Dax was startled out of her reverie when she saw Dr. Vlu’s arms start to pinwheel wildly, the diminutive Cardassian doctor’s feet evidently having slipped on a mirror-smooth section of the frozen, rock-strewn field. Even as she moved toward the physician, Dax knew she wouldn’t be able to stop her from tumbling onto one of the many steeply inclined slabs that dotted the area. Vlu shouted a pungent Cardassian curse as she started to go down, her flailing limbs casting long, spiderlike shadows across the ice as she fell toward the opening of a shadowy crevasse.
From Vlu’s other side, a thickly muscled arm reached out, clutched the back collar of her field jacket, and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.
“You must be more careful, Doctor,” said Taran’atar as he set Vlu on her feet beside him with a gentleness that belied his fierce countenance. The Jem’Hadar’s rough, cobble-textured skin and brutish features looked as cold and hard as the frozen stones that stretched to the horizon. “These surfaces are not to be trusted.”
Scowling, Vlu rubbed her throat with a gloved hand, messaging the spot where her jacket collar had constricted her neck when Taran’atar had pulled her back. “Neither is your strength. I think you dislocated a few of my neck bones.”
“Are you all right?” Dax asked, reaching Vlu’s side at the same time as Julian Bashir and Lieutenant Ro Laren. Dax offered an arm to steady the wobbly-looking Cardassian. She could feel Vlu’s convulsive shudders right through the thickly insulated jackets they both wore.
Vlu’s dark, penetrating eyes were still fixed on Taran’atar. “Please do me a favor,” she said, rubbing her neck again. “Next time, just let the safety line catch me.”
The Jem’Hadar’s eyes narrowed as if Vlu had just spoken in an unfamiliar language. “That would have been an unwise risk to take. You might have pulled me into the crevasse along with you.”
Vlu’s scowl melted into a shuddering nod. “And put the rest of the team in jeopardy.”
“Not to mention the mission,” Ro said, her breath joining the great cloud of vapor that was accumulating over the heads of everyone on the team. Her tether, too, was hooked onto Taran’atar’s belt.
“Ah. The mission,” Vlu said, failing to suppress another spasmodic shiver.
The mission,Dax thought darkly, suppressing a shiver of her own—one that had little to do with the temperature. To march right into the very place where those…things lured Shakaar Edon and hijacked his body.
Though Dax had been in the Gamma Quadrant when her fellow Trill Hiziki Gard had assassinated Bajor’s first minister in order to kill the sentient parasite that had seized control of him, she knew the story well—as did all the other members of the away team. That knowledge had apparently made the entire team extraordinarily alert.
Ro had given everyone present a thorough briefing on Shakaar’s death and on her investigation into the circumstances that had led up to the parasites’ initial attack on the first minister. After compiling a list of planets where Shakaar’s infection might have taken place, Ro had quickly eliminated most of them. During the months prior to his becoming infected, Shakaar had toured a number of Starfleet facilities and Federation worlds, including a pair of highly secure starbases, the planets New France, Deneva, and Betazed, and then the final place that Ro hadn’t been able to eliminate from her “possibles” roster: the sparsely populated Federation colony at Minos Korva.
“You don’t look so good, Doctor,” Bashir said as he unlimbered his medical tricorder. He seemed as oblivious to the cold as was Taran’atar. Though she recognized the feeling immediately as irrational, Dax knew a momentary surge of shivery envy.
To her left, her peripheral vision registered that Taran’atar had moved into a crouch, his attention apparently drawn to something in the ice.
“I’m fine, Doctor Bashir,” Vlu said, gently pushing Julian’s tricorder away. “I just wish the trail had led to that nice, warm mountain region the local officials were supposed to have been showing Shakaar during his visit. We Cardassians simply aren’t suited to cold climes like this.”
I guess doctors reallydo make the worst patients, no matter what planet they’re from,Dax thought. She suppressed a grin as she recalled what she knew of the western mountain ranges of Minos Korva; though they were situated well within the planet’s temperate zone, they wouldn’t be significantly warmer than the south pole, at least not at the higher elevations.
A sharp crack interrupted her train of thought. Taran’atar started to rise and turn toward the rest of the team.
“Run!” he shouted, and took a step toward Dax.
The ice she stood on tossed her into the air. Landing on her side near a section of the icy floor that had suddenly reoriented itself vertically, she scrambled with both hands and feet to keep from sliding into the crevasse that suddenly yawned beneath Taran’atar’s feet. Luckily, her boots immediately came into contact with a solid horizontal surface.
Dax felt her tether line go slack as the Jem’Hadar’s massive body plunged into the shadows. He’s disengaged his safety line,she realized with dawning horror.
The away team froze, stunned by what had just transpired and worried that another misstep might trigger additional breakages in the ice. Into the widening silence, Ro said, “I think I’m picking him up on my tricorder. He’s alive.”
Dax heaved a sigh of relief. “Dax to Taran’atar,” she said, tapping her combadge. A burst of crackling static came in response.
“Something in the ice and rocks must be interfering with your signal,” Ro said. She scowled at her tricorder, leading Dax to conclude that it was working only marginally better than her combadge.
Then she pointed toward the east, and the rest of the group fell into step behind her. Though trapped underground, Taran’atar was evidently on the move, perhaps searching for an alternate exit to the surface.
After fifteen minutes, the party crested a low, ice-covered rise. “Here!” Ro said, gesturing with her tricorder at a tumble of rocks and ice that lay at the bottom of the other side. Dax, Ro, and Julian quickly fell to the task of clearing away icy debris from what appeared to be a narrow cavern entrance.
Several minutes later, Taran’atar’s arm emerged from a rocky crevice nearby, and soon he was standing with the rest of the group. As the Jem’Hadar soldier silently reattached his safety line, Dax studied his stony, impassive features. Perhaps it was only the dim lighting, but he looked almost…fatigued.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Julian asked, concern striating his forehead. Dax wondered if he had noticed the same thing about Taran’atar that she had.
“My injuries are trivial, and I heal very quickly,” said the Jem’Hadar, sounding annoyed, either at the situation or at himself for having fallen in the first place. “Let us resume our search for the parasite nest. You needn’t waste any more time or attention on me.”
“A way into the underground chamber we identified from orbit is less than fifty meters from here,” Ro said, once again intent on her tricorder’s display. If not for Taran’atar’s accident—and the abundance of scan-reflective refractory minerals present in most of the surface rocks—the team would doubtless have reached its goal a good half hour earlier.
“Good news, Lieutenant,” Julian said. Turning his attention back to Vlu, he added, “Maybe we can get you warmed up once we get belowground.”
“That sounds positively lovely,” Vlu said, as more uncontrollable shudders seized her. “In the meantime, would you remind me again why I agreed to come along on this little junket?”
Dax felt her own teeth beginning to chatter, perhaps in sympathy with Vlu’s predicament. Smiling, she said, “Because you said you didn’t want me to have to do all the griping myself.”