Julian looked away for a moment, then forced himself to meet her eyes. “You said Jadzia,” he said quietly.

“What?” Ezri snapped.

“You referred to yourself as Jadzia just now.”

Ezri stared back uncertainly, obviously replaying the conversation in her mind. “That was an honest mistake.”

Julian nodded. “I know it was. Because as a doctor who’s spent years studying Trill symbiosis, I know that in an unplanned joining, it can take quite a while for the host to find her equilibrium. So I’ll ask you just one question, and then I’ll let the matter drop. Do you really think you’ve found yours?”

When Ezri declined to answer, Julian wondered if he’d made a mistake confronting her with this tonight. “Look, it’s been a stressful day for both of us. Maybe we’re both not ourselves tonight. We’ll be more clearheaded in the morning. Let’s go to bed.”

“Excellent suggestion.” She shuffled off to the sleeproom.

Julian waited for a proper interval to pass before following after her, knowing he probably wouldn’t be counting her spots tonight. He heard her toss her combadge on a table, kick off her boots, unfasten her uniform. Now would be good.When he reached the doorway, Ezri was waiting. She threw a cushion at him.

“What?” He clutched the pillow against his chest.

“Get some rest. Captain’s orders,” she said, and locked the door.

Shar tripped on the uneven floor gratings. Every other step, he bumped into cloaked Yrythny, streaming out of homes and work. The Old Quarter hummed with night activity. Shar and Keren descended a wide stair into a central plaza, joining the sea of people flowing in and out of archways. Shoppers lined up at merchant stalls and booths; artisans and performers squeezed into spaces not occupied by food carts boasting leaf-wrapped fish grilling over sage-fragrant coals or ropes of bulbous root vegetables dangling on hanging racks. A hidden puppeteer manipulated his carved, brightly painted creations for a group of enraptured children, while a lute-playing musician accompanied his tale. With their hoods up and in the poor lighting, no one noticed Shar or Keren.

He followed Keren to a tapestry shop tucked in a crooked back alley. Pushing aside the weighty rug-door, Keren and Shar ducked inside the dusky shop. With tables and cabinets piled high with fabric wares, Shar could barely see around the pyramids of dry goods emanating mildew and dust. The Yrythny attending the virtually empty store ignored them, continuing to enter information into a computer terminal on his countertop. Keren picked through hanging tapestries lining the back wall, lifting a particularly worn-looking one, examining a price marked on the back and moving to the next one. What she hoped to accomplish by taking him shopping wasn’t yet clear to Shar. He opened his mouth to tell her so, when, after she’d studied a massive, wall-size tapestry with rotted out fringes, she vanished. Peering under the tapestries on both sides and behind him, Shar failed to locate her. He duplicated Keren’s actions: lifting a corner of the massive, moss-green tapestry, tilting his head to read the price and— swoosh—the floor spun, and he found himself standing in a corridor crammed with Yrythny, cloaked like him.

Uncertain as to what he was supposed to do next, he hung back until he felt Keren’s hand gripping his arm. The crowd propelled them into what must be the tapestry shop’s warehouse, where the Yrythny sat on a dozen or more metal benches. Other than the scrape of bench legs on the floor, the rustling of cloaks and the occasional whisper, the room was quiet. Though the mottled light obscured his ability to distinguish bodies, Shar guessed there were almost a hundred in the room.

He and Keren secured a spot near the back, and waited as the seats slowly filled to capacity. Finally, when it appeared that not one more body could be squeezed into the musty room, an individual seated close to the front rose.

“Aliens have come to Luthia,” the leader began. “We have been assured that these strangers are not agents of the Cheka, and there are those who believe the strangers—one in particular—have been brought here by the Other to help us find peace with our Houseborn siblings. I for one am skeptical. This could very well be yet another Houseborn attempt to lull us into passivity so they can find our group and institute a crackdown. We need to have a strategy in place for dealing with either possibility.”

A woman in front of Shar stood up. “We should at least consider the possibility that the situation is exactly as it’s been described to us—that these aliens have come to us in need after being caught by one of the Cheka traps meant for us. As strangers to this region of space, they’re uniquely positioned to view our dilemma impartially. Perhaps the Other did indeed lead them to us. In which case, the rash actions our people took when they arrived may have already damaged our cause. Perhaps as they learn more about our plight—”

“And how precisely will they do that?” someone else jeered. “The strangers won’t be allowed to see us. The Houseborn will keep them away from the Old Quarter because it is squalid and dirty. The strangers won’t talk to the house servants and the shmshuherders and the fishers. They’ll be trotted around to the intelligentsia who, fearing the loss of their lifestyles, will minimize the seriousness of our plight.”

For the first time, Shar wondered who from the mob was in the room. He hunched over, tucked his feet under the bench and hoped his alien presence would go unnoticed. His antennae twitched with the conflicted emotions in the room.

A new speaker began, “I came out of House Fnorol in the East Sea. Until twenty years ago, the Elders eviscerated Wanderer females as they came of mature age, justifying their actions because it prevented them from joining their ‘superior’ Houseborn sisters in the spawning waters.” Shar could hear the sneer underlying his bitter words. “Those that weren’t maimed, died. There’s no way our esteemed Assembly Chair will share that part of our history with the strangers.” And he sat down.

“What about the burnings! They came through our villages and burned them to the ground!”

“Our younglings were starved—”

“—beaten with clubs when they were found to be Wanderer young—”

One after another, speakers rose, testifying to mutilation and slaughter with such matter-of-factness that Shar could barely imagine the scope of their experiences—their histories. As quick as his mind was, Shar found himself struggling to process what he heard. He searched for something inside himself that would allow him to understand such atrocities.

“Information about atrocities committed against us can’t come from us directly,” the meeting leader argued. “The Upper Assembly can discredit it as the ranting of militants, and not history. The fact that we can’t carry arms or defend ourselves, even when we serve on starships—is obvious. Starvation, repression—during the Black Time, slavery—those things will be even harder to bring to light.”

A Yrythny sitting several benches away from Shar sprang to his feet and rushed to the front of the room, his body quivering with anxiety. “I say we forget about the strangers. They’re of no consequence. We may have another Black Time if the Cheka barricades don’t come down soon. The Houseborn willstarve us to save their own, be sure of it.”

“Or they’ll kill us. Round us up and slaughter us so our hungry mouths don’t take food from theirs,” another agreed.

The last comment provoked a wave of whispering, stopped only when the meeting leader demanded order by rapping a scepter against the podium. “Enough! We have eyes and ears in many places. Mass murder won’t come upon us unawares, but the Houseborn may appoint these strangers to decide our fate before tomorrow if we aren’t careful.”