Thanks: to all those previous authors who introduced and elaborated on various aspects of Cardassian & Bajoran biology, physiology, and behaviour. Especially people such as Eva A Enblam (‘Cardassian Heat’), Kira-Nerys (‘Reptilian Romance’, and others) and Laura Taylor. Not to mention those that gave me the courage to let these characters go do their own thing. Also, Ann Powell for double-checking on a fact I wasn’t sure about; Tess & kira-nerys for kindly being beta-readers.

She watched his face in profile, as he stood looking into the distance, one foot up on a rock, the forearm resting lightly on that knee. The cold breeze lifted a lock of his hair – a few gray streaks in it, now – and brushed over his eye. He blinked, then, refocused, and turned around to see Kira contemplating him. He smiled at that.

‘Memories?’ she asked, lightly.

‘Mmm.’

He turned, came towards her as she offered him the steaming cup she had poured from the flask.

‘Did you ever really come up here in those days?’

‘To chase your lot? The Prefect of Bajor, himself? No, never up this high.

‘I thought as much.’ She grinned, turned and sat down on a rock, sheltered from the wind. She’d half-teasingly, half-seriously, taken him to task before they’d started on this journey, when he’d tried to start off without taking thermal blanket, heavy weather attire, and extra field rations. She’d had personal experience of how swiftly and treacherously the weather up at these heights could change, anytime, any season, no matter how good the forecasts, and how quickly the unexpected could happen to delay their progress.

Clearly, this was one of the areas he wasn’t that expert in.

‘Left it up to your poor Glinn, I expect.’

‘No, Gul Metak of Lenar Province, actually. It was his territory, after all.’ He grinned, too. `I do know my limitations, Colonel. That’s what I have experts for.’ Another, deeper, grin. `Like you, today.’

Kira gestured gracefully, conceding the point. Apart from knowing she was supposed to feel flattered, she’d long since learnt not to try too hard to have the last word with him.

‘So, what were you thinking about?’

He sat down across from her, the mug nearly lost in his cupped hands. ‘Oh, this and that. Autumn, I guess. The light up here – it’s truly Bajor. I can smell the hot rocks, but the air’s so cold. It reminds me of times when I was often journeying back to my estate from Tozhat a lot.’

She nodded, sipping her hot drink. `Wasn’t that when you were with Naprem?’

Silent assent.

‘You were happy then, weren’t you?’

He seemed to stare at the stones between their feet.

‘Perhaps. I think I’m more at peace now. But, then, I was younger.’

‘We all were’, she countered, lightly.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, sipping, then she began putting away the implements of their break.

‘Time to go, Colonel?’

‘Yes, we need to make that cave tonight, if we’re to get back by tomorrow. It’s probably another couple of hours.’

‘And sunset just a little later. Yes, I know.’

They slipped on their packs, long experience in both their pasts showing in the way they quickly glanced round to check they’d left nothing, the tugs at various straps to ensure maximum comfort.

It had been almost a whim, when Dukat, as Cardassian Liaison on DS9, had heard about the possibility of certain stolen Occupation-era Cardassian records hidden by Resistance-cell members in the caves up in the mountains of the Serpents’ Ridge, and decided to go after it himself. There was some merit in the idea of ignoring the report, as there was just about enough chance that the trail was cold and a dead end. But Central Command didn’t really like loose ends, the Bajoran government unofficially were just as anxious that possible collaborators names weren’t re-exposed to the limelight, and it was extremely appealing to have the excuse to go down to Bajor on ostensibly unofficial business, in territory far from the capital and free of politics and entourages. What a coincidence, then, that his counterpart, the Bajoran Liaison officer, was none other than a former Resistance cell operative who had been active in the very region. Although the records were hidden long after Kira had left the area, the trails and routes had been blazed by her and her compatriots, and she claimed to know them ‘like the back of my hand’. She had been more than eager to show off her expertise. And so it seemed to all concerned, a happy marriage of official requirements and private desires that the representatives of two planets with an interest in the information should have to go down quietly and personally to try to obtain that hidden information.

