4

Narayan emerged from the tent shortly after the sun had risen, rubbing her neck and looking uncomfortable. Bashir beckoned her over to the fire, which was still burning low, and got her to sit in front of him. She put her thermal jacket on the ground and sat cross-legged on it.

"I'm just going to have a look at your neck again," he told her. "Can you take off your uniform jacket?"

She complied without comment, setting the jacket over her legs. Bashir prodded her neck, frowning to himself. No wonder she had looked stiff; her muscles had tightened up during the night.

"I can do some massage to help loosen you up," he said.

"All right," she agreed.

"You'll have to take off your necklace again."

She unhooked the chain, holding it delicately in her fingers. Bashir set to work, taking care not to push too hard. He was used to O'Brien's shoulder injury and knew what the chief could take, but not what Narayan could handle.

"What is that necklace?", he asked.

She held it up for him to see. On the thin silver chain were three small silver circles. The two smallest ones were on either side of the large one, held to the center circle with delicate silver links. There were inscriptions of some sort on all three circles.

"That's beautiful," Bashir said. "What is it?"

"Lionus in the middle," Narayan replied. "And the two moons, Panteris and Tigris."

Bashir smiled.

"Whoever named that system must have liked cats."

"A bit too much," Narayan agreed. She paused. "My father made this for me. He gave it to me on my tenth birthday."

"It's beautiful work. Do your parents still live on Lionus?"

"No," Narayan said flatly. "They're dead."

Bashir winced, grateful that she could not see him, and felt instantly guilty.

"I'm so sorry," he said.

"You didn't know," she replied. "Tell me about where you come from," she added, changing the subject quickly, and Bashir was glad for it. He kept up his assault on her neck muscles, feeling for any tensing or shifting that would indicate he was hurting her.

"Well, the station's–"

"No, no, not the station. England."

He chuckled.

"I haven't lived there in so long… It isn't like home to me anymore. The station's my home now. I don't have much reason for going to Earth anymore."

Narayan shifted her shoulder slightly.

"No family there?", she asked.

"Well, my parents still live there, but almost all of my friends have moved on. And I've never really had a good relationship with my parents. We don't have much to say to each other."

Narayan pulled herself free from his hands and half-turned so she could see him. There was shock written all over her face, and anger.

"But they're still alive?", she asked.

"Well, yes–"

"Do you know what I would give to speak to my parents just one more time? How can you waste your time with them on some small differences instead of paying attention to the important things? They're your parents!"

Bashir stared at her in shock, too, and then Narayan shook her head.

"I'm sorry, sir, I'm sorry. I did not mean to say that. I was very close to my parents and have troubles understanding when other people aren't."

Bashir nodded, still shocked at her outburst. It was the first time she'd shown any sort of emotional distress. He hadn't been expecting that, and certainly hadn't been expecting to be over something in his personal life. But he found himself unable to be angry at her; she had lost her parents and had no idea what it was like to live knowing she hadn't been born good enough for them.

He remembered the look on his mother's face when she had first seen him on DS9, though, and couldn't shake it from his memory. His traitor mind told him that wasn't the expression of someone who looked down at him, but someone who loved him and missed him…

Abruptly, Bashir shook his head to clear it. Things were somewhat better with his parents now, but there was always the suspicion at the back of his mind that what they had done was for themselves, not for him. He hadn't been perfect.

"It's all right," he finally managed. "And no, no other close family on Earth. I'm an only child."

She nodded, standing up and shaking her uniform jacket before slipping it back on, then putting the necklace back around her neck.

"What about you? Any siblings?"

"Not anymore," she replied in a voice that told him not to ask anymore questions. He wondered what had prompted him to ask that in the first place; she was obviously not fond of talking about her family. For different reasons than he.

"I'm sorry," he said again.

Narayan shook her head.

"It was a long time ago, sir, and I apologize again for my outburst. It was uncalled for."

Bashir nodded to accept her apology, but wondered if her anger had been uncalled for. Maybe he was so used to demonizing his parents that he didn't see any other way of treating them… He shook that thought from his head; it was unnecessary here.

"Let's have breakfast then get moving," Narayan said. "If we can do average twenty kilometers a day, like we did yesterday, we'll only be out here for ten days."

Bashir nodded and joined her in preparing their uninspired breakfast.

The day went by much as the previous one hand, but with slightly harder terrain. They covered less ground, only seventeen kilometers before Narayan called a halt and they set up camp, this time much more quickly. Sitting around the fire, Bashir had cast about for topics that would be safe, and found himself talking about Bajor.

"I hear it's extremely beautiful," Narayan said, and there was a light in her eyes, one he had not seen in her before.

"It is," he agreed. "It's– well, it's beyond words. Even with the effects of the occupation, it's just such a stunning place. It has almost every non-Bajoran on the station enraptured."

"How many times have you been there?", Narayan asked.

