CHAPTER 9



MAJOR KIRA was the first off the runabout when it landed on the outskirts of the camp. She saw Lieutenant Dax waiting for her amid a crowd of gawking, gesturing children and adults. Most of them wore blankets wrapped around their bodies. She wondered if they were the patients from the infirmary. If so, word of the curative powers of Dax's antibody hadn't done the results justice. She leaped lightly to the ground and hurried forward to greet her friend.

Behind her, she heard Vedek Torin come trotting after at a more sedate pace. The Na-melis vedek had greeted news of the Nekor's discovery with rapture and insisted that he be present when the child was fetched from the refugee camp. Commander Sisko saw no harm in it—had favored the idea, in fact. ("After all, Vedek Torin will be in charge of the girl from now on. She should meet him as soon as possible.")

The crowd surrounding Lieutenant Dax rushed toward Major Kira, faces alight. What are they—? she thought, only to have the human wave part to either side of her and bustle past to their true goal, the runabout. The Bajoran officer understood. She recalled her own days in a Cardassian internment camp, when any distraction—however plebeian—was a major event. Some of the refugees stopped short of the runabout, preferring to make Vedek Torin their goal. He was ringed by a jabbering circle of questioning children, some of whom had never seen a Bajoran vedek in spotless, unmended robes before this. Major Kira heard one of them accuse him of being a fake. She smiled and hoped Vedek Torin would be able to talk himself out of that.

"Any sign of him?" Kira asked Dax at once. News of Dr. Bashir's vanishment had hit Ops only hours ago.

The Trill shook her head. "He's not to blame. He lost his comm badge."

"Doing what?"

"Following orders, according to Talis Cedra."

"Talis Cedra? The Nekor's big brother?" Kira smirked. "Commander Sisko's going to love hearing that." She turned her gaze to the hills, where the first rays of dawn were transforming the rocky slopes to gold. "Still, you have to admire him. He always wanted to be so—heroic. Now, for the first time since I've known him, he's succeeded."

"Is that the defense you'll make for him when he's court-martialed?" Dax asked. As far as she knew, Dr. Bashir had no experience whatsoever in living off the land, and the terrain of the devastated Kaladrys Valley was not one of the most hospitable on Bajor. She was concerned for him, and it came out as waspishness.

"Don't exaggerate," Kira returned pleasantly. "It won't come to that. As our young friend Talis Cedra said, Dr. Bashir is obeying orders, like a good little Starfleet officer. When he's found and ordered back aboard DS9, he'll obey that directive too. If he's found," she added.

"What do you mean, 'if'?"

Major Kira made a gesture of helplessness. "When you sent word of his disappearance, Commander Sisko dispatched a runabout with orders to lock on to Dr. Bashir via his comm badge and use the transporters to bring him home."

"But he hasn't got his comm badge anymore," Dax pointed out.

"So we learned. Then Commander Sisko ordered a sensor reading on Dr. Bashir's life-sign patterns to be used as a target instead. That didn't work either, from high orbit or low."

Dax was alarmed. "He can't be—?"

"—dead?" Kira finished the sentence for her. "I doubt that. If a Starfleet medical officer can't survive one night on his own out there, the Federation might as well pack up and go home tomorrow. It didn't work because the sensors are still playing games. Nasty games; you should hear what Chief O'Brien's been calling them."

Dax's brows rose. "I can imagine."

"No, you can't. Not in all your lives. This is prime stuff. If I were back aboard, I'd be taking notes." The two women laughed, but the tension remained. "So," Kira said at last. "Where's the Nekor?"

"In the infirmary with her brother. They spent the night there, and it would've been a bad idea for her to wait out here in the morning chill."

By this time, Vedek Torin had managed to shunt the crowd of curiosity seekers aside and join Dax and Major Kira. Together the three of them headed the procession back to the infirmary.