The air grew colder as they climbed steadily higher, and the sun dipped behind the apex of the mountain ranges. Kira surreptitiously slowed down, to allow Dukat to catch up - really, to check the sound of his breathing out of mildly malicious concern that the going might be a little tough for him. But he easily caught up, patted her shoulder, and murmured encouragingly:

‘I’m not that old, Colonel.’ He didn’t seem out of breath, and his movements seemed just as quick as usual. Good, the temperature wasn’t affecting him, then.

Just over an hour later, she found the cave mouth after a little hesitation, fooled initially by the lush vegetation that still grew at the height. They squeezed through the opening, and followed the cave floor some 100 metres; they were rewarded by the still silence within, enhanced by the occasional drop of water in the pool, and the warmer air – the temperature stayed unaffected by the outside, here in the heart of the mountain.

They set down their packs and prepared to make themselves comfortable by the beams of their lights.

‘Where would they have hidden it?’ wondered Dukat, shining his torch around the cave's depths.

‘Let’s eat first, rest, then we’ll look. Can’t concentrate when I’m hungry.’

Duty told him to look first, eat later; but there didn’t seem to be any sensible argument against hers; besides, he was enjoying a rare feeling of infinite time stretching ahead of him, as though he was within a different universe where everything was possible.

And so it came as no great surprise when, halfway through eating her rations, she mumbled something with her mouth full, scrambled onto her belly, and seemingly heaved herself against a rock wall beside him. As he gaped at her, he realised the rock overhang didn’t quite meet the floor – there was a gap between them – and she had squeezed herself through it.

He dropped down to look through it, having recovered his presence of mind enough to shine one of their lights beyond. ‘Isn’t there much space the other side?’ he couldn’t see back very far, the darkness seemed to absorb the light after only a few handwidths.

‘Enough for a couple of bodies, that’s all. There’s nothing else to see.’

‘Thanks for the light,’ he heard, before grunts and sounds of sliding, then moments later, a hand reappeared. In it there was a small, flat, black data-rod box, with the Cardassian military insignia embossed on one corner. He took it, grasped the hand, and tried to help as she maneuvered herself back to their side.

‘Very impressive, Colonel’, he murmured, as she brushed herself down.

‘Prophets, I’m glad I’m not claustrophobic!’

She took the box from him, and opened it carefully. He peered over her shoulder as she stared at the five data rods nestled in it. ‘And that’s it? That can bring down our governments?’ She sounded disappointed.

‘Perhaps not bring them down, exactly. But enough to embarrass a lot of people, evidently.’

‘So what’s to stop you taking them and saying they were gone?’ He looked at her. She was so direct and child-like sometimes, almost testing him, making him confront parts of him he didn’t even know he had hidden from himself.

‘And what’s to stop you taking them for yourself, and using the information?’ he countered.

‘They might turn out to be worthless’, she suggested.

He shook his head gently, took the case from her, and shut the lid. ‘We both follow orders, that’s what stops us.’

She watched him while he put it into his belt pouch and sealed it, then sat down and resumed her meal.

‘You know, Dukat, you’re very trusting. You don’t know that I haven’t got orders to quietly kill you here, and take off with the rods.’ She smiled as he sat down next to her, his body nearly touching hers. ‘I’m sure that’s what Captain Sisko is worried about.’ They looked at each other, and laughed, as they recalled Benjamin Sisko’s face when they explained the need for their joint trip to Bajor.

By rights, a large part of the senior staff should not even be stationed there on DS9 now, after all the events of the Dominion war and its aftermath. Sisko, for one, should have been promoted, and gone back to a desk job at Federation headquarters on Earth, for example.

For that matter, Dr Bashir should have moved on to a nice, quiet job in a non-combat zone somewhere. Dukat really should have been tried and committed for a variety of crimes, by the Federation, Cardassia, or Bajor – or maybe all three. Kira herself could have taken a promotion and been given an honourary posting on Bajor, or offworld as an Ambassador, perhaps.

But Benjamin Sisko was the Emissary of the Prophets, and didn’t feel he could leave Bajor and DS9. Julian’s experience and skills as a xenobiological practitioner couldn’t be put to better use than at a crosspoint of a multitude of beings and cultures, and besides he wanted to stay there. Most that knew him thought that was because of Garak.

