Out of the corner of my eye I can see my colleagues exchange glances. Hanor and Aruel say nothing, though, ostensibly collating and prioritizing the teraquads of data we've gathered over the past week.

The data! We've made stupendous progress; the artificial wormhole experiment had been far more successful than I could have even hoped for. With a slight suppression in the phase variance of the generated tetryon field, even the near-disaster that had almost destroyed the Defiant could be averted the next time...

There would not be a next time, I forcibly remind myself. Not for me, at least, or anyway not under the same circumstances.

Circumstances. Now there's an understatement.

Would she think me a coward, unfeeling, a hypocrite? No. She would not, and that was the worst of it.

Rubbing my temples helps a bit, but not enough to dispel the tension headache that had settled behind my eyes even before we had left the station. Think about something else, anything else. Calm, you are calm. The air you breathe out sinks into the floor and you become lighter and lighter... Gradually I become aware of a delicious, familiarly spicy scent.

I open my eyes to look up at my big little brother. He smiles as he holds out to me a large steaming mug.

The roughhewn sandstone rasps pleasantly against my palms, imparting its heat to my hands. I blow a puff of air across the murky surface of the liquid to activate the spores, then sniff the rich fruity tones with their hint of muskiness. "Mmm... just right. Where the hell did you manage to find real balso at this time of year?"

"Er." Bejal shifts on his feet. "Had it in cryo at home. Brought it along to celebrate... "

No need to finish the sentence. Despite the experiment's stunning success, there would be no celebration.

I try to lighten the mood a bit. "Rather presumptuous of you, wasn't it? What if we had failed utterly and were slinking back in disgrace, our reputations in shambles, with no means of duplicating the results and, the gods forbid, no hope of further funding?"

Silence. "You did what you had to do, Lenara," he replies, to what I had not said, briefly resting his hand on my shoulder. With that, he leaves, ducking through the doorway of the lab.

You did what you had to do.

Not, "You did the right thing," or, "It was for the best." He knows better than to say that out loud, though I know that that's what he's thinking. On some level he does understand, as does Hanor, but fundamentally he cannot know. And I can no more explain it to him than I could describe telepathy to the mindblind.

I set the computer reenactment of the experimental data to run on continuous replay and let my brain subconsciously absorb the patterns of equations while the contents of the mug at my elbow slowly cool...


"Have you completely lost your mind?"

Certainly a novel way to start the day. Hadn't even had my kalaba yet, and there was my research partner practically bursting through the vidcomm, straining so far forward at his desk that his onscreen image was distorted. We had worked together for the better part of fifteen years; not exactly friends, we knew one another well. It would take something cataclysmic for him to be this perturbed. "And a good morning to you, Hanor." I saluted him with a honeycake that was still semisolid from the thermovect and took a big bite.

He gathered himself into some semblance of his usual calm. "I'm sorry, Lenara, your message just caught me off guard. Requesting that the initial run be carried out at DS9... are you sure that's wise?"

"Wise? It's essential!" On the sibilant a fat crumb flew onto the screen right where the tip of his nose was and his eyes crossed as he inadvertently examined it; stifling the urge to laugh, I wiped it off. "The Bajoran wormhole is the only known stable wormhole in existence. We have to take telemetry from it in conjunction with our assays. See if we've truly discovered a new principle or are simply reproducing a common mechanism."

Hanor's gaze did not quite meet mine. "You know what I mean."

"Space-sickness acting up again? You know, that funny little buzzing device you tried last trip makes a really nice -– "

"Lenara!"

I sighed. "I know, Hanor, I'm sorry. It's just that I honestly can't see what the fuss is about."

"Can't see... You mean, other than the fact that reassociation is one of the oldest prohibitions in the book? And that your former spouse happens to be a member of the senior staff aboard that station, and that you would be working in close proximity with her for over a week? No, I can't imagine why there would be any 'fuss' at all."

"Emphasis on working, Doctor Pren. The Commission know that I've communicated with Dax exactly once in the last ninety years, and that since then I've had no contact with or even knowledge of it."

Not exactly true. Jadzia diKaela's face had been all over the newsnets when she'd been joined with Dax; washing out of and then being reaccepted into the initiate program was an unheard-of event. And for the last three years or so, keeping an eye out for the stream of journal articles that issued from DS9's science officer had become a hangnail of a habit; the articles focused on a variety of arcana ranging from the bizarre mating behavior of a species of Bajoran amphibian to strategic analyses of the indescribable Ferengi game of Tongo.

"So personal interest had nothing whatsoever to do with your decision."

"This is a scientific mission, remember? I have no intention of resurrecting the ghosts of century-old passions."

Hanor's lips thinned. "Then you won't mind if I lead the team and run the tests on my own. What better way to be sure they're completely impartial? Think of it as a double-blind trial. You could take a vacation -– "

"Dammit, Hanor, this is my project, my theories and, may I remind you, my fucking year and a half spent kissing government ass to get the funding for this little jaunt. I'll be damned if I'll rot on a beach while someone else oversees the results of my work!"

His head rocked back and to one side. Not used to outbursts like that from me, I supposed; for that matter, neither was I. "Lenara, the Symbiosis Commission -– "

"Has no jurisdiction over the Science Ministry."

"I realize that, but they still have approval for public domain funding allocated to Ministry projects."

"Which I've just received. Credit transfer went through early this morning."

"I see." A cool pause. "Thank you for informing me."

I felt a shiver of guilt. His stake in this mission was nearly as big as mine, after all, and if the Commission had refused... "I'm sorry, Hanor, I should have told you right away. But the fiduciary subcommittee were in session well into the night, and -– "

"Lenara. It's all right. I just want to make sure you know what you're doing."

"Hey, I'm a big girl. And a very old worm. You'd think that after twelve hundred years and over twenty lifetimes the universe would be simply crawling with my former lovers and family members, but I've somehow managed to avoid stepping on them until now."

Hanor smiled tightly; he never did quite appreciate my sense of humor. But the set of his mouth relaxed by degrees, and at last he eased back into a normal position in his chair. "Of course. It just seems as though you've spent an awful lot of time and thought justifying how insignificant this meeting will be."

Touché. "I can handle it. Trust me."

After some comparatively pedestrian conversation during which we hashed out a few administrative details, Hanor signed off. I checked my transmission queue for messages. There was only one, an official communiqué from the Commission stating that Bejal had been recalled from his teaching post at Taroonin University and assigned to my team. "I am sure you will agree, Dr. Kahn," said Legislator Mardel, a balding, pinch-mouthed man who had been one of the more vocal dissenters against my petition, "that the mission will benefit from Dr. Otner's expertise."

Expertise in handholding, maybe. They knew perfectly well Bejal's field was xenomicrobiology, not temporal wave-particle energy dynamic theory. What were they thinking? He would be qualified only for tasks that could be handled just as well or better by a specially trained tech. Too bright not to know why he was there, he would feel out of place, once again eclipsed by his sister. But there was nothing to be done about it, and really, it would be nice to spend some time with him; we seldom saw one another these days.

So I would have my shadow, but I would be allowed to go, and that was the important thing.