Taran’atar did not bother to respond, instead calculating his best chance to overcome the Vulcan and depart Ananke Alpha. Any assault he launched now would easily be beaten back, particularly in his wounded condition. He peered down at his body, and saw that large patches of his rough, gray hide had blackened, some oozing a viscous, amber fluid, all doubtless a result of his exposure to the radiation. One of the shoulder straps of his coverall hung down loosely. Pieces of the garment had been torn away in places, and a hole opened where the phaser shot had punched into his side. He feared for the Founder, unsure if she remained spread across the fabric of the coverall, or if she had fallen away during the fight.
“I will ask you only once more,” the Vulcan declared, and Taran’atar looked up at her. “Where is—”
Sudden movement interrupted her. She turned quickly, bringing her weapon around, but too late. The malleable, orange-gold strip, meters long and only centimeters wide, streaked from a place on the floor straight up to the Vulcan’s phaser. The changeling twisted speedily around the fingers holding the weapon, preventing them from firing it.
Taran’atar scrambled up and across the room, to where T’Kren had knocked the phaser from his own hand. He picked it up, turned, and fired at the Vulcan. The beam struck her in the head and sent her reeling backward, out of the Founder’s grasp, dead even before her body hit the bulkhead and crashed to the deck.
A moment later, the Founder stood before him, wearing the guise of the smooth-faced humanoid he’d seen in her cell. “You’re hurt,” she said, the words seeming a statement more of fact than of concern. “Can you go on?” she asked.
“Victory is life,” he told her. “I serve you for as long as I stand, and I will stand at least as long as it takes to return you to the Dominion.”
“Then let us depart,” she said.
“Yes, Founder,” he replied, then hastened over to the consoles. Two had been completely destroyed, one of which had obviously controlled the field that had until now prevented the Founder from shapeshifting during their escape. Taran’atar made a fast study of the controls and readouts on the intact consoles, identifying all internal and external weapons systems, as well as Ananke Alpha’s deflector screens. He deactivated all of them, then checked a map of the corridors, and worked to open the three doors between here and the shuttlebay, including the one opposite the door through which he’d entered the control room. When he finished, he turned back to the Founder. “I have a spacecraft waiting,” he said.
“Lead the way,” she ordered.
Taran’atar raced from the control room into a short corridor, which angled left to an open door and intersected with the first corridor he’d entered in the facility. He retraced his steps, noting in the center of the deck the red line he’d followed earlier. Finally, phaser drawn, he marched through another doorway and into the shuttlebay, the Founder right behind him.
Rio Grande sat in the same location and position as when it had landed, its forward port hatch open. Kira stood outside the runabout, clearly having just disembarked the ship. She carried no weapon.
Taran’atar stopped and looked at her, feeling the presence of the Founder beside him. Kira stared at him for a moment, then glanced at the Founder, and finally back at him again.
“Taran’atar,” she said, her utterance of his name easily conveying her disappointment.
He did not respond.
“I’m ordering you to stand down,” she continued, “and to return the Founder to her cell.” She said nothing about Odo’s directive to do as Kira commanded, but Taran’atar recalled well the parameters of the mission on which Odo had sent him. Disobeying Kira now would be the same as disobeying Odo—the same as disobeying a Founder. He had never done such a thing during the twenty-two years of his life.
“Kill her,” said the Founder at his side. “Kill her, and let’s get out of here.”
Taran’atar’s resolve wavered. He’d now essentially been giving conflicting orders by two different Founders, and he felt unsure how to proceed. He attempted to cover his indecision by examining the power level of the phaser, which he saw had been set to kill. He did not change it.
Hadn’t he come here for this? he asked himself. Hadn’t he wanted this Founder to issue him orders to return to the Dominion, orders that would contradict Odo’s? And hadn’t he intended to follow such orders? He had not thought that he would have to kill Captain Kira, but did that matter? He had believed that he would simply be able to leave her behind, but now he’d been given a different order.
“Kill her,” the Founder said again.
Taran’atar raised the phaser—still set to kill—and aimed it at Kira. He looked at her face—that face—and finally found the sense of duty he needed to take action. He would do what he had to do, and then escape on the runabout with the Founder and return to the Dominion.
Taran’atar applied pressure to the triggering pad, and his weapon roared to life, its lethal beam springing from the emitter. The captain had no time to move. The shot struck her directly in the chest.
As Taran’atar watched, Kira collapsed to the deck of the shuttlebay, dead.
One of the changelings—not Laas or Indurane, but one of the three others in the small link with Odo—conveyed the impression of a pit. Flattening itself in a curved, irregular shape, it depressed the majority of its planar surface a few centimeters down from its raised outer border. From a macroscopic perspective, it would have taken on little meaning in terms of scale, but when observed from within, from a viewpoint of the infinitesimal, it took on grand proportions: soaring walls impossible to ascend, its floor vast, desolate, and inescapable.
Surveying the gaping cavity, Odo wondered about its intended meaning. As he watched, something began to rise from the center of the barren plane, something changeable and strong, growing sizable enough to dominate its surroundings. Odo recognized the imagery even before the burning star formed beside it, and even before the star flared into a nova: the Progenitor, rising high to look beneficently down on the Founders, ready to save the Great Link from the abyss of their future extinction.