As for Garak – he could have returned back to Cardassia, at least to one of their outposts – but he’d pleaded age, and inability to change, and everyone knew he couldn’t leave Julian.

And Dukat’s ability to make himself indispensable to various Cardassian factions had prevailed, and the Federation had used his freedom as leverage to get the Cardassians to concede to them what they needed and wanted. It was convenient for the Cardassians to keep him off Prime and utilise his experiences with Bajor and DS9, and convenient for the Bajorans that they knew him well enough to know that he at least understood them. And Kira, well, she couldn’t stomach the thought of being a figurehead officer and…And she had emotional ties, too, maybe physical ones even, which made her reluctant to leave the world she’d known as home for so many years now. Even if privately, its CO and many others of her colleagues thought these involved an intense personal need to keep tabs on her sworn enemy, to press any advantage to try to destroy Dukat.

It was for this reason, they both knew, that Benjamin Sisko was truly worried that there was a chance that only one of them would come back alive from this mission. He had tried to suggest other members to make up a proper team, but both Dukat and Kira had pointed out their respective governments’ requests to keep things quiet, unobtrusive, and to a minimum. They had been unable to suppress the air of camaraderie between two conspiring children as they took turns giving him reasons why only they could go, just the two of them. Alone. Land quietly in their shuttle at the foot of the Serpents’ Ridge. Pretend it was just a tourist jaunt, if they met anyone. Which they did. A farmer, apparently coming down the hill, slightly startled at seeing an uniformed, armoured Cardassian, with a Bajoran mountain-climber, and who’d engaged them in a long conversation, eventually concluding that he was sure that Dukat had ‘been here before, a few years’ back’. But eventually he’d moved on with his loaded pack animals.

Recalled to the present by their fatigue, they finished their rations and Kira began to climb into her sleeping bag. Dukat reached into his pack and pulled out a half-bottle of Spring wine. She was incredulous, but he flipped open the top, and they shared the contents, drinking straight out of the bottle, chatting. By this time, he had crawled into his bag, and they lay side by side, on their stomachs, their weight on their elbows, shoving the bottle back and forth between them.

‘Had you ever met that man?’ she asked, conversationally.

‘Which man?’

‘That chatty one with the pack animals today.’

‘No, not that I can remember…Probably all Cardassians look the same to him.’ He chuckled. ‘Mind you, I traveled along here a few times, as I said. From Naprem & Ziyal on my estate, always having to get to and from Tozhat in a hurry.’

‘You used to travel by groundcar?’ she was taken aback.

‘Never found that out? Yes, quite often. But I’d make the decision on a whim, so it wasn’t that much of a security risk. In fact, I’d stop on the way sometimes to check out things…I rescued a Bajoran farmer, once. His cart had fallen on him, and there was only a young boy to help. I suppose it was his son.’

‘What did you do? I bet they thought you’d come to put him out of his misery?’

‘I expect he might have, had he been conscious. He was quite badly injured. Naprem was with me that time, so between her and my Glinn, we got him out from under the cart, called the Bajoran medics, straightened his broken leg, shot him up full of analgesics and left him to the medics.’

‘Really? You helped him, *and* gave him some of your drugs?’

‘Really.’

‘I can’t believe you’d actually do that, in those days.’

‘I can assure you it was quite an experience for me, too. I think it was the power of being anonymous. He never knew who I was, and I trusted the others with me, so I could be myself, I suppose. For a long time, I thought of it as an aberration in my normal persona.’

‘I would have had to agree with that, on the whole.’

‘Had to?’

‘Well, I’m willing to accept that you might be different, now.’

‘Humph.’

They lay in companionable silence for a while, till he drawled,

‘Well, I can’t believe this, Kira. Here you are, and here I am. Two different sleeping bags. I really must be losing my grip. Care to join me in here?’

‘What?’ she raised herself even more on her elbows, and stared at him in mock-horror. ‘You must be joking.’

‘I’ve a reputation to maintain, you know. Come on over. I’m supposed to be unable to resist a pretty face.’

‘I thought it was you who’s supposed to be irresistible to a pretty face, and besides, I’m not just a pretty face.’

‘Pretty body, then. I can promise you unimaginable delights…’

‘No. Too crowded in one bag. Floor too hard.’

