Resting her chin in her hand, the zhen studied Phillipa, her quivering antennae the only evidence of her being unsettled. She shifted, fussed with the drape of her red ceara, leaned back in her chair. In contrast to the immaculately coiffed Vretha, dried paint lined the creases of Thantis’s fingernail beds, her cuticles ragged and fraying from being picked at; her braids, tied up in a scarf, skewed in every direction. The way she fidgeted reminded Phillipa of Thriss.
Phillipa offered her a neutral smile, but said nothing. Years of counseling had helped her cultivate a tolerance for silence. People usually spoke when they were ready to speak. She had been summoned to Cheen-Thitar Keep by Thantis; Thantis would tell her what she needed, when.
Finally: “Have you spoken with Charivretha?”
Aware of the tense relations between the zhavey s, Phillipa felt obliged to avoid placing further stressors on the situation. She chose her words carefully. “Yes. Her conversation with Shar ended badly. However, she still expected that he would travel to Zhevra with her. His leaving with Prynn surprised her.”
“For all her finesse in politics, Vretha is as clumsy as a klazh when it comes to her chei.” Thantis clasped her hands together in her lap. “And Ensign Tenmei…. A nice enough youth. Spirited.” A long pause. “Tell me, Commander, are Thirishar and Ensign Tenmei lovers?” Her too-casual tone betrayed Thantis’s deeper concern.
Now I find out what you really want. “I don’t see how their relationship is relevant to the current situation.”
Thantis shrugged. “Obviously you don’t understand—whether they are or aren’t involved romantically matters little to me. My zhei is gone. Her bond is not threatened. Speak freely.”
If a therapist suspects a patient of lying, body language often provides the needed answers—one of the basic rules in Phillipa’s studies on nonverbal communication. And Thantis’s body language told a story in itself: rigidly held shoulders, tension in her jaw, a flinty set to her eyes. Phillipa knew what happened between Prynn and Shar mattered a great deal to Thantis, regardless of what she said.
But Phillipa vigilanty protected the secrets of her patients; for her friends, she did the same. Vretha had attempted to employ similar tactics to Thantis’s when she’d wanted information about Thriss. Phillipa didn’t take kindly to pressure. On her watch, more than a few overeager admirals with the authority to send her to the brig had been told—politely—to go to hell or Gre’thor or whatever place of eternal damnation best suited their culture. Resisting the demands of an overprotective mother would be a piece of Rigelian cream cake by comparison. “I tell you this not because I believe it’s your right to know, but so the insinuations and assumptions can be put aside,” Phillipa said, leaving no room for misinterpretation. “Shar and Prynn became friends on the Gamma voyage, during which Prynn lost her mother and Shar lost Thriss. Their friendship helped sustain them through a difficult time. When Shar decided to let Dizhei and Anichent seek a replacement for him in the bond, he was especially lonely. Prynn became a natural companion for him. Their relationship has progressed since then. I believe becoming more than friends would be good for them both.”
Thantis’s face softened. “Please believe me, Counselor. I do not wish ill for Thirishar. My zhei loved him with her whole soul. She would want him to be happy.” She sighed. “But the confusion and turmoil that has accompanied his homecoming! Shar always walked a path apart from the others. That is what attracted Thriss in the first place.”
“I know,” Phillipa said. Memories of the many discussions she had with Thriss emerged from the recesses of her mind accompanied by a familiar hollowness—the guilt she’d felt since Thriss committed suicide. Sibias gently chastised her for personalizing her patient’s self-destructive choices, but Phillipa struggled to separate what was her patient’s free will and what were her own inadequacies. Many sleepless nights had passed since Thriss’s death.
“Let us put aside Thirishar.” Tucking her feet beneath her, Thantis curled into her chair. “Tell me about my zhei.”
And Thriss used to sit just that way…. In a split second, Phillipa made a choice to lower her professional façade, allowing the words to come spilling out. “You have to know that I did everything I could. She had so much promise! I pleaded with Dizhei and Anichent…I suppose it doesn’t matter now. And she had been doing remarkably well. Volunteering in the station’s infirmary, renewing her applications for medical school. She was particularly excited about a possibility in the Cardassian territories—specializing in frontier medicine. There was such a life force within her…I don’t understand where I went wrong.”
