He rolled his eyes in mock protest. “You say that like she’s the one in charge, Phillipa.”

“Isn’t she?” Matthias said, arching an eyebrow.

“My father used to play the klavionto keep me from being afraid,” Ro interjected. She crouched down beside Matthias.

“Maybe your dad has something special like that he can do for you.”

“Hey, you have funny wrinkles like my dad and the kids in my class,” Mireh said, pointing at Ro’s nose. “And like me!” She touched her finger to her own nose and began giggling.

“Mireh has never been—I’ve never been—around a lot of Bajorans. It’s still a novelty to her,” Sibias explained.

Matthias stretched an arm toward her son. “I’d like to say good night before you leave, Arios.” The boy twisted his head into his shoulder, blushing. Sibias lifted him by the collar and pushed him toward his mother. She caught Arios’s elbow and pulled him into her arms, feathering his forehead with kisses.

Ro stood up, giving the mother and her children some room to be affectionate. Normally such scenes of domesticity pressed all the wrong buttons with Ro. Having been orphaned young and having grown up in the resettlement camps, Ro had known little of family life, the closest thing being the time she served on the Enterpriseand she had more or less messed that relationship up. But this family, for some reason, didn’t annoy her so much. Maybe I’m mellowing in my old age.She stood next to Sibias, who appeared content to let his wife have some one-on-one time with their children.

“You didn’t grow up on Bajor?” she asked him.

“I was an orphan in the Karnoth resettlement camp, or so the records say,” he said matter-of-factly. “Smuggled off when I was Arios’s age. I grew up far away from here on a Federation colony. While Phillipa is stationed here, I’m hoping to find out exactly where my family comes from.” He twirled the earring chain between his thumb and forefinger, as if this piece of his heritage was at once familiar and foreign.

Ro had heard far too many stories like Sibias’ during her years away from Bajor. Thousands of misplaced children were spirited away from starvation and disease only to discover as adults that they lacked cultural bearings. “Start near the Tilar Peninsula in the Hedrickspool Province. These markings,” she pointed to several ridges and runes, “they’re unique to an area just outside the outback.”

He touched her arm, his eyes full of questions she knew he couldn’t ask. “Thank you.”

“If I can help…”

“I know. I’ll stop by sometime. I’d like to talk with you.”

With a reluctant sigh, Commander Matthias sent both children scurrying back to their father. “I might be all night,” she warned her husband.

Sibias nodded. “I plan on attending the first service in the morning. Will you be back by then?”

“I hope so, I—” With eyes watering, Matthias pinched her lips tightly together; she swallowed a yawn with a gulp. “So tomorrow night?”

“We’ll try to go out again.” He kissed her. “You know how much I hate sleeping without you.” They exchanged smiles and she watched as her little family departed.

“Let’s go see Thriss,” Matthias said, letting Ro lead her out of the office. As they walked, Ro guessed the holding area wouldn’t be the most pleasant spot to work from; it was designed to accommodate prisoners and guards, not host therapy sessions. “The visuals can be transmitted into the conference room if you’d rather work in comfort.”

Matthias didn’t seem concerned. “All I need is a place to sit—the floor is fine. I’d like to start off with in-person observations.”

They wound through a hallway and passed through another door before arriving at the holding area. The Andorian hadn’t moved since Ro had last checked her; prostrate on a hard bench without a pillow or blankets, she slept with her knees curled into her stomach, her hands balled into fists. She failed to stir when they entered. “She doesn’t seem to be in a talking mood,” Ro pointed out pragmatically.

“Exhaustion will do that to a person,” Matthias said, walking up next to the force field where she could study Thriss at closer range. She tipped her head thoughtfully, brought a hand to her chin and gnawed on her index finger. “I’m satisfied to work from here. Thriss’ posture, her muscular tension, the length of her REM cycles—all can yield significant data about her state of mind.” She patted an equipment bag she had thrown over her shoulder. “Besides, I have a tricorder I’ve engineered to my own specs that can help out.” Matthias paused, scrutinizing Ro after a fashion that made Ro wonder if her secret thoughts were translatable via the number of times her eyes blinked or how often she pushed back her bangs. Counselors, even reasonable ones, made her nervous.

“Your cheek,” Matthias said, addressing Ro’s quizzical expression. “You might want Dr. Girani to look it over.”

“Good idea.” Still more than ready to assume the worst about people’s intentions. Nice going, Laren.Ro touched her face, feeling out the size of her bruise with her fingers; she had forgotten about her own injuries. A swipe with a dermal regenerator would likely fix the bruise on her face, but there was always the chance Thriss’s assault had resulted in a fracture or sprain. “Okay. Since I’m done here, go ahead and make yourself at home. The replicator’s over there. If you need additional help, page the corporal on duty. Don’t hesitate to contact me if the situation blows all to hell.”

“Oh believe me. If it goes to hell, you’ll be beamed here in your sleepwear.”

Ro appreciated the new counselor’s lack of faux sympathy; she hated how some counselors felt obligated to put on the “I-feel-your-pain” face. Matthias knew her job and went about doing it—without theatrics.

As Ro started for the exit, she heard Matthias move to the replicator and say, “Espresso, double and black,” before she settled in to begin her observations of Thriss.

9

Down a dim tunnel, the rattling slidewalk chugged toward the Core, periodically stalling when the grinding gears jammed, only to resume with a jerk and continue forward. Vaughn hardly noticed: he might as well have been standing still. Seething sounds receded as his thoughts consumed his attention. The dregs of the Gamma Quadrant swirled around him, hefting their tankards, negotiating sales and sharing canisters of psychoactive vapors. So preoccupied was he, that when a Knesska miner’s red horned lizard jumped off his master’s shoulder and onto Vaughn’s it took a moment to register. In the last few minutes, an inescapable sense of déjà vu had vaulted him back more years than he’d admit to.

During the summer between Vaughn’s second and third years at the Academy, he and a group of friends had heard rumors of an exotic shrine on a tropical world in the Braslota system. Supposedly, drinking the water flowing through the shrine from the underground pools endowed the partaker with potent aphrodisiac powers. Lured by the promise of decadent delights, native men and women would sneak out of their homes at night and into the pilgrim camps where they would offer themselves up for seduction. While most thinking individuals would find such a legend highly suspect, Vaughn and his classmates, looking for diversion from the rigors of academia, decided a vacation was in order. They procured passage on a Rigelian shuttle, transferred to a freighter bound for Volchok Prime and met a merchant willing to drop them off.

After three days hiking through the jungle, they found the shrine, attended by a wizened humanoid of unknown extraction, drank the water, retired to their sleeping bags and awaited their prospective encounters.