CHAPTER 13

"BELEM?" Dr. Bashir leaned over the feverish boy. "Belem, can you hear me?"
Belem's eyelids fluttered, but he did not seem to understand what was going on around him. He groaned, tossing his head from side to side, and muttered a stream of gibberish that ended in a series of escalating cries. His arms and legs flailed the air. Dr Bashir tried to hold him down before his wild gyrations struck the cavern walls. There were enough scrapes on the boy's hands and arms to testify that these attacks were no new thing.
There had been more abrasions streaking Belem's skin when Borilak Selinn first brought Dr. Bashir into the hill fighters' cave stronghold. In the rocky chamber designated for the care of the sick and wounded, Belem's bedroll was set far apart from the rest. It was a shock to find the boy there, but not half so great as the shock of his condition. It took Dr. Bashir more than a second glance before he recognized his former assistant.
The old woman in charge of nursing the patients gave Dr. Bashir a guilty stare when he stooped to examine Belem. Julian was willing to bet all he had that the crone kept the boy's care to a minimum. He couldn't blame her; fear of contagion was a phenomenon as mindless as it was universal.
All that Borilak Selinn said was "He named you," and left Dr. Bashir to his work. Days had passed since then, and the only change Julian noted was that more bedrolls appeared near Belem's; the fever was spreading. He dealt with these cases as they came in, and there was a notable improvement in the patients. Only Belem resisted treatment and grew worse.
Belem's convulsions subsided but did not vanish. Dr. Bashir took advantage of this lull to heal the new scrapes. The soft hiss of antiseptic and sealant was almost inaudible, yet it was loud enough to make Belem's eyes fly open abruptly. "Serpents!" he yelled. "Yellow-rings! They're crawling all over me! I feel their tongues!" He lashed out, knocking Dr. Bashir's instrument across the cavern.
Julian tried to immobilize the boy and got a fist in the eye for his troubles. Belem's skin was clammy, sweat streaming from every pore, and a thin, rancid smell rose from his soaked bedclothes. In all the cases of camp fever Dr. Bashir had treated, he had never encountered such violent symptoms. Every illness had its own rank perfume; this was different and he didn't know why.
A hand bearing a damp compress passed between Dr. Bashir and the boy. From the other side of Belem's bedroll, a doe-eyed young Bajoran woman stroked the cloth over the boy's brow. At the cooling touch, Belem's thrashing died down. His hollow chest heaved rapidly. Little by little, Julian withdrew his restraining hold. He sat back on his haunches, one hand to his injured eye. He met the young woman's gaze across the boy's body.
"No change, healer?" she asked.
Dr. Bashir rested his hands on his thighs and shook his head. "Nothing. I've given him the vaccine, but he doesn't seem to be responding to it."
The woman nodded. "I have heard of your miracle, healer. In the camps they called you blessed. Here too it works its magic. The others to whom you gave it all recover quickly." She looked at Belem and sighed.
"I'm not doing any more than my job," Bashir said. He too looked at Belem, who had fallen into a fitful doze. "And apparently, I'm not even doing that." He slammed a fist into his palm. "Why doesn't it work on him? Even if they damaged the bioreplicator, I still have fresh vaccine loaded in my injectors. I made a point of reloading them before leaving the last camp. I cured the others with shots from the same batch I used on Belem. Why isn't he getting well?"
The woman reached out to lay a soft, capable hand on Dr. Bashir's arm. "The Prophets have granted you knowledge and compassion, but they have not made you more than you are. Do not seek to drive yourself beyond the limits they have decreed. Come." She stood up and offered him her hand. "He is resting now. You should eat while you can, and I should get you something to put on that eye."
Bashir glanced at Belem again. The boy was breathing regularly, with a disquieting wheeze, but at least he was not suffering delirium for the moment. "That's a good idea," he admitted. Her answering smile lit the darkness of the cavern as he got to his feet and accepted her handclasp.
It was a gesture of necessity rather than friendship, although he wished it were the other way around. Whenever he left the precincts of the infirmary, he was always taken by the hand and guided through the underground labyrinth that was Borilak Selinn's domain. The twisting passageways with their multiply branching tunnels had an exotic beauty that fascinated Dr. Bashir. Luminous stone columns and frozen waterfalls of ageless rock, slick with the eternal drip of seeping water, all made him think of the tales of lost fairylands he had read when very young.
Fairyland … he mused, gazing at the bowed head of his lovely guide. And a princess of the Fair Folk to lead me.
Then he remembered the whole of those stories: The mortal who stumbled into the enchanted underground realm never returned to the light of day again, or only returned to die.
If I tried to find my way out of here by myself, I would die, Dr. Bashir thought. Borilak Selinn took care to lead me up, down, and sideways all the way in, and I'm never allowed to explore. I sleep in a rocky niche overlooking their infirmary and that old hag brings me anything I need. He smiled as a turn in the path took them past a glowing oil lamp that illuminated the young woman's delicate face. Almost anything. If you're taking charge of things in the infirmary so Mother can have a day off, I hope she gets to take a permanent vacation.
Dr. Bashir's guide led him to a grotto that he had visited only once before. She paused on the way to pick up the makings of a meal in a naturally cold larder among the rocks. The hill fighters' food was crude and scant rations, but Dr. Bashir was relieved to discover that their water supply was an underground spring of remarkable purity. He and the woman sat beside the gurgling pool of water, under a bower of glistening yellow stone. His teeth fought a losing battle with the strips of dried meat she gave him, and the bread was even harder than what he'd tasted at the first refugee camp. She hid her giggles behind her hand as he struggled to work a chewable piece loose.
"You must be hungry," she said. "You aren't even waiting for the broth." She hurried away and was back swiftly, carrying two steaming bowls. Expertly she shredded his portion of dried meat into the bowl of hot broth, then broke off bits of bread and added them as well before handing the whole thing back to a sheepish Julian.
"Well … I am hungry," he admitted. He ate; it tasted good. He recalled the days when his father would brag to his diplomat associates about young Julian's taste for only the finest cuisine. The right words from his father's lips transformed picky eating into a virtue, but using the right words was all part of a diplomat's task. Julian wondered what his father would say if he could see him now, eagerly sopping up a brigand's brew.
At least he couldn't fault me the company, he thought, gazing at the Bajoran woman. She ate daintily, without fuss. Take her out of that tattered shirt and trousers, put her in a fashionable gown, and she could grace any embassy's table.
"I want to thank you for helping me with Belem," he said softly. "I should have thought of that remedy myself, but—"
"You want to think of everything," she replied; her words carried no criticism. "That is the fire in your pagh. Like all fires, it transforms dull wood into a gift of light, heat, beauty, but it also can consume." She bent her head over the bowl in her lap. A webwork of innumerable black braids encircled her head like a gleaming crown. "Keep the light, healer. Turn back from the devouring flame."
He dared to slip his fingertips beneath her chin and make her look into his eyes. "My name is Julian," he told her.
She smiled and did not resist his touch. "You are wise, Julian. If you are called only Healer, you will think that is all you must be." Gently she pushed his hand away. "I am Borilak Jalika."
"The troll-king had a beautiful daughter," Julian murmuted to himself. To Jalika's inquiring glance he responded, "Nothing. I was just thinking of an old story." Embarrassed at being caught in one of his fancies, he changed the subject: "Are you Borilak Selinn's daughter, or—?" Not his wife! he prayed.
"Yes, I am his daughter." She reached into her pocket and produced a clean, folded cloth. "And now let us see whether my remedy will also work on your eye."
"I'm sorry our paths haven't crossed earlier," he said as she applied the compress to his face. "You have a natural instinct for healing."
She laughed. "You think you flatter me, but you speak truer than you know. I have more than instinct: I was trained in the Temple. I was to have entered a healing order, but my father sent word that he needed me more." She set the compress down and looked wistful. "I should have been Vedek Jalika by now."
"Didn't you just tell me that what we're called can imprison us?" Julian asked. He wished there were some way he could get her to reapply the cold cloth. The touch of her fingers on his face filled him with longing.
