“Colonel,” Ro said softly. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” Kira said. Then just as quickly, “No.”
“I’m glad you showed up when you did,” Ro said. “You saved us from what could have been a very…distressing scene. It seems that the Ohalavaru are pretty intent on getting you reinstated into the Bajoran faith.”
“Huhn,” Kira said, half chuckling. “So I’ve heard. Did you know that there were similar demonstrations in shrines in every province on Bajor? There were only a handful of Ohalavaru in each place. All of them stripped their earrings off. Because of me.”
“I hadn’t heard,” Ro said. “Was anyone hurt?”
“Thankfully, no. There were some scuffles and shouting matches, but everything seems to have been resolved peacefully. For now, at least.”
“I’m not sure I should say this, Colonel, but maybe you should be glad that you have the support of so many passionate people. It says good things about you. And about your decision not to let the Vedek Assembly suppress the Ohalu text.”
“Good things?” Kira placed a hand to her bare right ear as though unconsciously feeling for a phantom limb. “What good? I’ve unleashed a horrifying division on the people of Bajor. I’m responsible for who knows how many believers losing their faith! Maybe Vedek Yevir was right about me all along. Maybe what I did was rash and unthinking and stupid. Maybe I’ve only begun to reap the condemnation I’m due.”
Ro felt profoundly sad that Kira apparently couldn’t recognize how much she meant to so many. “You did what I would never have had the courage to do, Nerys,” she said, using Kira’s given name for the first time. “You, with all your faith in the Prophets and Their Will, you still did what was right.” Kira stared back at her, and even in the near darkness, Ro sensed that she was listening intently.
“Haven’t you considered the dichotomy of the Ohalavaru’s actions tonight?” Ro asked. “The teachings of Ohalu tell them that the Prophets may not be everything they have been taught. So why, when they’re rejecting the most basic tenets of that religion, would the Ohalavaru stage a planetwide protest, which has the apparent goal of forcing the Vedek Assembly to take you back into the fold?”
“I…I don’t know,” Kira said plainly.
“Well, I haven’t talked to any of them directly yet, but I think I know what their answer is going to be. You were punished because you gave them a choice. Before you uploaded the prophecies of Ohalu, they had only two options: join up with the faithful, or become outcast agnostics like me. But now they have another path to follow, one that seems to offer them some concrete possibilities for the future. And don’t think that their timing wasn’t influenced by the upcoming signing. Bajor’s entry into the Federation will offer its people even more freedom. New belief systems, new technologies, new interspecies interactions…”
“I’m still not sure I understand where you’re going with this, Ro.”
“It seems to me that what the Ohalavaru are saying, in maybe too roundabout a way, is that you deserve a choice as well. Attainted or not, you still choose to follow the Prophets. The church has cast you out. But your dissemination of Ohalu’s teachings wasn’t a reflection on your faith in the Prophets, or based on a desire to lead anybody astray. The Ohalavaru are telling all of Bajor that if you choose to follow the Prophets—if that’s where your pagh takes you—then you have every right to do just that.”
Kira sat in silence, staring at her. Ro was suddenly aware that she was still standing beside the desk, talking down to her commander almost as though she were a recalcitrant child. She sat down in a nearby chair and placed a finger on her nose ridge, massaging it for a moment.
“I’m sorry, Colonel. I didn’t mean to lecture you.”
“No, that’s all right,” Kira said, putting out a hand as if to deflect any further apologies. “I hadn’t considered that before.” She sighed heavily. “There’s just so much going on.”
Ro swallowed hard, bracing herself for what she had to say next. “I’m afraid I’ve got something else to tell you. I know this isn’t going to make you any happier, but there’s not likely to be a better moment, and time is running out.” Kira sighed again, and Ro continued, determined to unburden herself. “Shortly after the Federation ceremony, I’ll be leaving my post as Deep Space 9’s chief of security. I’ll also resign my commission in the Bajoran Militia.”
“What? Why?” Kira leaned forward, and Ro could see the shock blossoming on her face, as though she’d just been slapped.
“It’s something I’ve been afraid to consider fully until recently, but I just can’t put this off any longer. I’ve struggled with this decision, believe me. You know about my history with Starfleet. With Bajor joining the Federation, I…” She paused to compose herself, afraid that her voice might crack. “I’ll never have a place in the coming new order. I’d rather bow out now, gracefully, than put you or Commander Vaughn or anyone else out trying to justify my presence around here.”
Kira paused briefly before responding. “I can’t say I blame you, Laren. At the moment, I’m tempted to join you.” She smiled grimly. “What do you plan to do?”
Ro sighed. Now wasn’t the time to bring up the ventures she and Quark had been discussing. “I’ve started looking into some…other opportunities. It’s a big galaxy. There are lots of things to do in it.”
