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

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  He learned to recognize the smoothness of the Pain Thing. It was a big, flat, round surface. He dreaded feeling it, for he knew it meant suffering.

  Once, he adhered himself to the bottom of the Pain Thing. The alien turned it on. Resisting it was impossible. He took the last shape he remembered pouring himself into and became a cube all by himself. When the Pain Thing stopped buzzing, he stayed a cube. All those straight lines and right angles-- wait, he could do this without the Pain Thing?

  The alien made noises at another alien. Now two were hovering over him. He felt himself being picked up, tapped and turned over. The alien's strange limbs were two flat surfaces with five smaller appendages. This odd alien used those five appendages to manipulate the Pain Thing. He heard the alien generate more noises, and the next thing he knew he was spinning. Holding his cube shape was impossible.

  He got tired of it. The poking, spinning, pain and the giant alien looming over him-- he wanted it to stop!

  Changing shapes made the alien use the Pain Thing. Perhaps not changing shape would stop the pain!

  Then the alien got confusing. Once, it poured him into a tall, cylindrical container. He felt the smoothness of the Pain Thing underneath it. A trick? The container lifted away. He relaxed his shape, resisting the Pain Thing. It did not hurt as badly as it used to.

  Just when he thought he finally won, the alien tried again. He melted into liquid a second time. But the persistent alien did it AGAIN, and resisting the Pain Thing became impossible. He held the container's shape.

  Wait, he could change shape without the Pain Thing, right?

  Of course. He knew what to do.

  The next time the alien turned on the Pain Thing, he stretched part of himself out and attacked its appendage. The Pain Thing immediately stopped.

  And the alien became cruel...

  Or so Odo thought. He didn't realize he was mumbling out loud until Kira whispered his name.

  "Odo?" Kira's brow knit in concern. "Odo, you're liquefying. Odo? Odo!"

  Odo's consciousness realigned with the present. He forced his body back into its humanoid shape.

  "I-I..." The memories were so real he swore he was re-experiencing everything. "...I thought he was punishing me for slapping his hand away from the control panel. I never asked...I didn't know any better." He gestured to the test tubes, the large beaker and the long, thin syringe lying on the countertop behind Kira. "Doctor Mora discovered I was a life form when he poured acid on a small sample of my substance and found DNA. But he did not realize I was sentient when he returned the sample that didn't break down. The acid reacted with my morphogenic enzymes."

  "Odo!"

  Odo clutched the electrostatic plate in remembered agony.

  "He saved me with the centrifuge. It separated out the acid, but the pain persisted for weeks...and I hated him. My first emotion was hate, and I never knew the guilt he felt for causing me that pain.

  "I thought he enjoyed hurting me. I thought he was punishing me. I used tentacles to grab tools out of his hands and knock over his equipment, and he had to keep me inside a containment field for his own safety. I threw myself against it in attempt to escape. I didn't know how else to communicate that I wanted the pain to stop. He wasn't even aware of my sentience until I shape shifted into a copy of my beaker.

  "Later, I began recognizing the vibrations of voices as a means of communication, and through that I began to understand language itself. I proved I understood his words by shape shifting into a cube on command. Then everything changed...he started introducing me to various life forms and objects, and my shape shifting vocabulary grew until I..." Odo tilted his head to indicate himself. He looked over at Kira, his inner substance swirling in shame. "This is where I began, Nerys."

  Kira put his beaker down. She pried his hands off the electrostatic plate and wrapped his arms around her. Then she pulled his head down onto her shoulder and kissed his ear. A touch so tender compared to the memories of his surroundings.

  Odo leaned into her warmth like a plant desperate for rain. He felt his lips quivering, but beyond that he could not express the emotions welling in his substance.

  "The hardest part," he sighed heavily, "is realizing my fear and hatred were completely misguided. He wasn't a sadist. He didn't enjoy my misery. He was experimenting on a jar of what looked like organic residue because the Cardassians wanted to know what I was-- I could have been a valuable new fuel source, or an undiscovered chemical or biological weapon. How could anyone know I was alive? Of course, once the Cardassians realized I was a life form and sentient, they pressured Doctor Mora to find out everything about me. My capabilities, my intelligence...everything.

