She shook the string of gourds. “Not much left. Should we refill here?”

“No. The water looks clean, but it isn’t. We’re a ways downstream of a Cardassian tailings pond. I would drink it if I had to, but given the choice—”

Taryl nodded as she worked to keep her footing on the slippery old bridge. Lenaris took her hand, and she squeezed his briefly before they came to the other side.

It was just a short distance beyond the creek that they came to the edge of a clearing, one that had apparently been man-made, for there were several cleanly cut stumps dotting the yellow-green meadow. “This is the very outskirt,” Lenaris told her, “where timber used to be harvested. In the old days, we picked and chose among the trees to maintain the forest, but after the Cardassians came, people started getting more desperate.”

The two passed through the rest of the forest, which bore evidence of the sustainable timber practices Lenaris had described. The first houses began to appear where the trees were still thick, and then the forest opened and they came to the lowest point of the valley, panning out with a spread of homes, businesses, shrines, and factories, a crooked river twisting through the center of town.

“How will we find him?” Taryl wondered, looking out at the city from the edge of the forest where they stood.

“Simple,” Lenaris said. “We go to the nearest tavern, and we ask.”

Miras was sick.

She had been struggling for some time now just to avoid falling asleep altogether, working until late into the night for days on end, reading in her bed instead of sleeping in it, fighting her exhaustion to the point of weakening her immune system. Now she had fallen victim to a viral infection of some kind, and was confined to her bedroom where she knew that the most sensible thing to do was succumb. Her aching joints screamed out for rest. She did not want to dream, but she also did not want to prolong her illness. She wanted to get better and get back to work as quickly as possible.

It was late before she finally fell asleep, and despite her exhaustion she still tossed and turned, agonizing over every detail of her past nocturnal experiences—and the one that had not happened in the night. The one that had happened in those lost hours when she had been in the laboratory with the Orb. She was sorry now that she’d ever pursued the artifact. It had affected her mind, somehow, and her only real hope was that time would make the instability fade, would return her peace of mind.

Miras,the serene voice of the Hebitian woman beckoned her into sleep. Miras, I have something to show you.

“Please, I don’t want to put the mask on again,” she said, and the blackness of sleep melted into the temperate little room in the black-bricked cottage. The Hebitian woman’s face read tender amusement.

“No, Miras. You will not evoke the spirit of Oralius this time.” She was holding the mask in her hands.

“Why do I keep seeing you? Why is this happening to me? Is it the Orb?”

The woman smiled. “This corporeal being to whom you now speak. Her name is Astraea.”

Miras swallowed. “Do you mean…that yourname is Astraea?”

The woman hesitated. “Astraea is a guide.”

“A…guide?”

The woman went on. “Astraea is a lineage. My mother’s name was Astraea, and my daughter’s name will be Astraea.”

“Astraea. Please, tell me why I am here. Is this a dream?” It was an absurd question, but she was desperate.

The woman put the mask on her own face for a moment. “All will be revealed. You must find the Book of the Hebitians—the Recitations, where it is all written.”

“The book of…How am I supposed to find…Please, is this real? I don’t know what I’m meant to do! Can’t I just forget these dreams ever happened, wake up and go to the ministry tomorrow, as I’m supposed to? I don’t want this!”

“The Book can be found just beyond the city. It rests within a vessel that is hidden in plain sight.”

Miras tried to make sense of this puzzle. The city? What city? She must mean Lakarian City. The ruins. Where the Hebitian civilization had flourished, millennia ago.

The woman removed the mask, and Miras was startled to find that the woman’s face had changed. “I am Astraea,” she said, and her voice was different as well.

“But…”

She put the mask back on her face. “My mother’s name was Astraea, and my daughter’s name will be Astraea.”

She removed the mask, and once again, her face had changed. Miras watched in fascination as the woman repeated the motion again, and then again. She continued to repeat the name Astraea, physically representing how the name was passed through many generations. As she cycled through each new persona, Miras could see that it was not only her face that was changing. Her shoulders were gradually broadening, her limbs becoming more compact, her skeletal ridges more defined. Finally, Miras understood.

“My name is Astraea,” the woman said, removing the mask one last time, and Miras was stunned into absolute silence, for she recognized the face now.

Her own face.

Lenaris had started to wonder if it wouldn’t be quite so easy to find Tiven Cohr after all. He and Taryl had been to three taverns; at each, the patronage knew exactly who Tiven was, but not exactly how to find him. But at the fourth place they walked into, Lenaris immediately spied Tiven himself, hunched over the edge of a wooden bar with a clay mug of copalbetween his hands, blustering his long-winded war stories and opinions to anyone who was listening—and that appeared to be nobody.

Tiven looked almost just as he had when Lenaris had last seen him, nearly three years before. His gray hair was twisted into several matted strands that were gathered at the nape of his neck with a piece of rawhide. His face was as heavily lined as a map, and his brown eyes seemed to look in opposite directions, belying a man with vision like a sinoraptor.

Tiven hadn’t seen him walk into the bar. Lenaris approached quickly, Taryl following.

“This man’s next drink is on me,” Lenaris announced, though he had very little in the way of currency. He might have to do more than apologize just to get Tiven to stay in the room with him.

The old man’s head turned abruptly. “Who the kosst…” He stopped and leaned back in his seat, looking at Lenaris as if seeing him for the first time—and not liking what he saw. He made as if to stand up.

“Please, hear me out,” Lenaris said. He slid into the seat next to Tiven’s. “Did Halpas tell you that I—”

Tiven’s voice was as bitter as makaraherb. “He told me that you’re still as arrogant and full of yourself as ever.”

“Please,” Taryl interrupted, her voice almost shaking with pleading sincerity. “Mr. Tiven, my name is Ornathia Taryl. My brother’s life is in danger, and I’ve heard that you’re the best warp engineer on all of Bajor.”

Tiven softened, but only by a fraction. “You brought a pretty girl with a sob story, eh?”

“She’s telling the truth,” Lenaris said. “When I was looking for you before—it was just because I thought a warp ship was an intriguing project—but now…my friend is in danger, and we need to leave the system if we’re going to have any chance of rescuing him.”

“Friends die,” Tiven said.

“I know they do,” Lenaris said. “I understand that.”

Tiven turned to Taryl, his voice rough but not without sympathy. “Brothers die, too.”

“My brother doesn’t have to die,” Taryl said. “We can save him, and you can help us.”

“And what’s in it for me?” Tiven finished the dregs of his cider.

“You could come with us,” Lenaris said. “You always said how much you missed space travel—”

“Fine, I’ll do it,” Tiven said, slamming down his mug.

Lenaris was stunned. “What…what did you say?”

“I’ll do it, Lenaris—if you just admit that you were wrong.” He grinned.