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Lisa had always loved being Trill—the spots, the language, the possibility of joining—and her ancestor, Jadzia Dax, was a heroine to her. Meeting her was the highlight of Lisa’s tenth year, and she knew then that she wanted to be joined. She decided to study history. The founding crew had scavenged the history of the alpha and beta quadrants from the Defiant’s computer banks, which Lisa was able to study in addition to that of Gaia. She also learned about Trill culture and biology, and about how it had changed in their new environment.
After Jadzia’s death, new hosts were chosen from among her descendants by councils of all the adult Trill of Gaia. But they didn’t have the resources of the Symbiosis Commission, and rituals like the Zhian’tara which had been deemed essential for new hosts on the home planet, were unable to be performed in their new world. This, they reasoned, was how something like Yedrin’s attempt to deceive Jadzia had happened.
Jadzia had realized his deception, and found a way to duplicate the Defiant and preserve both timelines, but Yedrin’s guilt shortened his life span. As his health deteriorated, talk began about choosing the new host. Lisa was the perfect age, and she knew more about joining and the previous hosts than any of the others. She had read every text on joining, and every personal log of Jadzia and the hosts who followed her. She knew Dax as well as anyone who had never carried the symbiont could.
“MOLLY!”
Molly turned to see Lisa running towards the grove where she was taking botanical samples, somewhat surprised as her friend rarely expressed openly such unbridled excitement.
“It’s official! I’ve been chosen as the next host of Dax!” Lisa said as she threw her arms around Molly, ignoring the open sample container.
“Lisa, you’re my best friend and I’m really happy for you, but do you mind?!” a somewhat muffled Molly demanded.
“O right, sorry!” She released her but didn’t stop smiling.
Molly rolled her eyes as she screwed the top onto the container, but couldn’t suppress a grin. “Of course they had to choose you. You’ve wanted it more than anyone. What did Yedrin say?”
“He agreed that I was the best candidate, and he said Jadzia wanted me to be joined. Apparently I was how she had imagined her own daughter might look—well, like me with forehead ridges.”
Molly knew how much it must mean to Lisa to be told that Jadzia herself approved of her as a host of Dax.
“Are you nervous?”
“Yes.” Lisa admitted. “They do as many medical tests as possible, but it’s still impossible to be sure rejection won’t occur.”
Molly shuddered. She was glad she wasn’t Trill. They might have pretty spots, but joining brought up so many uncomfortable possibilities—like how to be happy for your friend for being joined when joining means someone else’s death. But is it really death if their memories and personality are still intact within another body?
“I’ll practically be living in the clinic as Yedrin’s illness progresses. They’ll be keeping careful watch on his isoboromine, and once it drops below 40% they’ll transfer Dax.”
Transfer seemed so cold to Molly. Once joined hosts can’t survive without their symbiont for long, and even though they are only removed from those already dying it seemed too close to murder. Weighing these kinds of medical ethics made her glad to be a botanist. She tried not to think about the prospect that she may one day watch Dax be removed from Lisa. Lisa was Trill. She knew and accepted the possibility she may die for Dax. Some things are harder for friends to watch.
Trying to shake off her darker thoughts, Molly smiled, “Are there still things you want to do before you’re joined?”
The sensations were overwhelming. Not just the physical feelings as the Dax symbiont squirmed into her abdomen, nestling among her organs, but the electrical pulses as it began to establish its neurochemical link with her mind. And then came the memories—flashes of past lives, past deaths, past joinings. Planets a quadrant away, children she’d never met, foods she’d never tasted… suddenly she had the wonder of a dozen lives to take joy in. But among the happy memories were murderous impulses of Joran, the trauma of Torias’ death, Yedrin’s deception… and the pain of so many people within her now.
Her sight was blinded by visions of lifetimes before, her ears with melodies suddenly familiar—the sterile clinic smell was replaced by foreign flowers, real gagh, and an ocean breeze on Trill. Knowledge of diplomacy, law, science, engineering was suddenly available to her, while her body realized it was no longer just an amateur dancer, but a professional gymnast. She could pilot a starship or wield a bat’leth. She had been and was so many things, so many people. She was Lisa Dax now, and she struggled to sit up and bid final farewell to a man she was beginning to finally understand as Yedrin breathed his last beside her, a Dax no longer.
A hand pressed her gently back onto the surgical bed, while another continued to run a dermal regenerator over the site of joining, “This isn’t the most difficult surgery for full Trill, but you’re more human than Trill now and you’ve still got enough Klingon DNA to complicate things further. Lay still and let the symbiont stabilise within you.”
Her mind and body were too flooded for her to be able to resist the order. She closed her eyes and let the impressions wash through her, the beeping of a tricorder fading away into the distance. Lisa tried to sift through the memories, separate them by their respective lives. “Audrid…” she mumbled, where was she? Yedrin had advised her to seek out those memories within her—as head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission, Audrid knew more about joining than any of the other hosts. She had counselled many a newly joined host, and Lisa knew from reading their journals that all of the Gaian hosts had found her guidance particularly invaluable.
