Chapter 3

"You should go get some sleep," Monrow murmured to her. "You spent most of last night cross-checking those test results. Go ahead. I can keep an eye on our patients for the rest of the night."

"Aren't you tired too?"

"I'll catch a nap here. Believe me, those aides of theirs won't let anything happen to the Founders, and if they need anything, we don't want them running around the station trying to find one of us - I think security's nervous enough, we don't need an incident on the Promenade."

"All right, I don't need much convincing tonight." She stretched. "But call me if you need any help - we've got a full staff, you don't have to do it all alone."

"I'm used to being asked to fill in rough situations with very little notice and not always much help," the other woman replied with a grin. "Hard to change the habit of trying to do it all myself - but believe me, I know how valuable a good staff is. I assume Colonel Kira's still due back tomorrow morning, as far as we know?"

"If everything went well, she and Odo should be halfway back by now." Girani stacked the PADDs containing the reports she'd been reviewing.

"You worked with Odo for a couple of years, didn't you?" Monrow asked before she could leave.

"Well, not really with him - he didn't come to the infirmary often, and he seemed to prefer to go to Julian, when he needed anything resembling medical care."

"Even when the Dominion occupied the station and Dr. Bashir had to evacuate? I thought Odo stayed. And you were here during that time, weren't you?"

"Yes." Her mouth tightened, and the anger of bitter memories flashed in her pale blue eyes. "I don't think Odo came into the infirmary at all during those months. Neither did the other Founder, except when she was on one of her rare parades through the station to make sure everybody knew who was in charge, dragging her retinue of Vortas and Jem'Hadar and Cardassians behind her," she all but spat.

"Mmmm."

"Why did you ask?"

"Oh, I was just wondering. What Odo was like. If these Founders are like him or not. If they're like other Founders. With so much data apparently missing from the files, I thought I'd ask somebody who'd actually known a Founder before."

"We could probably spend the rest of the night talking about them, once we get started."

"No." Monrow held up a hand placatingly. "No, I didn't mean to upset you or keep you awake. You need some sleep. There's nothing we need to talk about tonight. I'll see you tomorrow morning."

Girani sighed. "Just as well. I always get so worked up when I think about that time...." She squared her shoulders. "Okay, I will go fall into bed now. Good night - and thanks."

"No problem. Good night."

In a moment she was alone in the office. After a few moments of silence, she stood up and crossed to the doorway into the intensive care ward.

The chamber was dim. Peering in, Monrow could just make out the three shapes in three of the biobeds. Beside two of them, seated cross-legged on the floor with an odd suppleness, were the Cin'tisali ... aides, servants, whatever they were. She glanced around, looking for the third-

And found him suddenly standing directly in front of her, peering straight at her, eye to eye. He was of her height and so close that if he'd swung his head, his braids would've swatted across her face. He'd stepped out of the shadows without a word or a sound. It was Birif'satar, the one who'd stood or sat by Laas all day.

"I didn't see you standing there," she murmured, keeping her voice low.

"You do not need to see me."

"I just came to check on the Founders." Monrow craned her neck a little, intending to look past him, but his broad shape nearly filled the doorway, and with only a little shift, he continued to block her view.

"They are unchanged," he said, the high-pitched tone of his voice grating on her ears.

"How can you tell?" she challenged. "Are you a doctor?"

"We are watching them. We know more of the Founders than any of your kind but the Ikin'al Bashir. You have admitted you cannot help them; you do not need to see them."

"Ikin'al Bashir... Ikin'al," she repeated. "Is that your term for doctor?"

He simply stared at her, what she could see of his expression still forbidding in the dim light, his black eyes unfathomable.

"Would I be ... Ikin'al Monrow, to your people?"

"You may be Ikin'al Monrow to your people. You would never be such to my people." He put a hand to her chest and abruptly pushed her back with unexpected strength. "The Founders rest while they wait for Founder Odo. They do not need you. You may not enter. Go back to your office."

