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

by ROVER MARIE TOWLE

  .o

  Humanoids gave their babies a bath shortly after birth. Kejal saw no difference in bathing his father's remains after death.

  When he shifted Mora's body to scrub his back, he felt comforted at hearing no moans of pain. He washed Mora's hair, cleaned the blood residue out of his nose and mouth and trimmed his nails. Then he slicked his hair back using styling gel and took great care in shaving off his stubble.

  When Kejal finished, he kissed Mora's right ear and covered his nude body with a clean blanket. He faced the prayer mandala to thank the Prophets for granting his father a peaceful passing.

  The door opened just as he completed his prayer. Without looking, he knew it was his mother. He practically threw himself into Odo's arms.

  Odo cupped the back of Kejal's head. His voice sounded wooden. "You did a nice job. He looks good."

  "He's naked under the blanket. I thought you wanted to dress him."

  Odo nodded. "I'll need your help." He glanced at the chosen attire. "He never was very stylish, was he?"

  They chuckled despite the ache. Getting Mora dressed was a simple matter. Odo and Kejal managed it without assistance. Afterward, Kejal placed a rolled-up towel under Mora's chin to keep his mouth in a dignified state of closure.

  Then they stood together and studied what remained of the man who centered their lives.

  Mora's face was relaxed in an inquisitive expression. The colors of his lab tunic actually made the pallor in his skin less shocking.

  Kejal held his head and groaned. Odo bodily led him into the living room without a word. The vase became his regeneration container, and he enjoyed a blissful hour of nothingness.

  Faint light on the horizon hinted at morning's nearness when Kejal returned to his humanoid form. He almost prepared a mug of tea until he remembered it wasn't necessary anymore.

  In Mora's bedroom, Odo stared off into space. Eventually, he covered his face with one hand, and Kejal swore he heard muffled sobbing.

  It's my imagination.

  Kejal checked the PADD Aleexa filled out after Mora died. His official cause of death was multi-organ failure as a result of Delfeya syndrome. When his heart ceased to beat, all the blood in his body flowed into the varicose veins lining his esophagus. They couldn't handle the sudden influx and burst, pouring his entire blood supply into his gullet. Bajoran stomachs contracted at death, a reaction to the lack of oxygen, so the blood had nowhere to go but up.

  There was no explanation for the bleeding in Mora's right ear. Something ruptured his eardrum from inside, but Aleexa had no idea how it occurred.

  Kejal checked the date and shut the PADD off. He toyed with the chain on the earring Mora gave him. Knowing his father's pagh was safe brought immense comfort.

  His eyes searched the myriad of holograms lined up underneath the oval window. He saw his birth, his mother smiling and his father in full health. A personal favorite was Mora and Ambassador Spock exchanging a Vulcan salute. Odo and Kira's wedding hologram stood in the center next to Mora's and Leruu's.

  Every chair, every wall...everything carried echoes from the past. More than anything, Kejal loved seeing Mora laugh. Especially when he laughed hard, like he did less than twenty-six hours ago. The way his face crinkled up in mirth was unforgettable.

  So many memories.

  "The morning after my death, you will watch the sunrise from the oval window just like we used to. You will see the most beautiful dawn of your life and realize life goes on. I want you to smile for me when that morning comes."

  Kejal looked up. A glowing line marked the misty east. He sat down on the floor near the oval window.

  Brilliant colors heralded morning's arrival. Kejal's brown eyes shimmered with reflections of sunlight bursting over the horizon. Like a tree, he saw the sun as a sign of life.

  Something stirred the dust motes floating in the air. Kejal reached as if to embrace the light itself. The sun climbed higher, its brilliance sliding down his body. He didn't try to hold on when its glow moved slowly off his outstretched fingertips.

  Kejal folded his hands in his lap.

  "Goodbye, father," he murmured, smiling. "You were right."

  "Kejal?"

  He startled. "Mother...I didn't hear you come out here."

  "I didn't want to be heard." Odo said. He seated himself on the rug.

  Kejal scooted over into his lap and wrapped his arms around his neck. He wanted to be held. Odo silently pulled him closer.

