The Long Mirage

by David R. George III

  “I think I understand.” It occurred to Kira that perhaps she should set down her memories of her time as Keev Anora, no matter how few and fragmented they might be.

  “I’m also thinking about attending university,” Altek said, his tone growing enthusiastic. “I want to study Bajoran history, maybe with an eye to finding other parallels between where I came from and where I am now. I guess I’m just trying to put it all together in some kind of coherent context for myself.”

  “I’m a bit surprised,” Kira said. “I thought you’d go back into medicine.”

  “Actually, I think I probably will,” Altek said. “I’m just not sure when. I haven’t been here all that long—not when compared with the decades of my life before now—and I’m still trying to figure it all out.”

  “That makes sense.” Suddenly, she felt the need to say more. “Dans, I’m sorry if I hurt you. I don’t doubt the truth of the feelings between you and Keev Anora, and I know that, somehow, I am Keev, or I was . . . but even though I sometimes recall flashes of that time, those days are fading fast for me. More even than that, there’s your relationship with Captain Ro. Have you spoken with her since leaving Deep Space Nine?”

  “No,” Altek said. “I’ve thought about contacting her, but the way we parted, and her silence, tells me that it’s probably best if I don’t.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  Altek shrugged noncommittally, then changed the subject. “What about you?” he asked. “What are your plans?”

  “I’ll be heading back to Endalla in a few days,” Kira told him. “I’m still committed to observing the study of the falsework and assisting vedeks and scholars in interpreting what the scientists find. So far, there have been no further incidents.”

  “Will you be leaving the monastery?”

  “No,” Kira said. “I’ll be splitting my time between Endalla and here. I want to contribute to the study of the falsework, but I also want to resume my life here at Vanadwan. I’m grateful for all of my experiences, but it feels as though my time here has just begun.”

  “Well, I certainly know what that feels like,” Altek said, though he did not sound wistful. He stood up, and Kira did so as well. “I just wanted to stop by and thank you for all the support you’ve given me, when I first came to Bajor and then on Endalla. I don’t know if I could have gotten through it all without you.”

  “I wish you good fortune,” Kira said, “and a happy life.” She thought to say more, to tell him that they should stay in touch, that they should make sure to see each other from time to time, but she realized that she didn’t know if either of them would want that.

  “Good fortune to you too,” Altek said. He started to leave, but then he stopped in the doorway. “I like the life that I’m starting to build here, and I’m excited about my plans, but some part of me is still unsettled because . . . well, I believe that the Prophets brought me here to act as a conduit for the message implicitly contained in the Endalla construct, but now I wonder what Their purpose is for me going forward.”

  “I can only tell you that you should have faith not only in the Prophets, but in yourself,” Kira said. “If you do that, I’m certain that the Prophets will guide you along whatever path you are meant to walk.”

  Altek seemed to consider that. Finally, he nodded and left. Kira watched him go, and then listened as his footsteps receded.

  She walked over to the dresser and picked up When the Prophets Cried. The texture of its deep-red binding felt familiar in her hands. She ran her fingers over the remnants of the gold-inlay letters of its title, which had been almost entirely worn away by decades of handling.

  Kira carried the volume over to her desk and set it down. She sat and opened the book, flipping through pages she had read more times than she could remember. She flipped past chapter titles—“Home in the Firmament,” “Seeds of Change,” “Whispers in the Night,” and others—until she came to the one she wanted to see at that moment: “Faith and Love.”

  Kira had only read a few lines when she heard footsteps approaching her door again. She waited, thinking that Altek had returned to say something more to her—­perhaps to convince her that they belonged together after all. She steeled herself for a conversation that she didn’t think would be easy for either of them.

  Odo appeared in her doorway.

  Since coming back to the Vanadwan Monastery, Kira had learned of Odo’s return to the Alpha Quadrant after the collapse of the Celestial Temple, and that he had remained around Bajor afterward, refusing offers from Starfleet to carry him back to the Dominion. In her heart, she knew that he had been waiting to see if the wormhole would reopen and she would emerge from it. She knew that he remained in the Alpha Quadrant, helping the Federation in settling a ship of Dominion refugees. Kira had expected that she would see him again one day soon, though not whether it would be because he sought closure with her, or a second chance.

  “Odo,” she said, and the emotion in her voice seemed almost palpable. She stood up and took a step toward him, and his face changed. He did not shape-shift or alter his form in that way, but the line of his mouth wavered and his eyes sparked. She could see the love he still felt for her.

  “I’m so glad you’re all right,” he said. “I’ve missed you.”

  “I’ve missed you,” Kira said as she crossed the distance between them and embraced Odo. He wrapped his arms around her, and they stood that way for a long time. Then Kira felt his body soften, shift, change. His flesh dissolved around her into lambent light. She raised her arms over her head and spread them wide as the essence of his being curled around her in a warm, soothing display of love that she had ever only experienced with Odo.

