Part IX, Act III: Subversive Rights

At first, Julian saw only the wall of the dome, segments bolted together with larger versions of the rivets that held the bulkhead plates inside the barracks. Then as Ikat'ika hustled him around the back of the administration pod, he saw the airlock. It was large: a modular tritanium mass four metres across. Unlike those on DS9, with their circular shape and cogwheel doors, this one was square. There was a smaller door in it, too — a curious design, and one that made Julian uneasy because it presented a potential weakness in the seal. His instinct was to hang back, even though that was absurd: if a flaw in the airlock caused a breach of the dome, no one within would have a fighting chance at survival whether they were standing next to the exit or tucked up in their barracks on the far side of the atrium. But Ikat'ika compelled him forward, moving with purpose to the control panel in the frame of the larger door. He tapped three of the Dominion glyphs, and the smaller door slid open, retracting inside of the larger.

There was a cold draft as the seal was broken: the corridor of the airlock had a positive pressure differential. Julian was hauled over the threshold before he could take in anything more about the vaulted tubular passage, and a moment later the door closed behind them, cutting them off from the rest of the dome.

The airlock was about thirty metres long, terminating in a blast door made to the same dimensions as the one at their back. Julian was disappointed to see it was solid metal, without windows. He would have liked a glimpse of the stars. He supposed he was also spared the sight of the barren rock of the asteroid, but he couldn't really bring himself to believe he would have minded that. He missed the stars. They were impossible to see through the scratched and discoloured windows set high in the dome behind: all that he could make out through them was the vague blackness of space.

Four doors of the standard size and design opened off the airlock, two on each wall. Julian eyed them uneasily. That was an unconventional design, and he didn't trust it. Whatever this area of the prison was meant for, it clearly wasn't a very secure environment. He felt very exposed here, with only that towering door between him and the vacuum without. It was an irrational fear, especially for a man accustomed to life on a space station, but that made it no less real.

It was much colder in this corridor than it was in the dome. Julian thought it might be even colder than the atrium had been during orbital night. Evidently the Vorta saw little purpose lavishing life support resources on this section of the prison. As Ikat'ika compelled him past the first pair of doors, Julian stole a glance through the windows of the one on his right. Stacks of packing containers were lined up in a precise grid within. It seemed he had found the cargo bays.

The second door on the left was the one Ikat'ika wanted. He smacked the panel to open it, and again there was a hiss as the pressure between the two spaces equalized. At least Julian knew now that the auxiliary rooms were airtight. Logic demanded they would have to be, but all the same, it was good to have proof.

In this room there were more crates, two long steel tables, and a knee-high cubic block with a Dominion computer pylon bolted to the floor beside it. On the block sat an enormous cylindrical drum. A long pipe-handle protruded from its top, which fell just below elbow height. Overhead was a suspended nozzle connected to a pipe that ran into the far corner, where two huge cisterns occupied the back wall. Another pipe ran along the right-hand wall, over hanging a trough. Several spigots, alarmingly low-tech, protruded from it. There were seepage stains on the wall behind each one. Parallel to the trough, positioned so that a person standing in the gap between could reach both it and the spigots with ease, stood another table. In neat ranks of nine, battered metal canteens awaited filling.

Julian had been brought to the prison kitchen.

At first he thought the place was deserted. The door slammed shut, and Ikat'ika looked around as if appraising an unfamiliar battlefield.

"Arat'zuma!" he barked. "Present yourself."

From behind the double row of cargo containers, stacked three high, another Jem'Hadar appeared. Julian recognized him as the one who routinely dished up the prisoners' mush at ration call. He looked skittish and wary, and Julian's first thought was to check the tube running between his breastplate and his throat. The Ketracel White was flowing smoothly, with only a few small pockets of vacuum appearing like tiny bubbles in the line. He had received his new vial.

Ikat'ika released Julian's arm and gave him a cursory shove between the shoulder-blades. He lurched forward awkwardly, looking back in perplexity. The First was glaring at him coldly.

"Attend him," he commanded. To his subordinate, he said; "Show the human your injury."

Arat'zuma did not seem very happy with this idea, but neither could he disobey his First. Reluctantly but without delay, he raised his left arm, holding out his hand for Julian to see.

Four of the fingers were crooked, deformed in some places near the joint, and in others squarely in the middle of a phalangeal bone. The palm was worryingly crimped, and the whole appendage was swollen. Julian forgot his unease and the fact that he was standing between two of his captors. He hurried to the man's side and took hold of his forearm, supporting it with his left hand while his right moved to hover just above the battered knuckles.

