Thia clicked the chip into place and tapped in a series of commands, and the diagrams Prynn recognized from sh’Veileth’s message appeared on her desk screen.
Prynn continued. “What appears to make this particular strain unique is—”
“—the existence of a four-gamete fertilization process,” Thia finished for her, her mouth open in incredulity. “This is incredible. We’ve looked for evidence like this for centuries.”
“Apparently you weren’t looking in the right place, or as sh’Veileth hypothesized, it’s possible that this particular strain has a different life cycle from its relatives. It might have longer periods of dormancy or require a narrow set of circumstance to germinate,” Prynn said. “Of course, the Science Institute wants to send in a survey team to collect their own samples. It’s possible that the combination of plants you used in the poultice created a false positive analysis—”
“But the result is promising. The first real lead that we have indicating that nature does indeed support a four-gender paradigm. This is unbelievable.”
“And from a believer, that’s saying something,” Prynn said, offering Thia a friendly smile. Truce. Come on, take it, Thia. Let’s not part as enemies.
Reaching toward her, Thia touched Prynn’s hands. “Thank you. I have been less than gracious to you and…” Her voice trailed off.
“Thia?”
Color drained from the zhen’s face, and she teetered forward, sending her padd spilling onto the floor.
Catching her by the shoulders, Prynn pushed her back into her chair; drooping, Thia slumped down, her mouth half open. Prynn grabbed her wrist to find a pulse and found nothing; Dammit I don’t even know if an Andorian pulse registers in the wrist. She discovered a dark blue blood smear over her hand. Muttering swear words, Prynn pushed up Thia’s sleeves and discovered forearm-long, irregular gashes oozing blood. What the hell—!
Heart racing, she slapped Thia on each cheek; the zhen bobbled and swooped with each slap.
Bleary-eyed, Thia jerked to alertness. She steadied herself with her armrests. Prynn lent support with a hand on her shoulder.
“Are you still feeling dizzy?”
“I don’t—maybe—” She teetered slightly to the side.
“Maybe’s enough for me,” Prynn said, and helped Thia out of her chair and onto the floor where she could lie down. Crouching down beside her, Prynn cursed herself for not keeping her tricorder handy. She studied the zhen; other than the wounds on her arms, Prynn couldn’t see anything else critical. Of course, medically she had no idea what she was dealing with. “Can I get you food—a drink? A wet cloth for your face?”
She rolled her head from side to side. “I am fine. I assure you.”
“You’ve been hurt, have you eaten?”
Thia looked abashed.
“Anything at all? Or slept?!”
“It has been a difficult time since we returned from the Reserve. I have been occupied with many concerns.”
“You Andorians—could you make it any harder on yourselves?” Prynn said under her breath, wondering how someone like her, who eschewed personal melodrama, found herself in the middle of all this intrigue. “I’m calling a doctor—”
Thia grabbed her arm, gripped tightly. “No. Don’t.”
“But those wounds on your arms.”
“No. I can take care of it.” She covered her face with her hands. “Leave me,” she pleaded. “Please.”
Prynn remained confused. Thinking through conversations she’d had with Shar, anecdotes about Andorians—Thriss—and came up empty as far as answers were concerned. Why wouldn’t you seek help for such an injury—? Then she knew. “They’re self-inflicted, aren’t they?” Prynn sat back on her haunches, staring through narrowed eyes at the zhen. “You did this.”
Curling into herself, Thia keened softly, rocking back and forth. “They left me,” she chanted over and over again. “I am alone.”
Prynn tried coaxing Thia into talking with her, but the zhen, trapped in the wake of her own pain, ignored her. Prynn went to the desk where Thia had been working when she’d come in. She searched for hints—clues—anything that would help her understand what was happening. A jacket had been thrown over the chair; Prynn searched the pockets, found them empty. She scanned her desk, pulled open drawers.
And there it was, in the upper right-hand corner of the desk drawer. Prynn removed the coiled chain bearing the shapla, and opened the locket.
Empty. The hair weaving, created by joining the locks of the four bondmates at the Time of Knowing, was gone.