Lisa felt her heart beat beginning to increase. Images, feelings, senses of all kinds—suddenly what had been gentle ripples and waves increased in intensity. Overwhelming her until she lost all self of sense, and then consciousness.
She heard the familiar hum of a tricorder passing over her, felt a cloth and padded table beneath her.
“Do you remember who you are?” a voice asked.
“Lisa. I’m… Lisa.” Everything was so quiet, something wasn’t right.
“What about Dax? Can you remember being Yedrin, Jadzia, Tobin?”
She felt a jolt of electricity move through her body, faces flash before her eyes, “I remember reading about them, I can’t remember being them.” Her eyes opened to see the clinic ceiling. “What’s happened, I was joined. Where’s Dax?” she looked over to see Dr. Juliana Bashir.
“Within you. There’s been some difficulty in your joining. Your vascular and nervous systems are integrating at the expected pace, but the neurochemical link between you and Dax isn’t establishing. Your isoboromine levels have fallen to sixty-four percent since joining.”
“They were there. When Dax was joining, all the other hosts. Their memories and lives, everything they did and felt—I couldn’t make sense of them. Now it’s gone… Am I rejecting Dax?”
“I think it quite likely at this point—we may have to accept that there is no longer enough Trill DNA within Gaia’s population to host Dax. The joining is still reversible, I will be able to remove Dax safely without permanent harm to you…”
“No.” Lisa interrupted the doctor and braced herself against another electrical charge. “No. I won’t give up Dax, not yet.”
“The longer we wait, the more danger there is to your body. Rejection is fatal and painful, and the possibility of organ failure…”
“Every potential host knows there is risk in joining,” Lisa interrupted. “And we enter into it willing to sacrifice ourselves for the symbiont. I think it’s easy for humans to forget that they are not computer banks with memories compatible with humanoids. They may look like slugs but they are sentient beings, beyond the host memories they carry. Dax is your patient as much as I am. A Trill doctor understands that, and you need to as well.”
“This isn’t Trill Lisa. You were the best candidate for joining. If you die of rejection, I’m not sure I’m willing to risk another patient’s life to save Dax.”
“I understand. What have you administered for treatment? Have you started the benzocyatazine and immunosuppressants?”
The doctor grimaced, “This is against my professional judgement. If I deem you to be near death, I will remove the symbiont.”
Lisa nodded.
The doctor loaded a hypospray from the tray beside her operating table. “If the benzocyatazine works, it may raise your isoboramine levels at a rate that could cause hallucinations, auditory and visual, as well as continued nervous system shocks.”
“I’ve read about Jadzia’s experience with it.”
“One thing you learn in medicine, is that theory and reality are very different things to bear.” The hypo hissed at Lisa’s neck and withdrew.
Lisa had explained the procedure to Molly, its risks. She had told her about the risk of rejection, that hybrid Trill had lower isoboromine levels than full Trill, that the pouches Trill had evolved with as marsupials and within which symbionts lived no longer fully formed in Jadzia’s descendants, making the surgery itself more complicated. It had been concerning, but Lisa had seemed more nervous about joining than worried about medical procedures.
Yedrin had passed mere minutes after Dax had been transferred to Lisa. And now she lay there on the clinic operating table, risking organ damage and death while her body shuddered and she yelled for people who had died centuries before. Tricorder scans revealed jumps in isoboromine levels, and intermittent neurochemical communication between her friend and her symbiont. But they also showed rising white blood cell counts.
Lisa had said her goodbyes to her family, to Molly, after the doctor began the hyposprays. Her parents and siblings seemed so calm, they cried and smiled and told her they loved her. Molly wanted to scream at Dr. Bashir, at Lisa’s family. They were risking her life. Take the symbiont out.
Tradition on Gaia meant that all the planet’s Trill gathered to watch the joining, it dated from the time of Jadzia’s death, when all her children gathered to see the symbiont transferred to her son. But the clinic was empty now, they had all been told to leave as the joining failed to occur normally. Just Molly, Lisa’s family, and the doctor and nurses were left. Everyone quiet but the hallucinating Lisa.
But even her voice was getting quieter. Molly tried to read whether she was getting weaker or the joining stronger in the doctor’s face, but it was inscrutable.
Finally leaving her patient’s side, Dr. Bashir turned to address Lisa’s family and friend, “Her leukocyte count is still elevated, but her isoboromine levels have increased to seventy-three percent. Her hallucinations should begin to stop as I administer lower doses of benzocyatazine, but communication between Lisa’s cerebral cortex and that of Dax is still intermittent.”
The doctor paused, and continued with less clinical detachment. “It will be several days before we can know whether the joining will be successful, but it will be permanent before then. Her immediate health is not in danger but her long-term prognosis is a mystery. A choice needs to be made to remove the symbiont now, or to continue treatment for rejection. Lisa is unable to make any decisions—you are her next of kin, and I will abide by your choice.”
“If we could have a moment to discuss this as a family.” Lisa’s mother asked.
The doctor nodded, “Of course.”
They left the main room for a small exam room off to the side, leaving Molly on her own to worry. She guessed that they would ask the joining continue—and Molly knew that that’s what Lisa would want. She also knew the doctor would prefer to remove Dax now, to ensure at least one of her patients would survive. And Molly, human that she was, agreed.
