Asarem felt her jaw drop. For this possibility to arise now, during what she hoped would be the final negotiations with the Federation, would no doubt complicate matters. But whether now or later, when the Cardassians eventually did request normalized relations…differing opinions would divide Bajorans, in the Chamber of Ministers, in the Vedek Assembly, and in everyday society. Shakaar would have to define his stance, as would she, and then lead the people down the proper path.

“I’m going to call the Chamber of Ministers into session this afternoon,” Shakaar said, “just to feel everybody out.” He leaned forward, his face aglow with the light from the oil lamp on the table. She could see the flame fluttering in his eyes. “Wadeen,” he said, “what do you think?”

Asarem wanted to know that herself. It required no effort to recall the brutality with which the Cardassians had occupied Bajor for more than four decades, to conjure the horrors routinely visited upon those innocents interned at places such as Gallitep, and then to deny even the possibility that there could ever be normal relations between the two peoples. But it was also easy to recall that the Cardassians had risen up against the powerful Dominion at the end of the war, and to dwell on the incomprehensible fact that eight hundred million of them had then been put to death—executed, murdered.Asarem thought of all the Bajoran children orphaned during the Occupation—she had lost both parents herself, as well as her only sister—and then of all the Cardassian children orphaned during the war. Somehow, every opinion about relations between Bajor and Cardassia seemed right and wrong at the same time.

“I think,” she said, and stopped, still struggling to organize her many disparate thoughts and emotions, still searching for the words with which to express them. “I think,” she finally went on, “that this is an opportunity for the people of Bajor to demonstrate their strength.”

4

Vaughn leaned against the wall just inside the doorway, peering through the dimness. In the corner nearest him, light emanated from a display panel, though it did not penetrate very far into Defiant’s simulated night. It illuminated the figure on the biobed, and spilled in patches onto the decking on either side. The quiet, almost haunting sounds of diagnostic tools trickled through the room and failed to fill it, like the distant strains of a musical instrument.

A shape passed between Vaughn and the display, briefly obscuring its light. Vaughn’s gaze followed the form: Dr. Bashir walked slowly along the length of the bed, checking the readouts, measuring his patient’s condition, making notations on a padd. After a few moments, the doctor reached up and touched a control, and the display above the bed went dark. The bed and its occupant vanished like the finale of a magic trick. The only light in the room now came from off to Vaughn’s left, where the only other person in the room, a nurse, sat working at a console; she had evidently muted the controls she worked, because all he could hear were the dull taps of her fingertips on the touchpads.

Vaughn straightened, pulling his shoulder away from the bulkhead, knowing the doctor would approach him now. That was the way of doctors, following their training not only to treat their patients, but to manage their patients’ family members and friends. Bashir would tell him to return to his quarters, to get some sleep, that there was nothing he could do for Prynn here. And Vaughn would make the noises expected of him, would resist the suggestions and then relent, promising to leave in just a few minutes; he would say just enough to placate the doctor and send him on his way.

“Sir,” Bashir said, speaking in a hushed manner that matched the still, dark medical bay.

“Doctor.”

“She’s resting comfortably,” Bashir said, not waiting to be asked. “I’ve given her a mild sedative to help her sleep, but she won’t even need that in a couple of days.” The doctor turned his head and looked in Prynn’s direction. “The skin grafts are doing very well, and her internal organs…” His voice trailed off, and he turned back to Vaughn before continuing. “Well, she was very lucky.”

Vaughn knew that. The blast that had sent Prynn flying unconscious across the bridge—that he thought had killed her—had done damage within and without her abdominal cavity, but the injuries to her viscera had been such that the doctor had been able to repair them with relative ease. The greatest danger to her had been in the first moments after the explosion, when she had come perilously close to losing so much blood that the extent of her other injuries would not have mattered. Had Dr. Bashir not been on the bridge, had he not so quickly transported Prynn to the medical bay…

Vaughn allowed the thought to die before completing it. He had already lived through the experience of believing his daughter dead; he did not need to revisit those emotions. “What’s the prognosis for her recovery?”

“Oh, she’ll be up and about in a few days,” Bashir said. “Perhaps even by the time we get back to Deep Space 9.” The repaired Defiant,having eluded the Jarada yesterday, had rejoined the convoy and resumed escorting it to Bajor. Still employing the cloak in the unlikely event that they encountered the Jarada again, the ship traveled at low warp, matching velocities with the slowest vessels in the procession. Consequently, it would be several days before Defiantarrived back at the station. “She’ll probably be able to return to light duty in about two weeks, maybe sooner,” the doctor went on. “Full duty about a week after that.” Vaughn looked toward the corner of the room where Prynn lay sleeping. “And what about you?” Bashir asked. “How are you feeling?”

Though the doctor’s voice carried no particular inflection, Vaughn interpreted the question as a reference to his emotional state: How are you feeling about having watched your daughter almost die? How are you coping with having issued the orders that mangled her body and nearly took her life?When he turned back to Bashir, though, he saw the doctor looking down at the gauzelike coverings wrapping Vaughn’s wounded limbs. One soft casing protected his left arm from elbow to fingertips, and the other, his right hand. His burns had not been as severe as Prynn’s, nor had they required grafts, but the dermal regenerations would take another day or two to complete.

“I’m tired,” Vaughn said. “But I’m all right. I assume I’m healing under here.” He raised his arms to indicate the dressings.

“That’s what Nurse Richter tells me,” Bashir said, tilting his head toward the woman working off to Vaughn’s left. Earlier, the zaftig ensign, newly assigned to Defiantfrom the station’s infirmary, had examined Vaughn and proclaimed his recovery proceeding as expected.

“Thank you, Julian,” he said.

“It’s my job,” Bashir said, and then seemed to reconsider his response, because he added, “You’re welcome, sir.” Then, apparently out of things to say, he added, “Well. Have a good night then.”

“Rest well, Doctor,” Vaughn said.

He watched Bashir walk over to the nurse and, when she looked up from her console, hand her the padd he had been using. The doctor asked her to monitor certain readings of their lone patient, and she took more than a cursory glance at the data she had been given. After a few moments, evidently satisfied, she said, “Yes, sir.”

Bashir departed through the door opposite Vaughn, leaving him mildly surprised at not having been encouraged to vacate the medical bay himself. Delighted to have been wrong, he felt one side of his mouth curl upward slightly. He found people whose behavior he could not always predict interesting, primarily because he encountered so few of them. To this point in his tenure aboard DS9, Vaughn had not been particularly intrigued by Bashir—the man’s actions had so far been eminently foreseeable, no matter his genetic enhancements—though he did like the doctor, whose keen intellect seemed matched by an intense sense of compassion.