"You are clever." Her lashes were thick and sooty, bright eyes captivating him with a sideways glance. "Father warned me about clever men."
Julian raised one hand as if taking an oath. "I swear I'll be as dense as a rock if you'll like me better for it."
"You have brought healing to us," she answered. "How could I not like you?"
Julian's face fell. He had been hoping for a different sort of declaration. "I didn't have much choice in the matter," he said. "Your father and his men brought me here. I ought to be on the road, bringing the fever vaccine to other camps."
"You are here because Belem asked for you," Jalika told him. "When he was well, he used to help me take care of our sick. He spoke of you often and he told me how you mended his leg. He respected my skills as a healer, but he made it very plain that I was nowhere near as talented as you."
"I'll have to have a few words with him about courtesy when he gets better," Julian joked. If he gets better. He didn't care to admit it, but he had his doubts about that.
"He said that you were seeking a cure for the fever that was ravaging his old home. He was certain you'd find it; there was nothing you could not do, according to him. Soon after Belem joined us, we began to get word of a man—a man who wore the uniform of Starfleet—who traveled from camp to camp curing the sick, conquering the fever, bringing help and then disappearing. Belem heard the descriptions and said it was you. My father was impressed."
"Impressed enough to have me kidnapped," Julian remarked.
The crystals adorning Jalika's earring tinkled as she shook her head. "He would never have done it for that reason alone. The camps needed you more; I was enough to look after our people's health. Then Belem fell ill. At first he swore it was not the camp fever. He had already had it, he said, and he recovered on his own. Is that possible?"
"Yes; I've seen several cases like that in my travels. There doesn't seem to be any common factor for cases of spontaneous recovery—not age, not sex, not even previous physical condition. The initial case I saw was a little girl, eight years old, in the first camp I visited."
"Maybe Belem will cast off the sickness on his own this time, too." Jalika tried to sound hopeful. "May the Prophets will it." She sighed. "My father refused to believe it was not the camp fever. He had heard reports of how devastating that could be, and he wanted it out of our midst as soon as possible. He recalled how highly Belem praised you, and he had word of your accomplishments. Do you wonder that he set out to find you and bring you here?"
"I wonder what he thinks of my accomplishments now," Dr. Bashir said somberly. He picked up his empty bowl and stood. "I'd better get back to Belem."
Jalika rose to her feet, took his bowl from him, and stacked it on top of hers. "I'll take you. You'd never be able to find your own way."
As they wandered back through the twists and turns of the caverns, Julian asked, "You still haven't answered my question: Why haven't I seen you before this? If you worked as a healer, why aren't you in the infirmary now?"
"Father," came the terse reply. "He fears for my health. He claims that old Merab Jis can manage the infirmary without me." A half-smile came to her lips. "He did not forbid me to visit the infirmary, only to work there. And today he is away."
"Where has he gone?" Julian asked.
"Down out of the mountains. We need fresh supplies." Her voice was strained. Julian could guess at the methods Berilak Selinn and his followers used to obtain supplies, and he could tell that this knowledge was a source of deep shame to the man's lovely daughter.
"When he returns, I want you to tell him something for me," Dr. Bashir said. "The same injection that cures victims of camp fever also protects against contracting the disease in the first place. If he'll give me space where I can set up my equipment, I can manufacture enough vaccine to immunize all of you. That's what I've been doing in the camps."
"If there were no more danger of infection, Father would have to let me return to my work. Oh, would you?" Jalika's clasped her hands, beseeching.
"No reason why I wouldn't. If everyone here is immunized, then perhaps I can convince your father that he has no further need of me."
"But … Belem—"
Julian's hands closed tightly over Jalika's. "I promise you I won't abandon him."
"You will heal him, Julian." Jalika's eyes shone. "I know you will heal him."

"I don't see how he did it," Major Kira said to Lieutenant Dax, resting her hand on the back of the Trill's seat in Ops. "I do not see how Cedra managed to find his sister while she was hidden by that miniature cloaking device."
"I thought he explained all that," Dax replied. "Her scent—"
Kira snorted. "If there ever was a Bajoran who could follow a scent trail that subtle, that stale, for that far, we wouldn't need to breed tokkas to track fugitive criminals."
"I've seen stranger things," Dax said.
"I'll bet you have."
"So you think it was another of Cedra's pranks?"
Major Kira took a deep breath. "How can I think of it as a prank when it saved his sister's life—and so much more? Why should I care if the boy lied to us? He found Dejana, that's the only thing that ought to count. But it still leaves me with a funny feeling …" She twisted up her mouth. "Why do I feel so guilty for suspecting Cedra of trickery?"
"Probably because the boy's so distraught right now. He and his sister are as close as twins."
"When you go through so much with another person, it makes you grow closer, even if you're not related to start with. Sometimes it gets to the point where you don't know how you'll survive if anything should happen to your—your other half." Major Kira spoke as if inspired by memory, not theory—a memory at once personal and painful. She shook off her ghosts and asked Dax, "Any sign the girl's getting better?"
"No. The opposite's truer, sad to say. I've taken biosamples from the child, run tests, and come up with no answers."
"You're baffled?" Kira was amazed. "You mean there's no information you've gathered from any of your lives that can help?"
"I was always drawn to science, but that doesn't mean I concentrated on medicine. If I had, I'd be Dr. Dax. I never wanted to limit my studies by specialization." She gave Kira a rueful smile. "For all of my precious scientific knowledge, it was Dr. Bashir who found the cure for the camp fever."
"It's Dr. Bashir who should be here now," Kira muttered.
"I thought you were the one who was so proud of him for taking his medicine to the people?"
"There are people who need him here, too. If anything happens to the Nekor—" She didn't want to think of that eventuality. "I thought the child only had a cold. What happened?"
"I thought the same; all the signs pointed that way. As near as I can tell, in its first stages the illness she's contracted mimicks the symptoms of the common cold. Then, when Dejana's resistance was lowered by all she went through during Vung's kidnap attempt, the disease bloomed."
"The disease?" Kira echoed. "Doesn't it have a name?"
"If I had a name to attach to it, I'd have a treatment. I've run all the data through the computer and come up blank. The symptoms she's showing now could belong to any one of dozens of illnesses, but the microorganisms in her blood don't match any of them. I ordered her put on wide-spectrum antibiotics and antivirals, but it's only a stopgap." Dax looked her Bajoran friend full in the face. "I'm afraid we're losing her."
"We can't lose her." If passion could cure Dejana, Major Kira's would do so in an instant.
"Agreed. But we can't save her; not without help. There must be medical personnel on Bajor who—"
Kira threw up her hands. "Impossible. Vedek Torin's kept his word to Kejan Ulli even better than promised: There's to be no commerce between DS9 and Bajor until the eve of Nis Thamar. No one's objected because it's less than two days away." She shuddered and repeated, "Less than two days."
Dax stood up. "We need Dr. Bashir."

"How did you ever manage this, Jalika?" Dr. Bashir stood on the outthrust crag overlooking the Kaladrys Valley and let the cool evening wind scour his face. It felt good to breathe air that did not reek of dampness and stone. "How did you ever convince your father to let me out?"
The Bajoran woman looked up from the thicket of scrub where she knelt beside a small reed basket, her lips curving up sweetly. "It was simple, Julian. I told him that if your Federation medicine alone could not heal Belem, perhaps it might work better coupled with some of the herb lore I learned while in the Temple. I have his permission to teach you the healing uses of our Bajoran plants."
He could not resist returning that enchanting smile. "Alone?"
"Does that surprise you?"
"No guards," he pointed out.
"What need do we have for guards?" she replied with a casual toss of her head. "None of father's men are interested in herb lore or healing, and they have enough to do elsewhere. Besides, I don't need nursemaids."
Julian squatted on his heels. "Isn't your father afraid I might try to escape?"
Jalika moved a few feet to one side, her back to Julian. "On foot? Without equipment, supplies, even a map? You would be very easy to catch."