  "Kejal...you saw the same thing I did." He inhaled through his nose and asked, "Do you think he felt pain at the end?"

  Sighing, Kejal closed his eyes. "What did you experience while giving birth to me, mother?"

  "You already know."

  "Tell me anyway."

  Odo frowned at the window. His eyelashes looked unusually damp. "Everything went white, and I felt the purest love I have ever experienced in my life. And then you were there, in my lap...and when you formed your face to look at me, I forgot all about the discomfort leading to your birth."

  Without hesitating, Kejal said, "Father experienced the same thing when he died."

  "He bled from his esophagus. Blood usually entails pain."

  Kejal looked right into his mother's eyes. They were large and pleading for meaning. He wasn't surprised by Odo seeing Mora's death as total extinction.

  But he hoped to change that.

  "The blood in his nose and mouth came from his esophagus, yes. Aleexa doesn't know what caused his ear to bleed. Something ruptured his eardrum from the inside."

  "So?" Odo growled.

  "I think I know what caused it." Kejal leaned forward. "Mother, humanoids often bleed when a baby passes through their birth canal, and that usually happens after the amniotic membrane ruptures."

  Something in Odo's face changed.

  "Yesterday, father told me he wouldn't see another sunrise. He knew exactly when he was going to die. Do you know why?" Kejal saw the opening and kept talking. "His biological son was due forty-seven years ago today."

  At that, Odo pursed his lips. He blinked rapidly, his eyes glistening, and touched the earring on Kejal's right ear. His whole body trembled. Then he looked at his hands and began to laugh. He clutched Kejal in a crushing embrace, his entire frame shaking.

  Odo was laughing and...crying?

  Kejal pulled him close. He kissed his cheek and rubbed his back, letting him experience whatever emotions coursed through him without judgment.

  "I was so afraid to witness the end," Kejal said. "Father told me I would be ready when his time came, and I was. He prepared me every step of the way once you made me realize it was inevitable. Seeing him die was...mother, this will sound strange, but it was beautiful. All his pain and sickness ended at his last breath. I can't think about it with sadness. Why should I when he is hugging wife and son like this right now?"

  Odo ruffled Kejal's hair and immediately smoothed it back down. His voice quivered. "It's amazing how we both saw the same thing and drew such opposite conclusions. All I wanted was for his last moment to be peaceful, and it didn't look peaceful to me. I worked cases on less gruesome murder scenes...so I always equated blood with pain. I felt as if I let him down."

  Kejal gripped Odo's shoulders. "You held him in your arms when he took his last breath. You didn't fail him. You gave him what he wanted. You stayed by his side. He died happy because of you. Not me, mother. You."

  The clock on the wall beeped to mark the hour.

  "Kejal..."

  "Hm?"

  Odo closed his eyes and his form lost cohesion. He beckoned through the link. Kejal relaxed into it without question. In a few seconds they became one giant puddle on the living room floor with Kejal's earring floating in the middle.

  Between them, a single, bittersweet emotion flowed with all the strength of a tsunami.

  Hope.

  Chapter 17: The Seed

  Odo tried not to think about the task at hand. "Support his shoulders, Kejal."

 
; "I've got him, mother. You hang onto his feet."

  "Right. You ready?" Aleexa stayed in the doorway. "Now slide him over."

  Odo and Kejal followed her instructions. Moving a corpse was vastly different than shifting a live body that could support its weight. Rigor mortis made it slightly easier-- no one worried about controlling limp hands or arms.

  Doctor Mora fit comfortably in his permanent receptacle. Aleexa helped position him properly. Kira smoothed out his rumpled clothing.

  Odo picked up his old beaker, an object he linked with his painful early years. Kejal had filled it up with deka leaves, a seed pod and the first spring flower he picked off the tree. Odo gently tucked the beaker under Doctor Mora's folded hands. He took a long, last look at his mentor's calm face. His inner substance clutched. He lowered the cloth flap.

  Everyone worked together to lace the lid shut.

  They eased the coffin onto the small antigravity platform. The simple device aided in carrying Doctor Mora outside. Leruu's grave was just over one of the western hills.

