Sins of the Mother

S. D. Perry

My Dearest Neema:

In past weeks, I’ve gone over a thousand different openings to the letter you now hold in your hand, searching for a phrase or sentiment that would inspire you to read past the first words. Now, as I write, I know that there is no way for me to do this thing. When you were a child, no bribe or threat would make you do what you did not choose to do. It was a dominant trait of my daughter from the very day she was born, and I would be surprised to learn that you’ve lost your willful streak. Perhaps it’s this stubbornness I should appeal to, or call upon any lingering sentiment and demand your attention this final time; in truth, I don’t know. Eight years have passed since we last spoke, and any presumptions on my part would surely be false. You are Neema Cyl now, and all I can offer is that this letter is an important one, and I hope that you will read it.

So. Having implored your attention, I’m now at a loss for where to begin. Please bear with me as you read, as I write; there’s a story to be told, and it’s been locked inside of me for so long that I’m unsure of how to tell it. At one time, I swore to myself that I never would. I chose ink and paper so that I might find my way through my own carefully layered defenses, that I might create each letter, each symbol, and etch the emotion into reality. It sounds foolish, perhaps, but I feel almost as though it will erase time and distance between us—words from my heart to yours, your fingers touching what I have touched.

Eight years, and I speak now to a joined Neema. It’s not much time for a Trill, I know, but I’ve felt every day of our separation. I’ve heard that you’re a gifted teacher of sciences. Tobin Dax once heard Deilas Cyl speak at that botanical conference on Halii, the presentation on light alternatives, and remembers a pleasant, soft-spoken man of thoughtfulness and gentle wit. How wonderful for you, Neema Cyl. Perhaps we can someday—

I get ahead of myself. I find ways to avoid writing, even in the process. No more delays.

Neema. Your father, my beloved husband, Jayvin Vod, died when you were fourteen, and the true circumstances surrounding his death are what I mean to address. You already know some of it: Fifteen years ago, your father and I were involved in a confidential deep space mission. He was badly injured. The symbiosis between Jayvin and Vod dissolved, and Jayvin died.

I remember telling you. I remember waking you, sitting on your rumpled blankets in the early light, remember your pale young face turned up to mine. The tears that spilled from your dark eyes—your father’s eyes. I told you then, and let me tell you once more, how much he loved you and Gran both. You were the suns in his sky, the beat of his heart ...

I’m struck suddenly by a memory, of your father holding both of you in his arms, in the house we lived in just after Gran was born. You were all of three when we brought Gran home, and I remember that Jayvin called you into our room to meet him. We sat on the floor, in a shaft of sun that came in through the window, and Jayvin encouraged you to introduce yourself to Gran. You were shy at first, although grinning as your father pulled you into his lap and held up the newborn for you to see. I felt whole then in a way I had never felt before, perhaps even in memory. Jayvin smiled up at me, his dark hair tousled, his face lined with sleeplessness, and told me that he too, was complete. “I’ve never been this happy,” he said, and he wept. I weep now, remembering.

I misled you about what happened to your father. I was deliberately vague with you about the nature of his injuries, and when you pressed for information, I told you that the Vod symbiont had gone to a new host. It’s my shame that I manipulated you, that when you became persistent with your questions, I cloaked myself in sadness so that you would stop asking. I used my pain to frighten you away from the answers; although I never told you outright, I made it clear how very terrible it was for me to relive the event that caused Jayvin’s death. It was, is true, but only a fraction of truth, a grain in a sea of grain. Even when you were accepted as a host initiate, when your questions had become pleas, I found a way to elude. To hide. It’s no solace, I’m sure, for you to know how many nights I spent awake and alone, so choked with guilt and self-hatred that I could not sleep—but I don’t mean to try and arouse your sympathies. This letter is for you.

I should have known that your curiosity would lead you to do what you did. Your stubborn spirit, inherited from both of your parents—I allowed myself the luxury of delusion, of believing that my daughter would know better than to seek Vod’s new host. I had been head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission for over seven years when you were accepted; you had heard so many stories of reassociation disasters, of lives destroyed by past-host folly, that I told myself you would never break with Trill custom. Idiocy. I knew your heart, and pretended that I did not.

So when, seven years after Jayvin’s death, you used my private access code to look into the TSC files, and discovered the truth—I can hardly claim I was shocked. What you found out must have—better just to say it, to tell it the way I believe you saw it. Vod died with Jayvin on the table, even though the symbiont was physically uninjured. No action was taken to save its life—so far as I know, an unprecedented act—and I was instrumental in that decision. Your own mother, guilty of allowing your father’s symbiont to die. Even as head of the commission, it took more than just my word—but it was after my rushed testimony that the few attending doctors and commission members left Vod inside of Jayvin, left it trapped in his dying body. The case was sealed, the specifics unrecorded, and I lied to you, I told you that Vod lived.

I told myself that as head of the TSC, it was my ethical responsibility not to speak of it. I told myself that you had already suffered enough, that we both had. I knew it would give you comfort to believe that your father’s memories, that his love for us, still existed as an empirical reality. Perhaps most persuasive of all, I told myself that Jayvin would have wanted you to believe he’d died peacefully.

