“I’m late for an appointment,” Kira said, thinking ruefully of the mounds of work that awaited her. “Perhaps one of my officers can help you?”

“A moment is all we ask,” the woman said. She moved her hood back on her head, as did the man, and Kira could see their ears now. Their unadorned ears. They were not wearing the earrings that signified Bajor’s faith. Kira’s hand involuntarily moved to her own right ear, from which her own earring had dangled before her Attainder had stripped her of the right to wear it.

“We want to thank you for revealing the truths of Ohalu to us,” the man said. “The teachings of Bajor’s temples have always governed our lives, but the prophecies you disseminated answer so many more questions. You have helped us along our own spiritual path.”

“The truth of the Prophets cannot be monopolized by any one group of believers,” the woman said. “And the truth of the Prophets has been hidden for far too long. You have helped to reveal it. Do not mourn the loss of your standing in the Bajoran orthodoxy. Your paghis obviously stronger than that.”

“You have revealed to us a destiny that was obscured for far too long by those in control,” the man said. “The Prophets arewith you.”

Smiling, the pair recloaked their heads and continued on their way amid the bustle of the Promenade.

Kira stared after them, unsettled. What wasthat about?

The blood sizzled on his forearm, burning through his black coverall into his tough skin, but Taran’atar ignored the pain. He wielded the creature’s severed arm like a club, planning to use the clawed digits at its end as spear points.

Sensing that one of the giant arthropods was about to jump on him from behind, Taran’atar rolled to the side, tucking his limbs in close. In the past, he might have just stood his ground and let the alien attack him, but after fighting against forty-three adversaries from various species, he had begun to master a variety of fighting styles and strategies.

The creature landed, its splayed feet absorbing the impact of the fall on its spindly legs. Although there were variations, all of Taran’atar’s current attackers were from the same alien species. Oversized arthropods, each of them had two legs and two arms, plus a lengthy curled and segmented tail. Their three-meter-tall bodies were protected by carapaces of black, organic armor. Their heads were elongated and gourdlike, with mucus-dripping jaws from which issued a screech that would have struck terror into most humanoids.

Taran’atar had already dispatched four of them, but at least six more still crawled in the shadowy canyon, and he wasn’t sure that there weren’t more lurking nearby that he hadn’t seen yet. He had to use additional caution because of the creatures’ acidic blood; his hide was tough, but healing from extensive burns was not how he wanted to spend the next several days.

Standing, Taran’atar feinted to the right with his arm club, and as the creature dove to that side, the Jem’Hadar soldier scissored his leg out, sweeping it into the feet of one of the aliens. It toppled, off balance, and he grabbed a rock, smashing its skull in one brutal blow. Its death screech reverberated through the canyon.

Suddenly the din became overwhelming as the shadows uncurled themselves and the creatures screamed down at him. His count had been wrong. There were at least a dozen of them left, and they were angry. Skittering and bounding down the rock walls, they came at him.

Roaring his own rage, Taran’atar met their attack, forcing two of them into each other so that their snapping jaws ripped into each other’s heads, green ichor spewing about the canyon. He ducked from underneath their dying bodies to find another alien in midair, about to land atop him. He thrust the arm club upward with all his strength, punching through the creature’s thorax and spine, impaling it. The move may have eviscerated the beast, but its weight drove it down onto Taran’atar’s hand, the blood burning through his gray scales and down to softer flesh beneath.

The creature opened its jaws, snapping at Taran’atar’s face. The Jem’Hadar then saw a disconcertingly sharp set of inner jaws shoot out toward him. With both hands occupied holding the beast’s scrabbling claws and ravening mouth at bay, Taran’atar had little choice. He opened his mouth wider than the width of the alien’s inner jaws, and bit down on the creature’s extrusion. He felt it crunch inside his teeth, and caustic ichor sprayed onto his face. He tossed the alien to the side, pulling the severed limb from its chest and spitting out the vile appendage he had just bitten off.

The other creatures prowled on the walls, skittering upside down like spiders, wary of the fearless Jem’Hadar. He let out a bellowing roar that echoed through the canyon.

“Hey, pallie!”

Taran’atar looked around for the voice that called to him. Finally he saw a man—a gray-haired human dressed in black and white—standing on one of the ledges up the canyon wall. Light spilled from behind him, and the sounds of other humans and music echoed from the light.

“Would you mind terribly keeping the noise down to a dull roar, please? You’re drowning out the band. And truth to tell, you’re spooking some of the high rollers.”

Taran’atar was about to respond, when one of the aliens jumped him from behind, its claws raking around his chest. Reaching up, he grabbed the creature’s elongated head, using its forward momentum to flip it over his head. As it hit the dirt, the Jem’Hadar smashed his hand down in a chopping motion, severing his attacker’s neck and allowing its head to roll into the canyon.

Looking back up toward the human, Taran’atar saw him exiting through what appeared to be a doorway set into the illuminated area. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he heard the departing human say something that sounded like, “Sheesh, and I used to think Worfhad a problem with holosuite violence.”

At times such as these the task with which Odo had entrusted him—to live among Alpha Quadrant humanoids in an effort to understand their often incomprehensible ways—seemed utterly unachievable.

4

Chief medical officer’s personal log, stardate 53574.7

It’s good to get off the ship from time to time, even if only to take part in a routine survey mission of a solar system’s frozen hinterlands, where the most interesting sights are icy boulders and planetesimals which receive so little illumination that many of them can’t actually be seen. But Chief Engineer Nog finds the region fascinating for professional reasons, as does Ezri, whose scientific curiosity—the legacy of Tobin and Jadzia—has been coming to the fore quite a bit ever since theDefiant first embarked on its current explorations of the Gamma Quadrant.

Ezri will be in charge of the mission, and she seems extraordinarily comfortable with the mantle of command that comes with being theDefiant’ s first officer. I have to admit that her increased confidence in recent months has taken some getting used to. The Ezri Dax I fell in love with, after all, could have been a poster child for disorganization and personal chaos.

But I’ve concluded that I don’t mind the change one bit.

The universe sang to the shuttlecraft Sagan.

In a manner of speaking.