Rising from her chair, Thantis walked over to a plain metal shelf where a row of holos sat among old folios, a piece of artwork—charcoal on canvas—sitting on an easel, several books. She fiddled with her holos, shuffling them around, wiping away dust with her finger. “You have to know, Counselor, that I read your report so many times that I memorized it. I hung on each word hoping that I’d find the answer to my question: Where did I go wrong as her zhavey? But you—you did all that you could.”
“Did Thriss have a history of depression?”
“She was more sensitive to her environment than most Andorian children. Her happiness burned fervently—her despair became bottomless. She internalized criticism, praise, pressure. I know her hypersensitivity impacted her emotionally.”
“But medically…”
“Nothing definitive. Her emotional variability seemed to be more circumstantial than physiological.”
“I suspected as much,” Phillipa said, feeling a little relief that she and Dr. Tarses hadn’t made glaring misjudgments.
A long pause. Phillipa wasn’t sure what she should say—or shouldn’t say.
“Please tell me: How alone was she when she died?”
“Anichent and Dizhei were—”
Thantis turned back toward Phillipa, her hands flattened against her chest. “No. I mean in here.” She patted her chest. “Within herself. Had all her connections with the Whole been severed?”
Tears welled up in her eyes; Phillipa couldn’t help imagining herself in Thantis’s place. Damn. This is so unprofessional of me. “I wish I could tell you that her last hours were spent being nurtured by those who loved her, but I can’t. I believe that, for Thriss, being disconnected from the Whole might have been what pushed her to take her own life.”
Shaking her head, Thantis offered Phillipa a sad version of the soft, liquid gaze she’d come to recognize as an Andorian smile. “Perhaps it was the Whole that smothered her.”
“Wait,” Prynn called out to Shar breathlessly, clutching her sides. Two lifts and more flights of rickety stair gratings than she cared to recall—taken at the speed of a crazed vole—had resulted in side cramps. The smoky, incense-laden air didn’t make breathing any easier. The further they descended through the levels of Harbortown, the worse the air quality became.
“We’ll stop here,” he said, testing the lock on the stairwell exit. A few solid pulls and the rusty fasteners holding the lid over the security terminal gave way, exposing the inner mechanism. Within seconds, he’d figured out how to override the door lock, giving them access to level seven.
The lower city bore little resemblance to the manicured central districts above. Crumbling buildings and empty window sockets lined the streets; gravel, plasteel chunks, greasy refuse, and moldering fruit cores collected in the gutters. She heard the skittering of small animals across the pavement.
Stepping out into the street after Shar, Prynn lost her footing on the cobbled pavement, the cankered rocks slimy with algae and filth. She stumbled forward, breaking her fall with her hands. Doubling back, Shar knelt beside her and, after checking her for cuts and bruises, offered her a hand. She wiped the brownish sludge off her palms before accepting his help, and assured him she was fine. “A woman can’t live by adrenaline alone,” she joked weakly, blinking back fatigue, wobbling a little unsteadily on her feet. “I need a break.”
&nb
sp; “As soon as I can find a safe place for us to stop…. I promise.”
Surrounded by gaudy imitations of the decorations that embellished central Harbortown, they jogged past smaller groups of body-painted revelers. Prynn nearly tripped over more than a few who were passed out near doorways. The sour stench of fermented drink permeated the air. Compared with what they’d encountered earlier, this level was virtually abandoned. They moved swiftly, uncertain as to whether or not the security team still tailed them, ducking around corners, turning into dimly lit alleyways and over bridges, the slow, slurping shush of the canal waters the only constant.
In a not-so-distant block, the low drum rhythm of pawmpuda-puda-pawm hinted of habitation—perhaps an inn or a residential area where Prynn could rest for a few hours. Shar guided her in the direction of the music. As they grew nearer, shouts and singing joined the percussive beat, and soon an orange glow spilled onto the wet pavement, brightening the closer they came to the music.
