Finding himself next to the curve of a high cylindrical wall, Bashir turned back to study the smooth white path that spiralled upward from the ground, hugging the tower's edge as if to strangle the life from the structure of stone and metal. "I was hoping we would have been inside by now."
"You never saw the scattering field in place around the complex," explained Lauren. "None of us would have made it through."
"Somebody set it up on purpose," Patrick supplied.
Julian noted the expression of each discontented face, and guessed that his own was not at all dissimilar. Why bother with a scattering field? As far as he could tell, there was nothing to warrant such an extreme protective measure.
"There ought to be a lift," he recalled, reaching back into his distant memory "But if we could just find a way inside."
He rested his weight against the exterior of the building, sensing a hard, even pressure on his hands and shoulders, and gazed up as far as his sight would allow. It had seemed a lot steeper, when his legs were much shorter, but his mind lent him vague recollections of a small floating shuttle - one which had carried a father and son to the highest level entrance of the Adigeon's clinic.
So, why weren't the transports still running? With no clear perspective of the uppermost storeys, anticipating another long ascent only sharpened the ache that had forced its way between his joints.
Breaking away from the rest of the group, Patrick waddled in an upward arc - keeping less than half a metre from the tower's outer perimeter. He rested one hand against it and tilted back his head. "There's a door," he announced.
Small, metallic blue, and a full storey above the level of the older man's eyes. "It won't work," said Julian, still too tired for his voice to carry beyond the circle of Human visitors. The day would cool in just a few more hours - and when it did, the people of the city would emerge. Five unauthorised aliens were sure to attract attention. They would not be free of the afternoon crowds for long. Almost certainly, without enough time to find their way through the old hospital's only point of entry.
Lauren's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"
Bashir stared at her, blinking through heavy eyelids, continuing his fight to prevent them from closing entirely. The door to the old hospital was so definitely closed that he found himself wondering when it had ever been opened.
"How much do you remember from when you were a boy?" Something that O'Brien had said to him, the words coming back as though his friend were speaking through the barrier of time.
"I'm not sure I…" Bashir leaned back, head shaking - thinking hard. The frown upon his face was quiet and tense, but he had forced his gaze to remain upon the communication screen. They didn't have a lot of time. He would have to break their subspace link before long - before it was detected. But then, he was confused.
"It was hot outside," he managed to recall. "Forty two point seven degrees on the day we left. There weren't a lot of people there, but the ones we saw were… friendly enough. For the most part."
Because my father had left me alone all night. With those hospital sounds of footsteps and whispered voices, and everything that was happening to me… Too scared even to call out his name.
"Chief, what are you getting at?"
"I think I might have found out why you couldn't get onto the Adigeons' population register," O'Brien explained. "The locals all have a personal code. To get into buildings. Access computers. That sort of thing. The whole system's hooked up to some kind of central interface to stop people from sneaking into places where the planetary officials haven't authorised them to be. Pretty sophisticated stuff really. The kind of thing Odo would just love to have round here."
"How did you know about that?" Now that he thought about it, there was some distant memory - his father may have received, and used, a temporary version of this same eight digit code.
O'Brien snorted. "It wasn't easy to find, believe me. But I'm far from sure how much it's likely to help."
"You've done plenty, Miles." Silent and thoughtful, Julian shaped his mouth into a heavy smile. "Thank you."
"Security protocols," he explained to Lauren and the others. "Too tight. They wouldn't let us enter."
Jack snorted. "So? We can bypass whatever locking mechanism they have on their doors. How complicated can it be?"
"Wouldn't get in soon enough to do us any good," Lauren commented, easily translating the thoughts behind Julian's exhausted, half-closed eyes.
And you can't get up that far. Not any more. He looked around him to the opposite side of a broad dividing street. Admit it - you don't have the strength.
"There." He pointed to a doorway at the other side of the street, smooth in appearance from the position in which he sat, russet in hue, and with sunlight casting diagonal ripples of yellow-orange from the upper left-hand corner. Networks of bridges and covered walkways branched from building to building like the branches of some ancient, tangled tree. Unusual, he thought, to find another entry point so close to level ground. But if the Chief's information had told him true…
"You see that other building, with the red door? We might be able to get through there. Ask for directions."
He gripped the nearest solid surface with the fingertips of his tense right hand, and clenched it against the sharp, pocked, scratchy edge of the wall. "Help me… Help me up."
It was a trick that he had learned from simple experience - from several others, on several different occasions. At times he had even been grateful to the intruder, such as the Maquis operative who had helped them free Miles from that Cardassian prison. But more recent break-ins, he recalled, had only led to trouble. This would not.
