DEEP SPACE: "Meridian" - REV. 09/27/94 - ACT ONE          18.

13   CONTINUED:

					DERAL
				(gesturing)
			-- just beyond that forest there's a 
			little garden with a small pond.

					DAX
			It sounds lovely.

					DERAL
			It is.

	They reach a corner of the square, Deral settles onto a bench, 
	and Dax leans against a nearby wall, looks out across the 
	compound.

					DAX
			Deral, our scans showed that there 
			are only about thirty of you on the 
			entire planet...

					DERAL
			There were never many of us... we're 
			the descendants of an expedition 
			that was stranded here millennia 
			ago.

					DAX
			And your population hasn't increased 
			since then?

					DERAL
			It did, for a time... but over the 
			last few centuries our numbers have 
			dwindled.

	She hears the gravity in his tone, realizes that something's 
	wrong.

					DERAL
			You see, we only reproduce when we're 
			in humanoid form... and our time 
			here keeps growing shorter.  In twelve 
			days, Meridian will shift back into 
			it's non-corporeal state.

	Dax reacts -- it seems so short a time.

					DAX
			And stay there for sixty years... ?