Lisa’s family returned, and asked the joining proceed. The doctor nodded, and returned to her patients.
The next three days saw Lisa vacillate in and out of consciousness. Sometimes while awake, she would shiver in loneliness as she lost contact with Dax, other times the memories overtook her and she awoke believing she was Tobin, or Audrid. One morning, she had awoken as Joran and taken a nurse hostage for a few minutes before fainting. From then on, she was strapped to the bed for everyone’s safety.
But finally, she awoke as Lisa Dax. Herself again, but carrying the memories of all the symbiont’s past lives. She smiled her old smile, requested her favourite breakfast, and her family cried in relief.
Lisa was kept at the clinic another two weeks—until Dr. Bashir was sure the neurochemical link had been established, and her isoboromine levels acceptable. She was weaned off the benzocyatazine and immunosuppresants, and finally got to return home.
Lisa remained much the same person she had been before joining, but she laughed a little easier, developed a mischievous sense of humour, was a little more outgoing, and took more risks. The lives added to her own expressed themselves in small ways as she slowly recovered from the ordeal.
This historian in Lisa was overjoyed by the new memories. She had read about Gaia’s history, but now she had memories of being there—from its founding until the present. And more than that, she had been there during historical events on planets, ships, and stations she had never seen. She had witnessed the Bell Riots, found the Bajoran Wormhole, and negotiated the Khitomer Accords. She had met and even been major players in the history of the alpha and beta quadrants.
Her memories of the founding crew of the Defiant made for interesting observations of those around her as well. Lisa had a tendency to laugh now when Molly was frustrated or moody. An irritated Molly was told it was because her surliness was “perfectly O’Brien”. All around her people seemed slightly different. Being invited to a Sisko’s for dinner brought back memories of meals shared with Jake and Benjamin, while the current Dr. Bashir was impossible not to compare to Julian and the two centuries of descendants who had followed his path.
Molly, human and always more interested in botany than history, had never studied the lives of Dax—but she was soon learning about all of her friends past lives.
“So Tobin, he’d never been drunk! Until Curzon fixed that for him during his zhin’tara. To be honest I’m surprised Torias didn’t try!” Lisa’s laugh turned into a wheeze.
Molly turned to her concerned, “Do you need to stop? Let’s rest for a minute.”
She guided her friend to a nearby bench and helped her down. Lisa was still recovering, the walks the two took around the settlement part of her recuperation.
“I’m fine.” Lisa said breathlessly. “Just a little dizzy.”
Molly looked closer, and saw Lisa’s iris consumed by dilated pupils, her breaths quick and shallow, her dark skin turning ashen beneath a sheen of sweat. She grabbed her friend’s wrist to feel her pulse weak and racing. “Clinic, now.” She pronounced.
Lisa was slender, and Molly was glad of it as she raised her friend up to lean on her stockier shoulder. She half-carried Lisa to the mercifully near clinic, her usually graceful friend stumbling and barely upright. Molly laid her down on the nearest bed, the doctor appearing in the door from her office at the noise.
“What happened?” she asked, tricorder already scanning.
“We were walking, and she seemed a little out of breath. I suggested we rest a minute but by the time she was on the bench…”
As the doctor loaded a hypospray from a cart and pressed it to her artery, Lisa seemed to breathe easier and calm down, laying back.
“Should I get her family?”
Dr. Bashir shook her head, “I’ve already got her stabilised, she should start coming to any minute now.”
As Lisa opened her eyes, she recognized the ceiling she’d recently spent so many weeks memorizing. She groaned and closed her eyes again. “Are Dax and I ok?”
“You will be,” Molly assured her, hoping it would be true.
“Feeling any better?” Dr. Bashir asked.
“Still dizzy, and I’ve got a headache.”
“It’s temporary.” The doctor took the pillows from another bed and helped Lisa sit up.
“What’s wrong with me?”
The doctor pursed her lips, “You’re rejecting your symbiont.”
Molly was horrified, “It’s been a month!”
The doctor crossed the room to choose another hypospray vial, “Rejection isn’t always immediate, I had Lisa on immunosuppressants after she was joined. The hosts prior to now who have experienced some rejection due to their human ancestry were able to taper off the immunosuppressants as their bodies became accustomed to the symbiont.” She turned back to Lisa apologetically, “It seems you are too human, your immune system is starting to attack Dax.”
“And Jadzia thought her half-Klingon child might have a difficult time joining… but if you put me back on immunosupressants?”
“It should halt the rejection, but you’ll need to take them the rest of your life. You’ll be vulnerable to infections and other medical issues, but since we can’t remove Dax it’s the only option. I do hope you meant it when you said hosts were willing to make sacrifices for their symbionts, because you will need to.”
“I meant it.”
“Good. I’ll send someone to pick up your things, and tell your family where you are. It looks like you’ll be spending some more time here.” The doctor gave a half smile, “I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.”
Lisa grimaced and worked her way deeper into the pillows behind her. She knew Jadzia had worried a day might come when her descendants would be too human to host Dax—but that day was not yet here. Lisa Dax may be part human, but she was still Trill. A joined Trill.