Chapter 8

Odo knew Kira would be in at the shrine of the Prophets. When she couldn't sleep, or had things on her mind, she would be either in Ops or at the shrine on the Promenade. From everything that had happened and been said tonight, he knew that this time it would be the shrine.

Nobody intercepted him on the Promenade. It was quiet at this time of night, but he felt eyes on him as he made his way past dark and silent shops. Even Quark's was closed and locked.

The shrine was as empty and shadowed as the Promenade, except for the eternal lamps on either side of the mandala of the Prophets. Kira stood before the mandala, stared intently at it as if expecting it to answer whatever unspoken questions were in her mind. She'd changed back into the blue-gray uniform that he still had to think twice about.

She turned and looked at him, searching his features, and he could see that she knew. "Must you go?" she asked softly.

"You know I have to," Odo responded, joining her. "You didn't hear them, Nerys. Their anger, their bitterness - they need to see another way. Otherwise, they could gather the Jem'Hadar, other soldiers. They could become a threat ... and that would mean their destruction."

"Yes, I suspect it would," she replied. "But...."

"But what?"

"Odo, it doesn't feel fair. You just came back."

"I came back for them, Nerys. You came for me because they needed me, and I came for the same reason. And that's why I'm going with them. Because they need me. They need the balance of someone who knows that you..." He reached for her hand. "And other solids, don't need to be their enemies."

"Couldn't you serve them better from here? Protect them better from among the Federation? Even protect them from the Federation if necessary?" The words spilled in a rush as she offered every excuse she could think of in one deep breath. "You could be ... an ambassador - you could speak up for them, to them, for both Links. You could be the ambassador to each of them too, mediate whatever differences they have with each other. And they would know where to find you, you'd be here, between them both...."

His voice sounded raw. "Nerys, please don't make this harder for me. You know I wouldn't leave you again if I didn't believe this was the best thing for the most beings."

She met his gaze steadily for a long moment, still holding his hand, then very slowly and reluctantly nodded.

"Where will you be, Odo?"

"I can't tell you that. For now, they are too afraid - as the Great Link was - for outsiders to know where they have settled. Respect that, please. Hopefully, it will not be for long."

"How can I ... how can we contact you if we need to?"

"It ... it might be better if you didn't. But I'll know where to find you, when it's time."

"When, or if?"

"If I knew the answer to that, I'd give it to you."

After a long moment, she sighed, deeply and unsteadily. He thought he detected the beginning glimmer of tears in her eyes, but she blinked hard. By the time she spoke again, it was gone.

"If you have to go, you have to go," she acknowledged. "But come back when you can. In the meantime, I'll miss you. I'll miss you all over again."

He couldn't ask her to wait. "I don't want you to hurt ... or to ... turn someone away, if you have ... an opportunity. I want you to do what's best for you...."

"I understand." She swallowed hard. "I want you to do what's best for you, too. But you will always be dear to me, and I will never forget you, no matter what happens."

Finally an embrace felt right and necessary. He put his arms around her and pulled her close, so close he could feel her heart beat almost in his own chest, letting himself shape ever so gently to touch every inch of her he could. She returned the hug.

"Will you do something more for me? Will you go and tell them? Tell my offspring?" he whispered.

"Yes," she whispered back, a promise in her voice.

They clung together a moment more. Then:

"Odo, do you remember, the first time you really shaped yourself to share with me what you were? After Laas left before, when you decided to stay?"

"Yes, I remember. It was a ... special evening."

"It was magical." Odo could feel her gulp back a sob. "Share yourself with me again that way. Let me feel you like caressing sunshine and shimmering rainbows on my skin again. Let me see you like dancing light all around me. Let me hear that song of your being that I've never heard anywhere, ever, before then or since you left. I can't be part of you but I can be surrounded by you...."

If possible, his grip tightened ... and then he changed. The entire chamber filled with a soft golden glow as he enfolded her in himself; light from nowhere refracted within the edges of his being to surround her with warm diamond gleams as he became formless, uncontained; living bits of color danced a ballet through her hair and traced sensual patterns across her face; an ageless crystal song murmured in her ears for only her to hear.

Kira's expression of wonder and joy was as dazzling as it had been the first time, almost spiritual. She held out her arms, reaching as if she could pull him closer. She opened her mouth and drew a deep breath as if to try and pull him into herself, as if to keep a part of him as part of her. It was no danger to her - he was light as air, part of air; he entered her body like a kiss, and tickled her tongue and throat until she started laughing and couldn't stop.