‘It’s warmer together?’

‘No thank you. Good night.’ She turned on her back and doused her light, trying not to laugh. But she was conscious that he could see her without any trouble in the beam of his, and was aware of him extending an arm towards her. She turned back and reached out a hand, and he gently fingered the light bracelet she wore round that wrist, twisting its linked facets before tracing a pattern on her palm, then turning over at last and turning off his light.

«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»§«:*´`³¤³´`*:»

The wind seemed colder than yesterday, and the clouds were unsettled, low and grey, and moving swiftly. She sniffed as she stepped out.

‘Can you smell the weather? It’s breaking up.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. Pity we can’t pick up the forecast through the interference with these rocks.’

‘Never mind, we know we need to get moving. The forecast doesn’t really change that.’

They shouldered their packs and started down.

~

Only two hours later, disaster struck.

The wind had steadily increased, such that they were leaning into it, and they had already got into their heavy weather gear because of the cold, and discussed returning back up to the cave, shouting into the screaming wind. Suddenly, she was aware that there was an increasing shower of dirt and pebbles. She’d forgotten till then what happened frequently up there; but the recollection flooded back as she grabbed Dukat’s arm, pulling him towards the rock wall, away from the larger rocks that had started to fall about them.

‘Rockslide!’ she gasped; he looked up, instinctively, then suddenly slammed into her with his whole body weight into a gap in the wall. Her initial terror was of being buried alive, then she felt a great weight push them so violently into the gap that she could hear the sound of the breath being expelled from their lungs. She wasn’t sure how long it was before she began to realise she could hardly breathe with the weight on her; more than just the weight of his limp body and the edges of his armour pressing against her.

She pushed at him, shaking him mercilessly, then as she rolled and squeezed out from under, she realised she could have injured his neck and spine, and felt ashamed. Once released, she took note of the boulders lying round them, one which she’d obviously dislodged from on top of them, and then of the fact that he was making ineffectual movements to shake his head. She knelt beside him, watched as he opened his eyes. The wind continued to scream, and she had to shout into his ear.

‘Where do you hurt?’

‘Help me up?’ he countered, then groaned as he tried to twist. He accepted her hand and hauled himself to sitting position.

‘Can you move? We need to move away from here in case it falls again.’

He managed, with help, to get up and walk up the path a little, before he faltered and sat down again. He twisted to remove his pack, grimacing with the pain. She took it from him, opened it to check the contents, and cursed. The pack, along with the armour, had probably absorbed much of the force of the rock that had hit him, but at the cost of the single communicator between them, as well as the medikits’ simple tissue regenerator.

He shrugged.

‘Doubt we would have got a signal out with that rock around us, anyway. We used to have the devil of a job getting clear communications back then.’

‘Yes. The ore deposits.’

He nodded, seemingly unable to waste any more energy on talking. He looked white. She felt his hands. They were cold.

‘Is it the cold, or are you in pain?’

He was silent.

‘Dukat!’

‘….’

‘You’ve got to tell me. Do we keep going on down, or do we try to get back to the cave?’

‘The cave, I think. It’s so cold, I’m not sure how I’ll go.’

She put an arm around him to try, ineffectually, to help him up, then stopped when he flinched.

‘Let’s look at what’s under that armour, Dukat.’

He pulled away.

‘No, it’s nothing.’

‘Can’t be, you’re flinching. I think you took the force of something there, when the rock hit you.’

She noticed her fingers stiffening with the cold as she undid a side buckle enough to lift part of the armour away from his back, to peer under the shirt. The whole lower left side of his back was already black.

‘Nasty,’ she breathed.

She touched lightly.

‘I think I’ve broken some ribs,’ he muttered.

‘And then some. Hey, what’s under here? Do you keep your kidneys here?’

‘No.’ He grimaced as she traced the lower limit of the bruise. ‘My liver.’

Nothing vital, then, she thought.

‘I’m getting too cold, that’s all. I need to get to some shelter.’

She suddenly realised that if * her * fingers were stiff he must be getting dangerously cold. She dropped the clothes and armour back into place, and they wearily began the trek back up the mountain.