These aren’t excuses, nor do I expect you to forgive me my reasoning—I want only for you to understand why I let you believe what you’ve believed for so long. When you confronted me with what little you’d learned—I’m ashamed to tell you that I was relieved. You didn’t know everything, you didn’t know why. I told myself that it was for the best; that it was better for you to despise me than to know the truth. I’ve restated and rationalized that for the last eight years, and I was wrong.

The truth isn’t all that came between us. When you confronted me, the initial terror I felt turned my anger into something like hysteria. I told you—screamed at you—that I couldn’t believe my daughter was a thief, and I recall so vividly the fire in your gaze, the heat there that belied the chill of your voice.

“And I can’t believe my mother is a murderer,” you said. “A murderer and a liar.”

You walked out—and although we had a few strained and dismal exchanges afterward, I believe that was the last time an emotion passed between us. If you accept nothing else from all of this, accept that I am deeply ashamed of how I acted that day.

Neema, this is so hard! Not for me to confess my mistakes, although that isn’t such an easy thing, either—but simply to tell you, even admitting that I’ve been wrong to keep it from you. I write now because ... there are too many reasons to list, and perhaps you’ll understand by the end of this growing document. The reasons aren’t even important; what’s important is that you only know part of the truth, and when I’ve finished, you’ll know it all.

 

In the cool autumn of Stardate 1229, I was forty-one years old and had been head of the Symbiosis Commission for less than a year. Jayvin and I were close, perhaps closer than we’d ever been, in career and in marriage; he’d been appointed head of the xenobiology department at the Kem’alta Institute, and was consulted on all sorts of matters relating to our exploration missions. I was enjoying my own appointment, putting to work the political acumen I’d learned as Lela Dax. I was too busy to continue pursuing my science, but Jayvin kept me updated on medical advancements in Trill biology, a subject we shared a passion for; we had written and published several papers together on symbiont chemical anomalies, back when I was still teaching. You and Gran, our brilliant and beautiful children, were growing so fast. ...

We were happy then, Jayvin and I, blissfully unaware that things could change, that they aren’t always as they seem. You’d think that between our ten lifetimes of experience, we would have known better—although as I’m sure you know, some lessons are harder to learn than others. And some must be learned again and again.

As now, there was much debate over the simultaneous evolution of host and symbiont on Trill—there always is, and I’ve come to believe that there always will be; no culture is so small as to accept a single possibility, regardless of evidence, regardless of faith. But I also believe that no intelligent species will ever stop looking for answers, and the call that came to our government, only eight months after I accepted the TSC position, was one that no Trill could ignore.

The message we received was from Starfleet, and was a source of great excitement within the governing council as well as the TSC. There was a newly discovered comet just outside the Trill system, headed, in fact, toward Trill. In some thirty years it would pass us, there was no apparent danger—but upon a routine survey, a Starfleet probe had brought back information that was of profound interest to us. The probe had detected a unique bioelectric signature emanating from inside the comet, one that Starfleet scientists found comparable to that of a tiny percentage of Trills. They didn’t know that the Trill are a joined species, of course, didn’t understand what they’d found, but we knew immediately—Starfleet had detected the biosignature of a symbiont.

I’m sure you can imagine the stir this caused—what it could mean for us, what we might learn about ourselves. There was a closed door discussion within the governing council over our continued interest in keeping our symbiotic nature to ourselves, even some concern that whatever the comet contained might give us away—but really, there was never any question that we would send a team. It helped that Starfleet didn’t seem nearly as interested in the biology of what they’d found as they were intrigued by the comet itself, in its unusual proportions of mass and density. Further, their science officers insisted its composition didn’t match that of the cometary halo surrounding the Trill system; it had come from somewhere else.

And for our part, all we cared about was the symbiont reading. I’ve spent countless hours regretting that disregard, thinking that if we had only investigated more closely, waited before making a decision ...

If only.

Apart from a few councillors within the government, there were only a handful of commission members and scientists who knew of Starfleet’s invitation to join its landing party. It was agreed that the matter should be kept quiet until more was learned. This meant that our team would have to be selected from among our own small circle. As head of the TSC and with no small knowledge of symbiont biochemistry, I was eager to go, and Jayvin was my logical companion.

Things fell into place quickly. We were to join the Starfleet team aboard the Tereshkova, a small scientific survey vessel that would come to Trill and take us to the comet. Jayvin and I hardly had time to gather the proper equipment before it was time to leave. We were so excited, digging through the TSC’s labs for fluid test kits and specimen peels, both of us trying not to get our hopes too high, but hoping anyway, that whatever was on the comet would be the beginning of a new understanding of and for Trill. Neither of us voiced our truest wish, although I could see it in Jayvin’s eyes, as I suspected he could see it in mine—that we would return to Trill with a symbiont, one not born on our world.