"Several," Bashir replied, "But I've yet to have real shore leave there. I'm usually there for work related reasons, but I've always managed to find a few hours a day to enjoy it. I take it you've never been there?"

"No," Narayan said wistfully. "But there's a Bajoran doctor serving on my ship. He talks about it all the time, and he's shown me pictures. I'd love to go one day, to see one of their monasteries. I can just imagine how peaceful it would be." She glanced around, smirking slightly, and Bashir realized she was starting to loosen up somewhat. "Like this place, but without the added bonus of being stranded."

He chuckled, although it wasn't really heartfelt, and he didn't think her remark was, either. They had to make the best of it, but if she was feeling what he was, then she was tense and uncomfortable on this unknown world.

"What ship are you on?", he asked, realizing he hadn't asked her that yet.

"The Sir John A. MacDonald," she replied.

Bashir gave her a quizzical look.

"Who in the world is that?", he asked.

"My first question, too. Canada's first Prime Minister. It's a long name. Most of the crew just refers to it as the Sir John."

"Do you think they'll be looking for you by now?", he asked.

"They would have to be. They haven't heard from us in about seven days now, and we're supposed to check in every twenty-four hours, even if it's just by automated update. But I don't know how far we are from the rendezvous point, or how long it might take them to find this planet." She sighed, looking up at the sky, which was darkening from violet to a deep blue-purple. "I suppose we'll just have to be patient."

Bashir nodded. He knew they had no other choice, but there were times he felt so trapped here, with the future so uncertain.

"I'd better turn in," he said, and she nodded, bidding him good night. He slept well, then took over the watch from her, sitting alone in the cold darkness until dawn. The new day was colder than it had been yet, with clouds covering the sun, hanging low and threatening. Narayan eyed them warily as they packed up their tiny camp.

"We should try and make the best time we can," she said. "We might be in for some rain."

By early afternoon, the cloud cover had broken up somewhat, so that the sun burst through occasionally. This day was particularly slow going, as they were walking along a narrow stretch of the river which forced them into the forest.

Bashir halted suddenly, looking around. Narayan, who had been behind him, caught up to him, looking at him quizzically.

"What is it?", she asked.

"Shh," he said, holding up one hand, then: "Do you hear that?"

She glanced in the direction he was looking, then frowned.

"A high pitched buzzing? But intermittent?"

"Exactly," Bashir replied, pulling out his tricorder. He scanned the area quickly, then pointed ahead of him. "There. About a hundred meters. Some sort of signaling device."

They hurried through the underbrush, Bashir in the lead, following his tricoder's signals. They came to a large clearing, obviously artificial, in which a cylindrical device of some sort was surrounded by a chain-link fence. His tricorder told him it was also protected by a force field.

It was the first sign of intelligent life they'd seen.

"It's emitting some sort of beacon," Bashir said, approaching the fence, looking at the large cylindrical object housed behind it.

"Like a pulse," Narayan said.

Bashir nodded.

"I can't tell if it's a message, or just a standard beacon," he told her, glancing once more at the tricorder readings. Then he looked up at her. "But if we could get through the force field, we might be able to reconfigure the frequency to put out a low amplitude distress signal. It might help any Federation ships looking for us."

"I think that would be a bad idea," Narayan said.

"Why?", Bashir asked.

"I think it's a path finder. A standard position marker. Pilots used to use them on Earth to help them find airports; I remember reading that in my history of aviation class."

The pulse's cycle increased suddenly, although it remained just as difficult to hear.

"Look!", Narayan exclaimed, pointing toward the sky, back in the direction they had come. Bashir didn't see what she was pointing at for a moment, then caught it. An aerial vehicle was passing over them, too high to make out much of its features, but it was leaving no trail behind it. Bashir judged it was about two thousand meters above them, but it appeared to be descending. As it vanished from their view, the cylinder's pulse returned to its previous rhythm.

"I think you were right," Bashir said.

Narayan nodded.

"We can't damage a path finder beacon, especially not one in the mountains. But at least we know that now they have flight, whoever they are. That might bode well for us."

Bashir certainly hope so. Feeling slightly disappointed about it, he turned his back on the beacon and they set off again. He understood the logic of leaving it as it was, but it was frustrating to let such a good chance slip by.

Better some inconvenience to us than a shuttle crash, he thought.

As the afternoon wore on, the clouds blew over the sun again, and it began to drizzle. Bashir and Narayan pulled up the hoods on their thermal jackets and put on their gloves. They kept going through the grey, dreary daylight hours, emerging finally to walk on a rocky shore of the river for a few kilometers before climbing back up into the forest. It began to rain harder as evening approached and Bashir knew that despite the thermal clothing, they were in for a wet, cold night. Nonetheless, they pushed on, wanting to get as far as they could. Some time after Bashir had grown immune to the damp monotony, Narayan broke their pace.