After a minute that he wished could have lasted an hour, he withdrew and reformed himself, apart from her.

They stared into each other's eyes for just a moment more. He felt an ache of regret and yearning, and a growing temptation to change his mind. He knew he'd better leave immediately, or he never would.

"Good bye, Nerys."

"Good bye, Odo," she replied huskily, still smiling, eyes dilated and gaze far away as if entranced.

The New Link didn't want to waste time. Having explained his decision to Kira, Odo headed back to the Founders' quarters, where they'd agreed to wait for him. They would beam directly to the Cin'tisali ship from there, and be gone in a few minutes.

"Leaving without a word again, weren't you."

Odo turned to see Quark standing in the corridor behind him, trying to look stern.

"Quark...."

"Look, you're leaving us again, the least you can do is say good bye this time." He took several steps closer. "I'm right, aren't I? You're going with them."

"All right," he replied in aggravation. "Yes. I'm leaving."

"It's not right, you know."

"Quark-" he began again.

"And you weren't even going to say good bye, were you?"

"What does it matter to you?"

"Well, nothing, really, except ... I mean, I'd think you owe us that at least, the courtesy of a farewell, to those of us who care about you. Who wanted you to stay. Who sacrificed profit to try to convince you not to go. Who're going to miss you all over again. But you're still leaving. Slipping away in the middle of the night. You could least give us a good bye."

" 'Us'? Or you?"

"All right, me. I know you said good bye to Kira - at least you talk to her. You know, Odo, I'm starting to think you're not really that different from the other Founders. You don't consider us worthy of your feelings or even a simple thing like good bye."

Odo paused at the door, looking back at the Ferengi bartender for a long moment. His face wore a most peculiar expression, as if he were trying to imprint something on his memory to last a long time. "Good bye, Quark," he said quietly. Then he turned away and was inside before the Ferengi could think of any response.

Quark blinked in disbelief for a few seconds, frozen in shock. "He ... he said it! He said good bye!" Then he raced for the door. "Odo! Stop! You said good bye!"

The door opened before him, just in time to reveal the final shimmers as the occupants vanished from sight.

"You talked to him, didn't you," a quiet voice said beside him.

He jumped. He'd been so intent, even his Ferengi hearing hadn't detected the approaching footsteps. It was Kira.

"You look tired," he remarked before he could stop himself.

"I am." She sighed heavily.

After a moment, he finally answered her question. "Yes, I talked to him. I tried, Kira, really I did."

"I know you did," she said with a wan smile. "And I want you to know I appreciate it - the night at Vic's, what you did in my quarters afterward, talking to him just now. I really appreciate it. Thank you."

"Some good it did," Quark mumbled to himself. "I should've given you a holosuite for the night - I've got some very romantic settings, you know."

"It wouldn't have mattered."

"So what are we going to do about it?"

She grimaced, her expression far away. "I don't know about 'we,' but I've got to figure out what to put in my report to Starfleet Command. And then, I've got a promise to keep."

He watched her walk away again. As she reached the stairwell down to the main level, he saw her pause long enough to square her shoulders and lift her head. Then she descended, and turned back toward the lift that would take her to Ops.

"I'm sorry, both of you," he mumbled again, staring out the port long enough to see the Kalep'tyrink fade into the starfield.

From another part of the Promenade upper level, the Kalep'tyrink could be seen for just a few seconds, drawing back from the station and shifting its altitude and vector, then vanishing as it cloaked.

Dr. Monrow, who'd been leaning against the railing and watching, sighed. "They're gone," she murmured under her breath.

"Alex, don't tell me you're going to miss them!" a voice beside her exclaimed. "You sound disappointed they're leaving! I'm glad to have the infirmary back."

Monrow glanced at the CMO. Mild frustration showed in her words. "Actually, Jennel, I thought I was making some headway. With Arlamar, at least. Getting to know him, establishing the possibility of trust. There's a lot we could learn from them - and that they could learn from us."

Girani looked incredulous. "Laas made it very clear he isn't interested in learning anything from us, or in teaching us anything! This New Link of his seems the same. Unless Odo can convince them to come back, I doubt we'll ever see them again. The only ones the Founders seem willing to listen to are other Founders."

"Odo listens to Colonel Kira. Their relationship proves it can be done."

Girani lifted her eyebrows. "You want a relationship with Arlamar? I know you said you couldn't hold a man, but that's a little beyond desperate!" she teased.

"That's not what I meant," Monrow came back impatiently. "Odo and Kira were friends long before they were anything else. He could work with solids, accept us as friends and equals." She jabbed a finger at the port, through which only stars could now be seen. "What made him different from the others?"

"No choice?"

"Laas spent years among humanoids - and he despises us. Odo spent years here too, on Bajor and the station, under Cardassian occupation. He learned to deal with solids - humanoids - even to love one. Both of them faced the same attitudes from those around them - I'm sure both of them asked a lot of the same questions about why they were different, where they had come from, what kind of relationship they could have with the people around them. But they found different answers." Monrow shook her head. "We need to understand why, to understand them."

"I suppose you're right." Girani's expression turned sly. "So you want to be a diplomat or a politician as well as a doctor?"

"Oh, heavens, no!" Monrow shot back. "I'll leave politics and diplomacy to the experts! I just want to do my job the best I can. And I want to make a difference. You can't heal what you don't understand. You can't judge only by appearances and first impressions and old prejudices. Sometimes what you 'knew' in the past isn't always right." She stared introspectively through the port, her gaze wandering among the stars.

Dr. Girani watched her for a moment, then said, "All right, enough maudlin. The Founders have left. Laas isn't interested in having anything to do with us. Maybe Odo can show him otherwise. But in the meantime, let's go to the Replimat and have a kavamilk - on me."

Monrow made a face. "Ugh! How can you drink that blue stuff? But if you're buying, I'll have a raktajino...."

The Founders' world never seemed to change. From her beam-in site on the jutting bit of rock and soil, Kira Nerys could stare out at what seemed a roiling sea of liquid color. The Founders, the Great Link, Odo's people, in their most natural form.

She waited for one of them to deign to notice her and approach. Nothing happened for several minutes.

"Hello!" she finally called over the sea. "I'm Kira Nerys. I have a message from Odo!"

Nothing.

"Well, I guess if I have to wait...."

It appeared the Founders weren't interested in talking to her at the moment. She wondered how long she'd have to wait. If I hadn't promised Odo that I'd deliver his message to his people, I'd just leave. She looked around. Nothing's changed from the last time I was here. Same pile of rocks here, same old statue over there, same scrubby trees somehow managing to grow in this soil and light.

Kira stepped carefully around a small patch of something else that grew there, something red with fern-like leaves and deep brown spores or seeds. In this place, trying to remember exactly how it had looked the previous times she was here, she could never really be sure she wasn't looking at a Founder practicing shape-shifting, or a real and natural part of the landscape. She didn't want to step on one of them by accident.

She returned to the shore, looking for anything that might be different.

Behind her, one of the vines encircling the old statue began to change color and to lose cohesion. The tendrils clinging to the stone contracted, becoming gelatinous "fingers" of something somewhere between fluid and solid. The leaves and "fingers" sucked in on themselves and oozed down the statue to clump at the bottom - and then rose in a pillar.

"You are Kira Nerys."

Kira whirled at the unexpected voice. Her breath caught in her throat. She gaped.

It was the image of the female Founder, wearing a simple tunic and trousers of dark blue.

The Founder tilted her head, studying the Bajoran woman. "I disturb you?"

"You-"

"I will change." The Founder's features remolded, her face taking on a Bajoran cast, down to the nasal ridges between startlingly blue eyes; dark red hair formed around the face in a wavy cascade, styled as Kira had worn it in her youth. The Founder still "wore" dark blue, with a light yellow, traditionally Bajoran crocheted-look vest over all - but no earring. "Is this less troubling?"

Kira stared for a long moment, unable to form thoughts or words.

The Founder held our her hand. "Come, we can sit at the Remembrance of the First, and speak privately, if you wish. You said you had a message from Odo."

"Yes ... yes, I do." Suddenly it hit her. "You're Odo's offspring."

"Yes."

The Founder kept walking. Kira had to quicken her steps to keep up.

"His ... daughter...?"

The Founder shrugged. "What is gender? I could appear as a male offspring, if you would be more comfortable."

"No! No, don't change again," Kira said quickly, as the features of other began to soften in a change, then firmed again.

"As you wish." She paused before the very old, carved piece of stone.

It was the stele. Kira remembered it from her first time on the asteroid, on the Defiant's first mission to the Gamma Quadrant, and from a few days before when she'd come for Odo. It was a simple statue, lying on its side - carved with the same image found on another planet in the quadrant.

"You called this a Remembrance of the First?" she had to ask. She was making mental connections as she spoke, between this planet, that one, and how inhabitants of one might have come to live on the other.

