neglected often during his years as a scientist and professor.

  Mora dreamed of a familiar planet. The Prophets themselves had told him where to take his final journey off Bajor.

  He didn't tell anyone about his imminent departure. He left his home during a freezing rainstorm that chilled his bones. His shuttle took off on a course destined for the Founders' homeworld.

  The memory faded when Mora's dark blue eyes snapped open.

  Dull pain spread through his lower back and abdomen. He reached blindly for his pocket only to find no coat on his body.

  Mora groaned and lifted his head.

  "Ah! Easy, sir. Welcome back." A redheaded human nurse appeared at his bedside. She smiled compassionately, "My name is Alice and I'm your nurse. You're in the Infirmary. What do you need?"

  "My metorapan. The loose hypospray next to my medicine case." Mora curled his lips off his teeth as the vice-like pressure crawled up his spine. "Ooh, please hurry. The dose-- should be-- mmh-- should be-- pre-programmed."

  The hypospray hissed and the agony shrank from unbearable to a mere nuisance.

  "Mm, thank you so much, Alice." Mora sighed. "I suppose that was my last taste of hasperat."

  Lately, there were many lasts.

  "Doctor Mora?"

  Mora turned towards the familiar gravelly voice. Odo approached his bedside. In his hands he cradled a plastic container full of golden fluid.

  Eugh
, Kejal must have been in dire need if he's regenerating in a wash basin!

  "How are you feeling?" asked Odo.

  "Oh, as good as can be expected. I'll live for now." Mora waved his hand. "Where is Kira?" He let Alice scan his vitals before she walked away to tend a Bolian in the other bed.

  "She had to get back to her office," said Odo. His face softened. "By the way, Doctor Mora, you were right."

  Mora raised both eyebrows and chuckled. "I told you so."

  Odo's lips quirked. Then his expression sobered and he set the basin down on the edge of the biobed. "Kejal thinks he caused this."

  "Nonsense."

  "I know...but try telling him that."

  "It's only going to get more difficult as time goes on." Mora licked his lips, frowning when he tasted the coppery remains of blood on them.

  "I think he's afraid to see you get sick." Odo stretched out his hand, hesitated and laid it on top of Mora's. "You were always so active. Everything was a new discovery."

  "The discoveries haven't stopped, they changed. But I agree, these last ten years taught me how to sit still." Mora fixed his eyes on Odo's. "What about you, Odo?"

  "Hm?"

  "How do you feel right now?"

  Odo suddenly found interest in everything else in the room. "I...just want to make sure you stay comfortable."

  "You're evading the question."

  "I don't know! I don't know what to feel!" Odo snapped.

  "Shhh...Odo, Odo, relax. I'm sorry. I won't prod."

  Sighing, Odo let his shoulders slump. "You seem to be handling this better than all of us."

  Mora rested his other hand atop Odo's. "I didn't in the beginning. I spent years expecting a cure to appear within the next six months. I researched everything. I tried the experimental treatments. My genes were destined to give me Delfeya syndrome the moment I was conceived in my mother's womb." He shrugged one shoulder. "We didn't know when the disease would outrun the treatments, but we knew it was going to happen."

  "Life is all about waiting games. Giving birth, for example...that was one hell of a waiting game." Odo shot Mora a knowing look.

  Mora faced Odo more fully and squeezed his hand. "Dying is similar to birth. Sometimes it's easy, and sometimes it takes a struggle to achieve the end result. I remember-- when I first walked into the room while you were in labor, you were suffering...you were gasping for air."

  "Yes...I was exhausted, and the pressure in my chest made it difficult to relax."

  "But you did it, even though it hurt at first." Mora said simply. Odo tried to pull his hand free, but Mora wouldn't let go. "Birth pains serve a purpose, and so do dying pains."

  "How can the pain of dying serve anything?" Odo gestured to the table, "How does this mean anything to you other than it feels awful?"

  "When Kejal was born, did you even think about the pain you endured before you relaxed?"

  "No. I could only think of him."

  "You see?" Mora's eyes twinkled. "Think that way of me, too. Think of my impending freedom...not my suffering."

  "Easier said than done."

  Laughing, Mora slapped Odo's forearm. "You never change, do you?"

  "I don't see how this is funny."

  "But it is! If you don't laugh, you cry." Mora said. He pushed himself into a sitting position and waved off Odo's attempts to make him lay down again. "This biobed is set up for someone shorter than I am. It's starting to hurt my back. I think it's a sign that I should head for home. Would you be so kind as to get Doctor Bashir's attention?"

  "Hmph." Odo grunted. "Just don't try to stand up until you're cleared."

  "I can't go anywhere without my cane."

  "Good."

  Mora could only shake his head as Odo left to locate Bashir. He picked up the basin full of Kejal and set it in his lap.

  "Situations like this are never easy, Kejal," he murmured to the golden liquid. The lines in his face deepened. "Ah, let's not dwell on the sadness. I'm glad you're coming home with me again. You'll be pleased to know the canopy of your deka tree is as wide as my house now. Can you believe it?"

  The liquid in the basin bubbled slightly. Regenerating Changelings remained aware of the world around them-- they didn't appear to sleep in the same sense as a solid humanoid.

  "I'm sure you're experiencing a lot of emotions right now." Mora continued. "Whatever you do, don't run from them."