"Doctor, look!", she exclaimed. He turned to see where she was pointing, and looked further into the trees. There was the ruins of a stone structure not twenty meters from them. Leaving the soggy game trail on which they had been walking for the past half hour, they both hurried through the sopping underbrush toward the ruins.

It appeared to have been a house or a cabin at one point. It was made entirely out of stone, although most of the rocks which had been carefully placed to make the walls had fallen and broken. One arc of the wall remained, and part of two inner walls that divided off a room in that area. The roof was completely gone, but Narayan pulled out the tarp.

"I have an idea," she said.

They spent fifteen minutes of hard work securing the tarp to what was left of the wall, propping up the front with a thin tree trunk which they had cut down and forced into the ground. This would give the tarp an angle, so that the rain slid off instead of pooling and later splashing down on them.

"It will keep us mostly dry," Narayan said. "But I don't think we'll have a fire."

"Rocks," Bashir replied. "Let's gather some of these stones. We can use our phasers to heat them."

She nodded and they gathered a healthy pile of stones, putting it close to the house wall. Beneath the tarp, in the shelter of the three remaining walls, it was fairly dry, and better once they had moved all the fallen leaves aside. Those had protected the ground from getting wet, so, although the ground was cold, it was dry. Their thermal clothing helped keep them dry, too, and warm.

"It looks like it's just rations tonight," Narayan commented, digging some from her pack as Bashir fired his phaser at the rocks. The heat they gave off was welcome, and he was so glad to have it that he didn't particularly mind the tasteless rations he had to eat.

"I know this isn't the best situation, but we're going to need to conserve heat," he said, pulling out the blankets, layering them one on top of the other. "Come on." He slung the blankets around his shoulders and hers. Narayan hesitated, then gave in, sitting against him, pulling the blankets close to her body.

"I can take first watch tonight if you'd like," he offered.

"It's all right," she replied. "I'm not that tired yet, and it's more efficient to keep up the pattern we already have. We don't need our bodies becoming confused."

Bashir nodded, but did not feel tired enough, either, to fall asleep yet. He watched the rocks, feeling the warmth on his face.

"Tell me about Lionus," he said suddenly. Once the request was out, he regretted it, but Narayan didn't tense or seem angry.

"What would you like to know?", she asked.

"Everything. Anything. Something to take my mind off this miserable rain."

To his utter surprise, she laughed.

"Well, when it was settled, there were ten thousand of us. We lived closer to the equator, although it's smaller than Earth, so it wasn't as tropical. Not like this though," she added, and Bashir saw her breath misting in the air. "Mind you, we lived on a savannah, not in the mountains."

"But you still learned survival skills there."

"Of course. You can't live in a colony and not know how to survive in the wilderness. By the time I was five, I could read the stars well enough to find my bearings, and I knew which plants I could eat and couldn't, and how to avoid predatory animals."

"Sounds like an education in itself. Ten thousand people. That must have been quite a shock going to Earth to attend the Academy."

"I lived on Mars before that," she replied. "It helped the adjustment."

Bashir felt there was something she was leaving out, but didn't press.

"Going from Earth to DS9 must have been a big adjustment, too," she pointed out.

"I wanted to go," he replied. "I wanted to get away, to see what we on Earth consider the frontier. I learned very quickly not to think of it that way. After all, to the Bajorans, it's not the frontier but the center of things. I think I offended the station's first officer, Major Kira, when I made a comment about the frontier."

"Is he or she Bajoran?"

"She. Yes, she is."

"Why did you become a doctor?"

"Because they used to scare me, but at some point, I realized I wanted to help people and I wanted to know what doctors knew. Why did you become a pilot?"

"I like to control things. I was always very skilled with piloting; it used to drive my parents crazy. I was flying colony shuttles, not with permission, of course, by the time I was eight. I used to get in a lot of trouble over that."

He nodded, staring out into the darkness. Narayan shifted, taking the phaser and reheating the rocks.

"My parents died when I was eleven," she said suddenly, not looking at him. "My sisters, too. They were both younger than me. There was an accident, an explosion. Twenty-three people died. I was away that day, at a training class. One of the colonists was a retired Starfleet captain and held training courses for children interested in going to the Academy."

"I'm sorry," Bashir said quietly.

"It was a long time ago," she replied, but he could hear in her voice that it could have been yesterday. And now she had two dead crewmates to bring up those painful memories. No wonder she had snapped at him the day before. He could scarcely blame her for being upset, for grieving. He'd become so used to her equanimity that it had been a surprise to find out she could feel emotionally off balance.

She moved again and the spell was broken. Bashir stared at the rocks for a few minutes longer, his eyelids beginning to droop.

"You can go to sleep, sir," she said.

"You can call me Julian," he muttered in reply. "I don't think we really need to stand on rank here."

"Julian, then," she said, and he heard some warmth in her voice. He closed his eyes and sleep was not long in coming, for which he was grateful. He really did not want to think anymore.