  "Once a month, I had to entertain them at parties to show off what I'd learned. I thought they liked me. I thought they truly wanted to be my friends. Humanoid children were cruel to me because I was different. I told you about the young Klingons a long time ago..."

  "Yes, I remember," Kira whispered, never breaking her embrace.

  "I recognized their mockery as the same mockery I heard from the Cardassians, and suddenly I understood what really happened at those ridiculous parties. I stopped enjoying them, and I saw my shape shifting as a source of shame.

  "The Cardassian neck trick was the last straw. Doctor Mora made me practice it for weeks. At the party, I tried to refuse by stating I didn't like it. Doctor Mora got angry at me, and I finally did the trick to shut him up. The whole place erupted in laughter. Doctor Mora thanked me for cooperating. And again, I thought he enjoyed seeing me suffer. I felt betrayed...I believed his science meant more to him than me, so I left the lab after that party. I told him what I was doing and I walked out into the rain."

  He kissed Kira's shoulder. "If I knew then what I know now, and if we had simply talked about it, things between Doctor Mora and I would be so much different. I know the experiments I endured wouldn't have been done if he knew I was alive at the start. I-- Hmph, it's all so ridiculous. It's the past, it shouldn't bother me."

  Kira squeezed his upper arms and resumed her embrace. "Your feelings aren't wrong, Odo. He hurt you, and he was wrong to do it. It doesn't matter if he did it knowingly or not, you were still hurt."

  Odo closed his eyes. He grasped her shoulders. "I'm sorry, Nerys. I didn't mean to drag you through this."

  "No." She sat down on the metal table and made him look into her eyes. They were watering, but she spoke before Odo could snap that he didn't want her pity. "This is an important part of who you are. You can see it for what it is instead of what you thought it was. Look at what you've overcome, Odo. I'd be bitter as hell and never look Pol in the eye again if it were me!"

  Odo snorted. "I would say the same if he fell ill two decades ago. I walked out swearing to never see him or this laboratory again."

  "And here you are, facing it and helping him." Kira patted his hip. "I really admire that. We've both overcome a lot, haven't we?"

  "Yes. We definitely have." A small, amused smile tugged the corners of his lips. He touched her knees with his fingertips. "You're sitting on the exact spot where I took humanoid form for the first time."

  Kira tilted her head. "Really?"

  "Mmhmm." Odo sat next to her. "I didn't realize my legs weren't solid enough to hold my weight. So when I tried to stand..." He slid off the table and reverted to his gelatinous state on the floor. After a few seconds, he reformed facing her. "Learning to walk took a long time. I did not have the reflexes associated with balance. They came to me with practice. Talking happened the same way. Both with Doctor Mora's guidance."

  "Just like any other baby." Kira said affectionately.

  "Then I was a large infant." Odo found himself smiling as fonder memories surfaced. "Doctor Mora played games with me to teach me the simple things-- like facial expressions, but I did not master using or interpreting them until after I left the lab."

  He walked past the table and opened the glass cabinet by the wall console. Isolinear rods labeled with dates l
ined the shelf.

  "Ah, here." Odo placed one in the port below the console. He saw himself sitting on the table. At that time, he did not have eyelashes or teeth, and the only clothing he could mimic was a pair of black skintight shorts.

  "You were so young!" Kira gasped.

  Odo stared at his younger self on the screen. At Doctor Mora guiding his hands and praising him.

  "Now remember, you have to hold it tight." Doctor Mora said after shaping Odo's hand into a fist around the neck of a beaker. "I'm going to let go. Don't loosen your grip."

  He let go. Odo focused his whole being on keeping his fingers closed.

  "Aha! Fantastic. You're doing so well! Let's put it down. Slowly. Open your fingers. There you go. Perfect! Now, do you remember the handshake?"

  "No." Odo opened his eyes wide, grabbed Doctor Mora's hand and shook it vigorously up and down. "Wait. Yes."

  He felt Kira leaning against him.

  "You sounded a lot like Kejal when you were young. What made you change your voice?"

  "I wanted to frighten other children away."

  "Right...the Klingons..."

  Odo nodded. Oddly, that memory didn't sting like it used to. In fact, the building-- the very room he was standing in-- didn't look as terrifying as his mind made it out to be.

