Bashir gave her a quick explanation of the environmental needs of his alien patients, as well as an update on their steadily improving condition.
“Do you think these people might be able to shed some light on that alien structure we ran into out there?” she said. “Commander Vaughn is getting pretty curious.”
Bashir smiled wryly at her understatement. Vaughn had stopped by earlier, during the busiest part of the surgical procedures. He’d obviously been beside himself with questions about the two groups of aliens, their conflict, and the weird structure that the Sagan had encountered out in the Oort cloud—questions that he’d had no opportunity to ask.
“There’s no way to know what they can tell us,” Bashir said, “until we figure out how to talk to them.”
“Good point. Until then, can you spare some time to help me brief Commander Vaughn and the rest of the senior staff about our survey mission?”
Bashir glanced back at Krissten, who nodded affirmatively. Her wan smile reminded him of how fidgety she always became during staff briefings. She was obviously content to stay here and watch over the last four convalescing aliens, letting the officers sit shuffling padds around a mess hall conference table. She evidently liked formal meetings a good deal less than she did the lowered gravity.
“I’ll call you immediately if anyone’s condition changes, Doctor,” Krissten said, making an effort to appear casual while clinging to the side of one of the biobeds as though her very life depended on it.
“All right,” Bashir said. Smiling, he turned to Ezri. “After you, fearless leader. Let’s regale everyone with our tales of derring-do from the far frontier.”
* * *
Because of the alien ship’s low gravity and dim, amber-colored illumination, Nog moved about with extreme care. Junior engineers Permenter and Senkowski seemed completely involved in their attempt to mime basic engineering concepts to the tall, thin pentaped who seemed to be in charge of the engine room.
Nog was glad that Shar had come along as well. Although the Andorian science officer was still more tight-lipped than usual, Nog hoped that getting engaged in the repairs to the alien ship would help draw him out, encourage him to discuss whatever had been bothering him.
Nog noticed that Shar, who was absently holding a hyperspanner, was looking in his direction. Shar’s antennae twitched in evident curiosity.
“Are you unwell, Nog?” Shar said.
“I’m fine,” Nog lied. In fact, he felt anything but fine. The itch he’d first begun to notice while parking the Sagan had continued unabated and seemed to be intensifying. Until maybe forty minutes ago, Nog had been willing to consider Ezri’s suggestion that the itching might have been psychosomatic, something related to his acknowledged aversion to being forced against his better judgment to share space aboard DS9 with Taran’atar. But now it felt as though hundreds of carnivorous Hupyrian beetle larvae were building a hive in his biosynthetic leg. How could the cause of this be something in his head?
He promised himself that he’d run, not walk, to the Defiant’ s medical bay just as soon as he was certain that this wreck of a warp core wasn’t going to blow up in everyone’s face. Until then, he’d cope with the discomfort. Concentrate past it. Suck it up.
Deal with it, Cadet! Deal with it!
He recalled his earliest Academy days. New plebe cadets couldn’t afford to display any sign of weakness. Especially not Ferengi cadets. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, reminding himself that his lowly cadet days now lay more than two years behind him was doing precious little to bolster his confidence.
Nog came out of his reverie when he noticed that Shar was still looking at him expectantly. He was thankful that Permenter and Senkowski were still preoccupied with their instrument calibrations. Nog tried to put on his best tongo face for Shar, though he didn’t want to appear as evasive as his friend always did whenever he was asked a direct question about his family. Concentrating on that helped distract him from the mounting agony in his leg.
Until he saw the alien ship’s chief engineer extend two of its impossibly slender lower limbs toward one of the countless handholds that covered every bulkhead, loft itself spiderlike toward the ceiling, and fetch several of its tools and instruments with its remaining three appendages.
Watching a creature whose movements so resembled those of a Talarian hook spider made it very difficult not to think about legs, itching or otherwise.
Shar still stared at Nog, his antennae fairly vibrating with unasked questions.
Nog knelt long enough to fetch an EPS pattern tracer from his open toolkit. He focused past the pain in his left leg as he rose.
“I’m fine, Shar. Really. Now let’s finish getting this engine room shipshape so we can get back to the Defiant.”
The alien structure turned slowly end over end, hovering in midair about a meter above the longest table in the mess hall. Commander Vaughn sat at the head of the table, his fingers steepled before him as he watched the object’s ever-changing profile.
How long has it been drifting all alone out there? Vaughn thought, his soul filled to bursting with an almost religious ecstasy at the sight of this marvelous, inscrutable thing. How many aeons have come and gone since its builders turned to dust?
Seated across the table from Vaughn, Ezri Dax absently scratched at her abdomen. Then she gestured toward the hologram that dominated the Defiant’ s ad hoc briefing room as she finished relating the tale of the Sagan’ s near collision with the ancient object. Dr. Bashir sat beside her, listening attentively. The four remaining chairs were occupied by Lieutenant Sam Bowers, Ensign Prynn Tenmei, and science specialists Cassini and T’rb.
Vaughn looked around the room. Bashir, T’rb, and Cassini began reading the sensor reports that now scrolled across everyone’s padds. But Bowers—whose specialty was tactical and security rather