Most of the changelings present responded with movement, their unstructured bodies swaying frantically in jubilation. Odo himself shifted, but not as the others did. He seeped through them, until finally he rolled clear, his body curled into a tight golden sphere. He then weaved around the writhing mass toward a far corner of the large, empty cabin, settling near the intersection of two bulkheads. Exhausted by the frenzied expectancy exhibited constantly by all of the Founders here—all of them but for Laas—he retained his round shape for a while, resting quietly as he attempted to distance himself from the tumult of their potent emotions.
Beside him, the gathering of changelings continued to undulate. Indurane and the three others had been selected by the Great Link to travel to the region of the nova, in search of the Progenitor, and Odo and Laas had chosen to accompany them. Once the decision had been made, Odo had suggested Jem’Hadar Attack Vessel 971, based upon his familiarity with its personnel, and there had been no objection. He’d transported up to the ship first and prepared for the journey, informing Weyoun of their destination, but keeping from him and the Jem’Hadar crew the reason for the undertaking. Odo had also secured individual quarters for himself and for Laas, since they both still broke from the Link on a recurrent basis, and would likely do so during their travels, even with the smaller link. Additionally, Odo had arranged this roomy cabin for the other four changelings, knowing that they would neither require nor want separate accommodations.
To this point, the voyage had been uneventful, though hardly restful. Indurane and the other three Founders had joined together immediately upon arriving here, and none of them had since parted from the others. Laas had spent most of his time with them as well, Odo less so. Besides needing to keep his own counsel in his own manner, he had never before experienced such an arduous, draining connection with his people. The vigor and endurance with which Indurane and the
others communed about the Progenitor—characteristics that echoed the current state of the Great Link—had driven Odo from them several times now. He found their manic, obsessive behavior difficult to deal with, and fundamentally incomprehensible.
Realizing that he would find no further respite, Odo reached upward, fracturing the perfect shape of the globe he had become. He adjusted his variable body, remaking himself into the imprecise Bajoran form he’d worn for decades. He peered down at the Founders joined together—the metaphorical gulf, the nova, and the Progenitor all lost now to their physical fluctuations—and felt very far from them, and from the rest of his people. Since his return to the Founders after the war, he’d frequently been at odds with them. He’d sought answers, presented arguments, and propounded suggestions about the future of the Great Link and its relationships with the rest of the galaxy, and often, he’d found himself a minority of one, his ideas disregarded and disdained, his motivations questioned. And yet despite that, he’d still felt united to them. Now, though, he did not. In this strange and unexpected circumstance, he felt far more at variance with them than ever he had before, felt…distinct…from them in a way he never had.
Odo had never favored the Dominion’s war with the denizens of the Alpha Quadrant, of course, had never agreed with the Founders’ opinion of their superiority over humanoids, but he’d at least understood the justifications for their isolationist and xenophobic practices. After all, throughout their history, they had been persecuted, hunted, and murdered by solids. But this conviction, not only that the Progenitor had returned, but that It even existed at all…that the Founders believed in a Creator, Whom they now also looked upon as their Savior…Odo had trouble crediting such a situation. He would have thought it all a lie, some sort of elaborate ruse meant to mislead him in order to fulfill some hidden agenda, if not for his own experience with the Link. Alongside their fervent hopes that the Progenitor had returned, Odo had felt their passionate certainty in Its existence. They had no doubts, and that concerned him.
As he gazed down again at the moving, twisting pool before him, a bitter emptiness seemed to imbue his body, as though he had shapeshifted himself into merely a shell. He had not yet really coped with the revelation that the Founders could not reproduce, and would therefore one day die out. Though he knew that individual changelings lived long lives—very long lives, by humanoid standards—it grieved him to know that his people would face not only each of their own deaths, but that of their entire species. It made more sense now than ever that the Great Link took so very seriously the death of even a single Founder. It also seemed quite reasonable that such an extreme and final reality could have given rise to the concept of the Progenitor, both as the beginning of the Great Link, and as its rescue from oblivion.
And yet the very rationalization for the belief in a Creator undermined the reality of a Creator. For while the fear of death—both individual and communal death—provided an easily understandable motivation for theism, it did not provide any evidence to reasonably justify it. Quite the opposite, it suggested that belief resulted from need and desire, and not from truth—that the Founders believed in a Creator because they wanted to believe, not because of any strong evidence. Even the Bajorans, staunch in their faith in the divinity of the Prophets, did not hold that their deities had created the universe or their people. Nor did they look upon the Prophets to save them, but simply to help and guide them through their lives. Given the intellect and strength of the Founders, and even considering their eventual extinction, it seemed inexplicable to Odo that they actually believed in a Deity—particularly their version of It. For what kind of a God abandons Its people for thousands of years, or longer?