She caught herself and stared at him for a moment, then shrugged and forced a smile. "As long as you're keeping an eye on them. If you should happen to find that they need me, you know where I am."

He didn't respond, simply watched as she retraced her steps to the office.

Kira passed Odo's bucket on the way to the replicator to get a raktajino. To her surprise, by the time she turned around, he stood there in humanoid form.

"Odo! Hello again - or should I say, good morning! Are you rested?" That awkwardness again! She hated sounding so formal - but Odo seemed so distant, as apart as when she first met him, during the Occupation. It was as though there was a force screen between them. She couldn't touch him.

"Good morning, Nerys." He glanced at the cup. "I hope you haven't been awake the entire trip."

"No, no," she assured him. "I was able to catch a nap on the way to your planet, and I actually slept a few hours on the way back. With their automatics and sensors, these Federation runabouts can almost fly themselves most of the time."

"True." He studied her. "You've changed."

"What?" She glanced down at herself. "Oh. My clothes. The uniform seemed more practical for a long trip than a dress." A beat. "Oh, and our uniforms have changed." Another beat. "We're only an hour or so from the Wormhole now."

"That close. I didn't realize how long I'd been resting. I'm sorry. It must have been a quiet trip for you."

It had been, but she didn't want to make an issue of it - enough that he had returned with her. "Well, it gave me an opportunity to do a little meditating. I've been so busy, I haven't always had the time I wanted for myself, these last few months."

He tilted his head. "I know how valuable your meditation time has been for you. Do you still attend services regularly?"

"Whenever I can. Ranjen Shayl is an inspired teacher. The Prophets have truly gifted him with understanding."

"Shayl.... You used to play springball with him, didn't you? Do you still play?"

"I'm afraid I don't have much time for that either, these days...." Kira acknowledged with a sigh.

"I see." There was a moment of silence. "So tell me, Nerys, what's going on at the station? Has much changed?"

"In some ways," she told him reflectively. "Come on, let's take our seats up front. I'll give you an update while the Rubicon takes us home."

"Home...."

His gaze went distant, and Kira knew without asking that, in his eyes, he was being carried further from home.

Kira and Odo reached the Wormhole without incident. Kira exchanged greetings with the To'kem, still monitoring the Gamma Quadrant from their position on that side of the Wormhole. Then they passed through the Celestial Temple, through the colors, energies, and space that offered passage from one quadrant to the other in a few seconds.

Kira tried to focus her thoughts on a silent, reverent prayer to the Prophets, but it was hard to concentrate.

Then they were through, and the station took shape before them. The Cin'tisali ship was still there; so was a Federation starship that hadn't been there the day before.

Kira gave orders for a pilot to beam aboard and bring the runabout to its landing pad, then she and Odo beamed directly to the infirmary, leaving the Rubicon in orbit of the station opposite the Cin'tisali ship.

There were two guards at the door. Odo glanced at them.

"Brilgar, Jomsa."

"Constable."

"Chief."

He glanced at Kira. "You have guards on my people?" he murmured as they passed.

Kira felt distinctly uncomfortable at his tone, although she couldn't have pinpointed exactly what was wrong in his neutral tones.

"It's not Laas, it's ... his ship captain, Dalik'javin, and the people he brought with him. They're Cin'tisali; we don't know them. And it protects your people, too, in case anyone has ... bad memories from the war." The excuse sounded lame; she felt defensive.

"Mmm."

"Colonel." Monrow hurried over as soon as they entered.

Kira saw Odo study the new arrival. "This is Dr. Alexis Monrow," she introduced. "She's supplementing the medical staff while Julian's on Cardassia. We're lucky to have her with us."

"Hello, doctor." Odo was at his most stiff and distant. Kira wondered why - a strange Federation doctor bringing back memories of the Founders' disease that someone, somewhere in the Federation, had created to destroy them? Simply uneasy with being surrounded by yet more humanoids, when he had been away from them all for so many months? Still focused on the guards at the door? Or was there some personal antipathy that wasn't obvious to her?

"Hello, Odo," Monrow replied in her fluid voice. Then, not wasting any words, she said, "As Dr. Girani reported, the other two Founders beamed aboard as you were leaving, Colonel Kira. We've been monitoring their condition. All three of them are in bad shape. They need you immediately, Odo, come...."

Chirp.

"Kira here."

"Colonel." Kuhlman sounded apologetic. "Incoming message from Bajor, Defense Minister Jolorn. I know you're busy, but he insists on speaking with you, personally, immediately...."

Of all the times.... "I'll be right there." She turned to Odo apologetically. "I have to go."

Odo simply nodded. "I remember Minister Jolorn. He does not like waiting. Go ahead."

"You'll be all right?"

"Of course. I'll be with Laas and my people. I'll join you later, in your office, if that's allowed."

Allowed? The word stung. "Of course it's allowed. I'll see you later, Odo. Good luck...."

She glanced backward as she passed through the door - Odo was following Monrow toward the ward where Laas and the others waited for his salvation. She hesitated for a second, suddenly uncertain, wondering if Odo would actually come to see her later.

They looked up as he entered the intensive care ward.

His people.

It took only a second to see each of them, so obviously suffering the effects of the morphogenic virus that had all but killed him and nearly wiped out the Founders. Their shapes were ragged, held in solid form longer than their bodies were capable, but unable to change back into their native form because of the disease. They were breaking down, shredding as if rasps were being run over every inch of the bodies that they used for their daily lives in a more solid universe, as if something were ripping back the layers of that flesh to try to expose their true nature beneath it.

Three of them. He recognized the shape that Laas wore. One of the others appeared to be an Orion female, if her green coloring and the diseased sultriness of her face could be believed. The third's features were of a race unfamiliar to him, golden-skinned, with narrow, naturally grooved face and six-fingered hands; he was haggard-eyed and looked completely exhausted.

They were his people.

"Laas," he said.

"Odo." A ghastly rictus of a smile formed on the ravaged face that was nearly unfamiliar, it was so far along from the disease. "You came...." He tried to rise from the biobed.

No strength. Odo saw him suddenly convulse, nearly coiling into something even more unnatural, an agonized groan escaping him - how Laas must have hated the sign of weakness, he knew. The alien beside him - one of the Cin'tisali, Odo assumed - reached to support him.

Odo was across the ward before he'd even thought it, arm outstretched.

He caught Laas's fingers in his hand.

His hand turned to gold as they touched, from solid to soft flowing color as it surrounded the other's fingers and crept over his hand to his wrist.

For a long second, there was no matching response from Laas, only resistance, and Odo thought with sudden grief that he was too late.

The sick Founder groaned again.

Odo mentally pushed, willing the living molecules of himself to penetrate the cells of the other, to find and fight the virus that hid there, armed with the antibodies within his own essence.

He won.

Suddenly he felt the grip of Laas's hand loosen and change, then reach into himself, scrabbling to merge, to shield its own being with the strength he carried, to link them both together as only their kind could do. The other's eyes opened wide, fixed on his, and his free hand clutched Odo's wrist in a death clasp.

Odo let more of himself go. His arm turned to gel, richly-colored, healthy. The other's two hands were unhealthy dark hues, flecked as though they carried pebbles captured in amber. Laas screamed, but held the grip, reaching deeper.

The link grew; the color brightened; the pebbles shrank and vanished-

And then they were Linked.

Odo willed himself forward, his entire body changing to cascade over the other Founder like a healing fountain, a protective shield. He knew Laas's cries of joy as healing and joining took them both, and the other's strength returned. Between them then, they attacked the virus, slaughtering it with ruthless fury, destroying the enemy.

And then they weren't alone.

Arlamar. D'kem'ir. Odo knew them before he sensed Laas conveying their identities and existence to him. He reached out to them too, greeting, taking them into himself and becoming part of them, offering them the joy of the Link, feeling their hunger for joining, for healing.

The healing spread as their solid forms were bathed in the healed warmth of Odo and Laas. They all cried out with relief as the agony flared in one second's cascade of unbearable fire, then was gone.