~

She panicked momentarily when she realised he wasn’t right behind her, but a few steps back, he was leaning against a huge rock and apparently struggling to breathe.

She slipped down to him, tried to keep her voice light.

‘How’re you going?’

He waited a second before he answered.

‘Not so good’, he replied. ‘I’m afraid I’m getting hypothermic. I’m not sure I’ll make it.’

‘Nonsense, it’s only a little way now. I can’t believe you’re saying this!’

‘He opened his eyes and looked at her; she noted how white his lips were.

‘Not such a bad death…’ he breathed.

‘Don’t be a fool, you’ve got to keep going!’ she hissed.

‘I’m sorry, Nerys. You’re forgetting how intolerant I am of the cold, and I’m wondering if I’m hypovolaemic. My abdomen doesn’t feel right.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s…tight and uncomfortable. I’m thinking I might be bleeding in there.’

‘Well, then, the quicker we get going, the less I’ll have to carry you,’ she said harshly, suddenly terrified. ‘Come on, Dukat, move it.’ She pulled at his arm, shocked at how limp it seemed to be. Just get to the cave, out of the wind, try to reduce the wind-chill factor. ‘Come ON.’

He finally started again. The wind this time was mercifully at their backs, sometimes even helping push them. She thought through their options as they walked.

If he’d lost blood, and was hypovolaemic, he was going to get chilled more quickly. She needed to get him to shelter, preferably that cave, set up the robust emergency beacon she was carrying, and wait for help. If he collapsed now, she doubted she could lift him up, let alone carry him. She prayed to the Prophets. Surely, there was some reason they’d prevailed this far, over the years. Surely he wasn’t meant to die passively in her arms, just when she’d lost the urge of all those years of itching to kill him! She brutally pulled at him when he faltered, yelled at him when he stumbled. She felt her ears and cheeks and fingers go from cold pain to numbness, and felt terror when she realised what that must mean to a cold-blooded species like him.

When she finally shoved him through the bushes at the entrance of the cave, unmindful of how his face was being scratched by the vegetation, she watched with a sense of inevitability when he crumpled to the ground. It seemed a miracle he’d made it this far. She’d noticed in the last stretch that his nictitating membranes were visible whenever he blinked, and she knew she’d only seen that in dying Cardassians before. She rolled him as best she could away from the entrance and drafts, opened the sleeping bags into eachother, then him into them. He seemed to open his eyes a little when she hugged him fiercely, and she fancied she saw the corner of a mouth lift when she laid her cheek against his. Then she unpacked the emergency beacon and went outside again to try to set it where it could broadcast, unimpeded, but not be blown over by the gale-force winds. Afterwards, she tried to gather some fuel, then in the cave, fighting with her numb extremities, she lit a fire of sorts not caring about the smoke; stumbled to the back of the cave to collect some water, and forced herself to eat.

When she returned to the prone figure, she found he had curled himself up, chin and knees tucked into chest and abdomen, arms hugging all of this, hiding his face, in a classic protective pose. She could almost imagine a tail wrapped around the whole.

She thought for a second, then, having arranged clothing and covers and everything she could for maximum warmth, she quickly divested herself of most of her clothes, stripped him as best she could, then quickly slipped in behind him, trying to clasp as much of him as she could to her.

He was so cold – too cold. She felt for a pulse, and terror raised her heartbeat again and pounded it in her ears till she felt it – but it was so slow. She rationalised that he couldn’t have bled if it was that slow, and with that comforting thought, she let herself be mesmerised by the flames, and eventually fell asleep.

~

‘Hello, anyone there?’ came an unfamiliar male voice.

Kira Nerys startled and swam back out of the depths of sleep.

‘Hello?’ she heard again, along with the cracking and crashing of vegetation being pushed aside round the opening to the cave.

‘Here! Yes, we’re here!’ she called out, trying to see toward the entrance, switching on her light.

It was that farmer they’d met before.

‘Ah, I thought it might be you two when I picked up the emergency signal.’

He noted the bag up to her bare shoulders, then nodded towards the other figure.

‘Is he alright?’

He came swiftly forward, and she was surprised at the confident way in which the man touched his cheek, felt for a neck pulse, then lifted an eyelid.