“I’m going to fight to get you to stay,” Kira said, a trace of forced mirth in her voice. “You know that, don’t you?”
“Won’t do any good,” Ro said, standing. “I’ll stay on board through the official changeover, to get my replacement ready. But after that, I’ll be moving on.”
Feeling her emotions beginning to surge, and her lip trembling, Ro turned and left the office without saying another word.
Alone in her office, Kira Nerys glanced down at the drawer into which she had consigned Benjamin Sisko’s baseball months earlier. Then she turned her gaze toward the bucket which she kept on one of the low shelves beside the desk. She was reminded forcefully of the two people in all the universe whose advice she could most use now.
A rage had been simmering within her ever since she had begun discussing the peace talks with Shakaar. Now the feeling moved within her like a tropical storm lashing at the Jo’kala coast. Still seated in her chair, she raised her legs until her boots made contact with the desk’s heavy wooden framework. Kicking out, she upended the desk, which made a very satisfying crash onto the floor. The force of her kick sent her chair flying backward into the bookcase. She rose to her feet, struggling to bring herself back under some semblance of control.
What have I done to Bajor? Kira thought, surveying the wreckage of her office. She looked out the window at the stars, sending a silent prayer toward the wormhole—the Celestial Temple of the Prophets. What have I done to the faith You have sustained me with?
Unbidden, a familiar line of ancient prophecy sprang into her mind: When the children have wept all, anew will shine the twilight of their destiny.
Stretching out a hand to touch the spaceward window, Kira suddenly began to weep. Convulsive sobs racked her body, and her tears spilled unheeded into the silent darkness.
21
The transporter beam chilled Ezri to the bone, as though the inky emptiness of space had reached through the matter stream to steal every calorie of heat from her body. But the sensation passed almost as quickly as it had begun.
Ezri stood in a chamber lit only by several small sconces, each of which stood about two meters off the ground and a few body-lengths apart. Rough-hewn granite walls trailed off into the stygian darkness. The air was warm and stale, though it moved in a steady breeze across her skin. Strange, discordant music reverberated in the distance, at the edge of audibility. Though it sounded vaguely familiar, she couldn’t quite place it.
Ezri realized then that her environmental suit was gone, as was her phaser. She found that she now wore a nondescript, lightweight jumpsuit. She carried a hard hat in her left hand.
The gravel on the cavern floor crunched beneath her heavy boots. Work clothes, she thought as she paused momentarily to examine her new wardrobe. Running a hand through her hair, she noted that it was longer, and cut differently than before she had beamed over. Donning the hard hat, she made a complete turn, investigating what she could see of her surroundings in the dim illumination.
What is this place? And where are the others?
Noticing that she still had her wrist lamps, she raised and activated them. A ribbon of brilliance cleaved the darkness, revealing a craggy, gray-hued ceiling several meters overhead. The irregular passage and its chaotic tumbles of rocks and gravel seemed somehow familiar. It also struck her as odd to find such a place within the confines of the clean, deliberate geometries of the alien artifact.
Her wrist lamp held high, Ezri took a deep breath and began walking into the darkness. She called out, first to Julian and then to Nog, her voice reverberating to infinity and back, the aural equivalent of an endless series of funhouse mirrors.
There was no response. She was alone, with no company other than the thunder of her own pulse, the rhythmic crunch of her boot heels, and the distant peals of the weird almost-music.
She was startled by a voice that suddenly spoke from behind her. “Ezri.”
Ezri spun toward the sound, stepping quickly back to give herself some maneuvering room in case the owner of the voice intended to make trouble.
To her surprise, Ezri found herself facing her mother. Who was trouble, she reflected, almost by definition.
“You can’t be here,” Ezri said, realizing that she had unconsciously arranged her body into a combat-crouch straight out of one of her Starfleet Academy hand-to-hand training classes. Guess I don’t need Dax for everything.
“That’s really what this is about, isn’t it?” said Yanas Tigan, a smile stretching her skin taut. A condescending smile, Ezri thought. Typical.
“Excuse me?” Ezri said, scowling.
Yanas adopted the tone of a put-upon teacher addressing a willfully obtuse student. “About your relationship with Dax.”
“When did I mention Dax to you, Mother?”
“Oh, please. If you can accept that I’m here with you all the way out in the Gamma Quadrant, then why would you be surprised that I can also hear your thoughts?”
Fair enough, Ezri decided. But this being obviously couldn’t be her mother. It had to be some sort of manifestation of the artifact. But why would whatever intelligence guided this place select her mother as a communications channel?
The Yanas-thing smiled. “I’m sorry that Starfleet didn’t work out for you the way you thought it would. But I can’t pretend not to be glad that you’ve come back to New Sydney to help me keep the minerals flowing out of here on schedule.”