"What happened?" he asked, guiding his patient a half-step to the left so that the grid of uneven grey lighting fell more advantageously on the affected area. The hand had obviously been crushed, and at least a couple of hours ago at that. There was already extensive bruising, and the few intact knuckles were badly inflamed.

Arat'zuma looked sharply up at Ikat'ika. It was the First who answered, sternly. "That is not your concern, human. We had an agreement. You will ask no questions. You will treat this man."

"Of course I'll treat this man," Julian said, imprudently exasperated. He didn't need to be commanded to do what any ethical physician would feel compelled to do. "But asking questions is part of a medical examination. If I don't know what happened, I can't know how best to help him."

"You will help him by repairing his hand," said Ikat'ika coldly. "The cause of the injury is irrelevant."

Julian tore his eyes from the crumpled digits to glare at the First, opening his mouth to retort. Ikat'ika's expression stopped him. He did not look like a concerned commander or a patient's next-of-kin. He looked like an executioner waiting for an excuse to kick the platform out from under the condemned man in the noose. His eyes were those of a killer, and Julian was the only person in the room he might feel compelled to kill.

His courage flagged a little, and he lost the will to argue. "Can you at least tell me," he said more respectfully; "if I'm looking at a combat injury, or some kind of accident?"

The two Jem'Hadar exchanged an eloquent but alien look. They clearly understood one another, but even with his highly attuned perception and unnaturally keen eyes, Julian couldn't interpret what passed between them. When at last Arat'zuma spoke, it was with the reticence of a teenager admitting to adventurous sexual activity.

"It is not a combat injury," he muttered.

Ikat'ika made a noise of disgust, and took three broad strides nearer. "Examine him!" he barked at Julian. "Is the hand broken?"

It was broken, all right. Julian just couldn't venture a guess as to how many times. "I need an imaging scanner to identify the fractures," he said. "If I try to palpate for them, he'll be in agony."

"I have no scanner," said Ikat'ika. "Use your hands, as you do with the prisoners."

"I don't do that by choice," Julian said tightly. "It's very painful for them, and it's considerably less precise. There are thirty-two bones in the Jem'Hadar hand. If I start digging around with my thumbs—"

"The Jem'Hadar do not feel pain," Arat'zuma barked crisply. "The Vorta has said so on many occasions."

Julian looked at him, pity and disgust warring within him. One was directed at the patient before him, and the other at Deyos. Still, he knew both were showing in his eyes and filtering into his voice as he looked at the guard and said quietly; "You know that's not true."

"Why do you think we waited until the fresh allotment of White, human?" asked Ikat'ika contemptuously. "He is more resilient to pain now than at any other time in a day. Now do it, or you are of no use to me."

The underlying threat there was clear. Julian had been spared the attention of the Second because Ikat'ika had work for him. If he refused to do that work, there was no reason not to turn him over after all.

It was an effective threat, but it was also unnecessary. Julian had to help this Jem'Hadar, and not only because he was in pain. If he didn't find a way to keep the man on his feet and functioning as a competent part of his unit, Julian knew Arat'zuma would be executed. It was not only the Jem'Hadar philosophy, but seemed to be something Deyos found satisfaction in doing. That was Julian's guess, anyhow. It would explain why the First was so reluctant to go to the Vorta with his men's injuries, even though the Vorta presumably kept a medkit for precisely such reasons. This was not a serious injury: with a basic level of competence and the proper tools, it could be put right in under an hour. But if Deyos was not inclined to provide the latter and did not have the former (which Julian was beginning to suspect was the case), his scorn for the lives in his custody might well make execution seem the preferable option. Weighed against that, the pain of palpation was a less horrifying alternative.

"He should at least sit down," said Julian. "He needs to be still while I do it, or we'll do more damage." He looked around, but there were no benches or stools. The tables might work in a pinch, but they were much taller than the ones in the barracks, and he didn't much want to make the man with the broken hand climb them.

Ikat'ika seemed to know what he was thinking. He marched to the wall of crates, and hauled one down from the top row. It was clearly heavy, evident from the speed of its descent and from the loud thunk as it hit the floor, but Ikat'ika moved it effortlessly. He stepped back like a soldier on parade, and nodded curtly at the box. "Sit," he said sternly.