You may recall the day we left, the state of near jubilation that we were in. I remember telling you and Gran that we’d be gone for a day or two on TSC business, and then working all afternoon with your father, packing and repacking our equipment, trying to organize. We left just after sunset, tired but enthused and before we left, we looked in on you both, together, watched you sleep for a moment, both of us silent and proud in the early morning light. Both of us hopeful for the future.

The Tereshkova beamed us aboard on schedule. We were greeted in the transporter room by the captain and first officer of the ship, who, after showing us where we could store our equipment, led us directly to the briefing for the expedition. It was there that we met the Starfleet officers who would be with us, four human men. There were two scientists, Doctors Jaurez and Milton, a xenobiologist and an astrophysicist respectively; a security officer named Jon Chin; and a fleet captain, Christopher Pike, of Starbase 11. It seemed unusual that such an esteemed member of Starfleet would be leading a relatively minor scientific expedition, but it turned out that the comet had been discovered under Captain Pike’s command, during some kind of cadet training voyage.

Of all of them, Christopher Pike stands out most clearly in my memory. There was something about him ... He had the look of authority, silvering hair, rather piercing blue eyes, the shoulders-back carriage of a man used to command. But it was more than that; a kind of casual brilliance, I suppose, a flexibility of thought that only rarely exists in men of his age and position. I had been concerned that we would be led by some stiff and unimaginative military type, someone who wouldn’t allow us to do the kind of work we had planned. But after just a few moments of informal conversation, I decided that I was most pleased that he would be with us. If something were to go wrong, Womb forbid, Captain Pike would hold together.

The mission briefing was short and simple: Get in, collect data, get back out again. The probe had detected traces of kelbonite, a transporter inhibitor, so we’d be going down by shuttlecraft. There were a few questions from Doctor Jaurez about the bioreading, which Jayvin managed to answer without answering; the two hit it off, actually, spending several hours after the short meeting exchanging thoughts on various developments in multispecies pharmacology. Looking back, I’m glad that Jayvin’s last day was spent with a colleague, learning and sharing. It was what he loved.

I spent some time with our mission leader while Jayvin talked science with the others. Pike and I had an engaging conversation about the responsibilities of leadership, and he told me several interesting stories from his days as a starship commander. When I asked why a fleet captain had chosen to head the expedition, he said that it kept him young—not field work, but remembering that he was never too old to learn. At times, I had to remind myself that I wasn’t talking to a joined Trill; a very thoughtful man, for so short an experience.

When we reached the comet, it was the middle of the night for your father and me, but we pressed to begin the investigation immediately. There were no objections; all six of us were excited for the unlikely adventure. As we suited up and loaded the shuttle with our various tools, the exhilaration was a palpable thing. Even Mr. Chin, who would almost certainly have nothing to do outside of piloting the shuttle, was eager, joking about ice monsters in the dark mass. We all laughed.

We got our first good look at the comet from the shuttle, or at least I did; I’d been too busy gathering equipment aboard the Tereshkova to bother with a visual survey, and although I had read the stats, I was surprised by the barren immensity of it. Fifty-four kilometers in diameter, its gaseous tail stretching out over a hundred thousand kilometers behind it, ice and grit repelled by the system’s sun, a hazy path in the solar winds. Dr. Milton was intent on the computer reads as Chin took us down to the surface, the scientist frowning at what he called an “unknown agent” amid the hydroxyl radicals. At the time, it was just another anomaly to be catalogued.

Starfleet had been unable to pin the source of the life reading, but we quickly assessed that it was coming from somewhere deep inside; the comet was riddled with labyrinthine caves, the ice sculpted into yawning tunnels that twisted randomly throughout the massive body. We had expected as much; what we hadn’t expected was the faint, phosphorescent glow that appeared to emanate from the fissures in the comet’s surface, not visible until we were within a few kilometers of setting down.

Milton mumbled something about clouded ice formations, but it was obvious that he was as unnerved as the rest of us. There was nothing beautiful about the erratic glowing lines that scarred the comet, that crept into the darkness of the gaping caverns; it was a sickly light, the yellow-green of bruised flesh, the luminosity like that of some deep-sea creature that lives and dies in darkness. Jayvin and Doctor Jaurez checked readings, directing our pilot to where the biosignature was strongest, somewhere beyond the mouth of one of the larger caves.

We set down just outside of the cavern, the initial excitement of our party considerably muted by the sight of those unhealthily shining lines. It appeared that the probable life-form was only three or four kilometers past the opening, and Pike suggested that we could examine the strangely lit cracks on our way to the source. We loaded up, activated the Starfleet-issue environmental suits and gravity boots, and left the relative warmth of the shuttle for the sub-zero dark.