More worrisome to him, though, was what the reaction of the Great Link would be when Indurane and the others did not locate the Progenitor. The Founders would doubtless continue the search for some time, but it would in due course become clear that they would find nothing. Would they conclude that they had been wrong about the Progenitor’s return, or about Its existence? And how would they react in either case, whether to the notion that their God continued to disregard them, or to the realization that It did not really exist? With their current level of assurance and excitement, Odo could not imagine a positive outcome.
For the third time in recent days, he thought of his conversation with Nerys in Dax’s closet. What he asked himself now about the Founders, he had essentially asked of Nerys that night. And while her response—denial—did not have repercussions for her people, he worried that the same would not be true of the Great Link.
Odo gazed down at Laas, Indurane, and the other three Founders moving together on the floor of the cabin, their shining bodies moving as one. Quick to draw conclusions, and even quicker to extreme action, they caused Odo to fear what might soon happen. With the promise of the Progenitor taken from them, how would they react? Would they withdraw even more from the rest of the galaxy, or would they choose to preemptively rid themselves of any threats to their existence, once more sending armies of Jem’Hadar out to eliminate any who could conceivably cause harm to the Great Link, and thereby hasten its demise? And how, Odo asked himself, could he act to prevent either course, or any other terrible turn of events that might occur?
“Weyoun to Odo,” came the Vorta’s voice over the comm system, interrupting Odo’s thoughts.
“I’m here, Weyoun,” he said. “Go ahead.”
“You asked me to inform you when we approached the nova, Founder,” Weyoun said. “We have just closed to within sensor range of the system.”
“Thank you,” Odo said. “I’ll join you on the bridge.” He started past the linked changelings and toward the door. As he did so, though, the pool of biomimetic cells quickly separated into five segments, like identically charged particles repelling each other. At different rates, the individual Founders expanded upward, each taking humanoid shape. Indurane and two of the others took on inexact Bajoran forms, while Laas and the remaining changling approximated Varalans.
“I’ll keep you informed,” Odo told the group as the door opened before him. But they paid him no heed, and as he stepped into the corridor on his way to the bridge, all five changelings followed. Soon enough, Odo thought, he would find out how they would react to not finding the Progenitor.
He dreaded what that reaction would be.
6
“What if you learned that the Prophets were not gods?” Odo asked Kira. “That they were simply alien beings with an interest in the Bajoran people?”
She did not respond right away. For a few moments, she didn’t even move, instead simply staring back at him. Finally, Odo added, “Or what if the Prophets abandoned Bajor?”
Kira furrowed her brow, then leaned back on the small stool, lifting an elbow and forearm up onto Dax’s vanity. “Odo,” she said, “I can’t learn any of those things about the Prophets because none of them are true, or ever will be true.”
“You believe that the Prophets care for the Bajorans, and guide them, and always will,” he said. “Your people experienced such hardship and suffering under the Cardassian Occupation…you lost your mother and father, friends…and yet you still retained your faith through all of that.”
“Yes,” Kira said, her mouth widening to a smile that bespoke of the peace and joy delivered to her by her convictions.
Odo studied her expression, and struggled to decide how best to make his point to her. She’d reconfirmed her unwavering faith in the Prophets, and he needed to figure out how to effectively compare her faith in her gods to his faith in his own people. He knew that she would resist the analogy.
Leaning forward on the storage bin, Odo put his hands on his knees, his elbows akimbo. He glanced to his left as he tried to choose his next words, and noticed several articles of clothing and footwear heaped about the deck, as though they had been carelessly tossed aside. He noted a single Starfleet uniform lying beneath two dresses—one black, one with a floral print—and his investigative skills
told him that, after her shift had ended today, Dax had tried on various items before settling on the purple outfit she now wore at the party.
Trying to focus his mind, Odo turned back toward Kira. “To me,” he said, “your faith seems so…pure.”
Kira laughed, and Odo felt himself buoyed by the spontaneous sounds of her delight. “I don’t think I’d ever describe myself as ‘pure,’ ” she said. Then, more seriously, she continued, “But my faith is real, and it will always be a significant part of who I am.”
“I know,” Odo said, then sat up straight, bracing himself for the point he wanted to make. “I’ve recently discovered that I also have faith.” He paused as Kira’s eyebrows rose on her forehead in obvious surprise at his claim. “Despite the torment they’ve endured throughout their history,” he explained, “and despite the torment they’ve inflicted on others, I have faith in my people.”
Kira’s eyebrows crashed back down. She pulled her arm from atop the vanity and into her lap, as though unconsciously preparing to defend herself. “I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t agree with comparing my beliefs in the Prophets to yours in the Founders.” Her voice had turned cold.
“Nerys, please,” Odo said. “I’m not trying to equate the Prophets and the Founders. But I am trying to relate what I’ve been thinking and feeling to what you think and feel. I want to explain why I made the decision to link with the female Founder when I did.”
Kira looked down, then carefully folded her hands together. He could see the tension in her jaw. “I’m listening,” she said.
Odo peered ahead at the path he thought he could take to get where he wanted to go, but he also knew that he might face pitfalls along the way. Still, if he didn’t continue the conversation he’d already begun, he would never get there. As gently as he could, he asked, “Are the Prophets responsible for your actions?”
Worlds of Star Trek Deep Space Nine® Volume Three Page 31