Though she wanted to be a good sport, Prynn approached her limits. She needed rest, food, time to process what had happened and what might yet happen. A fatigued voice in her head admonished, No worries yet. Tomorrow will come soon enough.
As they emerged out of an alleyway into an open area, a barrage of noise and light and smell assaulted them. Circles within circles of dancers wove in and out with such speed that their costumes became a kaleidoscope of bright colors. Bystanders clapped their hands, waved their arms above their heads, mimicked the dancers’ movements. There must be a couple of hundred people here, Prynn thought. Most of the dancers were Andorian, but she saw more than a few aliens mixed into the gathering.
Off to one side, the crown of one of the masonry torches that marked the street corners had been broken off and an animal corpse dangled over the flame, the crisping fat and skin hissing and bubbling as it cooked. As she walked forward, Prynn realized that instead of being an open plaza, this place had once been an enclosed building; centuries of weather and a lack of repairs had rendered the walls into disintegrating butts; sheets of painted plaster crumbled over the pavement, mingling with sludge and garbage.
“The Reiji,” Shar muttered under his breath, his steps slowing to a near stop. “I didn’t think they still existed….”
“Did I hear that one still believes that the Reiji have passed into memory?” A hunched thaan in tattered clothes emerged from the shadow. Throwing back his head, he cackled, revealing a mouthful of glinting copper-colored teeth; then he turned toward Shar and Prynn, his eye sockets filled with knots of silvery scar tissue. “Come see for yourself! Come see!”
Ordinarly eager for new experiences, Prynn suddenly felt uneasy. Scanning the crowd, she noticed stained canvas tents and shoddy rugs thrown down in the food area.
“I think we’ll be fine, Prynn,” Shar said. “The Reiji are an old clan that long ago gave up their land and titles. They won’t hurt us. We can probably find food and drink here—perhaps a place for you to rest. It will give us a chance to regroup. I’ll go find their leader and see what I can negotiate.”
“All right, then,” she conceded, and wandered around the periphery of activity, looking for a safe place to wait. Safety. Now there’s a concept I don’t consider often.
Watching where she stepped never came naturally to Prynn. Stepping carefully implied “caution” and caution wasn’t a word in her vocabulary. Either you lived or you were cautious. Prynn always chose the former, though as the knife blade came down through her sandals, between her toes, nearly shaving half the appendage off, a flash of reasonableness prompted a question of whether she undervalued caution. The knifepoint found purchase so close to Prynn’s toes that she did a double take; her eyes flicked between the blade and her shoe, still incredulous that the weapon had missed. The slightest wiggle would draw blood. Boy did I choose the wrong place to walk, she thought, and shivered. Irrationally, she wished she were back at the keep in a sleep bundle having nightmares about parasite-infested Martian terraformers.
The Reiji onlookers seemed not to notice the near amputation, their gaze focused on the rodent-sized furball that squeezed past her ankle and scurried into the open street behind her. A collective gasp sounded, followed quickly by shrill, clattering conversation too rapid and slurred for the universal translator to parse entirely. The dozen gamers seated in a circle on the cobbled pavement directed their gazes and fingers at the escaping animal. Prynn surmised that losing the furball must be a setback. Should she chase after it? Step on it? Prynn wished she knew the rules so she could know where to stand the next time the knives came out.
Hissing what sounded like a vicious curse, the knife owner, a dried, shriveled Andorian, yanked the blade out of her sandal and sheathed it somewhere within his jacket.
Having the knife removed is a good thing too, she thought, backing away from the gaming circle. She searched the crowd for Shar, who didn’t appear to be anywhere close by, so she stayed put.
The gamer gathered up a handful of brightly colored sticks—they reminded her of cocktail swizzle sticks—and passed them to a hefty fellow squatting next to him in the circle. The next player shook the sticks like dice and cast them to the clicking onto the street.