  The equipment was just equipment. The shadows were just shadows.

  "It is hard to imagine that there was a time where I knew nothing. I didn't know what it meant to love...or be loved..." Odo thumbed the betrothal bracelet on Kira's wrist. "...or that I would be standing here with you."

  Kira ducked her head, smiling. She glanced at her wrist and refocused on his face. Her expression softened. "Pol seems to love you like a son."

  Odo cleared his throat and put the isolinear rod back into its proper place. "He is not my father."

  "Family isn't always governed by genes. Kejal has no problem calling him his father."

  "That's what I told Kejal to call him." Odo replied. "Don't all mothers want their children to know better than they did?"

  "Yeah, but that doesn't mean denying yourself if a chance comes up, either, and you won't have yours for long."

  Odo closed his eyes and allowed himself a silent sigh. Doctor Mora was good to him when he wasn't blinded by his own arrogance, but at that time Odo didn't have the mental capacity to understand gestures like embracing and pats on the back.

  Looking back on those times left him even more confused.

  "We should get to the facility," said Odo.

  Kira handed him his beaker. "Got your sticker?"

  "My-- " he scooped it off the floor, where it fell when he liquefied. "Here we go."

  They joined hands and activated the circuitry in their stickers. The facility transporter beamed them right to Doctor Mora's room.

  Kejal was regenerating in a clear basin by the window.

  Doctor Mora had been stripped to the waist. He shivered a little, his face flushed. Odo picked up the digital chart by the biobed. The antibiotics were causing a controlled fever and helping his body fight off the infection in his kidney.

  Odo did a double take. Doctor Mora looked so small in the bed. The hair on his pectoral area was all gray and thinner than Odo remembered. His collarbones stuck out beneath the skin. He shifted restlessly and his lips were dry.

  "Doctor Mora?"

  Doctor Mora's eyelids fluttered.

  "Nerys, replicate a cool cloth for his head."

  Kira nodded and replicated one. She laid it lightly on Doctor Mora's forehead. "He's awfully warm."

  "It's the antibiotics."

  "Leruu?" Doctor Mora mumbled.

  "No," whispered Kira. "It's Nerys."

  "Mm..." he opened his eyes. "Oh."

  Odo edged in next to Kira. "Doctor Mora, good morning."

  Doctor Mora covered a yawn with his hand. "To you, too."

  "Nerys and I stopped by the Science Institute. I...felt the need to face it."

  "Did you now?"

  Nodding once, Odo handed Doctor Mora his old beaker. At the sight of it, Doctor Mora's eyes twinkled. He smiled, but it was sad.

  "It's been a lifetime since you fit in this thing."

  "I know. Nerys almost didn't believe it either."

  Kira gave his arm a squeeze. "He's right. If I hadn't seen Kejal as a newborn, I never would've guessed."

  Doctor Mora held the beaker out to Odo again. "Keep it for now. It'll get lost in here."

  Odo accepted it and slipped it into the pocket he created in his pants. "How do you feel?"

  "The blockage seems to be gone and the swelling is going down. The pain hasn't gone away yet. I'm fortunate this contraption is so good at controlling it."

  "Ah. Yes. Doctor Bashir used one of these to stop the pain when I had the morphogenic virus. Apparently, you had the same idea for Kejal."

  "I kept him in my living room. I held him as much as I could to make up for your inability to be there." Doctor Mora lifted his head and glanced at the window. When he noticed Kejal regenerating, he settled back once again. His eyes remained troubled.

  Aleexa bustled in carrying a food tray. "Oh! Well, the gang's all here! Good morning, Odo. Good morning, Nerys."

  Odo and Kira offered polite pleasantries. Aleexa helped Doctor Mora incline the head of the bed and moved the tray into his reach.

  "I'm afraid this isn't my home cooking, but it'll be easy on your stomach." She lifted the lid to reveal some sort of fruit sauce, toasted bread and a mug of warm tea.

  "Ah, it looks delicious anyway. Thank you." Doctor Mora's eyelids dropped as he reached for the packaged spoon.

  Odo watched how Kira tenderly buttered the bread for him and replicated extra napkins. She and Doctor Mora talked in hushed tones, their faces serious.