The body of Brother Talissin lay across the curtained doorway, half in and half out of the infirmary, blood flowing from a deep gash in his skull. Every light inside the building was extinguished; only the feeble rays of the rising sun cast dusty beams through the high windows. The children saw the body and bolted, shrieking. The few adults in the crowd caught the smaller ones in their arms and held them so that they didn't have to see the blood. Vedek Torin uttered a fearful cry.

"What's happened?" he exclaimed, pressing his hands together in panic. He grabbed Lieutenant Dax's arm. "You said she was here! I see no one, nothing but this—this—" He moaned and covered his eyes.

Lieutenant Dax dropped to one knee beside Brother Talissin's body and felt for a pulse. Major Kira drew her phaser and swept the dim interior of the infirm with her eyes. "Kahrimanis?" she whispered for Dax's ears alone.

"He should be here, too. I left him with the children," Dax replied.

"The children …" Major Kira looked at the refugee children still clustering near. "Get them out of here," she ordered. No one stirred. She glared over one shoulder and barked, "I said move." The few remaining adult Bajorans herded the whimpering little ones away, murmuring words of comfort.

Dax looked up. "Talissin's still alive."

Major Kira did not hear this last bit of news. She was moving fleetly down the eastern wall of the building, taking a path that would allow her to see if anyone was lurking inside the sheeted cubicles that blocked a complete, clear view of the great room. Something rustled overhead. Her eyes flew up just as a small, wiry form dropped in front of her from a rafter. Her phaser was aimed and steady on it in an eyeblink.

"Don't shoot!" Cedra shouted, flinging his hands up across his face.

Kira's phaser fell to her side as her hand darted out to seize him by the ear. "You idiot! Do you want to get yourself killed?"

"Ow! Lemme go!" A stream of profanity that would have left even Chief O'Brien awestruck poured from the boy's mouth. "Idiot yourself, damn it! He's got Dejana!"

"Who's got her? Where are they? Where's Ensign Kahrimanis?"

The boy ignored the questions. With a fantastic wriggle he broke free from Kira's grip and sprang away. "Come with me. Now. Just you." He pointed at Major Kira. "You're the fighter. If he sees too many coming after him, he'll kill her." Without waiting for Major Kira's consent to follow him, he spun on his heel and ran for the infirmary door.

Major Kira followed; there was no choice. Vedek Torin tried to detain her, but she sidestepped him as agilely as the boy did. "Help Lieutenant Dax with your brother," she panted, giving him a push that almost sent him tumbling on top of Talissin's body. Already the boy was well ahead of her. She could not afford to lose sight of him. Something told her that he had only been lurking in the rafters long enough to find the help he needed. Having found it, he wasn't going to waste any more time looking back.

The boy raced through the camp and Kira raced after. Sometimes she sidestepped people and things that got in her way, sometimes she didn't have that luxury. She heard more than one "Hey! Watch where you're going!" and "Talis Cedra, what kind of trouble are you in now?"

As if in answer, the boy shouted, "I didn't mean to take it, lady! Honest, I didn't!" He kept up a barrage of whiny please for clemency until he and Kira were out of the cramped precincts of the camp and well into the plowed lands. Once there, he stopped so abruptly that Major Kira ran right into him and knocked him sprawling.

"You mind telling me what that was all about?" she asked as she yanked the boy to his feet.

"Didn't want anyone else coming with us," he said, breathing hard. "No one would if they think it's just something between you and me." He wiped sweat from his forehead, leaving a brown smear. "Now we have to go quiet."

"Not so fast." Kira's hand closed on his shoulder. "I need to know what I'm walking into."

"You didn't, once. I told you: He took my sister."

"Who did?"

"Remis Jobar." The killing look was back in Cedra's eye. "He's got her out there, in one of the huts the reapers use to get out of the rain." He pointed out across the empty fields.

Major Kira shaded her eyes and gazed into the distance. She could just see a battered metal roof sticking up above the brow of a shallow depression in the land. "Are you sure?"

"I tracked him when he took her. Then I ran back to the infirmary and hid. I said I didn't want a whole mob, just you."