`He’s pretty hypothermic, isn’t he.’

She tried to explain what had happened, but the man was more interested in getting going. ‘We’ll need to move him back down to a healer, now. There’s a lull in the storm, then it’ll start again, in a few hours. We’ll get him down with the pack animals, somehow. You get dressed while I get the gear ready.’

He crawled out of the cave, and she hurriedly rolled out and got herself dressed. By the time she’d managed to pull his clothing back over his head, the man was back, helping her. Dukat was heavy and unresisting, now, and she was sure this was a bad sign. She looked at the man.

‘Sorry. I forgot to ask your name. Mine is Kira.’

‘Lesha. Lesha Falor. I’m sure I’ve heard your name before?’

‘Oh, there’s a few of us around.’ She wasn’t sure if he’d know her, but wasn’t keen to let him know too much at this stage. ‘Umm, you seem used to dealing with this. Are you a healer?’

He laughed. ‘Me? No, unfortunately I’ve just had a bit of experience with hypothermic people.’ He looked at her, perhaps understanding the unspoken anxiety. ‘I have no intention of harming him. I only want to help.’

‘Even though he’s a Cardassian?’ she tested him.

‘You seem pretty keen to help him, yourself, Kira.’ He paused, then went on. ‘I owe him, actually. I know him from before, and he probably saved my life once. You don’t believe me…No, I wasn’t a collaborator, or anything like that. I’ll tell you about it as we go. In the meantime…Do you think you can hold this end?’

He’d made a type of sling with some tarpaulin and poles, and they managed to roll the inert body into it and eventually, tied onto one of the pack animals.

The wind had dropped, but the air was frigid. The moons were up, lighting the trail clearly; Kira found she could match Lesha’s brisk pace by holding on to the scruff of the animals’ neck for support. Descent was swift this time, and when they took a break a couple of hours later, they were already halfway down the mountain.

Lesha hovered as Kira tried to assess how Dukat was faring. His breathing seemed slower, as was his pulse, and he had no corneal reflex, but she was unsure of what it all meant.

‘Look,’ Lesha ventured. ‘I think we ought to get back to my village rather than your shuttle. It’s at least an hour, maybe more, closer, and the healer can take a look at him and stabilise him. You can communicate with the city from there, too.’ Kira had to make a decision. She had no way of knowing whether to trust him or not, but she couldn’t see anything about him to distrust him, either. Except…maybe…

‘You said you knew him?

He looked at her.

‘You still don’t trust me with him, do you?…Alright. I’ll tell you the story now, but I suggest we keep moving, to save time.’ He led off without waiting for her to agree or disagree. Feeling helpless to do otherwise, she followed.

‘It was an autumn day like yesterday, about probably seventeen years ago. My boy was seven or eight, then. He and I were bringing a full cart of feed for my animals along one of those mountain roads, and one of my animals ran amok. The upshot of it was that I found myself lying trapped under on of the wheels, with my leg crushed, and my boy crying beside me, unable to do a thing. I know I drifted in and out of consciousness for a while. He didn’t know whether to leave me to go get help, or to stay, but quite a while later, he saw a groundcar approach, and ran into the road to stop it, knowing that it was probably an Occupation vehicle and would just as easily choose to ignore us.

He tells me there were two cars, the first one driven by a Cardassian officer with a beautiful Bajoran woman beside him, and a child in the back.

He’d expected to be told to move off the road and said he had just opened his mouth to start pleading for help, when the driver got out and came up to him. My boy says he seemed to know immediately what was wrong, and when my boy showed him where I was, in a matter of seconds he had the lady and the driver of the second car helping to get me out from under the cart.

I remember seeing these commanding blue eyes looking at me at one point, and realising a Cardassian was talking to me in Bajoran, pressing a hypospray at my neck. I couldn’t believe it when the pain receded; I’d never heard of them treating us with their own medical supplies. I remember him warning me he was going to straighten my leg, lest the circulation be lost and I lose the whole foot, and hands holding me when he pulled. I obviously passed out after that, because the next thing I remember is Bajoran medics transporting me. My son told me the group had stayed with us till the medics arrived, then went on their way. They told me at the hospital that I most certainly would have lost the leg, and possibly even my life, if they hadn’t stopped. When I finally healed and got home, I recognised the face when I saw it in a newscast. It had been the Prefect of Bajor himself, and after that I could never quite bring myself to hate and loathe him and his kind the same way.’