Arat'zuma obeyed, Julian withdrawing his hands carefully to allow him to do so. Like the young one who had been bitten by Amcet, he didn't seem to know quite how to sit. He moved as if executing a series of movements from a schematic, stiffly and warily. Once he was down, however, he clearly felt some relief. He shifted into a more comfortable stance, legs broadly spraddled, and looked up at his First for approval.

Ikat'ika grunted noncommittally, and took up a sentry's pose between his subordinate and the door. "Be quick," he said to Julian. "There is less than one hour until curfew."

Julian nodded once, but he was already positioning himself beside his patient. "This is going to hurt," he said. "If you need to scream, that's all right. I wish I had something to give you for the—"

"Do not coddle me, human," said Arat'zuma scornfully. "The White is all I need, and the Jem'Hadar do not 'scream'. In combat we have been known to roar to strike terror into the hearts of our enemies, but that is all."

Julian couldn't help a shadow of irony as he said, "Well, if you need to roar, then, go ahead and strike terror into my heart."

That earned him a look of utmost loathing, but the guard did not resist as Julian stabilized his forearm, took hold of his hand near the base of his thumb, and began his examination.

(fade)

Arat'zuma did not roar, or scream, or make any sound at all, but by the time Julian carefully eased his arm down onto his thigh, so that the ravaged hand could curl loosely over the ball of his knee, his skin was clammy, his breathing ragged, and his steely eyes glazed with anguish. The necessity of the proceedings did little to ease Julian's visceral nausea at being forced to cause such pain in the name of healing. The very worst of what he'd been compelled to do in order to help General Martok paled next to this. Even working as quickly as he could, he had needed almost fifteen minutes to assess the full extent of the damage.

He still could not guess what had caused the trauma. He didn't think it could be a mere gravity-propelled impact, like a falling crate. It looked more like the Jem'Hadar's hand and been caught between two high-powered rollers and dragged into some kind of mangle. As far as Julian knew, there were no manufacturing facilities in the prison. There was old mining equipment — the ore conveyor, for one, and presumably other detritus either in the dome or across the asteroid at the power plant — but he couldn't imagine why the Jem'Hadar would be messing around with it. Whatever had caused the fractures, it had done so with considerable force applied to both sides of the hand.

Julian's exhaustion was starting to catch up with him. He was still dragged down by the energy required by his healing kidney, and he'd put in a full day's work after Deyos finished with him in the morning. He was now visiting three barracks a day, gathering his data, in addition to keeping an eye on Tain, supervising General Martok's physical therapy, and his work with the conquered combatants in the ring. He'd been awake now for twenty-three hours straight, having failed to find time for a nap today. He stepped back from his patient and caved to the urge to lean against the nearest table. Ikat'ika was watching him intently.

"You've fractured all five of your dorsal metacarpals," Julian said, addressing himself to his patient and demonstrating by drawing his index finger across the back of his own hand. "These three are displaced. The one that supports your index finger is broken clean through, but it's still aligned. The one at the base of your thumb's only cracked. Two of your first set of knuckles are crushed on both sides of the joint, and I suspect avulsion fractures of the other two. There are fourteen phalanges in your hand — the little bones that make up your fingers and thumb. Eight of them are broken. You have seven dislocations. Whatever happened, it's a serious injury."

"Repair it!" Arat'zuma snapped through clenched teeth. He did not meet Julian's eyes, staring past his First at the door instead.

"Tell me what you need, human, and I will bring it," said Ikat'ika. "The Vorta doctor left a fresh cache of bandages, if that is helpful."

Despite his focus on the patient in front of him, Julian felt a distracting burst of avarice. A fresh cache of bandages? Part of him wished idly that he had a bit more of a Ferengi streak; he might have tried to bargain for a few more supplies to replenish his inadequate stock back in the barracks. But that was entirely unethical, of course, and he didn't entertain the thought for more than an incidental instant borne of desperation.

"I can try to bandage it," Julian said. "I'd need splinting materials, too. But if I do, it won't heal properly. The crushed bones can't be set by hand. They'll heal, but they won't heal straight and he'll never regain full dexterity in the joints. Using a kar'takin will be out of the question. He'll be lucky to be able to handle a rifle."

Arat'zuma stiffened, sitting suddenly erect for the first time since Julian's thumb had found the first fracture. He held his head defiantly high. "Then I am useless, First," he said. "Kill me. For the glory of the Founders."

"Waste does not glorify the Founders," spat Ikat'ika. He glared at Julian. "You repaired the Klingon's hand so that he could fight again," he argued.