New Sydney? So that’s why this place seems so familiar. I’ve come back home to the pergium mines in the Sappora System.
All at once Ezri began recalling things, including what seemed to be more than one version of the last few years of her life. Conflicting recollections tumbled onto one another, overlapping like palimpsests: Brinner Finok, and the brief fling they had shared aboard the Destiny; the horrors of the Dominion War, which had taken Brinner from her; the cataclysmic arrival of Dax in her life; her deepening romantic relationship with Julian—
—and her withdrawal from Starfleet Academy, only weeks before graduation.
Her ignominious return home, with all prospects of a Starfleet career dashed by the irresistible force that was her mother.
Yanas was scowling at her, obviously still following the drift of her thoughts. “That’s not fair, Ezri. You came home because you understood where your real responsibilities lay. Unless you believe that what happened to Norvo and Janel was somehow my fault.”
Ezri suddenly felt ashamed. “Of course not, Mother.” She recalled vividly how she had agonized over the decision about dropping out of the Academy. But after the cave-in that had killed both of her brothers—and had dealt the family business a crippling blow—Ezri had made the only choice possible.
I couldn’t let her run the pergium-mining business all alone. She needed me.
Yanas’s smile broadened, but it contained little warmth. “Such a dutiful daughter. I can understand why you didn’t know where you were, by the way. You always did make it a point to get down into the mines as little as possible.”
Ezri’s belly spasmed slightly, then settled down. She placed her hand on her abdomen. Where Dax had once been, she thought. She scowled at the obvious untrust-worthiness of her own memories.
Who the hell is Dax?
“Nobody now,” Yanas said casually. “I think Dax was a symbiont who died just after its host got killed during the Dominion War. But that’s not your concern anymore.”
It never was, Ezri thought, feeling desolate without quite knowing why.
“Right again. Now I need you to get back to the accounting office and catch up on the books. Those quota reports aren’t going to write themselves, you know.”
Quota reports. The idea made her insides squirm in revulsion. She wondered if becoming joined to one of those ageless Trill brain-vampires, as frightening as the notion had always struck her, could really be any worse than giving over the entirety of one’s single, finite lifetime to mining contracts, shipping manifests, and pergium futures.
I’ve been joined, all right, Ezri thought. To stacks of padds and mountains of paperwork.
She heard another pair of footsteps behind her and turned quickly toward the sound.
The man who regarded her was tall, thin, and dour-looking. Humanoid, with the brow wrinkles common to many of New Sydney’s residents. He, too, wore mining attire. She saw a steely glint in his eyes that she recognized.
And hated, without quite remembering why.
“Thadeo Bokar,” Ezri said, taking a step backward. She was beginning to remember still more.
Bokar grinned, displaying even rows of immaculate white teeth. “I’ve come to discuss your recent equipment orders, Miss Tigan. I think you’d do well to consider making a few…additional purchases.”
Ezri struggled to master a rush of anger. “Why, Bokar? To pay off the Orion Syndicate so we won’t have any more mysterious cave-ins down here?”
Bokar made an unconvincing show of sympathy. “It must have been terrible, losing both your brothers like that. So sudden and tragic. Makes you appreciate what you still have all the more. And, I would hope, eager to do whatever it takes to hold onto it.”
Ezri glanced back toward Yanas, who was glaring accusingly at her.
“What’s he saying, Ezri? Did you make some sort of deal with the Orion Syndicate? I knew we had some cash-flow problems after the Ferengi opened those mines on Timor II, but I never thought you’d stoop to…” She trailed off into silence, which was filled only by the weird quasi-music that still reverberated through the stony corridor.
Ezri looked at Yanas, an inchoate apology on her lips. But the naggingly familiar music stopped her.
Because she recognized it now, and remembered where she’d been when she’d first heard it.
It had been aboard the Sagan, during the survey of System GQ-12475’s Oort cloud. Just before the initial encounter with the alien artifact—the cathedral, or anathema, into which she had just transported. With Nog. And Julian.
And Dax.
Ezri experienced another rush of conflicting memory—and realized that she had nothing to apologize for. She hadn’t gotten the family business into bed with the Orion Syndicate. Janel had done that.
But Janel was dead. Had been dead for years.
Misaligned in their worldlines. Sacagawea’s wind-chime voice spoke inside her head, from some spectral interior world. Untethered. Adrift/lost midworlds.
Janel isn’t dead, Ezri told herself, shaking her head as though stunned by a physical blow. Norvo isn’t dead either. Not in my world. They’re the ones who stayed behind with Mother, and the Orion Syndicate didn’t begin leaning on them
until years later. