Bashir stopped at the door to one of the administration offices, trying to open it. It wouldn’t budge. He saw that it required an identification badge, and noted that the reader was dark. Probably not working, like a lot of things around here.He wondered if whatever shielding had protected most of the hospital from the blasts was thinner here on the upper floors. That would certainly give the besieged staff another reason not to bring the joined up past the first few levels.
Looking up and down the halls to make certain he was alone, Bashir grabbed the lid from a trash receptacle and smashed it into the glass of the office door. Despite the loudness of the sound, he didn’t hear any footfalls or cries of alarm.
Gingerly he reached inside and opened the door, then let himself into the offices. He quickly settled in behind one of the desks and activated the computer system. For a moment, the viewscreen was dark, and he felt stupid. If the door reader wasn’t working, what made me think the computers would still be running?
But then the screen flickered to life. The interface was different from most of the designs he was used to, but at the Academy he had become familiar with a multitude of diverse computer systems.
He began the obvious search patterns, trolling both the Trill medical database and the Symbiosis Commission database. Bethan Roa. Roa, Bethan. Roa symbiont.
No records found within the search parameters.Ignoring the on-screen message, he considered others who had known Roa.
Verad Kalon. Kalon, Verad.
No records found within the search parameters.
Duhan Vos. Vos, Duhan. Vos symbiont.
Finally, a pair of records came up, and Bashir read them quickly. The symbiont Vos had been joined to Duhan Weckna some twenty-five years ago, then the joined Trill had ascended to the Symbiosis Commission in 2373. Just as Dr. Torvin had already told him, Vos had been removed from his post about a year later, while under investigation for financial improprieties. His file ended abruptly, as though Vos had ceased to exist at that time.
Bashir cursed. Unless he could find some other link to Bethan Roa’s apparently lost research, there would be no help for hundreds of joined Trills whose connection to their symbionts had been sundered by the radiation blasts.
Wearily, he stood up from his seat and exited the office, glass crunching beneath his boots.
Dr. Torvin had said that Bashir’s medical help would be useful elsewhere in the hospital, and every second he spent looking for the evidently nonexistent research of Bethan Roa, another life might be lost. And Trill cannot afford to lose any more than it has already lost today,he thought, his spirits downcast.
Bashir stepped into the cool stairwell and began his descent back into the hell that waited below.
13
The morning sun blazed across the distant, snow-capped mountains as Ranul Keru stood just inside the cavern entrance, watching the gathering on the rocky plain below with increasing trepidation. The crowd had become boisterous in the half hour since Keru had watched Ezri Dax descend into the symbiont pools.
“What’s riling them up now?” he asked General Taulin Cyl, who stood nearby on a rocky outcropping that led to the entrance to the Caves of Mak’ala. The general was conferring with one of the military guards.
“We don’t know,” Cyl said. “We have managed to target some of the ringleaders, and from the way they’ve been checking their chronometers, they’re expecting something to happen soon.”
“Coordinated attacks?” Keru asked. “Could they be moving against other spawning grounds or the Symbiosis Commission?”
Cyl scowled. “Unfortunately, all communications out of here are still being jammed. We don’t know what’s happening elsewhere, and I doubt anybody outside of the caves is hearing the signals we’re broadcasting either.”
Keru surveyed the crowd. Some of them certainly fit the profile of the disheveled, wild-eyed unjoined revolutionary, but more than a few didn’t. A few protesters displayed placards emblazoned with such slogans as JOINED FOR UNJOINED RIGHTS and MY DAUGHTER DESERVES A SYMBIONT, TOO! He was only mildly surprised to see that joined Trills had rallied to the cause of the disgruntled unjoined majority. Like every Guardian who made it through the Order’s probationary period, he understood the intrinsic unfairness of the way the benefits of symbiosis were distributed among a populace taught since birth to strive to become respected links in a great mnemonic chain. He simply had never seen a better alternative. There were many humanoids who wished to be joined, and only a relative handful of available symbionts. And those symbionts required his protection, now more than ever.
It’s not the symbionts’ fault that our society has flaws. It’sour fault. If we want a fairer world, then we humanoids will have to build it ourselves.Keru knew that he wasn’t unique in holding this opinion; many of the protesters gathered here at Mak’ala, as well as those congregating in the cities, were indeed working to change Trill society; Keru took issue only with some of the means being employed, rather than the ends.
He heard a faint clattering sound coming from the rock face that extended to the summit of the mountain from which Mak’ala was carved, and turned to see some small stone fragments tumble onto a nearby overhead ledge. He looked up, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling.
“General! Above us!”
Keru did a quick count. Eight people, men and women garbed in utilitarian gray paramilitary garb, were rappelling down the cavern wall toward them, descending rapidly on whip-thin cords. Several of them were conspicuously armed. Keru assumed that they must have had themselves surreptitiously beamed onto the mountain’s summit, or to some discreet place nearby. Evidently their unexpected entrance had also enabled them to overcome the small contingent of guards Cyl had assigned to the high terrain.
Even as the general and his guard drew their phasers, three of the intruders opened fire from above. Keru ducked and rolled into the cover of the cave entrance, shouting to the other Guardians as he moved. “We’re under attack! Eight intruders, from above!”
Rantic Lan, one of the youngest members of the Order, threw him the Starfleet phaser that Dax had left behind. Keru caught it one-handed, then whirled back toward the entrance. He saw booted feet descending from above and waited, timing his shot. A moment later, when the first torso became visible from inside the shelter of the cavern entrance, he fired, sending the attacker spinning off the ledge; stunned, the intruder dropped his weapon and swung limply, entangled in his own rappelling line.
Keru rushed toward the ledge as the Guardians arrayed themselves behind him. He could hear shouts and sounds of fighting coming from the direction of the crowd outside; apparently the demonstrators had begun openly clashing with the Trill military contingent as well.
Before he could determine what had happened to Cyl and the other soldier, several more attackers leaned around the cavern entrance, firing particle weapons into the cave. Keru felt one blast singe his shoulder, and then heard a cry from one of his fellow Guardians behind him. Ducking behind an outcropping of the stony wall, Keru returned fire, but he knew it wouldn’t be long before his position was pinned down. And I’m the only one down here with phaser.