“I am alone…alone…alone.” Thia’s chant grew fainter, her voice became hoarse.
Prynn looked on helplessly. I have to help her. I can’t leave her here. Pulling Thia up off the floor, Prynn held her by the shoulders. “You’re not alone. You’re coming with me.”
“Why?” Thia said through her sobs.
“I don’t know, but I’ll be damned if I’ll leave you here.” Shar will know what to do.
* * *
A cloud of plaster dust burst from the ceiling.
Shar—and not Shar—opened his eyes and found he was in a strange, darkened place of teetering tall marble columns and echoing halls. He saw silhouettes of headless statues, heard the frantic scree-scree-scree of birds trapped in bowed steel cages. Flowering plants denuded of petals and soil had been crushed beneath chunks of wall. He saw a placard in standard: Betazed Art Institute. The Dominion War. Betazed. I’m in the middle of the invasion! He tried pivoting his head in the other direction, but discovered that a cold weight held him down. Flames could be seen outside a window. A series of thunderous concussive blasts shook the hall. Smoke, like a dense particulate fog, crept through every open orifice.
Shar moved his hand. Moved it. He fingered the flowing green of the ceara pantaloon and knew that he was not in this place and he was not moving these fingers. That he was within another. Then he remembered: the Rite of Memory.
By touch, he found his way to his waist, to his ribs, to the cold, heaviness on his chest. He tried, in an act of futility, pushing it away, knowing it wouldn’t budge. A cave-in.
A clanging behind him. The metallic twang of a phaser blast. Shuffling footsteps—probably at least a half-dozen.
And then a warm hand on his shoulder. “Zhavey! Zhavey!”
Shar’s heart skipped. He peered through the mist, searching for her face.
Thriss had dropped down beside him. “We heard the art academy was hit by the last Jem’Hadar assault. I ordered this team together. I’ll get you out of here.” She took his hand in hers and called out, “Reshus! Leilo! Over here!”
Soldiers. Or not. One was Bolian. The other, unknown. Shar couldn’t tell in the haze. The pressure lifted; he started sitting up, coughing clots of phlegm and blood and spitting them on the ground.
“Oh no you don’t,” she ordered, forcing him back down. “Not until we can free your other arm.” It was then Shar realized that a round, dense weight remained on his upper arm—a statue had toppled, trapping him. He could see blood pooling beneath his elbow; above the puddle of blood, a laceration, pumping spurts with the rhythm of his heart.
Thriss yanked a field tourniquet from her medical bag and wrapped beneath his shoulder, cinching it until the bleeding slowed to a trickle. Medical tricorder in hand, Thriss scanned the injured limb. She frowned, blew out a hard puff of air, took his hand in hers.
Shar loved the feel of her hand—he always had. She had the most graceful, long, slender fingers….
“Zhavey,” Thriss said gently. “Your arm. I…I cannot save it. If I were a physician—if those who came with me were more than orderlies, perhaps.”
Cold sweat prickled on his brow; nausea overtook him. The full meaning of her words sank in: amputation.
Pressing her cheek against his, she whispered in his ear, “I will explain the procedure. I assure you, you won’t feel any pain.”
Before he could respond, a deafening blast shoo
k the gallery, releasing a cloud of dust. Thriss threw her body over his. Shar wanted to push her away, plead with her to leave this dangerous place, but she would have none of it. He could sense it. In his lifetime, he had never seen this Thriss—her focused determination in the face of horrific stress.
“Reshus! Get over here, Leilo! I need your help!” Thriss shouted.
The Bolian huddled against a pillar, weeping softly; the other sprawled lifelessly on the ground. Shar tried to tell Thriss that shell shock was common among those unexposed to combat, but his mouth wouldn’t form the words.
He felt her fussing with the tourniquet, and then she leaned close so her face hovered above his. “I’ll be right back, Zhavey.”