The nearest light-line was twenty meters or so from the shuttle, running up one side of the cavern’s opening. Each of us carrying our equipment and the Starfleet party armed with handheld phasers, we moved to the line and gathered around, leaning in for a closer look. It was perhaps half a meter wide, and according to Dr. Milton’s tricorder, not much deeper—and as he adjusted his sensors for composition, Jayvin got a flash of signal on our plisagraph. An electrical impulse, invisible, had traveled through the glowing matter. Jayvin handed the ’graph to me, keeping his face carefully neutral as Milton told us what we already knew; the opaque, luminescent stuff was liquid. Viscous, the consistency of dense mud and covered with a layer of ice, it was capable of conducting the electrical language of a symbiont-like being. Their tricorder hadn’t caught the split second of mild current, but we knew. We knew that somewhere inside of the comet, some as yet unknown relative of Dax or Vod, of Cyl—someone was there.

Unable to break down the composition, Milton took a scraping of the frozen top layer and we moved deeper into the cave, both Jayvin and I exchanging looks of renewed zeal. We had already discussed how to handle the possibility of actually finding a symbiont in front of the humans. Our explanation would be a half-truth, that the symbiont was a primitive life-form, one with a complex arrangement of RDNAL strands that some Trills had inherited. Our plisagraphs, designed specifically for the study of symbiont life, would give us precise readings; their tricorders wouldn’t, or so we hoped. That Milton hadn’t been able to pick up the faint pulse in the glowing liquid seemed a good indicator.

I know that you understand our excitement, the multitude of questions and hopes and theories that swept through us when we realized what we were facing. Was some ancient traveler from another world responsible for the beginning of life on Trill? Were the symbionts even indigenous to the homeworld? What if there was another homeworld, one that preceded Trill by hundreds, even thousands of centuries? I remember the bright intensity of Jayvin’s gaze behind his visor, the smile that he couldn’t seem to wipe away. I remember wondering at the implications for Trill ... and thinking that we shouldn’t assume anything, even as I assumed that we would find a race of beings like our own, a connection between ourselves and the universe that would bring us into a new era of self-awareness.

The cavern twisted and turned, always sloping down, randomly branching into intersections and tunnels that wound through the icy rock. If not for our various sensory devices, we would have been hopelessly lost. Pike led the way, Milton and Jaurez giving direction, Jon Chin bringing up the rear, and we passed many more of the communication lines, shining like dying fires and casting much of the rough cavern into deep shadow.

We walked for what seemed like days, each moment dragging. I was so eager to find the origin of the life sign, to communicate with it, that I could hardly keep from running. Several times we had to backtrack, led astray by curves and twists, which only made my anticipation greater. Jayvin felt the same; I could hear it in his tone, as he relayed distance and signal strength, as he and Jaurez made small talk about human ancestry. We were impatient and impassioned, those feelings blocking out anything else we might have intuited about the situation.

Finally, Pike had us stop just outside of a rather large chamber lit with the slimy glow of the liquid conductor. We had reached our destination. A haze of sallow light spilled out into the passage, and as Pike and Mr. Chin drew their phasers—Pike setting his on stun and ordering Chin to set his for a higher intensity—Jayvin and I waited anxiously. I thought we had been discreet, but as Chin stepped ahead of us into the greenish light, Pike held back, fixing us with a searching gaze as he touched the communication control just below his helmet. The other two scientists followed Chin into the chamber, and I saw, with no real surprise, that Pike had cut his men out of the com-circuit; he meant to speak to us privately.

“You know what’s in there, don’t you?” he asked softly, but it wasn’t really a question. “You don’t have to explain, not now ... but you know. All I need to know is whether or not it’s dangerous.”

Jayvin looked to me to answer, and although I had our lie on my lips, I found that I couldn’t tell it. I doubt very much that he would have believed it, anyway, but I did the best I could—I told him that we knew nothing certain, but that we had hopes, and that we couldn’t speak any further on it until we had a chance to see for ourselves.

“And no,” Jayvin added, smiling a little, “it’s not dangerous.”

Pike studied both of us a moment longer, then nodded slowly, letting the matter drop. I found out later that he blamed himself in part for the events that followed, because he hadn’t pursued it any further. It’s almost funny, how we all rush to take responsibility when something goes wrong, when we feel that we should have acted differently. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that, trying to assign blame to whomever deserved it most—only to come to the painful realization that sometimes, things happen that no one can foresee. Things happen because they do.

Together, we went to join the three men who had already found the source of the biosignature, Jayvin and I fumbling with our plisagraphs and test kits and cursing our bulky gloves. I suppose I had expected something like the Mak’ala cave pools, even in the sub-zero temperature—but other than the fact we were in a cave, nothing was the same.

The reading came from a raised basin at the far side of the chamber, filled with the same luminescent sludge that ran through the comet like lifeblood. Jagged shards of murky ice crusted the sides and top of the raised vessel, which was only a meter across and hewn from the same composite rock as the rest of the chamber. Great trails of the sludge liquid crisscrossed the walls all around, making strange light patterns across the faces of the men standing in front of the chest-high basin, throwing shadows against the piles of broken rock on the uneven floor.

Jayvin aimed his ’graph at the pool and grinned, holding it up for me to see even as Jaurez began to report.

“There’s a life-form of some kind in there ... complex arrangement, carbon-based, it should be frozen, but ... I can’t get an exact size, it seems to be shifting—” The Starfleet xenobiologist shook his head. “Between eight and twelve centimeters long ... and according to this, it’s at least four thousand years old.”