He recognized that what she said was true. He had known it from the moment she came to him with the offer of a brief respite from the caverns. Still, he felt like teasing her, if only to make her pay some attention to him. He wondered if there was some way he could work his prowess as a Starfleet Medical prodigy into the conversation. Failing that, he urgently needed to impress her somehow.
"I could—" he said, rising soundlessly and beginning to edge toward her. "I could find my way. I've grown familiar with the hill country, and only a fool wouldn't know you reach a valley by going down a mountain. Once I'm down there again, I know the territory. I could find my way to a friendly camp. They know I'm their ally."
"Ally," the woman repeated with a little laugh. "Their legend, you mean."
"They would provide me with whatever I needed—if it was theirs to give," he said. His talk was allair, and he knew it. Despite the easy confidence with which he outlined his grand plan of escape, he knew that there was more to finding a way out of these mountains than merely tumbling downslope like a rockslide. Still, he had to make her believe he was the equal of his own legend. "They'd even give me a new verdanis. I could gallop away in acloud of—"
"Aren't you afraid that I'll tell all this to my father?" Jalika responded, still not turning around. Her hands grubbed in the rocky soil, uprooting a brambly green shoot and laying it in her basket. "Then he'll never let you out of the caverns again."
Julian crept nearer, his feet making no sound. Not even a pebble was dislodged as he came nearer and nearer to the apparently preoccupied young woman. "Then perhaps I shouldn't return to the caverns at all," he murmured. He rested his hand on the trunk of a wind-twisted tree. "And perhaps, when I go, I should make sure that your father doesn't try to follow—"
The beam of energy sang through the air, shearing off a dusty green twig just inches from his fingertips. "Pick that up, will you, healer?" Jalika requested demurely, placing the phaser back in her belt. "If you brew the needles with hasva root it stops fever visions."
"Does it." Julian fetched the twig, a wary eye on Jalika. "It certainly cut down my illusions." He brought her the twig and maintained a rigid silence for the rest of their time on the mountainside.
The light was mostly gone from the sky by the time she led him back into the caverns. The guards on duty and the other folk who shared the underground warren observed the two of them closely, but said nothing. He noticed that this time, she conducted him back to the infirmary by a route so direct it would be simple to retrace.
The old woman, Merab Jis, came bustling up to greet them with her wide, almost toothless smile. "The Prophets praise your name, healer," she enthused, her gnarled hands shaking. "Hardly a bed remains occupied here, and no new sickness comes in."
"No more will," Julian responded. "No camp fever cases, at any rate." He patted the old woman's shoulder and said, "You were a very great help to me, taking the inoculation first in front of all the others."
Merab became as flustered as a maiden. "Oh, healer, I did nothing!"
"You were very brave," Julian insisted. "Half the struggle with a vaccine is getting the patients to take it."
"Some of these men, yes." Merab sniffed. "All talk about how bold they are, but not a one would let you tend to them until they saw me receive the treatment with no harm done."
"Precisely what I've been saying." Julian had become far better friends with the old woman since Jalika's appearance. He wasn't sure whether Merab hoped to impress her leader's daughter by cultivating the healer or whether he himself was working it the other way around. He stole a peek at Jalika, who was surveying the nearly empty infirmary and paying no attention to either of them.
"Borilak Selinn himself was here to inspect our efforts," Merab continued, "and he was pleased. That is—" She cast an uneasy glance toward Belem's place apart.
"Soon we will give my father no cause for displeasure, Merab," Jalika reassured the crone, showing her the contents of her basket. "Bring me some freshly boiling water-draw it from the spring itself, mind!—and we will see if that may do some good."
The old woman bobbed her head and scuttled away. Jalika led the way to the cozy side cavern where Julian had set up his equipment. Here she appropriated a mortar and proceeded to strip the needles from the twig she had so dramatically harvested. "You only need to bruise the needles," she explained while she worked. "Just enough to encourage the release of the aromatic oils. If you crush them, too much of the essence is lost. Here." She passed Julian the mortar and pestle. "I need to prepare the hasva root."
He watched her as she cleaned and slivered the spidery root end of the shoot she had dug from the mountain earth. She worked with a cool, professional expertise that even Selok of Vulcan might have approved of. The thought of his old teacher passing judgment on this flower-faced Bajoran woman twisted Julian's mouth into a peculiar mix of skepticism and amusement.
Jalika caught him staring at her that way. "What is it, healer?" she asked. "Am I doing something wrong?"
"That's not for me to say," he replied. "After all, you're the one in charge now."
"In that case, why have you stopped working?" She nodded toward the idle pestle in his hand.
"Oh … I was just thinking of someone I used to know."
"Someone—special to you?"
"You might say that."
"Ah." Her lashes lowered. She chopped the root more briskly.
"I was thinking that he'd like you … as far as it's possible for a Vulcan to like anyone."
"He?" she repeated, raising her eyes suddenly, then looking away before Julian could read their expression. "I thought—I thought that when you said you were thinking of someone special you meant …" Her voice trailed off.
He understood. "No." He worked the pestle carefully, mashing the needles just enough so that a clean, heady fragrance filled the small cave. "There's no one like that—no one special—for me."
She made a sound of acknowledgment.
"And you?" he asked.
"None." The slivers and threads of hasva root were chopped almost to dust under the edge of her knife. "When we enter the Temple to study healing, we make a promise: Until we have mastered the art with hands, heart, and pagh, we must regard all others equally as vessels to receive healing or sources to teach us. There is no room for anything else in our lives."
"Good Lord, that's Starfleet Medical!" Julian blurted. Then he added, "My training was like that, too. At first, that is. No time for any sort of social life, just study, study, study—although I was very good at it," he said hastily, seeing his chance and pouncing on it. "Did you know I was second in my class? If I only hadn't incorrectly identified a postganglionic—"
"Why must that matter to us here?" Jalika asked quietly.
Julian stood slack-jawed. Her soft words stung like a slap across the face. His mouth snapped shut. "I suppose it doesn't makes a difference," he said curtly. "Except when I'm trying to make a damned fool of myself. Now there's a function of the postganglionic nerve we never covered."
Meticulously she brushed the powdered root into a small wooden bowl and set it aside before taking the mortar from his hands. "You are no fool, healer."
"Kind of you to say so," he said stiffly. "Even if only to spare my feelings. You needn't bother; I've been put in my place by other beautiful women before this."
"Beautiful?" Her lips scarcely moved over the word.
"Here is the water!" Merab Jis bustled in, carrying a steaming pot. She set it down on the table between them. "What else shall I do?"
"That is all for now, thank you," Jalika replied.
"Well, if I'm not needed here, I think I'll go have a little nap. You will call on me if I'm wanted, won't you, healer?" she simpered at Julian.
He called up a smile just for her. "You know I will." After he was sure she was gone, he addressed Jalika once more: "Listen, I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you. Before, when we were outside gathering plant samples, you gave me the message loud and clear."
"What message?"
He pointed at her belt where the phaser was partly visible. "I have been known to take no for an answer. You might have to slam my head against the wall a few times, but I do catch on. Ask Lieutenant Dax, if you ever have the chance to meet her."
"Who is Lieutenant Dax? Is she also … beautiful?"
"Lieutenant Dax is … unique."
"You are fond of her." Jalika's face was unreadable.
"We're friends. Or so she's stressed." He couldn't help chuckling. "I suppose a fondness for beautiful women is my worst fault, if you'd call it a fault at all."
"I would." Her vehemence startled him. "If their beauty is all that draws you to them, then with respect, healer, it is a fault indeed."
Julian lost all pretense of good humor. "Is that what they taught you in the Temple along with healing? How to sit in judgment on others?"
Borilak Selinn's daughter took a precise portion of the powdered hasva root and added it to the broken needles. "They teach us to judge ourselves and others by the measure of the Prophets. For them there are no externals, only deeds done and their causes. You must see both, healer. To weigh the deed without the cause is to open the eyes to darkness."
"I think it's not too hard to see why you used that phaser out there," Julian said, his eyes hard. "Maybe you should open your eyes as well and understand how I really see you. You are beautiful, Jalika—I can't deny it and I can't help how it makes me feel—but I see more than beauty when I look at you. When I work, it's like the way you described your Temple studies: There are no beautiful women, no distractions, only the patients who need me. When you came to help me with Belem and the others, all that entered my mind was gratitude and admiration for your skill and kindness. Now, because I've behaved like an idiot—again—I'm afraid I'll drive you away. Please don't go. I need you here. If I promise not to bother you anymore, will you—?"
She looked away from him sharply, her face hidden by a tumble of tiny braids that had come loose from their securing pins.
"What have I done wrong now?" Julian asked.
"I am the one who has done wrong," she replied, her voice thick. "You are right: I should listen to my own lectures. I have not judged you by what you truly are, but by my own measure." One hand clasped the wooden bowl, the other let the boiling water trickle over the mixed herbs.
Jalika watched the fragrant steam rise. "As soon as I heard that Father had brought you here, I wanted to observe you, to see how you worked your miracles, and whether I could pick up some secret to add to my own knowledge. When Father was busy elsewhere, I stole to a gallery overlooking the infirmary. I saw you at work, and at first the work was all I saw. I came back many times."
"Jalika, look at me," he urged. At first she would not, but gradually she complied. "You said that at first the work was all you saw. Did that—did that change?"
"I—" she began.
He laid a finger to her lips. "The truth. Please."
"To begin, I came because I was curious. All the stories I had heard about you, your kindness, your devotion—I did not think they could be true. I returned because the stories were true and—and—" The dim light of the cave and the wisps of steam could not hide the color rising to her face.
"Thank you." Julian took her hand away from the bowl and raised it to his cheek. "You needn't say any more."
"I am ashamed," she said, shaking her head. "I returned because it stirred my heart to see you. On the mountainside, I wanted to do something—something different—something that would make you notice me as more than just the one who helps you here. I wanted you to know that I can be strong, that I can be as—as unique as your Lieutenant Dax." She bowed her head. "And I wanted you to know that for me, you too are … beautiful."
He drew her nearer. "And you are more than beautiful to me," he breathed. "More than I hoped, more than I knew a woman could ever—oh, much more." His fingers traced the soft curve of her cheek and he kissed her.
Jalika was the first to break the embrace. She looked into the wooden bowl as if trying to read the future in its swirling depths. "This is a dream. The Prophets guide you when you heal, Julian. With their help, you will cure Belem. And then … you will leave us."
"If I do leave, it will be the hardest thing I've ever done. But would you want me to stay if it meant Belem would never get well?"
"You could stay on after Belem was well." She melted back into his arms. "I could ask my father never to let you go."
His arms slipped around her slender waist. "You know it would be wrong to keep me here. I must go. There are other camps, other places where the children need my help."
"I know." A sigh tore from her body. He pressed his cheek to her hair and inhaled its sweet, spicy perfume.
"I can come back," he whispered. "I can, and I will."

In the commander's office, Benjamin Sisko heard Lieutenant Dax's strong personal recommendation for dispatching a search party to the surface of Bajor. Major Kira stood attentively nearby.
"I'm ahead of you, Dax," he replied. "With the long-range sensors back on-line, a search won't be necessary. Chief O'Brien can locate the doctor through his individual life-sign readings. We'll have him back aboard and working on Talis Dejana's case before the day is out. In fact, I've already dispatched a runabout to bring him in. Chief O'Brien is running the scan from Ops and I was about to meet him there. Would you care to join me?"
Kira and Dax accepted the invitation with enthusiasm. The three of them were heading for Ops when they passed the entrance to the schoolroom just in time to hear a resounding crash.
"What the—?" Sisko bolted into the class and found Talis Cedra and Jake in the center of a ring of smashed school equipment. The other children huddled in a crowd around Keiko. Jake had his arms encircling Cedra, trying to hold the Bajoran back. It was no easy task. Cedra kicked, squirmed, and struggled madly, spewing curses. Another Bajoran boy lay on his back in the middle ofthe disaster area, his nose bloody, face bruised, and the start of a black eye already visible.
Commander Sisko took hold of Cedra's arm, relieving Jake. "What's the meaning of this?"
"Thank goodness you came, Commander," Keiko O'Brien said, coming forward. "Cedra has been difficult since his sister fell ill, but I tried to take the situation into account. This was the last straw."
"What happened here?"
"A fight over nothing. Rys Kalben's handcomp was malfunctioning, so he asked Cedra if he could borrow his. He reached for it without waiting for an answer. That was what set the boy off."
"It's my handcomp!" Cedra shouted, trying to writhe free of Sisko's grip. "Everything that's ever mine gets taken away, and I'm sick of it! And no one cares. No one! Not even now, when my sister's being taken away from me too." He swung a fist at Sisko, who bent away from the blow and easily avoided it. Cedra began to cry.
Sisko put his arms around the sobbing child. "We do care, Cedra," he said. "We're going to take care of your sister. We've got the means to bring back Dr.Bashir; he'll help her, you'll see."
Cedra wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "I want to come," he announced.
Sisko saw no harm in it. In view of the recent uproar, Keiko decided that an early dismissal might not be a bad idea, so Jake too was free to accompany his father to Ops.
"Do you have a reading on him, Chief?" Sisko asked as soon as they entered the room.
"That I do," O'Brien replied, directing his commander to see for himself. "Give the word and he'll be here as soon as I relay the readings to McCormick aboard the Rio."
Sisko looked at the sensor readings. His smile faded. "What's this fluctuation?"
"Minor, sir. For some reason, Dr. Bashir appears to have gotten himself well below the surface of the planet with a good-sized thickness of rock between him and the open air, don't ask me why."
"That won't affect retrieval, will it?" Sisko asked.
O'Brien shook his head emphatically. "Not a bit, sir, but it is why we're relying on the station sensors instead of the runabout's system. They're more sophisticated and accurate."
"Very well, then; proceed."
O'Brien hailed the Rio. "McCormick, lock on to Dr. Bashir's life-sign coordinates."
"Got him, sir," came McCormick's voice.
"Energize."
There was a pause that lengthened uncomfortably. Then McCormick's voice came again: "It's no good, sir. I can't retrieve him."
"Why the hell not?" O'Brien barked. "Is it the transporter or the sensors that's kicking up now?"
"Neither, sir. The sensor relay works perfectly; so does the transporter. The trouble is when we try to use 'em both at the same time. I lock on to Dr. Bashir's life-sign readings, but when I try to energize the transporter, the signal slips. Do you think maybe it was something we did to the system while we were repairing the sensors?"
O'Brien smacked his hand down hard on the control panel. "Blasted Cardie piece of—! And blast me for a brainless idiot. Why didn't I think to check that?" He turned to Commander Sisko.
"Can't you locate Dr. Bashir, disengage the sensors, and retrieve him from his last known coordinates?"
"I wouldn't care to risk that, sir," O'Brien said. "You might get him, pretty as you please. If he's sleeping or standing still there'd be no question. But what if he moves between location and transportation?"
Cedra nudged Jake. "What could happen then?"
"Either we'd miss him altogether or else only the part of him left at the old coordinates would be transported," Jake whispered. "So if he took a step but one foot was still—"
"Yuck."
"If the difficulty's with the relayed sensor signal, have McCormick use the runabout's own sensor system," Sisko directed.
O'Brien held a short conference with his man aboard the Rio. "No good, sir. The runabout's system would work like a charm if Dr. Bashir were on the surface of the planet, but since he's chosen to burrow in like that—" He snorted. "What the devil ever possessed the man …"
"How long will it take you to correct this problem?" Sisko asked.
O'Brien looked unhappy. "Too long, sir." He knew of Talis Dejana's condition and his heart ached for the child.
"But there is no problem," Cedra piped up suddenly. "We don't need to worry. Dr. Bashir is coming back." Four puzzled faces stared at him. Cedra only smiled.
In a cold cavern on Bajor, Belem took a breath, released it, and died.