With the lights down almost to nothing, he and his companions could remain entirely invisible - until the moment when they chose to be revealed. In the darkened room, back-up systems cast dim pools of colour over walls and other surfaces. Each reflected glow was weaker than a whisper.
There had been other things to do of course. Disable the lighting controls so that only a command from Patrick could bring them back online; create an electromagnetic field around the immediate vicinity that would render scanners temporarily useless… "What sort of people put more security on their doors than on their primary system controls?" Jack had wondered aloud. But nothing they did would have any effect beyond this room.
Bashir and the others had found the room empty, but the door itself had yielded surprisingly easily to their efforts. It was not like the higher storeys. Few of the locals ventured so close to the ground, except on festival days. Few would have bothered with this room - but the name of one resounded hopefully in Julian's memory.
Jack had sworn that this was the darkest corner in the small and moderately cluttered space. And this has to work, thought Julian. He shivered, focusing hard to keep whatever detail he could within his sights, struggling to believe that it was a drop in the temperature that had caused his teeth to chatter. The indoor environment had been a relief, at first. But environmental systems were too inextricably connected to the lighting controls, and Julian had already begun to sense a chill in the air.
"Let me do the talking," he whispered instinctively. He looked back at the faces of his companions. Sarina's was closest, the first to draw Julian's attention. Her own gaze had shifted towards him, distracted - but with the same keen air of observation as when she had been studying the detail of the nearest walls.
"Why?" Jack's eyes flashed with a darkly piercing scowl. "So you can go off on your own, not have to share the credit with any of us?"
"This has nothing to do with credit." Was that exasperation Bashir had sensed in his own voice? Bone-deep exhaustion? Or both?
Jack's response was sharp and demanding. "Then what, hm? Hm?"
"Quiet." insisted Lauren.
Last to hear what had prompted her call for taciturnity, Bashir withdrew to where his companions were hidden in the darkness. A tiny sound from beyond the doors preceded their opening, with a soft buzz of artificial light coming inward from the hall. Somebody else was entering the room.
The figure stopped in front of the vanishing outer lights, visible only by the slight, rhythmic flicker of respiration, and by the movement of his large, oil-black eyes as he took a moment to survey the darkness before him. No tricorder, noted Bashir. Whatever equipment the stranger carried remained tucked closely into the belt at his waist. As if he knew already that it would not be of any use.
Meagre light passing like a skimmer over the contours of his skin and clothes, the tall Adigeon strode towards the largest of four main consoles. The glow of its screen half illuminated his profile as a pair of thin, pale white hands tapped uselessly at its controls.
Still following the shadows with one hand raised to assure himself of the presence of supporting furniture, Bashir stepped into the open.
"Don't move," he told the office's other occupant. "We're not here to hurt you, or steal from you. We can bring the lights back up at any time. But before we do, I need for you to promise. Don't tell any others that you saw us here. At least, not yet."
"Very well," said the stranger, with only the barest flicker of hesitation. "I give you my word."
The sound of computers invaded the silence, until this too was interrupted by a whispered query from Patrick. "Can we get the lights back now?"
Oh. Yes - the lights…
Bashir could find no remaining objections to the idea, but still he paused before finally breaking away from a lapse in concentration. Carefully adjusting his balance, gripping with his toes even though he knew this would make little difference if he should slip, he nodded. He stepped forward slowly as the surrounding space returned to a level of illumination only slightly dimmer than the outside gleam of sunshine.
"Humans." The half-whispered acknowledgment gave no sign of surprise. "How have I convinced you that my promise will be kept?"
"Because I understand what promises mean to your people." This man would not break his word. Once given, even a Klingon was not so tightly bound by such an oath.
They were as delicate as he remembered, these Adigeons. This man's limbs were thin and elongated, every joint sharply visible beneath his pale, tight skin. Inky lines branched across the length of his body. A web of veins seemed to slide over his arms and legs - only mildly obscured by the translucent epidermal layer stretched across their surface.
"Are you Naron?"
Whatever colour was in the man's pale face had shifted towards a shade of yellow-white, as he turned and stepped around, until he was directly facing the alien intruders. He stepped forward again, black eyes watching the face of his guest. This much, Bashir had never forgotten. The eyes of the planet's natives were hugely dark, and almost constantly gleaming with a film of sticky moisture.
The man had stopped as though waiting for his visitor to recognise some undetermined non-verbal cue. Whatever answer there had been to see was either beyond the visible spectrum, or too slight for detection by Human eyes.
Finally ending the journey towards a decisive resolution, the Adigeon spoke. "Yes."