  Cool spring air blew across the grassy field. The sun sat just above the horizon, its reddening brilliance giving the world a deep orange glow.

  Odo and Kejal privately interred Doctor Mora next to his wife at exactly sunset. No part of his funeral was tended to by anyone who wasn't present during his final days. Everybody had something to say about him that brought forth smiles, and Odo read his last treatise out loud. He was surprised to find himself choking up halfway through the reading.

  Ironically, the treatise had been published the day before Doctor Mora died.

  Kejal sang beautifully before burial. Kira knew the chant and whispered the translation to Odo. Aleexa wiped her eyes several times.

  Then they took turns pushing the dirt back into the hole. Before the last layer went on, Kejal sprinkled the grave with flower seeds.

  "For luck," he said.

  Odo realized he was surrounded by the same people who attended his wedding. He gazed at the fresh grave.

  "You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

  Later, Odo helped Kira pack for her return to Deep Space Nine. Her week was up. He longed to join her, yet it became his duty to start announcing Doctor Mora's death. Doctor Mora requested it kept quiet until after his funeral-- he didn't want the event to become a public spectacle. Odo made sure Spock was among the people to be notified personally.

  The small guest bedroom felt cramped with two beds. Kira and Odo could barely maneuver past each other in the small space. They kept stepping on Aleexa's slippers.

  "How are you doing?"

  Odo glanced at his wife. He sighed and slipped her spare boots into her travel bag.

  "I'm all right," he said.

  She touched his hand. "Something is still bothering you."

  "It didn't feel like goodbye, Nerys. I closed his coffin. I helped bury him in the ground. I just...I feel as though I should do something more personal. Something only he would have thought to do." Odo shook his head. "It's ridiculous. He's dead and buried now. It's time to move on."

  "Odo." Kira straightened to face him fully. "He's only been gone for what? Eighteen hours?"

  "It seems like less." He grumbled to himself. "Nerys, we talked. Six hours before he died, we talked. We connected."

  Her expression softened. She leaned subtly closer, letting her hip brush his.

  Odo bit his bottom lip. "I never thought I would grieve over him." His eyes prickled as he looked into hers. "I finally learned how to cry, and now I don't know how to stop. This is ridiculous."

  "Odo?" Kira cupped his face in her hands. "Don't even try."

  The urge to cry was a heaviness behind his eyes. Nothing like he experienced as a solid, but feeling the tears reach freedom without him willing them to offered a strange relief.

  "I think our wedding day was his last decent day. He went downhill after that." Odo shuddered again. "I didn't want him to suffer, Nerys. Sometimes, I considered 'accidentally' overdosing his triptacederine. He suffered because of me."

  "Don't say that. You don't know that for sure."

  "Nerys, I do."

  His face twisted. He sank against her. She pulled him close and held him tight. For a moment or two, he swore he'd lose his shape without her holding him together.

  "You gave him peace in the end," she whispered in his ear. The wetness of her tears merged with his. "You gave him peace and held his hand. He died happy, and that's what matters. His pain is over."

  "I wish mine was."

  Kira's hands stroked his hair. "This is going to sound wrong, but it's a good thing you're grieving. It means he meant something to you."

  Odo pressed her closer to his chest with trembling hands. "I realized it too late."

  "Better late than never."

  "I almost made the same mistake with you. Now, I'm glad I didn't."

  "Me, too." Kira cupped his face and rested her forehead against his.

  "I thought watching him die would ease my fears, but it made them worse. Kejal is coping much better than I am. I want to believe, Nerys. I want to keep hoping there is more, but it slips away every time. How do you keep your faith at a time like this?"

  "Because faith kept me going when I didn't have anything else." She stroked his quivering bottom lip with her thumb. "You're scared. I understand, and it's okay. Open up. Let it all out, Odo. It's okay. I'm here. I love you."

  Hearing Kira say she loved him touched the empty void in his chest. He trembled violently and the tears spilled free. They tracked down his face only to disappear into his substance once more. The sensation of crying was almost as visceral as sex and giving birth. He let it happen, because it was impossible to not give in.