 

CHAPTER 13

"BELEM?" Dr. Bashir leaned over the feverish boy. "Belem, can you hear me?"
Belem's eyelids fluttered, but he did not seem to understand what was going on around him. He groaned, tossing his head from side to side, and muttered a stream of gibberish that ended in a series of escalating cries. His arms and legs flailed the air. Dr Bashir tried to hold him down before his wild gyrations struck the cavern walls. There were enough scrapes on the boy's hands and arms to testify that these attacks were no new thing.
There had been more abrasions streaking Belem's skin when Borilak Selinn first brought Dr. Bashir into the hill fighters' cave stronghold. In the rocky chamber designated for the care of the sick and wounded, Belem's bedroll was set far apart from the rest. It was a shock to find the boy there, but not half so great as the shock of his condition. It took Dr. Bashir more than a second glance before he recognized his former assistant.
The old woman in charge of nursing the patients gave Dr. Bashir a guilty stare when he stooped to examine Belem. Julian was willing to bet all he had that the crone kept the boy's care to a minimum. He couldn't blame her; fear of contagion was a phenomenon as mindless as it was universal.
All that Borilak Selinn said was "He named you," and left Dr. Bashir to his work. Days had passed since then, and the only change Julian noted was that more bedrolls appeared near Belem's; the fever was spreading. He dealt with these cases as they came in, and there was a notable improvement in the patients. Only Belem resisted treatment and grew worse.
Belem's convulsions subsided but did not vanish. Dr. Bashir took advantage of this lull to heal the new scrapes. The soft hiss of antiseptic and sealant was almost inaudible, yet it was loud enough to make Belem's eyes fly open abruptly. "Serpents!" he yelled. "Yellow-rings! They're crawling all over me! I feel their tongues!" He lashed out, knocking Dr. Bashir's instrument across the cavern.
Julian tried to immobilize the boy and got a fist in the eye for his troubles. Belem's skin was clammy, sweat streaming from every pore, and a thin, rancid smell rose from his soaked bedclothes. In all the cases of camp fever Dr. Bashir had treated, he had never encountered such violent symptoms. Every illness had its own rank perfume; this was different and he didn't know why.
A hand bearing a damp compress passed between Dr. Bashir and the boy. From the other side of Belem's bedroll, a doe-eyed young Bajoran woman stroked the cloth over the boy's brow. At the cooling touch, Belem's thrashing died down. His hollow chest heaved rapidly. Little by little, Julian withdrew his restraining hold. He sat back on his haunches, one hand to his injured eye. He met the young woman's gaze across the boy's body.
"No change, healer?" she asked.
Dr. Bashir rested his hands on his thighs and shook his head. "Nothing. I've given him the vaccine, but he doesn't seem to be responding to it."
The woman nodded. "I have heard of your miracle, healer. In the camps they called you blessed. Here too it works its magic. The others to whom you gave it all recover quickly." She looked at Belem and sighed.
"I'm not doing any more than my job," Bashir said. He too looked at Belem, who had fallen into a fitful doze. "And apparently, I'm not even doing that." He slammed a fist into his palm. "Why doesn't it work on him? Even if they damaged the bioreplicator, I still have fresh vaccine loaded in my injectors. I made a point of reloading them before leaving the last camp. I cured the others with shots from the same batch I used on Belem. Why isn't he getting well?"
The woman reached out to lay a soft, capable hand on Dr. Bashir's arm. "The Prophets have granted you knowledge and compassion, but they have not made you more than you are. Do not seek to drive yourself beyond the limits they have decreed. Come." She stood up and offered him her hand. "He is resting now. You should eat while you can, and I should get you something to put on that eye."
Bashir glanced at Belem again. The boy was breathing regularly, with a disquieting wheeze, but at least he was not suffering delirium for the moment. "That's a good idea," he admitted. Her answering smile lit the darkness of the cavern as he got to his feet and accepted her handclasp.
It was a gesture of necessity rather than friendship, although he wished it were the other way around. Whenever he left the precincts of the infirmary, he was always taken by the hand and guided through the underground labyrinth that was Borilak Selinn's domain. The twisting passageways with their multiply branching tunnels had an exotic beauty that fascinated Dr. Bashir. Luminous stone columns and frozen waterfalls of ageless rock, slick with the eternal drip of seeping water, all made him think of the tales of lost fairylands he had read when very young.
Fairyland … he mused, gazing at the bowed head of his lovely guide. And a princess of the Fair Folk to lead me.
Then he remembered the whole of those stories: The mortal who stumbled into the enchanted underground realm never returned to the light of day again, or only returned to die.
If I tried to find my way out of here by myself, I would die, Dr. Bashir thought. Borilak Selinn took care to lead me up, down, and sideways all the way in, and I'm never allowed to explore. I sleep in a rocky niche overlooking their infirmary and that old hag brings me anything I need. He smiled as a turn in the path took them past a glowing oil lamp that illuminated the young woman's delicate face. Almost anything. If you're taking charge of things in the infirmary so Mother can have a day off, I hope she gets to take a permanent vacation.
Dr. Bashir's guide led him to a grotto that he had visited only once before. She paused on the way to pick up the makings of a meal in a naturally cold larder among the rocks. The hill fighters' food was crude and scant rations, but Dr. Bashir was relieved to discover that their water supply was an underground spring of remarkable purity. He and the woman sat beside the gurgling pool of water, under a bower of glistening yellow stone. His teeth fought a losing battle with the strips of dried meat she gave him, and the bread was even harder than what he'd tasted at the first refugee camp. She hid her giggles behind her hand as he struggled to work a chewable piece loose.
"You must be hungry," she said. "You aren't even waiting for the broth." She hurried away and was back swiftly, carrying two steaming bowls. Expertly she shredded his portion of dried meat into the bowl of hot broth, then broke off bits of bread and added them as well before handing the whole thing back to a sheepish Julian.
"Well … I am hungry," he admitted. He ate; it tasted good. He recalled the days when his father would brag to his diplomat associates about young Julian's taste for only the finest cuisine. The right words from his father's lips transformed picky eating into a virtue, but using the right words was all part of a diplomat's task. Julian wondered what his father would say if he could see him now, eagerly sopping up a brigand's brew.
At least he couldn't fault me the company, he thought, gazing at the Bajoran woman. She ate daintily, without fuss. Take her out of that tattered shirt and trousers, put her in a fashionable gown, and she could grace any embassy's table.
"I want to thank you for helping me with Belem," he said softly. "I should have thought of that remedy myself, but—"
"You want to think of everything," she replied; her words carried no criticism. "That is the fire in your pagh. Like all fires, it transforms dull wood into a gift of light, heat, beauty, but it also can consume." She bent her head over the bowl in her lap. A webwork of innumerable black braids encircled her head like a gleaming crown. "Keep the light, healer. Turn back from the devouring flame."
He dared to slip his fingertips beneath her chin and make her look into his eyes. "My name is Julian," he told her.
She smiled and did not resist his touch. "You are wise, Julian. If you are called only Healer, you will think that is all you must be." Gently she pushed his hand away. "I am Borilak Jalika."
"The troll-king had a beautiful daughter," Julian murmuted to himself. To Jalika's inquiring glance he responded, "Nothing. I was just thinking of an old story." Embarrassed at being caught in one of his fancies, he changed the subject: "Are you Borilak Selinn's daughter, or—?" Not his wife! he prayed.
"Yes, I am his daughter." She reached into her pocket and produced a clean, folded cloth. "And now let us see whether my remedy will also work on your eye."
"I'm sorry our paths haven't crossed earlier," he said as she applied the compress to his face. "You have a natural instinct for healing."
She laughed. "You think you flatter me, but you speak truer than you know. I have more than instinct: I was trained in the Temple. I was to have entered a healing order, but my father sent word that he needed me more." She set the compress down and looked wistful. "I should have been Vedek Jalika by now."
"Didn't you just tell me that what we're called can imprison us?" Julian asked. He wished there were some way he could get her to reapply the cold cloth. The touch of her fingers on his face filled him with longing.
