The creature opened its eyes, gasped, and released a string of guttural sounds that could have been coughing or an attempt at speech. The only thing Bashir knew for certain was that the medical bay’s universal translator hadn’t placed them in the latter category.

The alien fixed both of its glistening, plum-sized black eyes on Bashir and reached weakly in his direction with one spindly arm. The creature’s three opposing digits trembled as they clenched and unclenched. Krissten took a cautious step backward. But Bashir saw no threat in the alien’s gesture; he took it instead as a plea for help. The creature’s quivering, willowy limb brought to mind the time he had spent with Ensign Melora Pazlar, whose thin Elaysian bones were probably just as frail because of her homeworld’s low gravity.

Of course. Why didn’t I think of that earlier?

The weak alien lowered its trembling arm and let out a painful-sounding wheeze. Bashir tapped his combadge. “Bashir to Nog.”

“Nog here, Doctor. What can I do for you?”

“Can you get me a reading on the artificial gravity levels aboard the alien ship?” Bashir smiled at the perplexed look on Krissten’s face.

Nog’s voice was infused with the enthusiasm of a busy engineer hard at work at his craft. “I can do better than that, Doctor. Shar and I are already aboard helping them pick up the pieces of their engine room. And the gravity here is one of the biggest nuisances we have to deal with.”

“How so?”

“Well, if you try to walk too fast, you end up falling on your butt in slow motion. I’d say the local gravity is set at about point-one-five of standard.”

Bashir recalled having seen the ancient 2-D images of Apollo astronauts “bunnyhopping” across the lunar surface in their bulky environmental suits, and sometimes toppling over, tortoise-like, after having taken a bad step. And there were the Russian cosmonauts who’d had to be carried from their capsules on stretchers after returning to Earth from months-long zero-gee orbital missions.

“Thank you, Nog. Bashir out.” He nodded to Candlewood, who had been following the exchange intently and immediately took the hint.

“Adjusting the local artificial-gravity environment to Earth-Lunar standard, sir,” Candlewood said as his fingers moved briskly over a wall console.

Bashir felt immediately lighter, and the wheezing alien at once began breathing more easily and deeply. The unconscious patients also seemed to have been invigorated by the change, as their respiratory muscles suddenly found themselves with considerably less work to do. Bashir imagined he saw a look of gratitude in the unfathomable oil-drop eyes of the creature who lay before him. He offered it a reassuring smile, though he was well aware that his countenance was probably as inscrutable to the alien as the alien’s was to him.

Bashir turned his gaze toward Krissten, who was gripping the edge of the surgical table with white knuckles. “Have you had any low-gee training, Ensign?” Bashir said.

“Not for years and years,” she said, still clutching the table like a rock-climber who had just watched a buddy plummet into an abyss. Krissten did not seem reassured by Candlewood’s deft, deliberate steps as he went off corpsman duty and exited the medical bay. “Kol is a fan of zero-gee recreation. Not me.”

Bashir smiled, recalling a low-gee hoverball tournament he had once played against Krissten’s girlfriend, Deputy Etana Kol, who had won two out of three of those matches. He suppressed a sudden urge to show off his genetically enhanced reflexes.

“Just move carefully and slowly,” he said. “I’ll help you stow the surgical equipment.”

He reached for the exoscalpel that he had placed on the instrument tray and lifted it. He scowled when he noticed that it was still activated. Could have sliced my thumb off if I’d picked the damned thing up wrong. How could I have forgot to turn it off?

He moved his thumb toward the “off” toggle.

For a moment Bashir’s hand seemed to defy him, and he lost his grip on the instrument. It felt as though his hand had been slickened with tetralubisol. Damned gravity.

He bobbled the device, grabbing at the still-active exoscalpel as it fell—and succeeded only in batting it toward his patient. Krissten yelped as she, too, grabbed for the instrument, bumping Bashir and knocking him down in the process.

The alien on the biobed screamed as the exoscalpel sunk hilt-deep into its chest, precisely where a human’s heart would have been.

“Doctor, it was as much my fault as yours,” Krissten said after they had repaired the damage and had once again stabilized the patient. Luckily, the exoscalpel had not hit anything vital.

Bashir stood silently beside his again-unconscious patient, the crisis past, the surgical gowns already doffed and in the matter recycler. The healthiest five aliens were already back aboard their own ship. Bashir rubbed his hands together. But no matter how hard he scrubbed, they didn’t feel quite clean.

Finally he said, “Thank you, Ensign. But you weren’t the one who forgot to deactivate the exoscalpel.”

She wasn’t ready to let it go. “You’re not used to lunar gravity, Julian.”

“It shouldn’t have been a problem for me,” he said with an emphatic shake of the head.

Krissten’s face was a study in concern. “An accident like that could have happened to anyone, under the circumstances.”

Not to anyone with my talents. Not to anyone with my genetically engineered reflexes and stamina.

Not tome.

It occurred to him for the first time that something substantive might really be wrong with him. He recalled the vertiginous, seconds-long eternity during which the shuttlecraft Saganhad collided with the giant alien artifact’s interdimensional wake. The shuttle had been tossed about on the quantum foam like a cork on some wine-dark cosmic sea. Could the encounter have caused the Sagan’s crew to suffer unpredictable deleterious effects?

But why thiseffect? It made no sense. And neither Ezri nor Nog had complained of any symptoms. Perhaps he was jumping at shadows.

He forced a weak smile. “Maybe you’re right, Krissten. Thank you.”

Behind Bashir, the medical bay door hissed open to admit someone.

“I prescribe rest for the entire medical staff,” Krissten said, smiling back at him. “Then we can forget that any of this ever happened.”

If only it were that easy.

Bashir thanked the ensign, then turned to the doorway.

Ezri stood on the threshold. He wondered for a disjointed instant just how much she had overheard.

“I was curious about the last of our patients,” she said as she entered. Then she scowled and gripped the door-jamb tightly. “And what the hell’s going on with the gravity in here?”

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 Saganhad 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.