There was a short silence, as they continued their descent. Kira could see the rooftops of the village below.

‘And you – you’ve got to be the famous Kira Nerys. Aren’t you?’

‘Yes, I am,’ she admitted.

‘Haven’t your views on them changed, too? Would you have imagined, seventeen years ago, that you’d be trying to stop the former Prefect of Bajor from freezing to death, by using your own body heat?’

‘Well, things have changed.’

‘Precisely. So don’t think it strange that I’d be willing to help.’

They picked their way down, and on having roused the healer at her dwelling, moved her patient into her treatment room.

The healer seemed startled to find she was dealing with a Cardassian, but seemed to know what she was doing. She finally looked at Kira.

‘You’re his companion?’

Kira nodded – as good a description as any.

‘Well, he’s got internal injuries, bleeding somewhere in his abdomen. I’d guess his liver. He’s also hypothermic, but you know that; and that’s manageable. What’ll kill him is the loss of blood. I’m going to need to replace his plasma volume, and surgery to close off the bleed and repair the damage. I can’t do such surgery here, so he’ll need to be moved to the closest hospital – all I can do is stabilise him and arrange for transfer.’

‘Could I use your communicator to get in touch with my people? I think the doctor at DS9 can come down and help just as quickly.’

The woman stared.

‘You come from DS9? Well, of course, by all means. You’ll need to relay it…’

‘I know how to do it’, Kira replied, anxiety making her a little curt. She didn’t know how to apologise so went ahead and initiated the link via the First Minister’s office. It took a few minutes and several people before she got hold of the doctor, and she was conscious in the background that the healer was inserting an intravenous apparatus, and Lesha was working the replicator, replicating plasma.

When Julian’s sleep-crumpled face appeared, she nearly cried; tried to explain his injuries, till the healer gently moved her aside and spoke directly to Julian. Then the link was broken and the woman touched her shoulder.

‘They’re coming down with a shuttle, and he’ll operate here. It’ll be quicker, but even then it will be about half an hour.’ Seeing the look on Kira’s face, she went on, ‘They can’t get a transporter lock on here. There’s too much interference.’

‘Yes, I know…’

Although the half hour sounded like an eternity, in fact they’d only just seemed to start pumping warmed plasma into his veins when there was the sound of a shuttle landing above the wind and storm noises, and Julian arrived, Lesha helping with his two cases. The two medics greeted eachother, almost immediately establishing a working relationship, and began commenting to eachother about Bashir’s tricorder readings. Before long they were operating, accompanied by loud sucking noises and bottles on the floor with attached tubing filled rapidly with old blood.

‘Stick the end of that suction here,’ said with enthusiasm, then `Two and a half litres already,’ from Bashir, with great satisfaction. ‘Ah, and still coming’, almost joyfully, from the healer. Kira couldn’t believe them, and looked at Lesha. He looked a little pale, himself.

‘They sound like they’re enjoying themselves’, she whispered.

‘I do believe they are,’ he whispered back.

They kept going. `His liver looks like a sieve to me, yuck.’ ‘A bit ragged, isn’t it? Have you ever seen one cooked by a disruptor?’

Kira had had enough. She stood up. The healer looked up, and over her mask at her.

‘I can’t stand this. Would you at least tell me if you think he’s going to be alright?’

Julian looked up, as well. ‘Sorry Kira, gallows humour. Yes, I think he’ll make it fine. You’re lucky he went into hibernation mode.’

‘Really?’ she latched onto that one. ‘I remember he told me once that was one reptilian skill they’d lost, as they evolved.’

‘No, not completely. Given the right set of circumstances, it appears that they can still essentially produce the hibernation response. It’s been protective in this case, because the circulation is shut down to non-essential areas, and a lot of protective substances are released to preserve cellular integrity and function in those areas as a result. That’s why he’s still here, despite losing…let’s see now…are we up to three plus litres?’

‘Yes, must be. Most of his extracellular component, anyway’