"General Martok had no broken bones," said Julian. This was technically a dissemination of privileged information, but he knew enough of the warrior's ways by now to understand that he would not object to his captors being told ways he had proved more resilient than they. "It's a completely different kind of injury."

Ikat'ika was clearly displeased, but he made no move to punish the prisoner for bearing unwelcome news. "And what do you require, if you are to preserve the joints?" he demanded.

There was nothing to preserve any more, and it would be a labour of restoration, but Julian knew what the First was asking and he did not quibble over semantics. "If I had a skeletal tractor, an osteogenic stimulator, and a cartilage regenerator, I could repair the bones and stabilize the joints in under an hour. He would have some lingering pain and stiffness, and he'd need to do some exercises for the next ten days, but after that he would have full use of his hand again."

He paused, visualizing the unidentifiable tools he had seen on the day he treated Amcet and the trainee, and then remembering the tool Tiellyn had used on his scapula and cheek. "Deyos has an osteogenic stimulator in his medkit. I don't know what the other tools look like in the Dominion, but it stands to reason he has them as well."

Ikat'ika shook his head dangerously, and Julian prepared himself for the inevitable denial. Instead, the First glared at Arat'zuma and demanded; "Do you have your sidearm?"

The younger Jem'Hadar reached awkwardly under the elbow of his brutalized arm, and pulled the plasma pistol from its holster. The contortion made him grimace, but his healthy fingers curled around it almost hungrily. "Always, First," he answered.

"Good." Ikat'ika moved for the door, pausing with his fingers just over the panel. "Guard the human. I will return."

Julian's mouth gaped with a question he couldn't vocalize over the clatter of the door. Before he could gather his wits, the First was gone. He looked instead at his patient, who was watching him with hard, tormented eyes.

"Do not make trouble, prisoner," he warned. "I will shoot you if you do."

"I thought the Vorta had given orders I'm not to be killed," said Julian quietly.

"The Vorta can only execute me once," said Arat'zuma. "I would rather die for killing you than because I am maimed."

"What if you don't have to die at all?" asked Julian.

The Jem'Hadar thrust his chin out defiantly. "All Jem'Hadar die sooner or later," he said. "For the good of the Dominion."

Julian's eyes were drawn back to the door. "Let's hope in your case it's later," he murmured.

(fade)

The hostile silence of his patient should have been uncomfortable, but now that he had no work to occupy his mind while he waited, Julian was drawn to a greater distraction. He could hear the hiss and trickle of the filtration system inside the first cistern, and the hum of the condenser in the walls. He was almost painfully aware of the pipe and spigots behind his back. He was in the same room as the prison's water filtration system.

Julian supposed he must have known the water wasn't resequenced from its constituent atoms. That would involve a piece of equipment that could be too easily converted into a replicator for more diverse applications. The other option was a system of comprehensive extraction and recycling. Deep Space Nine employed similar infrastructure to recycle its grey water. Runoff from the Cardassian bathing facilities was recovered and reused, as was the condensation produced by the hundreds of breathing, perspiring bodies on the station. Though the resulting fluid was sanitized, purified, and free of any contaminants — in other words, perfectly potable — it was used only for the sinks, the steam baths, and the hydroponics bays. Drinking water, and the water used for medical and experimental applications, was produced by the replicators.

Although the Cardassian system also allowed for recovering water from the slurry in the waste extraction systems, Federation public health standards discouraged such recycling as a first-line option. Miles O'Brien and his team had put a great deal of effort into modifying the system to incorporate the gold standard dematerializers that broke down the biohazardous waste for complete resequencing. Julian had been extremely relieved when these upgrades were completed near the end of Starfleet's first quarter on the station. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time monitoring the quality of the water produced by the Cardassian method, to say nothing of compulsively overseeing the maintenance of the filtration systems. The Federation method was more energy-intensive, but far less likely to precipitate an outbreak of disease in the event of a glitch or a system failure.

It made him feel a little ill to realize that without replicator technology in place, the Dominion would have to recycle every molecule of water produced by the prison population by less sophisticated means. Intellectually, Julian knew that the water harvested from the prisoners' urine and fecal matter had to be just as thoroughly purified (and just as free of pathogens) as any onboard Deep Space Nine — since the prisoners weren't falling dead of cholera or typhoid or hepatitis or enterovirus infections. It still made him uncomfortable to know what he'd been drinking and where it had come from.

It was an irrational feeling. Even the Federation had used such systems on its state-of-the-art vessels at one point in its history. It was probably yet another manifestation of Julian's privileged upbringing in the Alpha Quadrant's great bower of plenty that he even paused to think about it. He wasn't sure whether he ought to be more uncomfortable of this reminder that he had taken so much of his life back home for granted, or by the fact that even thinking about it now, he still wanted to go over to the spigots and drink.

Like his hunger, his thirst was constant. Julian knew the frugal two litres allowed to the prisoners wasn't enough to sustain a human body properly. The base recommendation for a person of his body mass — the mass he'd been the last time he had weighed himself, anyhow: his uniform was hanging more loosely on him now than it had on Meezan IV, and he knew he'd lost weight — was two and a half litres per day at the very minimum. Per day meaning, of course, a twenty-six hour Bajoran day, not the thirty-four hour Dominion equivalent. Taking that into consideration, Julian's ration was approximately seven hundred fifty millilitres less than his body needed and more than a litre and a half short of what he was accustomed to drinking back home. That was without accounting for the addition burden of his lacerated kidney, whatever demands were placed on his body by a diet that contained no fruits or vegetables to provide additional fluid, and the dehydration debt he'd accumulated when he first arrived in the camp.

He had learned how to parcel out his ration over the course of a Dominion Standard Day, but it took a great deal of self-discipline to do it. He was never able to drink his fill when he opened his bottle, nor even to rinse away the dryness in his mouth and the foul taste of his unclean teeth. Julian allowed himself to drink frequently enough to keep his thirst from overwhelming him, but it was a constant baseline discomfort that worsened dreadfully whenever he chanced to think about it. Right now, leaning against a table less than six metres from what in his present circumstances seemed like a limitless supply of water, Julian thought he might surrender his sanity if he had to go without even a minute longer.

He tried to comfort himself with the knowledge that there was water waiting for him in the barracks. He had half a litre left: more or less what he tried to save each day to hold him through the night, the count, and the two or three hours between dismissal and ration call. When he was finished here, he could have a mouthful. It wouldn't satiate him, but it was better than nothing.

But there was water here, in this room. And he couldn't stop thinking about it. Impossible, really, while he could hear it trickling and bubbling inside the cisterns.

Julian launched himself up off the table, impelled to take three brisk steps by an unbearable wave of agitation. He might have launched into a full-fledged pacing trajectory, but Arat'zuma sat up straighter, suddenly wary, and pointed the plasma weapon at him.

"Be still, prisoner!" he barked. Julian froze. The guard glowered at him. "Return to your place. Do not move!"

"I just…" Julian began, then realized there was no point in explaining that he'd felt desperate to take some kind of action to keep from dwelling on impossible cravings. The Jem'Hadar might understand such yearnings, if couched in comparisons to their need for the White, but they would have no sympathy.

"Just?" challenged Arat'zuma.

Julian decided he had little to lose. It could not hurt to ask the question. This man needed him alive if he was to have any hope of getting his hand treated. He couldn't afford to execute him for asking a simple question.

"If I go over there," Julian said, pointing at the trough and the spigots; "and get a drink of water, will you shoot me?"

The Jem'Hadar's eyes narrowed. "A drink of water," he repeated as if the concept perplexed him.

Julian nodded. Somehow he couldn't meet the guard's eyes. He fixed his gaze on the man's crushed hand instead, below the level of the plasma pistol. He didn't understand why, but he felt an irrational shame at his words. He didn't think he felt embarrassed to show weakness — if weakness it was, to try to fulfil his body's most basic needs. It was something else. It was the humiliation of being forced into a position where he had to ask such a question, where he was at the mercy of another person's whim in his request for what was, after all, a fundamental right.

Adequate clean water was a fundamental right, and Julian had to remember that. Just because he was growing accustomed to having it denied him didn't make that any less true. Even in an age of barbarism, humanity had acknowledged that right. Civilized worlds across the Alpha Quadrant preserved that right. It wasn't for the Dominion to overthrow. They could make him grovel. They could prevent him from drinking. But they couldn't alter the truth.

"I need a drink of water," he said, more firmly now. He still couldn't meet the Jem'Hadar's eyes, but he told himself he didn't have to. "If I go and get one, will you shoot me?"

"The First instructed me to guard you," said Arat'zuma robotically. He hadn't lowered the weapon.

"I won't try to leave the room," Julian tried. "I won't attack you or look for a weapon or make trouble for you. I just want to go over to that wall and have a drink of water. Please."

It hurt his pride to beg anything of his captors, but his thirst seemed all-consuming now. It had been at least a couple of hours since he'd had his last mouthful of water. And if he could drink now, the whole night would be more bearable. The physiological benefits alone surely outweighed the weight of mortification.