"How do you know he hasn't moved on?"

"He can't. He's not strong enough. And he's just realized that now he's got her, he doesn't know how to sell her for the best price. He's trying to make up his mind."

Kira regarded the boy thoughtfully. "It sounds to me as if your sister's not the only member of your family who's been touched by the Prophets."

Cedra gave her the same look children always give adults who have just said something stupider than usual. "You can make anyone think you're touched by the Prophets if you pay attention and play it right."

Kira did not chide the boy for his attitude. She knew from her own experience how quickly faith was eaten away by cynicism in the camps. All she said was "Don't let Vedek Torin hear you say things like that or when they take your sister to the Temple, you'll be left behind."

"Not me." He showed her a brave grin. "Dejana won't go anywhere without me, and I won't go anywhere without Dejana. If they want their Nekor, they've got to take us both."

Major Kira checked the setting on her phaser. "They'll take you both; I guarantee it. What kind of weapons does Remis Jobar have with him?"

"A knife—not a real knife, something he made for himself out of a farm tool. It's clumsy, with a heavy handle."

"Anything else?"

"A big stick—a staff, I guess. He needs it to help him walk, but not that much. He used it to crack Brother Talissin's head when the monk tried to stop him."

"Not too bad," Kira muttered, preparing to advance on the hut. "If I can get a clear shot, I can stun him and—"

"And one of those." Cedra pointed at the phaser.

Kira sat down. "What? Are you sure?"

"I know what I saw," Cedra said. "And I remember."


Cedra remembered trailing after Gis while the monk made his rounds, extinguishing most of the infirmary lights for the night. The air was still, the silence broken only from time to time by the sound of Dejana's sporadic coughing.

"Do not fear, son," Brother Gis said kindly, patting Cedra's head. "She sounds better daily, and you know she will receive only the finest care When—"

"This is an outrage." Talissin's angry face loomed pale and eerie in the dimness of the infirmary. He marched forward, shaking a bony finger. "Why is she still here, among these—these common people?"

"Perhaps because illness is no respecter of persons, my brother," Gis replied evenly. "Fortunately for us all, neither is sleep. Lower your voice before you wake her and the others."

"She should not be here," Talissin maintained, staring at the curtained cubicle where Dejana drowsed. "We should remove her, give up our own tent so that she need not lie here like—like—"

"Like any other sick child?" Gis asked.

"She is not like any other child; she is the Nekor! Do you not realize what this means? There are people in the capitol—important people—who will be grateful to us for having sheltered her, treated her well. They will provide us with all manner of things this camp needs desperately, solely because we were her attentive caretakers."

"Huh! Like you ever treated Dejana special before you found out who she is!" Cedra blurted.

Talissin's scowl was terrible. "Why you impertinent—!"

"Let the boy be, my brother," Gis said. "He speaks the truth of his heart. The Prophets teach us never to fear the truth."

Another cough from Dejana's cubicle turned Talissin's ascetic face pale. "There! Do you hear that? She must be moved to better quarters."

"No, she must not," Gis replied. "What she must do is have an unbroken night's rest."

"Then I will stay here with her and keep watch." Talissin folded his hands inside the sleeves of his robe.

"I am assigned night duty," Gis said mildly. "And see, there is Ensign Kahrimanis to aid me." He nodded toward the back of the infirmary, where Dr. Bashir's assistant was stretched out on a spare pallet, snatching a catnap.

Talissin's chin rose sharply. "An unbeliever can not possibly attend the Nekor adequately. I ask you for the privilege of exchanging our assigned times of work in the infirmary. It is the keenest desire of my heart to spend as much time as possible in service to the child while she is still among us."

"Far be it from me to deny you your heart's desire." Gis shrugged. "Especially since I am not all that fond of night duty." He touched Cedra's shoulder. "You should also be in bed, child. Much awaits you tomorrow."

