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“Times must change, Sem. And he speaks the truth. These Voyagers, their philosophy is not so different from things I’ve read in some of the ancient texts.” Speaking from memory, he quoted, “ ‘For each of us must go out into the world and drink in all there is to see and to hear and to taste.’ In the end, each of us must sit by the right hand of the Blessed, All-Knowing Light, tell the story of our life, and be judged.”

Sem rolled her eyes in disgust. “And even if I still believed this tale told to children, I would at least know that I spent my life trying to help my people. Can you say the same, Ziv?”

“Some of your people, Sem. And which ones? Tell me, how did you become the judge?”

Sem retracted her head down to the level of her shoulders and scowled at him. Abruptly, she clacked her tongue twice against her palate, then whistled sharply. Under her robes, Ziv saw stirrings like the ripples made by a breeze over the surface of a pond. His mouth went dry. No, he thought. I will not be a slave to this again! “Tell them to leave, Ziv,” she said.

Ziv struggled against her will. I will not be a slave to this again!

His hara all stood as if to file out the door, the programming that controlled their movements older than the language Sem spoke in. Small slits near the waist of her garment parted provocatively and pheromones began working their ancient magic.

Marshaling his will, Ziv turned his eyes so he could look at his hara, all of whom, he assumed, would have their gaze averted. To his surprise (and mild embarrassment), Ziv found that all of them had their eyes locked on him, as if they were willing him their strength the same way that he, the harat, could sometimes lend them his own. Their eyes did not accuse or shame him and one—Ziv would never know who—clicked once softly, a note of sympathy and compassion. Ziv clenched his eyes shut, and though he could not stop thinking about what was beneath Sem’s robes, he said, “No.”

“No?” Sem said, surprised but amused.

“No,” Ziv said. “Leave here. You shamed me once and took my life from me. I will not let you do it again.”

Moving very close to him, so close that Ziv could feel her warm breath on his cheek, Sem asked in a whisper, “I took something from you? And here I was thinking I gave you something.”

“I did not want what you gave me,” Ziv hissed.

“Then what is it you do want?”

“I wish to be something I can never be again.”

“And you think I could not arrange for you to be my shi-harat again?” Sem asked. “We could say your resignation was simply a mistake, a misunderstanding. Who would dare doubt me?”

The desire to succumb, to agree to anything Sem asked, was overwhelming, but Ziv kept moving his eyes from Diro to Shet to Jara to Mol, then back again. “Leave,” he whispered, but even Ziv was not certain if he spoke to Sem or to his hara. No one moved for several seconds until, finally, Sem took a half-step away from him, sighing as her robes settled back into place.

“Fine,” she said as she exited. “A wonderful time and place for you to develop some character, Ziv. What else will I find to do to amuse myself before the end?”

Uncharacteristically, it was Mol who broke the silence after Sem left. “I’m sure,” he said softly, “that she will think of something.”

“You two were sent to help,” Kaytok said. “So what can you do? What were you doing to our scanners?”

B’Elanna could hear the crackle of wood and felt the heat from a low fire on her knees, but did not smell smoke, so she assumed they had outfitted some kind of stove in one of the laboratories. The warmth was a comfort after the damp cold of the underground tank, and the rations from her kit had done a lot to bring her back to full consciousness. “We can’t do much now,” she said, picking at a bit of food wedged between her teeth. “Not until we can contact our ship and get these wounds healed. Just before the, uh, accident, we saw something in your scanners that might help us get back in touch with her.”

“You mean the scanner that was severely