Healing. Oneness. The Link. Peace.

Dr. Monrow scanned the large amorphous puddle of translucent amber goo that was the four Founders, her expression professional, but overlaid with a sense of excitement. She'd watched intently as the color swirled through their mass like some kind of Altonian brain teaser, then lightened into the shimmering rich shades that obviously meant returning good health.

"Incredible.... All trace of the Founders' disease appears to be gone," she announced to the anxiously awaiting Cin'tisali who clustered around the biobed. They had carried Arlamar and D'kem'ir to the bed, though the female Founder had weakly tried to protest. Neither of them had the strength left to walk on their own.

By the time she turned her head to check her medical tricorder again, a mass of gold had welled up from the puddle and arced from the bed to the floor.

"What-"

It separated from the rest, then took shape as she watched, forming ... Odo. Alone. Apart.

"Odo, it-"

"The virus is destroyed. They are cured."

"Yes." She held up her instrument, smiling. "However, I believe Laas and his people will need a little time to rest and recuperate fully. They were in pretty bad shape. And Odo, you should-"

"Yes, they need some time. But I'll be fine." He studied the mass of Laas, D'kem'ir, and Arlamar.

"You should rest a little, too," Monrow continued. "I'd like to check-"

"I'll be fine," he repeated, sounding irritated. "I'm perfectly healthy. But if you don't mind, doctor, I'd like a little time to myself. Call me if there's any change in Laas and his people, or if they ask for me. Otherwise, I'll be ... around the station."

"With Colonel Kira?"

"Shortly, yes."

Walking out of the intensive care ward, Odo couldn't help feeling like he'd been cast out. Not intentionally, not in the same way as when the Founders had stripped him of his nature and left him humanoid, but....

But Laas and his group were their own little Link, joined. The New Link, they considered themselves. He would have stayed with them longer, but he'd had a sense that they needed to re-establish themselves as a group, and that he ... made it a little awkward, once they'd been sure the disease was gone. He had been welcome, but he was not ... not one of them. It was a strange feeling - there had never been any awkwardness in his joining with the female Founder or with the Great Link, at any time. Why now?

And he found himself ... irritated at Monrow's question, with the assumption she made. Yes, he would be with Kira soon, but at the moment that relationship felt awkward too, along with everyone's apparent assumption that things would be the same as they had been. Kira had been glad to see him, he could tell, but in the months since they had last seen each other, so much had happened to both of them, in their respective lives. His thoughts and emotions were in turmoil. He had so much to tell her, of such importance, if he could find the words. And he had no idea if she would understand.

At the moment, he found he needed to think and to reorient himself. He was shaken. He'd been part of the Link for so long, being a separate humanoid entity was almost a strange feeling.

Odo initially maintained his old form to wander the station. But the second he stepped out into the Promenade, he saw the new blue and gray uniforms the Bajoran staff wore - visible evidence of time's passage and change.

He immediately reformed his outer shape into a similar appearance - then reconsidered using the image of either uniform. After all, he was no longer a member of the crew. He morphed his outer appearance into something appropriately civilian before he proceeded, feeling both back at home and out of place at the same time.

He needed some time. He decided to take the long way through the station.

As he walked, Odo sorted out the rush of images he remembered from his moment with the New Link.

He had become aware of their differences in ages, in experiences. He knew, from the Great Link, that the Hundred had been sent forth over a span of centuries. But he suspected those that had gone through the Wormhole, the Bajorans' Celestial Temple, had been thrust about in time as well as space.

Laas, who had been alone for so long, hadn't even known his true nature until he had come to the station. He'd lived among a tolerant, welcoming species. They'd accepted him as one of them - but he had felt alienated when he lost the female he loved because he could not give her children, which had mattered more to her than their love. He drifted away from them, searching for his own kind. He'd followed clues to more than a score of worlds, and experienced a great deal over a life that spanned over two hundred years. He'd finally been nearing Federation territory, when Odo and O'Brien found him drifting through space in a form that could exist between the stars.