Our readings were more definite—and it was closer to six thousand. The machine registered complex neural activity, and picked up more of the soft electrical pulses that we’d noted earlier in the glimmering organic fluid. It was not a symbiont, it was smaller and the shape was different, but it was so close at a genetic level that there was no doubt they were related. No doubt in my mind.

Jayvin was still grinning as he pointed to the gentle flux of numbers on the ’graph’s monitor; he didn’t need to speak. It was trying to communicate with us, we knew it, and I knew that nothing would ever be the same, that I could no longer think of our people as isolated, as alone. Tragically, I was right.

The Starfleet men put away their weapons and all of us moved closer to the basin, my heart pounding, my thoughts racing—when I felt a sudden, sharp pain in my head. It was like the onset of one of Emony’s headaches, but much more intense—the sensation of a raw knife sliding into soft tissue, horrible, killing pain—and then it was gone, just as suddenly. I faltered, putting my hand on Jayvin’s shoulder, speaking his name—but he shrugged it off and kept walking. I was surprised at Jayvin; it was unlike him to ignore me.

“Jayvin,” I called, and again, he didn’t respond. I think that’s when I first knew something was wrong.

Everything happened quickly after that.

The Starfleet scientists were studying their tricorders. Mr. Chin was looking down into the pool, perhaps trying to catch a glimpse of the creature beneath the sheet of gleaming ice. Pike took a step toward me, frowning, perhaps about to ask me if I was all right, but I was watching Jayvin, suddenly worried. Suddenly afraid.

At once, all of the alarms on his suit began to go off. A series of shrill bleats poured into my helmet, spurring my fear to panic. His heart rate, temperature, and blood pressure had all spiked dangerously high, and they continued to rise as he stepped toward the basin, as he dropped his equipment and bent down over it.

All of the men were talking at once, confused, Pike shouting for Jayvin to move away. I took a single step forward, my own suit’s distress alarm sounding, memories of fear joining my own—

—When something shot out of the pool, something small and dark, splinters of ice shattering—

—And Jayvin staggered back silently. His hands flew to his head and he stumbled, ice crystals falling around him like mist, the terrible, rotting light surrounding him like a wash of poison.

Mr. Chin was closest. He reached out and Jayvin clutched at him, pulling him off balance. I didn’t understand what was happening until Jayvin shoved Chin away, still silent, one hand still pressed to his faceplate—and Chin’s phaser in his other hand.

There was a blast of light and the security officer screamed, but only once. Jayvin spun, pointing the weapon at the two scientists as Chin collapsed to the floor, the rush of air from what was left of his suit expelling in a whoosh—

—And then Pike fired, hitting Jayvin in the chest—but to no effect. Jayvin was still standing, seemingly unaffected, and before Pike could change the setting on his phaser, Jayvin was firing at us. Pike jerked me away, pushing me back to the tunnel as rock exploded silently in flashes of blue-white. I struggled, screaming for Jayvin to stop as Pike fought to get me out of the chamber. If he hadn’t, I would have been as dead as Chin, as Jaurez and Milton. They didn’t even have time to drop their tricorders before the brilliant strobe of the deadly Starfleet weapon filled the vacuum, twice more.

I heard Jayvin shout, a single cry of what might have been terror—and Pike pushed me behind an outcropping of ice, slapping at the controls on both of our suits to turn off the blaring alarms. The chamber was clouded with frozen air, a billion reflectors for the diseased light of the yellow-green ooze.

Jayvin wasn’t Jayvin. It was the creature, the thing we had thought was a symbiont.

I started talking, fast, unable to keep the desperation from my voice. I begged and commanded, I swore and reasoned, telling Jayvin not to let it take hold, not to let it win. I pleaded for Vod to stop it. I said a lot of things, the words blurring together as Pike continued to dart glances back into the chamber, trying to shield me as he stabbed at the emergency call on his suit.

Jayvin didn’t answer; he said nothing at all, and when I risked a look back into the gangrenous light of the alien’s womb chamber, I saw him standing and shuddering, a smear of clouded ice across the bottom of his helmet. He still held the phaser, but seemed unaware of our presence.

Pike saw our chance, and took it. He motioned silently for me to stay put and stepped away from the wall. As quickly as he could, he crept back into the chamber, holding his phaser ready, obviously meaning to stop Jayvin without killing him. I kept talking, not knowing what else to do, but I don’t believe that Jayvin heard me. Already, he was past that.

Pike had almost reached him when the thing took hold again. I caught a glimpse of Jayvin’s eyes, all that was visible above the crackle of jaundiced ice that had resettled his helmet in the wake of the creature’s violent passage. His eyes were blank and unseeing, the slack gaze of a corpse—but it saw us. It snapped the phaser up, faster than should have been possible, and pointed it at Pike.

I remember screaming, and Pike kicked off of the ground, hurtling himself at the creature that wore Jayvin’s body. Pike crashed into him, losing his own phaser as the creature fired, the phaser’s beam turning another chunk of wall into powder—and then they were battling for control of the weapon, Pike gasping, Jayvin not seeming to breathe at all.