  He set the basin aside and laid himself down on his side. Without intending to, he dozed off. He woke again to the sound of the doors whizzing open.

  "Ugh." Mora pushed himself to sit up once more. He'd napped for approximately thirty minutes.

  "So sorry about the delay. I was in in surgery." Bashir bustled into the room with Odo close behind. "Feeling better are we?"

  Mora nodded without hesitation. "My stomach isn't bothering me at all now."

  "I see." Bashir's brow furrowed when he studied his tricorder screen. "Scans indicate no further blood loss." He closed the tricorder with a click and handed Mora a container of white capsules. "It's going to take a few days for your stomach lining to heal. Until then, take one of these once a day to reduce the acidity in your stomach. I'm sorry to say you'll have to avoid the heavier spices if you don't want a repeat of this."

  Mora narrowed his eyes at the triangular bottle. Yet another medication to add to his list. He placed it in the case with his hyposprays. "Understood. I'm sorry to take up your time like this."

  "It's no problem." Bashir smiled and crossed his arms. "Deka tea is also good for heartburn, but your blood chemistry tells me you're already an avid drinker of the stuff."

  "Mmhmm. I like to tell doctors not to worry about the blood in my tea stream." Mora joked. He regarded the younger man seriously. "Thank you, Julian."

  "You're welcome." Bashir offered his hand for a handshake. "Take care of yourself, Pol, and good luck."

  "You, too." Mora accepted the polite gesture. "Ready, Odo?"

  Odo grunted the affirmative.

  Doctor Bashir said, "By the way, Odo, you look fantastic. I almost didn't recognize you. It's good to see you again, and I'm happy things turned out well for Kejal."

  Odo glanced at Bashir. "Thank you...you look quite distinguished in your old age."

  "Tch, oh please, you should see Quark. He's a prune."

  "No. I'm going straight to the shuttle after this."

  Mora laughed heartily at hearing Odo's dour refusal. He let Bashir help him to his feet and slipped his arms through the sleeves of his travel jacket. Odo handed the cane over, picked up Kejal's basin and rudely walked out of the Infirmary without another word.

  "Some people never change," Bashir remarked with a shake of his head.

  "He's still in shock." Mora said. "Thank you again, doctor. Dying on a waste facility floor wasn't my idea of a dignified end."

  He knew Bashir could appreciate his morbid humor. The doctor's quiet chortling followed him as he made his way onto the Promenade. Being forced to use a cane meant walking slower, and moving slower meant he saw more of the world around him.

  A young human couple held hands near one of the observation windows. Two Ferengi quarreled about their mothers. A Vulcan child peered intently at her educational PADD.

  And Kejal stood outside the Celestial Cafe, talking quietly to Chalan. Unlike earlier, he wore a neutral expression even as his gaze remained riveted to the lovely Bajoran woman's face.

  "...but he's all right. There he is. Father!" Kejal waved.

  Chalan turned, and the sad light in her eyes let Mora know Kejal told her of his condition. He'd grown so accustomed to the pitying look people gave him that he didn't bother getting annoyed by it.

  "I'm so sorry about what happened." Chalan said. "I've already refunded your account."

  "Oh, thank you, but it wasn't necessary." Mora leaned on his cane and chuckled. "Nobody pushed the hasperat down my throat."

  Chalan smiled fondly at him. "That's true. Ah, I hope this doesn't come across as too forwa
rd...my dearest friend is a palliative care nurse on Bajor. Kejal mentioned you wish to remain in your home, and she does in-home care." She handed him a napkin with a name written near the logo.

  Mora quirked an eyebrow when he read it. Aleexa...interesting name.

  "I know you'll like her right away." Chalan's face became serious. "She cared for my father in his final days. She is extremely spiritual, a great cook and she listens to everyone who needs to talk." She nodded slightly towards Kejal, "She might be good for him, too."

  Her kindness warmed Mora's heart. He dipped his head in thanks. "You're too kind, Miss Chalan. Thank you for this. I'll definitely take her into account."

  "Wonderful. Good luck to you. Now...you, young man," she turned to Kejal and lightly kissed his cheek. "Take care of your father."

  Kejal's eyes nearly popped out of their approximated sockets. Chalan giggled. He touched his face after she slipped back into the restaurant.

  "She...she kissed me!"

  Mora laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Aren't you supposed to be a charmer?"

  "But she-- she--" Kejal straightened, pouting. "I had a lapse, that's all!"

  Words couldn't express how much Mora missed Kejal's screwball sense of humor. He prodded him with his cane. "You're too much. Heh, heh, we best get to the shuttle. No doubt Odo is getting impatient."

  Together, they headed towards the nearest turbolift.

  .o

  "I was about to come looking for you." Odo said gruffly. "I've been waiting for twenty minutes."

  "Sorry." Kejal replied without any real remorse.

  "Kejal was letting Chalan Aroya know I'm all right," said Doctor Mora. He eased himself into the seat next to the science station. "She was concerned."

  "Hmph."

  The airlock hissed shut. Odo checked the seal and found it secure.

  "Shuttlecraft two-five-one, you are clear for departure to Bajor."

  Kejal said, "Acknowledged."

  Odo kept his hands in his lap and let the computer guide the ship safely away from Deep Space Nine's docking ring.

  Kejal reached for the PADD sitting on the control panel. Computerized dom-jot appeared on the screen. "Oh, here we go." He smirked, "Prepare to suffer, Malath!"