Before she fully awoke, Lense was aware of the world around her: the feel of the thin blanket against her cheek, the dimmed light from above, the mildly uncomfortable bunk beneath her, and the sound of Corsi lightly snoring across the cabin from her. She made a sleepy mental note to mention it to Corsi again, and that she could cure it. Of course, Corsi would deny that she snored, just like she did every other time Lense had brought it up since they were first assigned to be cabinmates on the da Vinci shortly after the end of the Dominion War.

Cure. With her mind wrapped around that word, Lense was suddenly completely awake. “Computer, time,” she croaked through a dry throat.

“Current sector adjusted time is sixteen forty-three hours and twelve seconds.”

Feeling like she’d been asleep for a month, Lense then asked the date.

“Stardate 54101.9.”

Lense grunted an acknowledgment as she squeezed on her boots, took a quick drink of water, and readied herself for beaming back to the Shmoam-ag ship.

“It’s not three hours,” Corsi said as Lense ran her fingers quickly through her curly black hair.

“I thought you were sleeping.”

“I sleep very lightly.”

“You snore,” Lense said. “I can fix that.”

Corsi rolled her eyes the way she always did. “I do not snore.”

“I heard you snoring.”

“Must be a clogged thruster that’s keeping us from drifting.”

“Must be. Well, I can fix it if you want.”

Sitting straight up, Corsi repeated herself. “I do not snore.”

“Sure.”

“You’re trying to annoy me so I won’t stop you from beaming back early,” Corsi said, slipping her boots on.

“You can’t.”

The security officer shook her head. “What is it with you?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re killing yourself working nonstop.”

“It’s the only way to find a cure. I’ve done it before—on Sherman’s Planet, remember? I can do it again.”

“That wasn’t as bad a disease as this one. What if there isn’t a cure?”

For too long a moment, Lense said nothing. She felt she might cry and tried to subdue the feeling. “There has to be a cure,” she whispered.

“Why?” Corsi asked softly, in a tone Lense hadn’t often heard from her. It was sympathetic. “Because you want there to be one? That’s not very scientific.”

“No,” she said, more to herself than to Corsi. “It’s not.”

Lense materialized into the EVA suit, which took a little extra time than a normal beamdown because the computer checked to make sure the suit was upright, hadn’t been compromised, and so on. It didn’t give her extra time to think, because of the nature of transporting, and yet stuck in her mind was Corsi’s accusation that she’d not been very scientific of late. And on a personal level, it was true. She’d allowed herself to get involved with her patient, and he wasn’t even supposed to be a patient. Her mission was to find out what had happened to the Allurians, not to cure a disease in a week that had destroyed two ships and an entire planet.

She was a doctor, however, and her urge to cure this poor boy had been too strong, and in ignoring her better judgment and promising what she couldn’t deliver, she’d perhaps broken the cardinal rule of medicine: do no harm.

Did she believe, when she told Dobrah that she would cure him, that she actually could? After all, she was Elizabeth Lense, valedictorian of her class in Starfleet Medical, beating out the legendary genetically enhanced Julian Bashir, and savior of Sherman’s Planet.

Was it confidence? Or worse, overconfidence? Or was it just shallow compassion, as when a doctor must sometimes hold dying patients’ hands and assure them everything will be fine.

Really, it didn’t matter what was in her head. She’d done it, and Corsi and the captain and her own con-science were all right that she’d made a very big mistake.

Once she took a step, having fully materialized, Dobrah turned away from where he was watching Gomez and ran to her.

“You are healthy?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied, kneeling down to him as best she could. “I’m healthy. I got some rest. Where did you go? To eat?”

“No, I sometimes walk the ship. I visit…” His voice trailed off.

“Where, Dobrah?”

“I visit my mother.”

“I understand.” His mother had died, probably in whatever room she’d kept quarters. It made sense that Dobrah sometimes visited her and had long ago gotten used to the idea that the bones left were nothing to be afraid of. “Why don’t you go eat? I’ve got some work to do, okay?”

“Can I bring it back here and eat with you?” the boy asked.

It was interesting that after so many years alone, Dobrah had quickly slipped back into needing and seeking the authority of an adult. Of a parent figure. “Sure.”

Once he’d moved off in a way that could probably be described as a scamper, Gomez looked after him, then turned toward Lense. “He adores you.”

“I’ve spent more time with him than anyone has in over a hundred and fifty years. He’d adore you, too, if you’d done the same.”

“Maybe. But he doesn’t stop talking about you.”

Lense wasn’t surprised, but hearing it wasn’t making the truth of the circumstances any easier. “Are you done?”

“I’ve been done. It’s just off to preserve power. I can bring it back online when you’re ready.”

“You’ve linked in the universal translator?”

“Of course,” Gomez said.

“Let’s go, then.”

With a few stabs at a control console, Gomez lit up a series of monitors above them. Alien symbols were replaced by familiar letters and words as Gomez input a translator algorithm. “You’re online.”

Nervous tension tightened Lense’s shoulders. She hoped against odds that whatever data had sat dormant for decades on the computer banks before her would lead to an answer, for her…or Dobrah. In the moments it took to learn the logical system of the computer interface, Lense had managed to talk part of herself into the idea that all the Shmoam-ag had been missing was some little piece of medical knowledge. Some small shred that she possessed but Dobrah’s people had missed. Something that would fall into place and allow her to find a cure.

Dobrah had returned with his dinner and fallen asleep by the time she found answers to all her questions. Placing an isolinear storage chip into an access port of her tricorder, Lense collected the log entries of Dobrah’s mother and father—the two lead scientists who’d studied the Pocheeny and tried to cure it.

Tears welled in her eyes, and one rolled down her left cheek, but the EVA suit kept her from wiping it away. Lense now understood whom the Shmoam-ag were trying to save…and it had not been Dobrah.

“Is this data correct?” Captain Gold asked. “Are we sure?”

“Soloman said it’s probably a spy satellite, sir,” Carol Abramowitz said as she snugged a strand of hair behind her ear. With her other hand she gestured to the screen to her left and leaned back into the science station chair so the captain had a better view. “The databanks were shielded and there’s little degradation. It collected media and government broadcasts from all the various Shmoam-ag nations. And when the governments were gone, and the media broadcasts stopped, it continued to collect visual and scanner data.”

“So they created this virus themselves?”

“One of the nations did,” Abramowitz said somberly. “But it spread quickly, possibly before it could even be used as a weapon. The translation isn’t clear on that, and it will take further investigation.”

“Only the children were left?” Gold shook his head with disbelief.

“All carriers. I assume by design. Dr. Lense will be able to confirm, I’m sure.”

Lense was a sore subject with the captain, and his neck knotted with the mention of her name. He wasn’t sure what to do with her yet—the second time in a year he’d been in that position with her. At least this time, she’d broken no regulations, but she’d acted irresponsibly and it didn’t sit well with him.

“And after the adults were gone?”

“That’s when the broadcasts end, but sensor data that was collected suggests widespread violence, probably other disease, too. What if our children were left to run a highly technical society? How would they survive?”

Gold shook his head. “They wouldn’t.”