Gamers and onlookers cheered. What the hell—I’m starting into that sleep-deprived delirium state anyway. Hooking her cheeks with her index fingers, Prynn joined in with a whistle.
Grunting, the knife owner opened his mouth wide, and curled up his lip. He reached in with a thumb and forefinger, yanked a silver tooth out of his gums, and passed the tooth to the hefty fellow, who promptly pocketed the prize. The loser spat blood, spittle, and bits of mouth grit on the filthy paving stones behind him—where Prynn’s feet had been. She added the instruction “watch where you step” to her list of things to remember for the duration of the trip.
Another member of the circle—a shrouded player with the saggiest wrinkled hands Prynn had ever seen—pulled a smallish metal box out of a pocket in his cloak. He slid up the grated side, dumping a furball similar to the recently escaped one, into the circle. The furry creature raced up and down the sticks, in and out and around, bouncing off the players’ legs like a stray electron. The hefty Andorian, body taut with tension, unsheathed a knife and extended his arm, blade pointed downward, following the ricocheting rodent with his eyes. The other players shouted words of encouragement, urged their companion on. The frenzied animal raced around the circle, seeking escape until…a flash of silver, a death shriek, and a spurt of blood. Raising the speared animal on his knife above his head, the winner gloated, the other gamers and onlookers roaring with approval.
I bet he gets to keep his teeth, Prynn thought. A tap on her shoulder prompted her to turn around. Shar held out a tarnished goblet, which she accepted gratefully. Each swallow of the pulpy nectar coated her parched throat. A little sleep and she might reach nirvana. She said so to Shar.
“You said you wanted to dance, though.” He inclined his head in the direction of the dancers. “Why not join in for a bit? I’ll come get you when I find a quieter place for you to lie down.”
“I suppose…” She smiled weakly, trying to convince herself as much as anyone that she was happy about their situation. Trust Shar. She clung to the thought. “As soon as I’m done with my drink, I’ll see if I can find someone to show me the ropes. Do what you need to do, Shar. I’ll be fine.”
As she watched him leave, she thought, So why am I worrying? Shar, who was now talking with someone she suspected was the leader of this motley group, had procured a goblet of his own, and appeared to be comfortable making conversation. Before she could mull it over further, one of the dancers had pulled her into the circle. The driving beat—the exhilarating music—soon drove away her fears and her weariness; she lost herself in the celebration.
From the chrono on the desk, Phillipa could see that dawn was only a few hours away. She and Thantis had talked through the specifics of Thriss’s final days; Thantis had shared stories from her zhei’s childh
ood. As she sat, listening to Thantis’s remembrances, she couldn’t help thinking of Arios—how he gnawed on his lip when he concentrated—and Mireh in slumber, her chubby, dimpled cheeks pressed against her stuffed bear Walter. Placing herself in Thantis’s position, imagining the loss of a child, Phillipa shuddered, knowing what measures she would take to assure her child’s well-being. A Tal Shiar assassin didn’t stand a chance against an enraged mother. Admiration for Thantis’s strength filled her. How can Thantis even sit here—why hasn’t she crumbled, become completely despondent?
Her antennae no longer rigid with worry, Thantis sighed and said, “I have drawn comfort from your words, Counselor. Your offspring are blessed to have one such as you to guide them.”
“And you are very brave, Zha,” Phillipa said earnestly. “More brave than I believe I could be under the same circumstances.”
Thantis clasped Phillipa’s arm. “You have hints of an Andorian soul. I chose rightly asking you to come here to give your gift to the Rite of Memory.”
“I’m honored that you see me worthy to be called Andorian, but I haven’t advanced far enough in my studies of your culture to understand exactly what the Rite of Memory is,” Phillipa said. “Help me?”
From a drawer in her desk, Thantis removed a glasslike object. Small enough to fit in the palm of her hand, the object, asymmetrical and multifaceted, looked like a clear natural crystal. “This is the Cipher created by my family when one of my parents—my shreya—passed away unexpectedly several cycles ago. Each of these facets contains a neuroimprint—a memory.”
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