"Yes. We were able to bring little with us from our previous home; this was one of the things. In the memory of our race, we know of a succession of five homeworlds, before this one. This image came from a world older than the first one we remember. It has traveled with us all that time."

"I see." She believed it.

Kira couldn't help staring at the Founder. This was Odo's offspring, the child he had self-generated in his desire to experience that aspect of his being, and to understand what parenthood had meant for her. The offspring took the form of a Bajoran woman - a woman who, in appearance, could be Kira's own daughter. Was that intentional on the Founder's part? Was it something Odo had taught her? "Odo never mentioned that. About your racial history."

"There wasn't time for Odo to learn everything. Nor was there need to tell you all he learned."

"Oh."

An uncomfortable silence lasted for a long moment.

"You said you had a message from Odo. As you know, our people have not been fond of solids on our world; our memories of your kind are generally not pleasant. Please convey the message." The tone was impersonal.

Kira mentally shook herself. "You know why he came back to the Station?"

The Founder inclined her head. "To heal the gathered wanderers of the illness which nearly killed us all. The illness your people created."

"Not my people," Kira objected firmly. "Section 31, a small group of Starfleet that most of the Federation doesn't even know exists - and most certainly wouldn't support, if they knew what it had done."

Her eyebrows lifted impersonally. "If you say so."

The silence returned and lengthened. What could she say to Odo's child?

"Founder, do...." She paused. "Do you have a name? 'Founder' sounds so ... cold." So unlike Odo, she thought to herself.

"For dealings with solids, I have chosen to use the name Nerysset. Among us, names are not necessary. We are all part of each other, in the Great Link." The tone was impersonal, almost condescending.

Nerysset. A form of Nerys? The image of a Bajoran, her own features mingled with the ones Odo generally wore. A memory of her, from the one who loved her? Something the offspring had decided for herself in linking with Odo? Or just a coincidence?

No. It was no coincidence.

"Nerysset. Nerysset." Kira repeated the name several times. She studied the Founder. "Do you hate solids, Nerysset?" she asked.

"No," Nerysset replied. "Odo's memories show us the many facets of your people. For such immutable creatures, you still change with every mood and age, over all the years of your lives. Solids are not so solid as they seem or consider themselves to be, I think." A quick smile flashed across the face, the first one Kira had seen from her. "And Odo loves you. I cannot help but feel that emotion too. It is why I take this form. He did not say so, but it pleased him to see me like this when I tested humanoid form. I thought it would please you also, to know you are so much in his thoughts, even in the Link."

She was in his thoughts. And yet he couldn't stay with her.

"He's not coming back," she said quietly. "Not for a while, at least. He's chosen to stay with the New Link."

Nerysset's brows drew together in an approximation of a frown. "The 'New Link'?"

"Laas and his group ... they won't come back here. Odo tried to convince them, but they feel ... they still feel you sent them away. Even healed, even after linking with Odo, they're still bitter and they won't return, at least not yet. They're creating their own society. A Link of their own. He went with them, to teach them what he learned of his ... of your kind. He hopes to teach them what he feels he taught you."

The Founder was still, her piercing gaze going right though the Bajoran. "Even after Odo healed them, they remain determined to hold themselves apart from us?" she asked incredulously.

"Yes. For now, at least."

Nerysset turned her head to stare out toward the sea that was the Great Link. "They break the Link...."

"Odo believes he can teach them, and someday bring them back here, as he came back-"

"You have brought your message. It is time for you to leave," she stated brusquely.

"But-"

The Founder walked past her.

"Nerysset...." Kira followed. "What does that mean, they break the Link?"

"The consequences are none of your concern."

"Consequences? What consequences-?"

At the shore, the young Founder walked into the sea up to her knees, then her blue garb and Bajoran features smoothed into a small pillar of color before falling away into the Link. She never looked back.

"You're Odo's child, I still love him. You say we're not enemies. Why won't you talk to me?"

A blue light spread through the sea from where Nerysset had been. Lights below the surface flashed and quickened, spreading even further, into the depths and across the waves.

Kira waited for nearly three hours, alone on the shore, hoping her determination would outlast theirs and she would earn another audience of sorts with Nerysset, or with any of the Founders.

No one came.

Finally, she knew she couldn't stay any longer. She had to get back to the station. With a sense of resignation and some foreboding, Kira touched her combadge.

"Rubicon, one to beam up. Lay in a course for the Wormhole and Deep Space Nine."

Preview of Episode 10

After you read this episode, please Leave Feedback for the authors.