Cedra nodded and headed for the cubicle where Dejana was at last sleeping untroubled by further coughing spells. Still, the child could not resist pausing before the smug-faced Talissin and remarking, "Dejana's asleep; she's not going to know if it was you or Brother Gis looking after her tonight."

Talissin huffed. "The Nekor will remember her servant," he said sententiously. Cedra had to dash into the sheet-hung cubicle, fist in mouth to hold back the laughter.

The night passed with little sleep. Dejana's cough returned. Cedra was worried and wakeful, but feigned sleep whenever Ensign Kahrimanis or Brother Talissin peered in.

The new day came heralded not by the dawn's light, but by a rising murmur of excitement from the camp. Word of the runabout's approach and landing slipped into the infirmary well before the sunlight penetrated that gloomy building. The place was astir as those patients well enough to venture out all swarmed from their beds to greet the marvel setting itself down on the outskirts of the camp.

Cedra stayed put, unwilling to leave Dejana's side. Through half-closed eyes the child observed Talissin trailing after the outrushing crowd as far as the infirmary doorway. Ensign Kahrimanis remained on duty, just across the aisle, caring for a child still too weak to rise from her pallet. "Some servant," Cedra muttered scornfully in the monk's direction.

And then, too fast for the child to react, a pair of work-worn hands pounced on Dejana, yanking the girl from her bed. Her cry of surprise and alarm shattered into renewed coughing.

Everything seemed to happen at once, and yet in Cedra's memory it all replayed itself in slow motion: Ensign Kahrimanis's shout, the flash of Remis Jobar's knife at Dejana's throat, the Bajoran's harsh command for Kahrimanis to throw down his phaser or see the girl die—all these memories spun themselves out like a bad dream.

Cedra remained frozen, too scared by what was happening to move. Dejana was small for her age. It was not difficult for Remis Jobar to hold her to him with the same arm controlling the knife while he used his other hand to grab Kahrimanis's discarded phaser and jam it into his belt. His walking staff, propped against one sheeted wall of the cubicle, fell to the ground, but he recovered it in an instant.

"Move," he commanded, gesturing with the staff for Kahrimanis to walk ahead of him. The man obeyed—he had no choice; the knife had not wavered an inch from Dejana's flesh. The girl moaned with terror.

Cedra watched them go, heard Talissin's momentary protest cut off by a sharp crack so loud that the child winced and murmured a prayer that the dour monk's devotion to Dejana had not ended in death.


"—and that was when you trailed them here?" Major Kira asked. Cedra nodded. "Smart boy. So he's got two hostages and a phaser." She weighed the situation. "A phaser he might not know how to use." She considered the risks of making that assumption. At last she stood up. "I think we'll do better if we talk to Remis Jobar."

"You're not gonna blast him?" Cedra sounded disappointed.

"Maybe later." One corner of her mouth twitched up as she patted him on the shoulder. "If you're good. Wait here."

Major Kira holstered her phaser, then proceeded to approach the hut cautiously. Since she had chosen parley over direct attack, she wanted to be in plain view when she hailed Remis Jobar. It wouldn't do to startle him. There was no telling how he would react. Even if he didn't know how to use a phaser, he was handy enough with knife and staff to do real damage to his hostages. She sidled her way down the slope until she could see the hut. It was an open-faced lean-to built into the side of the hill, but dug in deep enough so that the people inside were part of the darkness.

Kira cupped her hands to her mouth. "Remis Jobar!"

There was silence from the hut. Then: "Who's there?"

"I'm Major Kira Nerys. I've come for Talis Dejana and Ensign Kahrimanis. Let them go."

A wild cackle of laughter answered her demand. "Like that, eh? Give 'em up so I can be handed over to the Temple for killing a monk? Oh, yes! Straightaway!"

"Talissin is still alive!" Kira shouted. "You haven't killed anyone." Not yet, she thought. "You have nothing to fear from the Temple!"