D'kem'ir's existence was also measured in centuries. Her time among the humanoid solids had been less than kind. Somehow, she had been found by pirates, recognized as an oddity, and sold as a curiosity to a wealthy merchant and member of the Orion syndicate. When she began to control her shifting ability, her first instinct had been to take the shape of the creatures and things around her - the treasures and women of the merchant-pirate's "harem." From curiosity, she had become slave. The merchant had preferred her as an Orion animal woman, unchanging, passionate, learning his preferences and fulfilling his fantasies. Her life had never risen much above that level. Her hatred of solids, when she finally escaped, and her rage against her own people, were greater than Laas's.

Arlamar, on the other hand, had no idea of his age. He could be as young as Odo, or ten times Laas's age. His first memories were of a world with no sentient species, of being truly alone for unknown years. He had learned to be plant, animal, rock, water, mist, and fire, with no real understanding why that which he imitated was not equally aware of and responsive to him. He had finally encountered alien explorers, of a species unknown to Odo or the others. They had brought him with them on their ship. He had begun to learn from them and to reach out to them - only to have every member of the crew succumb to some illness picked up on his planet, leaving him alone again. He understood what it was like to be alone, and he was no longer willing to bear it. He knew what it meant to watch everyone around him die in agony, and the thought of it happening again terrified him.

Odo wondered what that people had learned from him, or planned for his future. Had Arlamar truly been as accepted as he felt himself to be? In some ways he seemed very innocent.

Could he blame these stranded Founders for their distrust and anger with solids? Could he fault them for not wanting to go back to the Founders who had sent them out? But now, having learned to link with each other, how could they fight the instinct and the need to return home?

As he walked, Odo passed several crewmen he had known during his years on the station. He exchanged absent smiles and greetings as they passed. He almost felt more welcome from them than he had from Laas and his people, he thought. The sadness and vague sense of alienation grew.

He'd almost reached the cross-corridor to the habitat ring when she found him.

"Hello, Odo."

"Miss M'Pella," he said as evenly as he could manage.

The dabo girl almost oozed up to him. Instead of the red colors he recalled her previously favoring, she was wearing green - what there was of it. The underdress was clingy, short, and sleeveless, with panels of lace; the overtunic and its sleeves were of a sheer net and equally close-fitting except when the skirt flared out from her hips to below her knees. She'd traded her feathered headdress for a wreath of leaves braided through her dark hair.

Recalling Kira's update on Bajor's religious situation, he asked, "Switching to Vedek Carn's colors?"

Her smile was conspiratorial. "Vedek Carn is leading in the betting pools. Quark thinks it's good for business for us to appear to be supporting him too, subliminally, by wearing the colors of his order."

"As you used to wear red to show support for Opaka's order."

"Of course."

"And of course what your boss thinks is good for business, you think is good for business. Or was it your idea in the first place, and you had the good sense to convince Quark that it was his?"

She smiled broadly, with a sly wink. "Fortunately, both red and green look good on me."

"I wondered why you never switched to gold when Winn became Kai."

"I don't look good in yellow," she replied archly.

"Indeed. And I thought it was because you supported Bareil. But what brings you here? Quark resorting to sending his dabo girls out to drag in customers these days?"

"Quark wants to know if you'll be coming by the bar this afternoon. He sent me to find out."

"Really? Does he need warning to hide his latest scheme?"

"He said he just wants to know where are you for at least one hour that you're on the station - but I think he wants to see you. And as long as I was here, I thought I'd say something myself."

"What's that?"

"Welcome back, Constable!" The dabo girl threw her arms around him and delivered a resounding kiss on the cheek.

"You're sure that's not from Quark?"

She just laughed and turned away, repeating the invitation over shoulder. "Come by the bar this afternoon!" Then she walked off with her own inimitable sway.

Odo didn't wait until afternoon. He gave the dabo girl a thirty-second head start, then went straight to Quark's.

Chapter Four

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