  For the first time since emerging from the wormhole back in her own time, Kira truly felt that she was home.

  ii

  * * *

  Doctor Ceylin Remzi sat on the provincial, teal-covered davenport, just as she had done most days for nearly a month. She hadn’t anticipated staying away from Jupiter Station for as long as she had; she’d initially joined Federation Security aboard their interceptor for the purpose of verifying the existence of the mobile emitter, and whether or not the device actually worked. The events on Deep Space 9 with Vic Fontaine had allowed her to complete her mission with relative alacrity, but the holographic character, and the stories that Nog and others had shared with her, had motivated her to extend her visit to the starbase.

  “Here you are, Doc,” Vic said as he walked over from the kitchenette on one side of the small apartment. He set a cup and saucer down on the table, right beside her padd. “Cream and two sugars,” he said. “Just the way you like it.”

  “Thank you,” Remzi said. The dark aroma of the French roast drifted up to her.

  “My pleasure,” Vic said. He put his own cup of coffee down, then pulled over a linen-covered chair with a carved oak frame. “So what’ll it be today?” he asked as he sat down opposite her. “My childhood in Philly? High school days? My on-again–off-again romance with Angie? On the road opening for Frank?”

  “You make it sound like I’ve been interrogating you,” Remzi said.

  “Haven’t you been?” Vic asked, though he did not sound threatened by the concept. “I mean, not like you’re a cop or anything, but isn’t that what headshrinkers do? Ask questions, dig for details, look for connections?”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right,” Remzi said. She had introduced herself to Vic as a psychiatrist, which had the benefit of being true. Remzi had earned her medical degree from the University of Kinshasa before finding her love and talent for the artificial intelligence side of holographic science. “But you’ve been through a great deal these last couple of years, and it’s important to make sure that you’re able to cope with all of that and get on with your life.”

  Vic held out his arms and looked left and right around the small apartment. “I’d say I’
m doing a pretty good job of getting on with my life.”

  “Of course you are,” Remzi said. “But how do you feel about it? You were isolated from your friends for more than two years, and your life was constantly in peril. That’s a lot to deal with.” During her previous sessions with Vic, Remzi had discussed his memories, from his childhood through to the present, but she had studiously avoided asking about how he felt about any of it; she had wanted to allow him to broach the subject of his emotional life.

  “How do I feel about it?” Vic echoed. “It is what it is. I had a problem, and now I’ve solved it. There’s no use crying over spilt milk.”

  “You didn’t really like the solution Captain Ro proposed for you, though,” Vic said. “At least, that’s what she told me: that you didn’t want to leave Las Vegas.”

  “Hey, nobody likes change, right?” Vic said. “But when the choices are change or never be able to sing again, it puts it all in perspective.”

  “That’s a mature attitude,” Remzi told him. “You don’t feel any resentment toward the captain?”

  “What’s to resent?” Vic asked. “When it comes right down to it, she saved my life. Well, her and Nog.”

  “Tell me a little bit about that,” Remzi said. “As I understand it, Nog stayed with you for a few days after you were returned to the holosuite.”

  “Yeah, he’s a good kid,” Vic said, with what sounded like genuine affection. “He helped me stay safely hidden so he could make arrangements—him and Johnny C. and Nog’s new squeeze, Lani. They got me new I.D. and managed to get me outta town before Bugsy’s goons got a holda me.”

  “And you feel safe now?”

  “I do,” Vic said.

  “And do you feel at home here?”

  “I feel alive and free and able to sing, and those are the most important things.”

  “I can’t argue with that,” Remzi said. She leaned forward and collected her pen and spiral steno pad, then stood up. “I’m pleased to have met you.” She held out her empty right hand, and Vic stood up and clasped it with his own.

  “That sounds like I’m gettin the ol brush-off,” Vic said.

  “That can’t be a bad thing, right?” Remzi said. “You must be tired of talking to me all the time.”

  “Not at all, Doc,” Vic said. “It’s been a pleasure.” He shook her hand, then escorted her to the door. “Will I ever see you again?”

  “I don’t know,” Remzi said. “ ‘Ever’ is a long time.”

  “Well, if you’re ever around the new gyroscope again,” Vic said, “feel free to drop in.”

  “Thank you, I will.” Vic opened the door, and Remzi exited and walked down the stairs. At the first landing she came to, she said, “Computer, exit.” The door to the holosuite immediately appeared—not directly in front of her, as she’d expected, but to her right. She stepped out into the corridor and headed for the nearest turbolift.

  Remzi hadn’t wanted to say anything to Vic for fear of undermining what she hoped to accomplish, but she fully intended to visit him again. Perhaps in six months, she thought. Or maybe a year. She would have to study the contents of her conversations with the singer and consult with her colleagues, but she thought he was exactly what they were looking for.

  iii

  * * *

  “So what you’re telling me is that they’re dropping the charges,” Ro said. She looked across the desk at the two visitors to her office.

  “Yes,” said Commander Desjardins, who had asked to speak with the captain regarding the investigations conducted by both the Federation Security Agency and the Department of Temporal Investigations regarding the mobile holo-­emitter. He placed a padd on her desk and pushed it toward her.