"You are clever." Her lashes were thick and sooty, bright eyes captivating him with a sideways glance. "Father warned me about clever men."
Julian raised one hand as if taking an oath. "I swear I'll be as dense as a rock if you'll like me better for it."
"You have brought healing to us," she answered. "How could I not like you?"
Julian's face fell. He had been hoping for a different sort of declaration. "I didn't have much choice in the matter," he said. "Your father and his men brought me here. I ought to be on the road, bringing the fever vaccine to other camps."
"You are here because Belem asked for you," Jalika told him. "When he was well, he used to help me take care of our sick. He spoke of you often and he told me how you mended his leg. He respected my skills as a healer, but he made it very plain that I was nowhere near as talented as you."
"I'll have to have a few words with him about courtesy when he gets better," Julian joked. If he gets better. He didn't care to admit it, but he had his doubts about that.
"He said that you were seeking a cure for the fever that was ravaging his old home. He was certain you'd find it; there was nothing you could not do, according to him. Soon after Belem joined us, we began to get word of a man—a man who wore the uniform of Starfleet—who traveled from camp to camp curing the sick, conquering the fever, bringing help and then disappearing. Belem heard the descriptions and said it was you. My father was impressed."
"Impressed enough to have me kidnapped," Julian remarked.
The crystals adorning Jalika's earring tinkled as she shook her head. "He would never have done it for that reason alone. The camps needed you more; I was enough to look after our people's health. Then Belem fell ill. At first he swore it was not the camp fever. He had already had it, he said, and he recovered on his own. Is that possible?"
"Yes; I've seen several cases like that in my travels. There doesn't seem to be any common factor for cases of spontaneous recovery—not age, not sex, not even previous physical condition. The initial case I saw was a little girl, eight years old, in the first camp I visited."
"Maybe Belem will cast off the sickness on his own this time, too." Jalika tried to sound hopeful. "May the Prophets will it." She sighed. "My father refused to believe it was not the camp fever. He had heard reports of how devastating that could be, and he wanted it out of our midst as soon as possible. He recalled how highly Belem praised you, and he had word of your accomplishments. Do you wonder that he set out to find you and bring you here?"
"I wonder what he thinks of my accomplishments now," Dr. Bashir said somberly. He picked up his empty bowl and stood. "I'd better get back to Belem."
Jalika rose to her feet, took his bowl from him, and stacked it on top of hers. "I'll take you. You'd never be able to find your own way."
As they wandered back through the twists and turns of the caverns, Julian asked, "You still haven't answered my question: Why haven't I seen you before this? If you worked as a healer, why aren't you in the infirmary now?"
"Father," came the terse reply. "He fears for my health. He claims that old Merab Jis can manage the infirmary without me." A half-smile came to her lips. "He did not forbid me to visit the infirmary, only to work there. And today he is away."
"Where has he gone?" Julian asked.
"Down out of the mountains. We need fresh supplies." Her voice was strained. Julian could guess at the methods Berilak Selinn and his followers used to obtain supplies, and he could tell that this knowledge was a source of deep shame to the man's lovely daughter.
"When he returns, I want you to tell him something for me," Dr. Bashir said. "The same injection that cures victims of camp fever also protects against contracting the disease in the first place. If he'll give me space where I can set up my equipment, I can manufacture enough vaccine to immunize all of you. That's what I've been doing in the camps."
"If there were no more danger of infection, Father would have to let me return to my work. Oh, would you?" Jalika's clasped her hands, beseeching.
"No reason why I wouldn't. If everyone here is immunized, then perhaps I can convince your father that he has no further need of me."
"But … Belem—"
Julian's hands closed tightly over Jalika's. "I promise you I won't abandon him."
"You will heal him, Julian." Jalika's eyes shone. "I know you will heal him."

"I don't see how he did it," Major Kira said to Lieutenant Dax, resting her hand on the back of the Trill's seat in Ops. "I do not see how Cedra managed to find his sister while she was hidden by that miniature cloaking device."
"I thought he explained all that," Dax replied. "Her scent—"
Kira snorted. "If there ever was a Bajoran who could follow a scent trail that subtle, that stale, for that far, we wouldn't need to breed tokkas to track fugitive criminals."
"I've seen stranger things," Dax said.
"I'll bet you have."
"So you think it was another of Cedra's pranks?"
Major Kira took a deep breath. "How can I think of it as a prank when it saved his sister's life—and so much more? Why should I care if the boy lied to us? He found Dejana, that's the only thing that ought to count. But it still leaves me with a funny feeling …" She twisted up her mouth. "Why do I feel so guilty for suspecting Cedra of trickery?"
"Probably because the boy's so distraught right now. He and his sister are as close as twins."
"When you go through so much with another person, it makes you grow closer, even if you're not related to start with. Sometimes it gets to the point where you don't know how you'll survive if anything should happen to your—your other half." Major Kira spoke as if inspired by memory, not theory—a memory at once personal and painful. She shook off her ghosts and asked Dax, "Any sign the girl's getting better?"
"No. The opposite's truer, sad to say. I've taken biosamples from the child, run tests, and come up with no answers."
"You're baffled?" Kira was amazed. "You mean there's no information you've gathered from any of your lives that can help?"
"I was always drawn to science, but that doesn't mean I concentrated on medicine. If I had, I'd be Dr. Dax. I never wanted to limit my studies by specialization." She gave Kira a rueful smile. "For all of my precious scientific knowledge, it was Dr. Bashir who found the cure for the camp fever."
"It's Dr. Bashir who should be here now," Kira muttered.
"I thought you were the one who was so proud of him for taking his medicine to the people?"
"There are people who need him here, too. If anything happens to the Nekor—" She didn't want to think of that eventuality. "I thought the child only had a cold. What happened?"
"I thought the same; all the signs pointed that way. As near as I can tell, in its first stages the illness she's contracted mimicks the symptoms of the common cold. Then, when Dejana's resistance was lowered by all she went through during Vung's kidnap attempt, the disease bloomed."
"The disease?" Kira echoed. "Doesn't it have a name?"
"If I had a name to attach to it, I'd have a treatment. I've run all the data through the computer and come up blank. The symptoms she's showing now could belong to any one of dozens of illnesses, but the microorganisms in her blood don't match any of them. I ordered her put on wide-spectrum antibiotics and antivirals, but it's only a stopgap." Dax looked her Bajoran friend full in the face. "I'm afraid we're losing her."
"We can't lose her." If passion could cure Dejana, Major Kira's would do so in an instant.
"Agreed. But we can't save her; not without help. There must be medical personnel on Bajor who—"
Kira threw up her hands. "Impossible. Vedek Torin's kept his word to Kejan Ulli even better than promised: There's to be no commerce between DS9 and Bajor until the eve of Nis Thamar. No one's objected because it's less than two days away." She shuddered and repeated, "Less than two days."
Dax stood up. "We need Dr. Bashir."

"How did you ever manage this, Jalika?" Dr. Bashir stood on the outthrust crag overlooking the Kaladrys Valley and let the cool evening wind scour his face. It felt good to breathe air that did not reek of dampness and stone. "How did you ever convince your father to let me out?"
The Bajoran woman looked up from the thicket of scrub where she knelt beside a small reed basket, her lips curving up sweetly. "It was simple, Julian. I told him that if your Federation medicine alone could not heal Belem, perhaps it might work better coupled with some of the herb lore I learned while in the Temple. I have his permission to teach you the healing uses of our Bajoran plants."
He could not resist returning that enchanting smile. "Alone?"
"Does that surprise you?"
"No guards," he pointed out.
"What need do we have for guards?" she replied with a casual toss of her head. "None of father's men are interested in herb lore or healing, and they have enough to do elsewhere. Besides, I don't need nursemaids."
Julian squatted on his heels. "Isn't your father afraid I might try to escape?"
Jalika moved a few feet to one side, her back to Julian. "On foot? Without equipment, supplies, even a map? You would be very easy to catch."
