“Sometimes,” she finally said, looking back up at Taran’atar, “bed rest does bring health.” She clamped her hands together in front of her in something of an apologetic gesture.

“Not for us,” Taran’atar said. “Once our fitness for combat is sufficiently restored, a return to duty is required.”

“Required by who?” Kira asked, but she already knew the answer: by the Founders, and by the Vorta acting as their agents. But Taran’atar offered a different response.

“It is our nature,” he said. Kira could not argue that; the Jem’Hadar had been genetically engineered, and were specifically bred, for warfare. “If necessary, “he continued, “there can be an appropriate reduction in rank.”

Kira glanced back down at her console as a notion occurred to her. She jabbed at the deactivation touchpad. The panel beeped and the screen went blank. Then she walked out from behind her desk. “Well, then,” she said, smiling wryly, “I guess I’ll just have to demote you to second.” The Jem’Hadar used simple ordinal designations to signify position, she knew. Although she had never spoken about it with Taran’atar, she had always assumed that he had carried the rank of first, by virtue of his long life and his status as an Honored Elder among his people; he was twenty-two, ancient by Jem’Hadar standards.

Her remark about reducing his position had been intended as a joke, but Taran’atar did not smile, and Kira realized that she had never seen him do so. She wondered if he even possessed the capability; perhaps Jem’Hadar lacked the requisite musculature. She studied his features as she stood before him. The rough, pebbled texture of his hide, the bones protruding like horns from the center of his forehead and around the top of his head, and the smaller bones, almost like teeth, encircling his face, all composed a visage on which Kira could not even picture a smile. The thought saddened her in a profound way; even during the horrors of the Occupation, there had been sporadic laughter and humor and joy, slight victories in life, love, and friendship. For anybody, even a Jem’Hadar soldier, not to experience any of that during their lifetime…

When Taran’atar said nothing, Kira chose to return to the initial subject of their conversation: she would not permit him to engage in a holosuite combat program for the next ten days.

“I am sufficiently healed,” he protested.

“Sufficiently, perhaps,” she said. “But Dr. Tarses thinks there’s a greater chance of you getting injured now than there would be if you waited another week.” Kira decided as she spoke to trim the ten days down to seven, a compromise between the doctor and the soldier.

“I am a Jem’Hadar,” Taran’atar said. “I am meant to battle. When there is no battle, I must prepare for the next one.”

As Kira looked at Taran’atar, she experienced something that surprised her: she felt sorry for him. Although he had been on the station for a while now, it seemed clear that he was still out of place here. Kira wondered how she would feel if she were forced to live in an environment so alien to her, and further, how she would feel if she were not permitted to do the things that helped fulfill her needs. And then she realized that, because of the Attainder, she did know something about the latter.

At the same time, she would not jeopardize Taran’atar’s health by allowing him to do battle—even simulated battle—before it was safe for him to do so. “You can run your holosuite programs as long as you only observe and don’t participate,” she said, attempting to find some middle ground. “Would that help you prepare for combat?” She moved back behind her desk and sat down.

“Mental preparation is vital,” Taran’atar said, “but I have programs for that purpose.”

“I’m sorry then,” Kira said. She tapped the resumption touchpad on her computer interface, intending the action as a signal that she considered the conversation at an end. The panel beeped, and the image of the green elliptic course, originating and terminating at the Gamma Quadrant terminus of the wormhole, blinked back onto the display.

Taran’atar did not move. Kira peered up at him. “Something else?” she asked.

“I would be interested in observing you in combat,” he said.

“You mean Bajorans?”

“I mean you, specifically, Colonel,” Taran’atar said. “I can create a new simulation for you.”

Kira did not typically use the holosuites, preferring to engage not in virtual activities, but in real ones. In the past, she had occasionally been persuaded to accompany Jadzia, and she had gone to Vic’s several times with Odo, but as a rule she stayed away. To Taran’atar, she said, “I don’t think so.”

He nodded, acknowledging her rejection, then turned and headed for the door.

“Wait,” she called after him. Taran’atar stopped and turned back to face her. As she regarded him, she found that she really did empathize with him, since he was being denied the ability to practice some of the daily activities of his life. And she also realized something else: that Odo had sent Taran’atar here not just so that he could gain an understanding of life in the Alpha Quadrant, but also so that the people of Deep Space 9 could come to know him. Perhaps, Kira thought, she should make more of an effort to get to know this visitor to the station.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

Kira looked out between the twisted roots of the old tree. The rain had finally stopped, too late to make much difference to her, but the absence of lightning would allow her to approach her destination with less chance of being seen. Her eyes had attuned to the constant darkness now, and as she recovered from her experience in the stream, she scrutinized both the copse and the structure. As best she could tell, nothing moved in the trees, but she thought she saw a flicker of motion past the opening in the structure.

Kira turned and dropped onto the wet ground, leaning back against the contorted root system of the dead tree. She pored over her options. Given the paucity of information she had, her inclination would normally have been for further reconnaissance. In this instance, though, time played a role—she had already spent several hours here after her shift, and she had yet to have dinner—as did her preparation and equipment for the operation, both of which were noticeably lacking. As night arrived—or continued; the darkness of the storm effectively masked the time of day here—the temperature would drop even further. With no attractive alternatives, Kira decided that she needed to act sooner rather than later.

She reached down to her hip and unfastened the top of the sheath attached there. She grasped the haft of the knife Taran’atar had provided her and pulled the blade free. It fit her hand well, she noticed, something she had not bothered to test when she had strapped it on prior to the simulation. She made several different movements with it now—jabbing, slicing, throwing—then reversed it in her fist and drove it downward in a plunging motion. The contours of the handle rested snugly in her grip either way it was turned, and the balance of the blade made it feel less like something she was holding and more like an extension of her arm. Taran’atar had not merely provided her with a knife for this mission, she realized; he had designed and fashioned a personal weapon especially for her.

Kira pushed away from the roots of the tree and rose back up into a crouch. She turned and peered again at the structure. She put it at forty to fifty meters away, over even ground, though there looked to be a slight rise leading up to it. Several bushes and large rocks and another dead tree lay strewn about the landscape, but Kira mapped out a relatively direct route to the structure.

“Victory is life,” she whispered again, and jumped up. She ran into the open and forward, taking long strides in an effort to reduce her number of steps, and thus diminish the possibility of tripping on something unseen on the ground. She maneuvered around a couple of bushes and a cluster of large rocks, then leaped over the other fallen tree. The cold air inflamed her throat, each breath feeling as though she had inhaled a mouthful of gravel.