Dax offered him a grim smile. “There’s that broad brush again. Not everyone crying out for change wants what the neo-Purists want. The neo-Purists aren’t agitating for equal access to symbiosis. Sure, they want to eradicate the boundaries between the joined and the unjoined—but they’re trying to eliminate the joined in order to do that.”

Dax again raised the naiskosfragment. “What do you think the truth really is behind the neo-Purists’ revelations about the parasites? About Kurl?”

Cyl sighed as he took the ceramic shard from Dax and inspected it. “My people have found similar Kurlan artifacts in some of the other parasite lairs we’ve investigated. At first, we thought they might constitute some kind of message, or function as calling cards. But we decided that neither idea made sense. The parasites never expected their lairs to be invaded. Why would they leave messages there for outsiders? Now I suspect they hung on to them as artifacts of memory. Perhaps they revere their history as much as we do ours.”

Cyl handed the shard back, and Dax shuddered involuntarily in response. It was bad enough to have to accept that the symbionts and the parasites shared genetic characteristics. But today’s revelations also suggested that the two species might have deep cultural commonalities as well. Dax was profoundly disturbed by the notion that the Trill might share any behavioral traits whatsoever with such lethal, implacably hostile creatures as the parasites.

She blinked, and in the nanosecond of darkness saw Jayvin Vod deep inside that icy comet, his speech jangled and incoherent and enraged, his eyes cold and murderous. He was no longer her lifetimes-ago husband, but was “the taker of the gist.” Though the creature had worn Jayvin’s form, it was intent on destroying all that was Jayvin Vod. And all that was Trill.

And then her eyes were open again, and she focused on the naiskosfragment in her palm. She squeezed it in her fist and impulsively threw it against the aft bulkhead. It shattered as though shot from a cannon, clattering to the deck in countless tiny shards.

“Feel better now?” Cyl asked after a lengthy silence, one eyebrow raised.

“For now,” Dax said, nodding. A blush of color rose to her cheeks as she realized how silly she must look. A sudden, insistent beeping from the instrument panel seized her attention. Embarrassed by her inattention, she quickly turned to check the cockpit readouts. Then she began guiding the runabout into a rapid controlled descent. Through the front windows, she could see dawn glimmering against the distant white-topped crags of the vast Ayai’leh-hirh mountain range.

“We’re only a few dozen klicks from the caves,” she said, forcing her words into a businesslike cadence.

Cyl settled back in his seat. “So, we’ve managed to voyage nearly halfway around the planet without oncediscussing the problems in your relationship with the doctor.”

Dax shot him a look that was equal parts surprise and annoyance. “What? I don’t think—I don’t—We aren’t having any problems.”

“Oh.” Cyl stared straight ahead at the rapidly approaching countryside. Its luxuriant carpet of greens and browns was punctuated by jagged gray volcanic buttes, leftovers of the ancient geological processes that had also carved Mak’ala’s network of subterranean caverns.

“What is thatsupposed to—” Dax was interrupted by a beeping from the console and several flashing lights. “I’m detecting weapons fire at the caves.”

Moments later, the cliffside entrance to the Caves of Mak’ala hove into view through the front windows. Several hundred people had gathered outside. Unpowered hover vehicles lay overturned on the rough ground—one was afire, belching clouds of thick, black smoke—and phaser fire came both from the military troops lined up behind barricades near the caves and from the protesting crowd.

“Why haven’t we gotten any distress calls?” Cyl asked, leaning forward.

Dax punched several buttons on the panel. “Incoming transmissions are being jammed from outside. Looks like the Guardians couldn’t raise anyone over any of the comm channels.”

Cyl breathed a quiet curse. “Can you set the ship’s phasers on stun, as you suggested back at the Senate Tower?”

Dax nodded. “Yes, but the wider the dispersal, the less effect it will have on the crowd. A runabout’s phasers aren’t exactly built for crowd control. It might knock them down for a few minutes, but not for much longer than that. And I can’t guarantee that some of your guards won’t get caught in the beam.”

“Do it,” Cyl said. “In the meantime, we’ve got to call in some reinforcements.” He tapped on the console, evidently well versed in Starfleet communications protocols.

“I don’t know if this message will get through either,” Dax said, nodding. “But it’s worth a try.”

As Dax gingerly maneuvered the Rio Grandea few meters over the heads of the crowd, she saw many of the people below look up, some pointing. She quickly entered several commands into the instrument panel, then swiped her hand over the phaser controls.

Moments later, the phasers had created a wide swath in the crowd as hundreds of people fell to the ground, unconscious.

Let’s hope that’s the worst violence we’re going to see here today,Dax thought as she sought out a safe landing space.

Brushing his long, dark hair back from his high, spotted forehead, Ranul Keru emerged from one of the heavily fortified cave entrances just in time to see a Danube-class Starfleet runabout turn its phasers on one of the most unruly portions of the protesting crowd. He was momentarily appalled, until he observed that no one had been burned or vaporized; the vessel’s weapons had been fired at low power—just enough to stun.

Moments later, the runabout landed near the caves’ main entrance, as guards moved aside. Keru joined the captain of the guard as he waited for the runabout’s occupants to emerge. The craft’s hatch moved outward, and two figures stepped onto the rocky ground. One was a diminutive woman in her twenties; she was dressed in a Starfleet uniform, and her dark hair was cut short. The other was older, an iron-haired man wearing a Trill military uniform. Keru recognized him at once.

“General Cyl, I’m Captain Doyos,” the leader of the guard said. “We’ve been calling for backup for an hour now, since things began getting ugly. More protesters have arrived since then, and some of those brought vehicles and weapons.”

“Someone’s been jamming your communications. Probably neo-Purist agents who have even more dirty tricks up their sleeves,” Cyl said. “We didn’t know.” He turned to the woman. “Ezri, I will leave the historical research in your capable hands. I need to strategize with my people out here to keep the caves protected.”

“All right, General,” the woman said.

As the general and the captain began conversing, the woman turned to Keru and presented her hand. “I’m from Starfleet, and I’ve come to ask for the help of the Guardians.”

Keru smiled warmly and shook her much-smaller hand. A jolt of recognition struck him as their flesh came into contact, filling a portion of his mind with new awareness. A name.

“Dax. You’re hosting the Dax symbiont.”

Scowling slightly, Dax withdrew her hand. “You know, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you Guardians doing that.”

Keru had to shake himself out of the euphoria of indirect symbiont telepathy. “Forgive me. I haven’t been doing this quite as long as some of the other Guardians here. It takes some getting used to.” Joining the Order had not only made permanent Keru’s desire not to enter a traditional symbiotic joining, it had also opened up within him a privileged channel of communication with the intelligent, sluglike creatures; he supposed it was probably as much a consequence of the Order’s assiduous training regime as it was of prolonged exposure to the unique environment of Mak’ala’s underground pools, which some said directly tapped the vital living heart of the planet itself. Though every fully initiated Guardian shared this rapport with the symbionts at least to some extent, no humanoid host seemed fully able to understand it. This wordless concord, evolved over the forgotten eons the unjoined Guardians had spent caring for the helpless symbionts, was arguably in some ways even more intimate than Trill symbiosis itself.