At first Thriss spoke kindly, showing Leilo sympathy in hopes that he would help her with the procedure. Her gentle tones gave way to gruffness until at last she barked orders, demanding that he focus. Could this be Thriss? Blood loss made it steadily more difficult to focus—and he wondered if he was hallucinating. Then he felt Leilo sitting beside him; she must have won him over. The Bolian attached a series of sensors to Shar’s forehead with quivering hands. Shar saw the sweat beading on Leilo’s face: fear.
Not Thriss. As she coolly removed a laser scalpel from her bag, Shar saw her mouth move, but heard nothing save his thudding heart. He felt slight pressure against his neck, then numbness. Time elapsed in elongated warm minutes until the acrid stench of burning skin choked him and he knew the limb was gone.
Thriss cried quietly. She lay down on his chest; he could feel her fine, soft hair tickling his neck. “You are my Whole, Zhavey.”
Shar’s vision blurred. He felt his time with Thriss slipping away and deep within Thantis’s memory, he cried out, longing for more time….
“Leilo, help me lift her,” she ordered. “We have to get her back to the hospital for a transfusion!”
The smoke gave way to darkness. He opened his eyes.
* * *
He was back.
Thantis helped unfasten him from the playback system. When the final wire was removed, he stood before her, their heads bowed.
“I never knew she was so strong,” Shar whispered at last. “She had a powerful will, yes, but the commanding, confident zhen I saw in your memory…A Dominion siege would have broken the Thriss I knew.” He paused, thinking about what he’d seen in Thantis’s memory. “At least I thought I knew her.”
“Her medical colleagues respected her, trusted her. Among them, she flowered, became stronger. Away from Andor, she could have continued to be the Thriss you saw in my memory. I should have encouraged her to return to Betazed, to be with me, for the duration of your voyage to the Gamma Quadrant. Instead, I let Charivretha persuade me that she belonged with her bondmates.” She paused, reconsidering. “No, that too is not a full truth. I wanted my zhei to be like Andorians were supposed to be. I was too proud to admit that the demands of our world were too much for her.”
* * *
Night had fallen at the keep.
An hour before the Sending summons, Prynn was to have met Shar and Phillipa at the sleep hall so he could walk with them to Tower Hill. Now Thia had been added to their group, even though Prynn wasn’t sure she had the right to extend the invitation. The problem was, no one had seen Shar since he’d gone to see Thantis, and she feared now that her only hope of finding him was waiting until the mourners gathered at the gate. Not wanting to risk offending Thantis, she absolutely needed to tell him about Thia before then.
Not that Thia was in any danger of behaving rashly; the initial shock of her bondmates breaking from her had numbed somewhat. While mending her wounds, Prynn had tried to comfort her with the reminder that their bond had produced three children. Her obligation to the Whole was fulfilled.
But as Shar had loved Thriss, so Thia had loved her th’se since childhood; she had cherished hopes that they would remain together through many cycles to come. Such a possibility had remained open to them, once Charivretha, as one of her final political acts, had called for her kidnappers to be pardoned.
Thia’s th’se had met with her. He had simply felt that their trust was irreparable, based on Thia’s choices, and asked that she be excised from the bond. The remaining three bondmates would stay together for a time to raise their children, then go their separate ways. Using the Whole Vessel provision that Shar had cited to separate from Dizhei and Anichent, they legally executed their decision. Thia was devastated.
Before she’d started looking for Shar, Prynn had procured a mourning robe for the zhen and found a relatively private place in the sleep hall for Thia to prepare for the Sending. Thankfully, Phillipa had shown up, and Prynn was able to search for Shar without having to worry about Thia.
As she made her way through the halls, which were bustling with activity, she saw white mourning robes being donned with more frequency. The gate summons would come soon.
A thought occurred about where he might have gone. She set off running, unconcerned about the odd looks she might get or the complaints that some keep residents might make.
She found him where she thought he might be. At first she mistook him for another chan, but when he lifted the bronze headpiece with its ceremonial mask from his head, there was no question of his identity. Clad in the traditional garb of chan, he had little resemblance to the lean, wiry Starfleet science officer she knew. The person standing before her was a warrior, with supple arms wrapped in leather and metal. His unknotted hair flowed freely over his shoulders—she’d never seen it loose before.