He recognized that what she said was true. He had known it from the moment she came to him with the offer of a brief respite from the caverns. Still, he felt like teasing her, if only to make her pay some attention to him. He wondered if there was some way he could work his prowess as a Starfleet Medical prodigy into the conversation. Failing that, he urgently needed to impress her somehow.
"I could—" he said, rising soundlessly and beginning to edge toward her. "I could find my way. I've grown familiar with the hill country, and only a fool wouldn't know you reach a valley by going down a mountain. Once I'm down there again, I know the territory. I could find my way to a friendly camp. They know I'm their ally."
"Ally," the woman repeated with a little laugh. "Their legend, you mean."
"They would provide me with whatever I needed—if it was theirs to give," he said. His talk was allair, and he knew it. Despite the easy confidence with which he outlined his grand plan of escape, he knew that there was more to finding a way out of these mountains than merely tumbling downslope like a rockslide. Still, he had to make her believe he was the equal of his own legend. "They'd even give me a new verdanis. I could gallop away in acloud of—"
"Aren't you afraid that I'll tell all this to my father?" Jalika responded, still not turning around. Her hands grubbed in the rocky soil, uprooting a brambly green shoot and laying it in her basket. "Then he'll never let you out of the caverns again."
Julian crept nearer, his feet making no sound. Not even a pebble was dislodged as he came nearer and nearer to the apparently preoccupied young woman. "Then perhaps I shouldn't return to the caverns at all," he murmured. He rested his hand on the trunk of a wind-twisted tree. "And perhaps, when I go, I should make sure that your father doesn't try to follow—"
The beam of energy sang through the air, shearing off a dusty green twig just inches from his fingertips. "Pick that up, will you, healer?" Jalika requested demurely, placing the phaser back in her belt. "If you brew the needles with hasva root it stops fever visions."
"Does it." Julian fetched the twig, a wary eye on Jalika. "It certainly cut down my illusions." He brought her the twig and maintained a rigid silence for the rest of their time on the mountainside.
The light was mostly gone from the sky by the time she led him back into the caverns. The guards on duty and the other folk who shared the underground warren observed the two of them closely, but said nothing. He noticed that this time, she conducted him back to the infirmary by a route so direct it would be simple to retrace.
The old woman, Merab Jis, came bustling up to greet them with her wide, almost toothless smile. "The Prophets praise your name, healer," she enthused, her gnarled hands shaking. "Hardly a bed remains occupied here, and no new sickness comes in."
"No more will," Julian responded. "No camp fever cases, at any rate." He patted the old woman's shoulder and said, "You were a very great help to me, taking the inoculation first in front of all the others."
Merab became as flustered as a maiden. "Oh, healer, I did nothing!"
"You were very brave," Julian insisted. "Half the struggle with a vaccine is getting the patients to take it."
"Some of these men, yes." Merab sniffed. "All talk about how bold they are, but not a one would let you tend to them until they saw me receive the treatment with no harm done."
"Precisely what I've been saying." Julian had become far better friends with the old woman since Jalika's appearance. He wasn't sure whether Merab hoped to impress her leader's daughter by cultivating the healer or whether he himself was working it the other way around. He stole a peek at Jalika, who was surveying the nearly empty infirmary and paying no attention to either of them.
"Borilak Selinn himself was here to inspect our efforts," Merab continued, "and he was pleased. That is—" She cast an uneasy glance toward Belem's place apart.
"Soon we will give my father no cause for displeasure, Merab," Jalika reassured the crone, showing her the contents of her basket. "Bring me some freshly boiling water-draw it from the spring itself, mind!—and we will see if that may do some good."
The old woman bobbed her head and scuttled away. Jalika led the way to the cozy side cavern where Julian had set up his equipment. Here she appropriated a mortar and proceeded to strip the needles from the twig she had so dramatically harvested. "You only need to bruise the needles," she explained while she worked. "Just enough to encourage the release of the aromatic oils. If you crush them, too much of the essence is lost. Here." She passed Julian the mortar and pestle. "I need to prepare the hasva root."
He watched her as she cleaned and slivered the spidery root end of the shoot she had dug from the mountain earth. She worked with a cool, professional expertise that even Selok of Vulcan might have approved of. The thought of his old teacher passing judgment on this flower-faced Bajoran woman twisted Julian's mouth into a peculiar mix of skepticism and amusement.
Jalika caught him staring at her that way. "What is it, healer?" she asked. "Am I doing something wrong?"
"That's not for me to say," he replied. "After all, you're the one in charge now."
"In that case, why have you stopped working?" She nodded toward the idle pestle in his hand.
"Oh … I was just thinking of someone I used to know."
"Someone—special to you?"
"You might say that."
"Ah." Her lashes lowered. She chopped the root more briskly.
"I was thinking that he'd like you … as far as it's possible for a Vulcan to like anyone."
"He?" she repeated, raising her eyes suddenly, then looking away before Julian could read their expression. "I thought—I thought that when you said you were thinking of someone special you meant …" Her voice trailed off.
He understood. "No." He worked the pestle carefully, mashing the needles just enough so that a clean, heady fragrance filled the small cave. "There's no one like that—no one special—for me."
She made a sound of acknowledgment.
"And you?" he asked.
"None." The slivers and threads of hasva root were chopped almost to dust under the edge of her knife. "When we enter the Temple to study healing, we make a promise: Until we have mastered the art with hands, heart, and pagh, we must regard all others equally as vessels to receive healing or sources to teach us. There is no room for anything else in our lives."
"Good Lord, that's Starfleet Medical!" Julian blurted. Then he added, "My training was like that, too. At first, that is. No time for any sort of social life, just study, study, study—although I was very good at it," he said hastily, seeing his chance and pouncing on it. "Did you know I was second in my class? If I only hadn't incorrectly identified a postganglionic—"
"Why must that matter to us here?" Jalika asked quietly.
Julian stood slack-jawed. Her soft words stung like a slap across the face. His mouth snapped shut. "I suppose it doesn't makes a difference," he said curtly. "Except when I'm trying to make a damned fool of myself. Now there's a function of the postganglionic nerve we never covered."
Meticulously she brushed the powdered root into a small wooden bowl and set it aside before taking the mortar from his hands. "You are no fool, healer."
"Kind of you to say so," he said stiffly. "Even if only to spare my feelings. You needn't bother; I've been put in my place by other beautiful women before this."
"Beautiful?" Her lips scarcely moved over the word.
"Here is the water!" Merab Jis bustled in, carrying a steaming pot. She set it down on the table between them. "What else shall I do?"
"That is all for now, thank you," Jalika replied.
"Well, if I'm not needed here, I think I'll go have a little nap. You will call on me if I'm wanted, won't you, healer?" she simpered at Julian.
He called up a smile just for her. "You know I will." After he was sure she was gone, he addressed Jalika once more: "Listen, I'm sorry if I've embarrassed you. Before, when we were outside gathering plant samples, you gave me the message loud and clear."
"What message?"
He pointed at her belt where the phaser was partly visible. "I have been known to take no for an answer. You might have to slam my head against the wall a few times, but I do catch on. Ask Lieutenant Dax, if you ever have the chance to meet her."
"Who is Lieutenant Dax? Is she also … beautiful?"
"Lieutenant Dax is … unique."
"You are fond of her." Jalika's face was unreadable.
"We're friends. Or so she's stressed." He couldn't help chuckling. "I suppose a fondness for beautiful women is my worst fault, if you'd call it a fault at all."
"I would." Her vehemence startled him. "If their beauty is all that draws you to them, then with respect, healer, it is a fault indeed."
Julian lost all pretense of good humor. "Is that what they taught you in the Temple along with healing? How to sit in judgment on others?"
Borilak Selinn's daughter took a precise portion of the powdered hasva root and added it to the broken needles. "They teach us to judge ourselves and others by the measure of the Prophets. For them there are no externals, only deeds done and their causes. You must see both, healer. To weigh the deed without the cause is to open the eyes to darkness."