  Odo let them converse uninterrupted. He slipped over to the sunny window and gazed down at his 'sleeping' offspring.

  .o

  Something cylindrical plopped into Kejal's substance. Only his mother and father dared do such a thing, and at the moment his father was indisposed.

  He absorbed and studied the invader. A beaker with something written on it.

  Cardassian language.

  Odo'ital.

  Curious, Kejal slowly assumed humanoid form. He popped the beaker out of his elbow. "Oh, mother...it's your first beaker!"

  "Mmhmm." Odo lightly slapped Kejal's knee.

  Kejal rolled it between his hands. "It's so little."

  "You were that tiny when you were born." Odo slipped his arm around Kejal's shoulders and Kejal leaned into his mother's comforting touch. "How is Doctor Mora doing?"

  "He filled up an entire pee bag earlier. I didn't know humanoid bladders held that much."

  "Tch, I don't miss having one. They're annoying."

  "Father says the same thing." Kejal smiled and handed the beaker back to Odo. "He's doing better. Aleexa says he'll be well enough to return home soon. Maybe he's going get completely better!"

  The arm Odo had around his shoulders tightened its hold. "He is dying, Kejal."

  "Moth-- "

  "No, listen to me. I understand you don't want to hear this, but it is time to face reality." Odo's voice remained gentle, but firm. "Today, I showed Nerys a painful part of my past. If I succeeded, so can you. Stop running from reality, Kejal."

  Kejal's substance quivered. He clasped his hands together. "I'm afraid to."

  "Why? Look at me...tell me why."

  He met his mother's worried gaze. "No. It's too hard. Let's talk about your wedding plans inst-- "

  "No. Don't change the subject. Doctor Mora is going to die in approximately seven weeks."

  Seven weeks. Before, the word months got thrown about. Months meant a long time. Weeks felt like no time at all.

  Kejal's world contracted more.

  Odo said, "Nerys and I will take care of the wedding plans. That means Doctor Mora needs your help planning his funeral. You...are closer to him. You know what he prefers better than I do."


  "No. That's not enough time. Don't have the wedding for a year. He'll wait for it! Sick people stay alive for things like that all the time!"

  "Kejal, you are asking for the impossible. Don't be selfish!"

  "Why not?" Kejal exploded. "Why not, mother?"

  His outburst silenced the muted conversation between Kira and Mora.

  Odo sighed without backing down. "Let's talk somewhere else. If you're going to yell like that, I'd rather not cause a disturbance."

  "Is everything all right?" asked Mora.

  "We're having a minor disagreement," replied Odo. "We're taking it outside right now."

  "They're fine, Pol." Kira soothed.

  Kejal couldn't protest. Odo bodily led him into the hall by the arm. They followed the signs to an elevator leading onto the roof. Once out in the bright sun, Odo pulled Kejal close again.

  "You've been close to him your whole life. Even while in the Great Link, you thought of him. I know how much you love him, Kejal."

  "People don't let the ones they love die!" Kejal gestured at the silver ground beneath their feet. "We're just sitting back and letting him die!"

  "No. Delfeya syndrome has no cure. Scientists like Doctor Mora have studied it for years. It's such a complicated disease. Who knows? There might be a cure in another hundred years. Even if Doctor Mora lived a natural lifespan, he still won't be alive in a century. He is a sick man and he needs you."

  Kejal wanted to hit Odo in the mouth. He wanted to cry-- and hated that he lacked the ability to do so.

  Instead, he uttered several Bajoran curse words and sank into Odo's arms. "I don't know what to do."

  Odo's hands pressed him closer. "Be there. Worry less about tomorrow and focus on today." He exhaled, the air puffing across Kejal's head. "I didn't know how I would go on once I sent you away with Doctor Mora. Then I realized what a wonderful life you were going to have, and it wasn't so bad. I missed you terribly for those first ten years. But the knowledge that you were safe and happy made it bearable. And I'm sure it wasn't easy saying goodbye to Doctor Mora when he brought you to the homeworld."

  "It wasn't." Kejal shook his head. "But I always knew he was alive. If I had a pressing need, I could've come to Bajor to visit him. It's not so easy once someone crosses into the Celestial Temple. Admitting it means it's real...that he'll die."