"I'll say not!" came the defiant reply. The shadows inside the hut shifted. "Let them be scared of me for a change! I've got their miracle girl here. If they want her, they can come see me about it."

Kira took a deep breath. She knew the next step well enough: "What do you want, Remis Jobar?"

"I want out of this place, that's what! I want my own farm again, land that's mine! Here or elsewhere, I don't care. I want those fat old birds in the capitol to stop twiddling their thumbs long enough to remember that I'm here. Damn them all, if they'd done something for us early on, there wouldn't be these cursed camps. But they were living easy, and it made 'em squirm to think of folk like me and Cathlys, stuck away like old logs, so they 'forgot' we was there!" The dispossessed farmer took a step into the sunlight and shook his fist. "I'll give 'em lessons in memory now."

"I agree with you," Kira called. "You're right, you and the others have been overlooked too long. But why does the child have to suffer for it? Hasn't she gone through enough? Let her go!"

"The blazes I will!" He took another step into the light. "All the fuss over that girl's nothing; nothing, you hear me? Old mealy-mouth Talissin going on and on about how the Prophets meant for her to live through the fever—bah! She's alive this day because my sister died nursing her. Now she's going to be took off somewhere to live her days in comfort, and Cathlys left cold in the grave without a marker to say she ever lived at all. I won't have it! They'll pay me plenty if they want their precious Nekor, and they'll do right by honoring Cathlys for how she gave her life to save that brat's. Either that, or they can look for their Nekor in the same grave that holds my sister."

Major Kira heard him out, but her attention was split. While she listened to Remis Jobar recite his list of grievances, her mind was making its own calculations. He must have them tied up in there, she reasoned, or he wouldn't turn his back on them. Unless. . .

"Listen to me, Remis!" she called. "I don't represent the Temple or the provisional government, so I can't speak for them. I'm the Bajoran liaison officer from Deep Space Nine and you've got one of our crewmen in there. The Federation can be your ally in this, but not if you've harmed Ensign Kahrimanis."

Remis Jober spat. "I ain't harmed no one, not him nor the girl. But that can change."

"Prove it! Let me hear them tell me they're all right."

"Hah! The girl I can carry out of the hut for you to see, but the other? You expect me to tote that big lump of a man?"

"Can't he walk for himself?"

"He walked far enough. I ain't untying him for you, that's sure. He might try something stupid and then I'd have to kill him … and her."

"You wouldn't do that," Kira said, no longer shouting. "You're not a child-killer, Remis."

"I don't want to be! If I do—do what I've got to—it'll be on account of you and the rest pushed me to it. Don't try me, I warn you!"

"Let me talk to them, Remis," Kira persisted, still calm. "You don't need to drag Ensign Kahrimanis out of the hut. Do you see this insignia I'm wearing?" She pointed to her comm badge. "There's one almost like it on his uniform. You turn it on with a touch. If you've got his hands tied, you'll have to activate it for him. You'll hear my voice come from it, calling his name; that's when you turn it on. Understood?"

"I got it." The Bajoran retreated into the shelter of the hut, casting more than one wary look back at Major Kira.

Kira touched her comm badge. "Kira to Kahrimanis."

There was a pause that lengthened uncomfortably, then finally the response: "Kahrimanis here. He's got me and the kid tied up, Major, but we're all right."

"That's all I wanted to know. Kira out." She broke the connection and wondered whether Remis Jobar had done the same. "Remis!" she called.

The farmer's grizzled head poked out of the hut. "Proof enough for you?" he snarled. "Now you go back and tell 'em what I want. And you get your folks to bring one of them flyers to take me to my new land. Soon as I've got the soil under my feet, I'll let you have these two back—not before."

"Be reasonable, Remis," Major Kira said. "The longer you hold out, the worse you make it for yourself. Release them now and I'll plead your case myself. I know what it's like to have nothing, no one."

"I want my land," the farmer said stubbornly. "They want their Nekor. Even swap or nothing. You tell 'em that, back in the capitol. Not such a hard message to remember, eh?"