  "Don't let me go." Odo choked out. He didn't care how foolish it sounded.

  A sad smile touched her lips. "I won't."

  The shaking settled down. Odo leaned in and kissed her hard, seized by a sudden need to be closer.

  She held onto his upper arms. "Are you up to doing this right now?"

  "Yes," he said against her chin. "I need you. I love you."

  Kira's eyes darkened. She locked the door and unclasped her top. He let her remove his clothing. It reverted to Changeling cytoplasm and merged with his legs as they kissed.

  Odo laid her on the bed. Light from the tiny lamp in the corner softly lit her features. He saw everything he loved about her shining through her eyes.

  "Are you really immortal?" asked Kira.

  "Unless I'm killed, yes."

  "Then I want you to keep me with you after I'm gone. It doesn't matter how. I want to stay with you, Odo. Forever. But you have to promise not to beat yourself up over it when I do die. I won't live forever, but I'll try to stick around awhile." She traced her finger along his jaw. "For you."

  Odo's chest hurt again. He made himself nod his head. "But I might cry."

  Her lips curled in a wan smile. "Your eyes look gorgeous when you cry, Odo."

  Then she reversed their position and descended on him. When the chaos of their lovemaking passed, Odo surrounded her in his substance. He loved holding her in his natural state. She ran her fingers through his liquid form, bringing him a comfort no words could describe.

  "Oh, look at the time." Kira groaned. "I need to finish p-- "

  "Mom! Mother! Come quick!"

  Alarmed, Odo reformed and raced into the living room. Kira dashed in behind him wearing only a robe. He found Kejal sitting by the chest, which he'd pulled away from its spot under the oval window.

  Kejal held a rectangular gold box in his hands. It gleamed faintly in the light of the nearby duranja lamp. Inside it was a long, golden-hued braid. Silver cloth ribbons tied off both ends.

  "Father's braid," Kejal said. He looked up, his eyes gleaming. "I found it while looking through the chest."

  Odo knelt and touched the silky hair. In a flash, it came to him. He knew exactly how to say goodbye.

  "Mother?"

  Odo kissed Kejal's forehead. "Hol
d onto it. Don't lose it."

  Nodding, Kejal put the braid back in the box and reached for an old fashioned Bajoran holo-image set inside a crystal cube. In it, a Bajoran baby peered at the image taker with huge, curious eyes. Kejal pressed the symbol on top and the infant crinkled his face up in laughter.

  "Father laughed the same way all his life. Look."

  "That's adorable." Kira bent to better see the hologram. She sighed after a moment. "I better get going. Where's Aleexa?"

  "She went to finalize father's death certificate." Kejal put the hologram away. "So, you're going back to Deep Space Nine already?"

  "Yes, after I get dressed in proper clothes."

  Kejal got up and hugged her before she finished speaking. "No. Wait until tomorrow."

  "I wish I could." Kira gave Kejal a good, strong squeeze. "I have a lot of work to catch up on, but I heard you and Odo will be heading there once you get things settled here."

  Kejal nodded once. "Shouldn't take too long."

  Odo watched them touch foreheads and smile at each other.

  "Father said mother is a lucky guy to have you, you know."

  She patted his cheeks. "We're all lucky to have him. And we're lucky to have you, too. Don't you ever forget that."

  Kejal playfully bumped his nose into hers. "I won't, mom."

  Kira hugged him again and turned to Odo. "I better get dressed."

  Five minutes later, Odo held the tram door open while she climbed in.

  Odo leaned in and said, "We'll see you soon."

  "I look forward to it." Kira replied. She kissed him tenderly. "Husband."

  He chuckled. "Wife."

  She pulled the tram door shut. He watched the vehicle zoom away.

  A chilly breeze prompted Odo to head back inside. Kejal wasn't in the living room anymore. Odo checked around the house until he found his son curled up on Doctor Mora's bed.

  Odo laid down next to Kejal.

  "You sang beautifully at the burial."

  "Thanks." Kejal answered without trying to smile or look happy. Doctor Mora's absence had become more palpable as the hours passed.

  "But the goodbye doesn't feel complete, does it?" Odo asked.