Allowing the heavy door to ease closed behind her, Prynn walked across the darkened chamber to where Shar stood beside Thriss, her coffin aglow in incandescent white.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” she said. She touched the breastplate with her fingertips, traced the bold chan iconograph engraved on the leather, sensed the strength in the lines she touched. “I thought you might be here.”
“I had one last task.” He opened his palm and Prynn saw he held the three hair weavings. The betrothal symbol. He held them as if he had no idea what to do. And why should he? A lost, lifetime promise rested in his hand. She probed his face and found the paralysis of grief etched in each beautiful angle and curve.
“Can I help?” she asked quietly.
Seeming relieved, he nodded. He breathed as if a weight had been lifted from him.
She found a touchpoint on the side of the coffin and pressed. The clear barrier slid back into the bier. She stepped away, feeling like an intruder on this private, sacred moment, but Shar reached for her hand.
“Stay.”
Prynn’s heart caught in her throat and she could barely breathe for the pain of it. She squeezed his hand, tangling her fingers with his.
Shar held out the hand cupping the hair weavings; he trembled, emptied his offering, and then his hand dropped to his side. They stood side by side, unmoving.
The keep bells sounded: five, sonorous baritone rings, summoning the mourners to the gate.
Prynn heard the door creak open behind her and she turned to see Anichent in the chain mail of thaan, Dizhei’s skin painted in the flourishes of shen, and Thantis in the white ceara of zhen. All carried masks beneath their arms. When Dizhei recognized Shar, she drew in a sharp breath, clasping a hand to her mouth. Anichent walked toward his ch’te, arms open.
Prynn let go of Shar’s hand and withdrew into the shield of shadows at the edge of the room, watching as Anichent and Shar embraced, joined by Dizhei. She looked on as the group linked hands and, with tearstained faces lifted, chanted in their whispery voices words in Old Andorii that Prynn could not understand.
She slipped out a side door.
* * *
“Where have you been?” Phillipa hissed, pulling Prynn out of the cluster of mourners milling around the agricultural buildings. She had remained inside waiting for Prynn as long as she reasonably could before deciding that she, Vretha, and Thia should leave. Ever since they’d come out to the plaza, she’d
been searching for Prynn, but the darkness had complicated matters. With most of the mourners hooded and cloaked, distinguishing one individual from another was nearly impossible. From one end of the keep’s front plaza to the other, she’d searched hundreds of faces, hoping that one would be Prynn. At last, results!
Dazed, Prynn blinked, looking at Phillipa as if she were a stranger. “What?” She clutched her white caftan as if she didn’t know what to do with it. “Oh. I’m sorry. I came straight here when I heard the summons. I hope you didn’t wait too long.”
“Never mind. You’d better get ready,” Phillipa said, indicating the robe Prynn had tucked under her arm. “And where’s Shar?”
Pulling her caftan’s hood over her head, Prynn said, “He should be along shortly. But he’s not walking with us.”
“What does that mean?” As they walked across the plaza to join the others, Phillipa activated the pale beacon on a handheld lantern and passed it over to Prynn; Thia and Vretha already had theirs.
“I don’t know. I guess we’ll find out,” Prynn said absently, hanging the light over her wrist.
Prynn seems lost, Phillipa thought, though she couldn’t discern why.
When they met up with Vretha and Thia, only Vretha acknowledged them with a slight nod. Thia was a ghost of her former self: sullen, distracted—moving like a wisp that could be swept away by the wind in a blink. Phillipa feared for her. With their group assembled, Phillipa fixed her mourner’s mask—a solid scarlet red with no embellishments—over her face, pulled up her hood, and waited for the processional to begin.
Hundreds of wrist lights flashed on the sooty, metal-gray keep walls as more mourners crowded into the waiting area. Even the windows of the guard halls in the keep wall were darkened in consideration for the solemnity of the occasion. Beneath the weathered skulls mounted along the tops of the walls, towering relief sculptures of gorgonlike creatures seemed to follow them with their hollow eyes; Mireh would have nightmares. Phillipa looked forward to moving outside. Presently, she had her wish.
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