"What if they refuse? I don't believe you'd hurt a child, Remis Jobar."

"Believe what you want. What have I got to lose?"

"Say they give you a farm," Kira persisted. "Do you think you'll be allowed to work it in peace?

"I don't care!" Remis Jobar's voice rose hysterically. "I just want what I lost! I want what they took from me!"

"It was the Cardassians who took it from you, not the Temple or the government."

"Then why won't they give me my own land back, now the Cardassians are gone?" He emerged from the hut, leaning on his staff, a bent and limping figure against the naked fields. "Dammit, not even the Cardassians kept us prisoner like this, tied to land that can hardly feed us! Our own folk left us here, out of sight, out of mind, shoved us into the dark like it was our grave! Look at me! You see me?" He threw his arms open wide.

"I see you," Major Kira replied evenly.

"Then you're the only Bajoran outside this valley who can. We're invisible. We're not there. But so long as I've got that girl, they've got to see me. They can't pretend we're—"

A phaser beam whined through the air, blasting Remis Jobar from his feet. The impact hit him squarely in the back, flinging him forward, face in the dirt. Major Kira drew her own phaser and crouched, ready. The blast had come from just over the hill where she'd left Cedra.

"Hold your fire, Major Kira" A tall, stocky Bajoran dressed in somber robes stepped into sight and presented a clear target on the hilltop above the hut. He raised his hands to show he carried no weapon, but Major Kira saw the phaser nestled in his sash. "I am Kejan Ulli. I represent the Dessin-ka."

"As what? A hired assassin?" Kira shouted without thinking. She kept her phaser trained on him.

"I assure you, I am nothing of the sort. I was informed of the situation here and came to see if I could render any assistance."

"Informed how? By who?"

He glossed over the questions. "Our ambitious friend there is only stunned. He will see the error of his ways when he awakens. It has been written that the Nekor brings a sword, but I have always interpreted that to mean that she shall claim ultimate victory over those who doubt her powers. I did not feel it was necessary to serve her with unnecessary bloodshed."

Major Kira was on guard. Every mistrustful instinct in her was on full alarm when she looked at Kejan Ulli. He was too smooth, too plausible, his responses were too pat and answered nothing. Keeping an eye on him, she moved quickly to check the fallen Remis Jobar for signs of life. Her fingers found a pulse, and his breath warmed her hand.

"You see?" Kejan Ulli sounded as proud as if he had dragged the distraught farmer back from the brink of death instead of having nearly shoved him over. "Now, let us free the Nekor and—"

A small, lithe shape skidded down the slope under the startled eyes of Kejan Ulli and vanished into the hut. A breath later, Ensign Kahrimanis emerged, rubbing his wrists and blinking his eyes in the sunlight. He was followed by Talis Cedra, who carried a weeping Dejana on his back. When the ensign attempted to help the boy with his burden, Cedra pulled away, scowling. Clearly he was not about to let anyone else get near his sister.

Major Kira tossed Kahrimanis his phaser, taken from Remis Jobar's body. She glanced up at the hilltop. Kejan Ulli was on his knees, gazing raptly at Dejana.

Does he want to worship her or devour her? Major Kira touched her comm badge and hailed the runabout. "Kira to Munson. There's been a change. Assume low orbit immediately, three to beam up from these coordinates, myself and two children."

"Aye, sir." Munson was too good a crewman to question orders.

"Contact the station. Inform Commander Sisko that I'm bringing the Nekor and her brother aboard; I'll explain everything when I get there. You'll have to return for Ensign Kahrimanis; he's taking care of an injured man."

"I'm on my way," Munson responded crisply.

"Good. Kira out." She saw Kejan Ulli rise to his feet and start down the slope toward them, but she knew she could rely on Munson to act quickly. Her trust was not misplaced.

A cry of protest escaped Kejan Ulli's lips as Major Kira, Talis Cedra, and Talis Dejana shimmered from sight just as he was about to reach them.