Through his helmet, she could see that Nog was smiling.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Juarez said, apparently thinking out loud. “Whatever that weird object out there did to them seems to have just un-happened.”
The ship suddenly rocked, then settled down. Under attack again, no doubt,Krissten thought as she and Juarez concentrated on moving Ezri very carefully onto one of the biobeds. Nog seemed stable enough for the moment. But even a mere medical technician could see that Ezri was dying.
Where’s Dr. Bashir?
Juarez monitored Ezri’s vital signs, shaking his head grimly. “We can’t wait for Julian to return. We’ve got to get the symbiont back into Ezri’s body now.”
“I agree,” Krissten said, swinging open the lid to Dax’s box. “Um, any idea how we go about doing that?” Assisting Bashir in removing the symbiont was one thing. Reversing the procedure without even a real surgeon’s supervision was quite another matter.
Krissten looked to Ezri’s chalk-white face, irrationally hoping to find guidance there. I’m not trained for this procedure, Ezri. Neither of us is. We can only guess at it.
Krissten looked up and studied the biobed readouts. Every indicator on the panel was steadily plunging. Several bio-alarms pertaining to blood pressure, respiration, and major organ functions had begun sounding shrilly. Hot tears of frustration rose in Krissten’s eyes, but she forestalled them with an exercise of pure will. There was far too much at stake right now to allow herself to fall apart. Determined to put forth her best effort, she turned back toward the symbiont’s transport pod—
—and collided with Julian Bashir, who must have just materialized behind her, the noise of his beam-in drowned out by the numerous medical alarms. She hadn’t even heard him remove the helmet from his EV suit. He caught her in his arms, steadying her before releasing her. She stared for a moment into his dark eyes.
He was inthere. Restored. She smiled up at him, and this time she didn’t try to fight the tears.
She saw Bashir looking past her, first at Ezri, then at her bio-readings. He blanched when he saw how near death she was, but only for a split second. From then on, he was in full-on trauma-team mode.
“Ensign Juarez,” he said, glancing at the insensate figure sprawled on the floor. “Please see to Lieutenant Nog.” Falling back on her training, Krissten reached for her flame-colored trauma smock and began prepping Ezri for surgery. Meanwhile, Bashir stripped off his environmental suit and donned sterile surgical garb with preternatural speed. Once properly suited up, he reached into the open transport pod and gently lifted out the dripping-wet, russet-colored symbiont.
“Exoscalpel,” he said.
Krissten handed him the instrument. “Sir?” she said.
He paused in his labors for only a moment. “Yes?”
“It’s good to have you back.”
26
Two hundred and fourteen,Joseph Sisko thought, updating his tally as he carefully made his way down the antebellum mansion’s polished hardwood staircase. One-hundred and twenty-three.
Keeping track of the numbers had become a daily ritual, one that Joseph observed every morning as soon as he realized he was awake. He had become religious about it from the beginning; it had given him something to focus on other than the procession of new aches and ailments that each new day brought. No matter that carrying the ever-increasing weight of those days threatened to crush his frail bones. He hadto count the days, dragging them with him wherever he went.
Two hundred and fourteen. One hundred and twenty-three.The first figure represented the number of days that had elapsed since his only son, Benjamin Lafayette Sisko, had disappeared into that damned alien hellhole near Bajor.
The second marked the span of days since Benjamin’s only son—Joseph’s beloved grandson, Jake—had gone into the wormhole after his father, only to be swallowed up without a trace as well.
Passing through the broad atrium and into the kitchen, Joseph contemplated the sunlight that streamed in through the French windows, and yet brought him no joy. The August day—was it August already?—was already shaping up to be hot and muggy, but would surely be easier to face after he’d had his morning cup of coffee. He glanced up at the old-fashioned analog clock hanging above the range. Twelve fifty-five.
Afternoon coffee, then.He shrugged, then set about grinding the beans, ignoring the cold, persistent ache in his fingers, his neck, his shoulders. His soul. Morning. Noon. Night. What was the damned difference?
He paused as the water boiled and the coffee brewed, looking around the kitchen. Nothing of any consequence had changed here in years. On the far wall, above the sink, hung a framed photograph of the façade of his restaurant. The building that housed Sisko’s Creole Kitchen for the past quarter-century had been a landmark in New Orleans’ French Quarter for more than two hundred years. For Joseph, working in his kitchen among his loyal staff—serving a daily procession of new and regular customers—had always provided refuge from life’s troubles. During later years, marked by heart trouble and too-frequent entreaties from employees, friends, and customers that he slow down, he found in the charming old building a comforting reminder of easier times, when Judith and Ben were still children. In those days, he’d never heard of shape-shifters or the Dominion, and never had cause to consider the casual damage that Starfleet could inflict on ordinary people who were just trying to make lives for themselves.
I raised you to be a chef, Ben. For all the good it did me.
On the shelf beside the sink lay an upended plastic bottle, its cap askew. The heart medicine. Joseph had been planning on getting the prescription refilled for the better part of a week now, but it hadn’t seemed all that urgent. Somewhere in the back of his brain, he heard Ben’s voice rising in wrath: Damn it, Dad! Ask somebody on your staff to help you. Can’t you cooperate just one time?
The glare from the early-afternoon sun revealed the thickening patina of dust that covered the picture’s glass frame. He reached up to touch Ben’s inscription of one of Joseph’s own favorite aphorisms: “Worry and doubt are the greatest enemies of a great chef.”His finger came away streaked with a paste of old dirt and cooking grease. Searching his memories, he found he couldn’t recall the last time he’d given this place a really good cleaning. Perhaps this, too, simply didn’t matter all that much anymore.
A few minutes later, Joseph stood before the kitchen sink, holding a mug of hot, strong coffee in his hand. The hand trembled sharply, and a copious splash of near-boiling liquid forced him to place the cup on the counter. Cursing, he plunged his scalded hand beneath a stream of cold water—and glimpsed his own reflection in one of the metal pans he’d left on the drying rack.
He shut the water off, staring at the gaunt image he’d been trying so hard to avoid seeing in the bathroom mirror over the past few months. He wondered when exactly he had decided to stop shaving, but couldn’t recall. And when had his hair gone so completely white?
Joseph lifted the pan and stuffed it haphazardly into one of the kitchen’s lower cabinets. The motion seemed to have displaced several other objects located farther back on the shelf; he ignored the sounds of tumbling crockery.
The house stood silent again, except for the thready beat of his own heart and the hum of the wall clock that tirelessly measured out his remaining hours and days.