I watched in horror as the phaser went off again—and another rush of air blew into the chamber, new ice crystals forming and floating and bathing the two men in shining fog. Pike fell away, clutching at the massive tear in his suit, shouting for me to run as he worked desperately to hold together the scorched fabric across his side.

I knew that Pike could not defend himself against further attack, but I don’t pretend that I meant to lure the creature away from him. I ran because I was terrified, because I was in shock, because I was in danger. Because in some panicked recess of my mind, I connected the creature’s chamber with all that had happened, and wanted nothing more than to get away from that terrible place. I turned and stumbled into the tunnel, struggling with the grav boots, not knowing where to go except away.

The next moments were a blur of luminous shadows and panic. The environmental suit had a communicator, but I wasn’t thinking clearly enough to do anything with it—even if I had been, it wouldn’t have mattered. Pike had already transmitted a distress signal, but any rescue party would be a long time coming, the Tereshkova’s transporters useless. I had faint memories of control, of gathering myself and thinking calmly in crisis, but all I could see was the way Jayvin’s eyes had looked behind the faceshield. I was alone, Pike surely as dead as the others.

I might have continued in that half-aware state for a while longer, hurrying blindly through the freezing tunnels, looking to escape the fear that had taken me over as surely as the creature had taken Jayvin—but the sound of Jayvin’s voice brought me back to myself.

Before I tell you what he said, what happened, I want to make sure you understand—it wasn’t Jayvin Vod. It was his voice, his body, even some of his memories ... but I don’t believe the man who was my husband, your father, was aware at any point past the initial attack. It’s small consolation, perhaps, but I cling to it now as I have for the last fifteen years, and I believe it to be true. Jayvin Vod was already dead.

The shouts that rang in my helmet were incoherent at first. Unintelligible nonsense, words that weren’t words, punctuated by wild fits of emotion—laughing, crying, howls of rage, and of joy. I became aware of myself again, running, listening, lost in the passages of the comet but slowly regaining self-control. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I slowed down and began to choose my direction, searching for ascending tunnels.

The creature continued to babble in Jayvin’s voice, running through his emotions as carelessly as one might go through a box of tools. By the time I had come up with a course of action—get to the surface, call for help from the Tereshkova, reach the shuttlecraft—it had started using words and sentences pulled from Vod’s memories.

It was coming after me, I knew, it kept saying, “where,” again and again—and as it became more coherent, I realized that it had immersed itself in Vod in a way that was more terrifying to me—to any joined Trill—than the threat of pain or death. Neema, it was like some nightmare parody of zhian’tara, only instead of past hosts emerging to share and teach, the creature had separated Vod within Jayvin. The alien twisted through five lifetimes, dredging up memories of anger, working to express itself using the thoughts of Vod’s constituent personalities.

I heard Jayvin among the others—Timus, Kelin, Calila, Baret, and Devinel all spoke, but the phrases they used were chosen by the creature, all of the sentiments bitterly angry. I tried to speak with it at first, but it wouldn’t respond; although it was obviously trying to communicate, it seemed uninterested in what I had to say—and as I continued to wind through the barren tunnels, exhausted and afraid, it finally found its own voice. Much of what it had to say was as incomprehensible as its earlier outbursts, the violent emotions it spewed taking the form of wordless, raging screams. In the hours that I wandered the frozen underground, it told me enough for me to be grateful that Jayvin was no more.

Its grasp of language was still new, so I don’t know if its thoughts were translated with any precision. It talked until Jayvin was hoarse, drifting off into strange loops in which it repeated itself for moments at a time, but the thrust of its message was so deeply unsettling that I didn’t want to credit it as any more than delusional ramblings. It was an aberrant creature, a thing that referred to itself once as “the taker of gist.” I listened, and gradually I found out why it had attacked—and what it meant to do.

It wasn’t a symbiont at all. It was a parasite, a thing that dominated its hosts, feeding from them, and it said that it was “the first of many.” It said that its ship, controlled by “the veins,” was taking it to find “the weak ones.” Now that it had a host again, nothing would stop it from paving the way for those who would follow; it bragged that nothing could stop it. And as it poured its diseased feelings out, it expressed a depth of hatred and contempt for the Trill that seemed boundless. That it knew about us before we’d come to its ship, there was no question; how, I never found out.

I kept climbing, aware that my air wouldn’t last forever, knowing that I had to warn others about the creature before I was allowed the luxury of grief. In spite of my resolve, I cried steadily; hearing the parasite speak in your father’s voice was torture, and more than once, I didn’t think I could go on. What kept me moving, beyond the awareness that it would kill me if it found me, was the thought of my children. In the tumult of my feelings, I found a kind of relief that you were at home, safe, untouched by the horror that I was enduring.

It seemed that I had been running, walking, sobbing for a lifetime, the parasite’s words and feelings creating a shroud of ugliness around me. Perhaps that’s why, when I stumbled upon a dead end, I didn’t immediately turn around. Just a moment’s rest, I thought, sagging against the icy rock, so tired that I felt I might die from it. When the parasite started to laugh, I knew it had found me.

