Keren offered no explanations as to their destination. They passed the university, the health sciences center and the Aquaria before arriving in a nearly abandoned cluster of offices; none bore signage. Even the nondescript foyer—beige chairs, pale green carpets and white urns overflowing with flowers—provided little hint as to what the facilities’ purpose might be. A flecked-skinned Yrythny female floated across the floor to greet them. Clasping Keren by the elbows, she said, “Come in, come in, Delegate. So pleased to see you. Your presence blesses us.”
“Mresen.” Keren nodded graciously, interlinking her arms with those of her hostess. She indicated Shar. “My companion, Ensign Thirishar ch’Thane.”
Shar proffered the traditional greeting to Mresen. Her bejeweled skirt and the multicolored braids streaming to her waist marked Mresen as a high-ranking Houseborn. Rarely do Houseborn—even Keren’s colleagues—treat Wanderers so politely,Shar thought, puzzled. A glance at Keren informed him that she expected his surprised reaction.
“A beverage perhaps? Take a seat where you’re comfortable—” Mresen fluttered to an armoire, removed a serving tray from a cupboard. A click of her tongue brought a gaunt but more elaborately dressed Yrythny bearing baskets of braided seed crackers and pollen spread. Mresen poured coriander-scented water into the finger basins when Keren halted her.
“Ensign ch’Thane has come to visit our lost ones,” Keren said, gnawing on a cracker.
Mresen clicked her tongue against her teeth, the skin drooping off her jaw jiggling apologetically. “Of course. You know where to take him.” She reached for Keren’s arm again. “Thank you, Delegate. For honoring us.”
“The honor is mine,” Keren replied, bowing.
When they’d left Mresen, Shar wasted no time in questioning Keren. “She’s Houseborn.”
“She is. House Soid, in fact. Her aide is House Yclen.”
“And yet—”
“There are some aspects of Yrythny life even Houseborn and Wanderer agree on. Here we are—” A door hissed opened onto an arboretum, bordered on all sides by water gushing over fish ladders. They hiked up a carpeted ramp to where two rows of invalid chairs, suspended in the air before the floor-to-ceiling windows, provided their inhabitants an unobstructed view of Vanìmel. Where benches might be, Shar saw biobeds and in each, Shar discerned Yrythny patients. Medical attendants shuffled around efficiently, carrying trays with medication and nutritional supplements. Keren searched the residents’ faces, honing in on one specifically.
“Witan!” she exclaimed, brushing her cheek against the ailing Yrythny’s scaly scalp. Squatting down beside him, she checked out the view. “Are there storms in the archipelago today?”
The gnarled figure, prone in bed, twisted toward Keren’s voice and garbled unintelligibly. The loose patient robes failed to hide the twisted vertebrae, the stump where an arm should have been. Witan’s legs splayed limply on the mattress. Around the room, Shar saw Yrythny in similar physical states in every bed and chair. A few had smooth indentions where eyes should have been. Some lacked legs or arms. Others were attached to biobeds by sensors and life support mechanisms. He understood that Yrythny technology hadn’t yet attained Federation sophistication, but he was curious as to why little had been done to surgically correct the maladies these individuals faced. A VISOR transmitting sensory data to an optic nerve could provide sight. Biosynthetic prostheses could replace deformed bones. Even a vocal synthesizer properly implanted could allow a mute, bedridden patient to communicate. Perhaps we might share some of our medical knowledge with these people, help them ease the suffering of their disabled,Shar thought.
He followed Keren to the bedsides of several patients. The medical attendants—some Houseborn, some Wanderers—recognized Keren and offered her respectful greetings. Keren had personal words for every patient they encountered, all of whom suffered from different maladies. Whatever commonality brought the patients here was not readily evident in their symptoms. In Shar’s Starfleet experience and in following Thriss around the medical wards on Betazed, he’d found that patients were usually organized by diagnosis. He suspected that Keren’s agenda was the unifying thread here.
In a private moment, Shar asked at last, “What selected facts are you presenting me to prove your point, Delegate?”
“These are Yrythny rescued from Cheka research labs. All of them have undergone genetic tampering. The oldest residents were subjected to environmental research—like having limbs amputated or having their legs surgically fused together.”
A wave of nausea squeezed his stomach; his antennae tensed. Although he’d been spared much frontline participation in the Dominion War, he’d seen enough of its horrors that he’d had to learn to cope with them: death, illness, destruction. Defending one’s people or way of life, whether Federation, Klingon, Yrythny or Cheka, necessitated a degree of ugliness. But this…
Speaking softly, her voice coarse, Keren continued, “A few have been castoffs that we found by accident. That group over there”—she pointed to a number of patients suffering from orthopedic maladies—“was discovered left for dead in a damaged ship the Cheka had abandoned. Environmental systems had essentially collapsed. When we rescued them…” She inhaled deeply, sat silent for a long moment. She turned to Shar, her eyes glistening. “We can’t negotiate,” Keren said softly.
And finally, Shar thought he understood.
10
Lieutenant Commander Matthias rocked back and forth in her boots while she waited for the turbolift—in part, because her feet hurt. Never mind the progress of the last three hundred years, military bureaucracy was still incapable of designing comfortable footwear. Sore feet aside, falling asleep while standing was a real possibility considering how she’d worked through the night, managing only a few hours of sleep after she’d completed her chart notes around noon. Excited after a successful day at school, Arios had barged into her room and roused her from a satisfying dream of hiking across Vulcan’s Forge. She’d hoped to rest a bit before the reception, but Lieutenant Ro paged her, requesting an in-person consultation before Thriss could be released from custody. Work waited for no one and mental health rarely conformed to a convenient schedule. Shathrissía zh’Cheen wasn’t an easy case, though the patient wasn’t necessarily the problem.
Ro’s immovability in the face of family pressure impressed her. Councillor zh’Thane, after being told that her political standing had no sway in station security policy, had gone to Admiral Akaar. He too, had contacted Ro and she repeated her assertion that Thriss would remain in custody until she was assured that there would be no further disruptive incidents. Nudging the process along, Akaar stopped by Phillipa’s office with a request that she deliver her evaluation promptly, thus “assuring that the time of all involved parties be spent on the Federation’s business and not on personal issues.” Apparently, years of pushing her agendas through committee had forced zh’Thane to develop not only the interpersonal finesse to grease the political process, but mastery in the art of being an exquisite pain in the ass when circumstances required it. I suppose becoming a Federation councillor involves learning how to get your own way,she thought, hoping that she was never required to do more than brief zh’Thane.
To prep for the consult, she’d spent the last hour combing the Federation database for any information pertinent to Andorian psychology, going so far as to contact her mentor/professor back home on Centauri. The case wasn’t as simple as pronouncing a diagnosis and offering appropriate treatment. Thriss had been schooled by her culture to repress her personal concerns in favor of the collective needs of her betrothed partners. Trying to weed out what issues were endemic to Thriss versus what issues belonged to Thriss by way of her bondmates proved challenging. The longer she worked, however, the clearer it became that she didn’t have time to study for her meeting with Lieutenant Ro, feed the children, read them a chapter from The Adventures of Lin Marna and the Grint Hound Challengeand prepare to attend the evening’s diplomatic reception for the Cardassians.