  Owing to Ro’s incidental role in the entire affair, she had endured a great deal of questioning over the prior month by both the FSA and the DTI—especially the latter. As the captain understood it, she had never been a suspect herself, but that hadn’t prevented the various investigators from thinking she might be able to offer them useful observations or insights. As far as Ro knew, she had been able to provide them with neither.

  “Both agencies have completed their inquiries,” Desjardins continued, “and they submitted their final reports in tandem this morning. Federation Security could find no evidence that Morn ever entered UFP space with either the plans for the emitter or with the device itself.”

  “But he intended to,” Ro said. “He planned on using it to free Vic from the holosuite.”

  “Morn freely admitted that,” Desjardins said. “He also claimed to have no knowledge that he was dealing with technology restricted in the Federation. Not everybody believed him about that, and even if it was true, his ignorance of the law would not have been a legitimate defense. But since he dealt exclusively with scientists and engineers outside the Federation to develop and build the emitter, he technically did not violate UFP law.”

  “If Federation Security truly believed that Morn was going to bring restricted technology into Federation space,” Ro said, “why didn’t they wait until he had done so to arrest him?”

  “If you read the report,” Desjardins said, pointing to the padd he’d set on the captain’s desk, “you’ll see that Federation Security wanted to do just that. It was the Department of Temporal Investigations who pushed for the arrests of Bayal Sego and Morn as soon as possible.” It took Ro a moment to recall that Sego was the Milvonian engineer Morn had hired to construct the mobile emitter. “The DTI agents were concerned about potential damage to the timeline if twenty-ninth-century technology made it onto the black market.”

  “But wasn’t the emitter made from twenty-fourth-­century processes and materials?” Ro asked.

  Desjardins shrugged. “The original idea is from the twenty-ninth century, and you know how those DTI agents are.” Ro absolutely did know how they were: annoying, unrelenting, and humorless. “Even a potential violation of their rules and they overreact.”

  “When will Morn be set free?” Ro asked. Desjardins had overseen the Lurian’s arraignment. Morn had been kept in DS9’s stockade ever since.

  “As soon as you give the order, Captain,” Desjardins said.

  “What about the Milvonian engineer? Sego?” Ro asked.

  “He was extradited from Stervon Four to Andor,” Desjardins said. “He’ll be released today as well. Which just leaves the source of all this trouble.”

  “Vic,” Ro said. Once the singer had returned to the holo­suite and he’d been safely removed from the danger he faced there, Federation Security and Temporal Investigations agents had interviewed him on multiple occasions. They had also examined his programming.

  “The reports show that neither agency could reach a consensus as to whether Vic actually intended Morn to obtain a mobile emitter for him,” Desjardins said. “Regardless, since what Vic said to Morn instigated the development and creation of restricted technology, and since he did so in Federation space, Vic did violate the law.”

  “So Vic is going to be arrested and charged with a crime?” Ro asked. “How is that going to work?”

  “No, he’s not going to be charged,” Desjardins said. “I’ll let Doctor Remzi explain why.”

  Ro regarded the other visitor to her office, who had accompanied Desjardins. “Vic is not going to be charged,” Remzi said, “because he’s not sentient.”

  “What?” Ro said. “I find that hard to believe, and I haven’t spent that much time in Vic’s program. And I know without doubt that there are members of my crew who would argue the point with you. I’ve heard them talk about how much they enjoy spending time with Vic. I’ve even heard people talk about how much they’ve learned from him.”

  “People can learn from books, Captain,” Remzi said. “That doesn’t make books sentient.”

  “So you think my crew are wrong?” Ro asked.

  “I’m sure
that some of your crew probably do believe that Vic is sentient,” Remzi said. “But as you know, this is my field of expertise, and I’ve spent the last month speaking with Vic. I have concluded that he is pre-sentient—that is, not truly responsive to sense impressions, but programmed to expertly simulate such responses.”

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Ro said. “Isn’t that a distinction without a difference?”

  “I don’t think so,” Remzi said, “although I will admit that it is a difficult distinction to make. There isn’t any concrete test for it, but I’ve reached my conclusion based on my interactions with Vic.”

  That surprised Ro, not based on her own minimal experience with Vic, but because of what people like Nog thought about the singer. On the one hand, Remzi’s opinion meant Vic would suffer no consequences from Morn’s actions, but on the other, she felt concerned about the scientist believing that a nonsentient hologram was capable of committing a criminal act, and that she would therefore recommend deleting Vic’s matrix. Ro tried to walk the middle ground. “I’m not trying to change your mind,” she said, “and it’s not as though I think Vic really should be arrested, but some of my crew count him as a close friend.”

  “People anthropomorphize inanimate objects all the time, Captain,” Remzi said. “How much easier to do so with an object that looks, acts, and communicates like a humanoid? It is my expert opinion that Vic has yet to achieve true sentience.”

  “ ‘Yet’?” Ro asked. “Does that mean you think that he will become sentient?”

  “I think it’s quite possible,” Remzi said. “In fact, I think that if he hadn’t ended up isolated from interaction with real people for more than two years, he might well have become sentient by now.”

  “So you think that people visiting him in the holosuite could . . . well, essentially bring him to life?” Ro asked.