"I think it's not too hard to see why you used that phaser out there," Julian said, his eyes hard. "Maybe you should open your eyes as well and understand how I really see you. You are beautiful, Jalika—I can't deny it and I can't help how it makes me feel—but I see more than beauty when I look at you. When I work, it's like the way you described your Temple studies: There are no beautiful women, no distractions, only the patients who need me. When you came to help me with Belem and the others, all that entered my mind was gratitude and admiration for your skill and kindness. Now, because I've behaved like an idiot—again—I'm afraid I'll drive you away. Please don't go. I need you here. If I promise not to bother you anymore, will you—?"
She looked away from him sharply, her face hidden by a tumble of tiny braids that had come loose from their securing pins.
"What have I done wrong now?" Julian asked.
"I am the one who has done wrong," she replied, her voice thick. "You are right: I should listen to my own lectures. I have not judged you by what you truly are, but by my own measure." One hand clasped the wooden bowl, the other let the boiling water trickle over the mixed herbs.
Jalika watched the fragrant steam rise. "As soon as I heard that Father had brought you here, I wanted to observe you, to see how you worked your miracles, and whether I could pick up some secret to add to my own knowledge. When Father was busy elsewhere, I stole to a gallery overlooking the infirmary. I saw you at work, and at first the work was all I saw. I came back many times."
"Jalika, look at me," he urged. At first she would not, but gradually she complied. "You said that at first the work was all you saw. Did that—did that change?"
"I—" she began.
He laid a finger to her lips. "The truth. Please."
"To begin, I came because I was curious. All the stories I had heard about you, your kindness, your devotion—I did not think they could be true. I returned because the stories were true and—and—" The dim light of the cave and the wisps of steam could not hide the color rising to her face.
"Thank you." Julian took her hand away from the bowl and raised it to his cheek. "You needn't say any more."
"I am ashamed," she said, shaking her head. "I returned because it stirred my heart to see you. On the mountainside, I wanted to do something—something different—something that would make you notice me as more than just the one who helps you here. I wanted you to know that I can be strong, that I can be as—as unique as your Lieutenant Dax." She bowed her head. "And I wanted you to know that for me, you too are … beautiful."
He drew her nearer. "And you are more than beautiful to me," he breathed. "More than I hoped, more than I knew a woman could ever—oh, much more." His fingers traced the soft curve of her cheek and he kissed her.
Jalika was the first to break the embrace. She looked into the wooden bowl as if trying to read the future in its swirling depths. "This is a dream. The Prophets guide you when you heal, Julian. With their help, you will cure Belem. And then … you will leave us."
"If I do leave, it will be the hardest thing I've ever done. But would you want me to stay if it meant Belem would never get well?"
"You could stay on after Belem was well." She melted back into his arms. "I could ask my father never to let you go."
His arms slipped around her slender waist. "You know it would be wrong to keep me here. I must go. There are other camps, other places where the children need my help."
"I know." A sigh tore from her body. He pressed his cheek to her hair and inhaled its sweet, spicy perfume.
"I can come back," he whispered. "I can, and I will."

In the commander's office, Benjamin Sisko heard Lieutenant Dax's strong personal recommendation for dispatching a search party to the surface of Bajor. Major Kira stood attentively nearby.
"I'm ahead of you, Dax," he replied. "With the long-range sensors back on-line, a search won't be necessary. Chief O'Brien can locate the doctor through his individual life-sign readings. We'll have him back aboard and working on Talis Dejana's case before the day is out. In fact, I've already dispatched a runabout to bring him in. Chief O'Brien is running the scan from Ops and I was about to meet him there. Would you care to join me?"
Kira and Dax accepted the invitation with enthusiasm. The three of them were heading for Ops when they passed the entrance to the schoolroom just in time to hear a resounding crash.
"What the—?" Sisko bolted into the class and found Talis Cedra and Jake in the center of a ring of smashed school equipment. The other children huddled in a crowd around Keiko. Jake had his arms encircling Cedra, trying to hold the Bajoran back. It was no easy task. Cedra kicked, squirmed, and struggled madly, spewing curses. Another Bajoran boy lay on his back in the middle ofthe disaster area, his nose bloody, face bruised, and the start of a black eye already visible.
Commander Sisko took hold of Cedra's arm, relieving Jake. "What's the meaning of this?"
"Thank goodness you came, Commander," Keiko O'Brien said, coming forward. "Cedra has been difficult since his sister fell ill, but I tried to take the situation into account. This was the last straw."
"What happened here?"
"A fight over nothing. Rys Kalben's handcomp was malfunctioning, so he asked Cedra if he could borrow his. He reached for it without waiting for an answer. That was what set the boy off."
"It's my handcomp!" Cedra shouted, trying to writhe free of Sisko's grip. "Everything that's ever mine gets taken away, and I'm sick of it! And no one cares. No one! Not even now, when my sister's being taken away from me too." He swung a fist at Sisko, who bent away from the blow and easily avoided it. Cedra began to cry.
Sisko put his arms around the sobbing child. "We do care, Cedra," he said. "We're going to take care of your sister. We've got the means to bring back Dr.Bashir; he'll help her, you'll see."
Cedra wiped his nose on the back of his hand. "I want to come," he announced.
Sisko saw no harm in it. In view of the recent uproar, Keiko decided that an early dismissal might not be a bad idea, so Jake too was free to accompany his father to Ops.
"Do you have a reading on him, Chief?" Sisko asked as soon as they entered the room.
"That I do," O'Brien replied, directing his commander to see for himself. "Give the word and he'll be here as soon as I relay the readings to McCormick aboard the Rio."
Sisko looked at the sensor readings. His smile faded. "What's this fluctuation?"
"Minor, sir. For some reason, Dr. Bashir appears to have gotten himself well below the surface of the planet with a good-sized thickness of rock between him and the open air, don't ask me why."
"That won't affect retrieval, will it?" Sisko asked.
O'Brien shook his head emphatically. "Not a bit, sir, but it is why we're relying on the station sensors instead of the runabout's system. They're more sophisticated and accurate."
"Very well, then; proceed."
O'Brien hailed the Rio. "McCormick, lock on to Dr. Bashir's life-sign coordinates."
"Got him, sir," came McCormick's voice.
"Energize."
There was a pause that lengthened uncomfortably. Then McCormick's voice came again: "It's no good, sir. I can't retrieve him."
"Why the hell not?" O'Brien barked. "Is it the transporter or the sensors that's kicking up now?"
"Neither, sir. The sensor relay works perfectly; so does the transporter. The trouble is when we try to use 'em both at the same time. I lock on to Dr. Bashir's life-sign readings, but when I try to energize the transporter, the signal slips. Do you think maybe it was something we did to the system while we were repairing the sensors?"
O'Brien smacked his hand down hard on the control panel. "Blasted Cardie piece of—! And blast me for a brainless idiot. Why didn't I think to check that?" He turned to Commander Sisko.
"Can't you locate Dr. Bashir, disengage the sensors, and retrieve him from his last known coordinates?"
"I wouldn't care to risk that, sir," O'Brien said. "You might get him, pretty as you please. If he's sleeping or standing still there'd be no question. But what if he moves between location and transportation?"
Cedra nudged Jake. "What could happen then?"
"Either we'd miss him altogether or else only the part of him left at the old coordinates would be transported," Jake whispered. "So if he took a step but one foot was still—"
"Yuck."
"If the difficulty's with the relayed sensor signal, have McCormick use the runabout's own sensor system," Sisko directed.
O'Brien held a short conference with his man aboard the Rio. "No good, sir. The runabout's system would work like a charm if Dr. Bashir were on the surface of the planet, but since he's chosen to burrow in like that—" He snorted. "What the devil ever possessed the man …"
"How long will it take you to correct this problem?" Sisko asked.
O'Brien looked unhappy. "Too long, sir." He knew of Talis Dejana's condition and his heart ached for the child.
"But there is no problem," Cedra piped up suddenly. "We don't need to worry. Dr. Bashir is coming back." Four puzzled faces stared at him. Cedra only smiled.
In a cold cavern on Bajor, Belem took a breath, released it, and died.