I turned to face it, knowing what I would see and yet still surprised by it—Jayvin Vod, my lover, my friend, the father of my children, walking toward me with a look of pure malice. Although I couldn’t see his, its mouth, I knew it was smiling. The parasite, the taker of gist, had won. I had no weapon, no strength, and only the vaguest desire to survive, so overwhelmed by the horror of the endless night that I simply waited. Waited for the thing to put an end to my torment.

I hardly knew I had spoken until it answered my whispered question, the thought that had been with me for much of that eternal chase.

“Why him, why not me?”

The Jayvin-thing tilted its head to one side, and took a step toward me, raising the phaser.

“Because he was closer,” it said.

I thought of you, of Gran, closed my eyes—and opened them again as the parasite crumpled, a grunt of shock emerging from its last second of consciousness, a huge dent in the back of its helmet.

Christopher Pike stood behind it, holding a slab of frozen rock in one shaking hand. The side of his suit was covered with ice, hastily applied handfuls of the same viscous fluid that had served as the parasite’s habitat—that had resealed Jayvin’s visor. He—we—had survived; it was over.

Although not wounded, Pike was freezing, almost out of air, and I was physically and emotionally wrung out—but somehow, we managed to get back to the shuttlecraft, carrying Jayvin’s body between us. I remember wondering how I could possibly go on, each step an exercise in force of will—but we did it. Pike piloted the shuttle back to the Tereshkova and ordered the captain to get us to Trill, maximum speed. You’ve probably deduced the rest of the story, but I want, I need to tell you. There are facts ... and then, there is truth.

I spent the journey home in sickbay, doing what little I could for Jayvin. We pried the helmet off, and a scan showed that the parasite had attached itself to Jayvin’s brain stem just inside the base of the skull, the only visible sign of its domination a tiny barb protruding from the back of his neck. The technology to detach the creature without killing Jayvin didn’t—doesn’t—exist. There was nothing we could do.

While the medical officer was tending to Pike, I scanned Vod, but the Starfleet equipment wasn’t able to tell me anything. For the trip home, we kept Jayvin sedated. I thought that at least we could keep him from suffering any more.

The best transplant surgeons were standing by when we beamed down to Trill, a host prepped, and a hastily convened session of the governing council waiting for me to tell them what had happened. I stayed with my husband instead, waiting for the doctors to examine him—though what they told me was as I’d expected. The symbiosis had dissolved, both Jayvin and Vod were dying. Still, I prayed for the symbiont, that we could transplant Vod and save Jayvin’s memories—but remembering the monster that had hunted me through the cold dark, a worse dread took hold of me. I ordered a scan of the symbiont’s neural patterns, and my fears were confirmed yet again—the parasite’s consciousness had joined with Vod’s, the union permanent and complete.

It was then that I met with the council members, and made my recommendation.

To transfer Vod to another host was unthinkable. There was no choice, none, except to let him die, and with him six lifetimes of knowledge, memories, and experiences—including Jayvin’s.

I stayed with them until it was over, and then I went home.

Christopher Pike was waiting there, sitting outside in the light of early dawn, looking as tired as I felt. He’d come to tell me what had happened with the comet, to reassure me that the immediate threat had passed—although to be honest, my thoughts were elsewhere. Selfish, perhaps, but I was still trying to understand that Jayvin was gone. When Pike asked after him, I couldn’t speak—I only shook my head, and struggled not to cry when I saw the sympathy in his eyes, as he told me how sorry he was.

I sat down next to him on the front step of our home, knowing that we had to talk, knowing that I had to bear my responsibilities as a leader—but all I wanted to do was collapse. Pike seemed to understand, keeping his speech brief and his tone gentle.

He told me that he’d spoken to Starfleet, and that they were most displeased; less than an hour before, three Trill ships had converged on the comet and blown it to so much vapor. I’d had nothing to do with the decision, although it didn’t surprise me overmuch; we still had our secret, you see. What we could have learned about the creature from studying the comet—it was apparently not as important as keeping our symbiotic nature to ourselves, or at least not to the councillors who’d called for the alien ship’s destruction.

Pike knew, of course. He’d heard the parasite’s ravings, all of it, and had deduced what was not obvious. He told me that he understood why our government had felt compelled to destroy the comet, and assured me that he would keep the entire incident classified on his end—our symbiotic nature would remain on a strictly need-to-know basis in Starfleet, until we decided otherwise. He told me that if Starfleet learned anything at all about the parasites, he would contact me—but made it clear that he felt the action of the Trill had been ill-advised.

I nodded, grateful that he was willing to keep our confidence, knowing he was right to reproach us, however gently he phrased it. I had no doubt that our own files would be sealed, but told him that I would also share whatever information we found from examining the remains of the parasite. I believed then that seeking out the deviant breed would become a priority for the Trill; I was naive, to say the least. It hadn’t occurred to me yet that the knowledge of a malevolent species so close to the symbionts would be unwelcome within our society; that no one would want to pursue a truth that carried implications of a connection between our precious symbionts and the thing that took Jayvin away.