Arat'zuma seemed unimpressed. He snorted derisively. "That is a meaningless word," he said. "Why do you Alpha Quadrant lifeforms use it so freely?"

Julian wasn't sure if the Romulans could be said to use it "freely". He supposed Cardassians did. Garak, at least, had exquisite manners when he was in an accommodating mood. He had learned over the last few days of visiting the other barracks that most of the Cardassians responded well to courtesy.

"It's a sign of respect," said Julian softly.

The Jem'Hadar made another noise of disbelief. "You respect me, prisoner? After you have seen me weakened and wounded?"

"I would never let an injury harm my respect for another person," Julian said earnestly.

"I am a Jem'Hadar," said Arat'zuma. "We are your captors. It is fitting that you fear us, and many resent us. How can you respect us?"

"I do fear you," said Julian, still staring resolutely at the crimped fingers and the blackly bruised flesh. "I may even resent you. But everyone is worthy of respect until they prove themselves unworthy. I don't respect your Vorta, but you've given me no reason not to respect you."

"That is not the Order of Things," Arat'zuma muttered uneasily.

"My Order of Things is different from yours," Julian ventured. "That doesn't mean I hold it any less sacred than you do your own ways."

"Sacred…" the Jem'Hadar echoed. He sounded both contemptuous and puzzled. "Another word without meaning."

Julian disagreed, and thought he knew the proper analogy to change the man's mind about that. But he wasn't here to debate philological questions with the Jem'Hadar.

"If you're not going to let me drink," he said heavily; "may I at least sit down on the floor? It's been a long day."

The absurdity of that cliché in this place almost made him laugh. All days here were hellishly long, by design. If his throat hadn't stung or his mouth had felt less like sandpaper, Julian might at least have chuckled. As it was, he felt unequal to the effort. At some point, his gaze had fallen from the Jem'Hadar's hand to the seamless stone floor. He was bone-weary and so tired of going through the endless acrobatics of survival.

"No sitting!" Arat'zuma said sternly. "However, if you require water in order to function, I will allow you to drink."

Julian's head snapped up in startled disbelief. He met the black, glittering eyes and found them locked on him with cold, slightly glazed appraisal. "Thank you," he breathed, before he could reflect that these words, too, probably seemed meaningless to the soldier.

Arat'zuma retracted his grey upper lip in contempt, but the hand holding the plasma pistol was now resting on his thigh. Julian needed no further invitation. He did not run to the trough, but that was only through an extraordinary exertion of will. Once there, he hesitated. Instinct told him to twist the nearest spigot and simply put his mouth under the stream. But he had been hoarding every drop of water for weeks, and the thought of letting any of it fall undrunk — even to be recycled again — was repellent to him. Hurriedly he turned and picked up one of the canteens from the table behind him. The guard stiffened warily at the movement, watching intently, but he spoke no word of castigation and he did not raise his weapon.

Julian put the bottle under the spigot and turned the lever. For an awful instant, nothing happened, and he had time enough to reflect despairingly that there was probably a timer on the flow regulator, so that there was only water in the pipe when the Jem'Hadar were filling the bottles for the ration call. But then there was a rumble under his fingers, and a symphonic gurgle, and water came rushing down into the vessel.

He couldn't bear to wait until the bottle was full. He couldn't drink a whole litre at once anyway, no matter how much he might want to. He was chronically dehydrated. Too much water, too quickly, would make him sick. Julian knew he'd have to pace himself, even though he likely wouldn't have a chance like this again. He turned off the flow and raised the bottle to his lips. He wanted to gulp down all of it in one go, but that would probably make him vomit. Instead, he filled his mouth and let the water sit for a few seconds, settling against the dry, stinging tissues before opening his throat and letting it trickle deliciously down.

He didn't care that the water tasted faintly of sulphur and the benign mineral deposits in the ill-maintained pipes. He didn't care that at least a portion of it had almost certainly been salvaged from the waste reclamation units. He didn't care that no sentient being should ever be forced to be this grateful for a mouthful of life-giving fluid. Julian savoured the first draught. Then he took a somewhat less ambitious mouthful, and savoured that, too.

Water was glorious.

Eventually, he became aware that Arat'zuma was still watching him, both curiosity and contempt very evident upon his craggy face. Julian stole a glance over his shoulder, but he didn't really care what kind of spectacle he made. He was thirsty, and his body was in desperate need, and he drank.

(fade)