I didn’t know, then, and I suppose Pike didn’t, either. I thanked him and he started to go—but stopped, turning back to ask a final question.

“Your people’s secret, Dr. Dax,” he said softly. “Is it that important? Was it worth all of those lives?”

I thought I was too tired to cry anymore, but I was wrong. He waited until I could compose myself, waited for my answer, and I knew that he wanted to hear me tell him that it was—it was what we both wanted to believe.

“I don’t know,” I said finally, and it wasn’t much of an answer, but there wasn’t any other.

He left me then to my final task, one that I hardly had the strength to complete—telling you and Gran that your father was dead.

 

It sounds like some childish attempt to avoid responsibility, but I didn’t mean to lie to you. I was adrift in my own pain, and wanted only to ease yours. I told you what I thought would save you from the intensity of loss that I felt, and by the time I understood the magnitude of what I’d done, I didn’t know how to take it back. And by then, I had constructed the foundation of denial that has been with me ever since.

Seven years later, you found out, and our estrangement began. As I said before, I found ways to rationalize, my position, my work—but politically, at least, nothing had changed. The powers that be had moved on to other matters, and I’d all but given up trying to convince the few council members who knew of the incident to take any kind of action. There is no official record of the parasite’s existence anywhere on Trill, no autopsy report, nothing. The council saw to that. I imagine that the records were destroyed along with the creature’s body, or all of the evidence was filed away somewhere, a dusty box in a dusty room, purposely forgotten.

And it seemed that Starfleet, too, had decided to treat the disastrous mission as an isolated event. I tried to contact Pike, more than once, but I couldn’t track him down; only a year after we met, he was badly wounded in some kind of radiation accident, and disappeared soon after. No one could even tell me if he was still alive.

As far as I know, the parasites have never resurfaced, but every day for the last fifteen years, I’ve watched and listened, doing what little one being can hope to do. I tried communicating with the symbionts, to ask them about the creature, but the younger ones knew nothing. And the oldest among them seemed not to hear my questions.

I am alone in my vigil, I believe, and am always praying that the thing was lying. That it was one of a kind. But surely I tell myself lies, too. You decide.

Four days ago, on my fifty-sixth birthday, I stepped down as head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission. For weeks, I’ve known that I would write this letter to you, that I couldn’t continue to use my position as a shield. That I wouldn’t. I’ve let too much time slip away already, my Neema, too much time regretting my mistakes and not letting myself understand that I was making a much worse one. When Gran died five years ago, never knowing any of this, I thought I would tell you then—that we would find comfort in each other, and the truth would have to come out—but somehow, we managed to avoid each other. To hold on to our own private sorrows, sharing nothing. Time now for me to end this loneliness, or at least to try.

I’ve accepted your anger as some kind of penance, as though I deserved to be hated by you for surviving. For coming home, when your father did not. I’ve been selfish and stupid, and in denying myself a loving relationship with my only surviving child, I’ve denied you.

I don’t expect for you to forgive me. Writing these thoughts, understanding that you’ve been alone with your pain and anger for eight years now ... I do understand, at least in part, and I’m not asking for you to throw aside your rightful feelings and embrace my apology. I’m not sure what I expect, or what I can even hope for, for myself. But for you—my daughter, for you, I hope for peace. I hope that you will accept that I love you, that no hour passes for me without you. Whether or not you choose to have me in your life, you are always in mine.

 

Forever,

Audrid Dax

 

NEEMA CYL TURNED the last page over, sighing, absently smoothing out the wrinkles and lines in the soft paper. No tears this time, although there was a heaviness in her throat that wouldn’t go away, and that was all right. In the weeks since she’d first read the letter, she’d felt the bitterness seeping away from her feelings of sorrow, and sorrow alone wasn’t such a terrible thing.

She checked the time and sighed again; it was getting late. Gingerly, she folded the rumpled pages and stood up from her desk, slipping the letter into the top drawer. The house was silent and still, the darkness outside making her feel that her small home was a sanctuary, a haven against the night, against the unknown. Since receiving Audrid’s letter, she couldn’t help but feel that the world—that the universe—was no longer safe. Knowing the truth had changed things, had created a sense of wariness in her that had never existed before ... but that wasn’t such a terrible thing, either. There was much to be done, and learning to be watchful was the first step.

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. There would be time for that later. Tonight, she had other business, and it was already late. Maybe too late. Neema looked at the clock again—

—And the door chimed softly at her, and she couldn’t get there fast enough. Another deep breath, a rush of belated fear that too much had been lost, and the door slid open.

The heaviness in her broke apart, the tears spilling out as Audrid, older, stronger, gazed lovingly into her eyes.

Eyes like my father’s, Neema thought, and stepped forward, both of them reaching out, both of them crying.

“Mother,” Neema whispered, and they stood in the open doorway for a long time, each unwilling to let the other go.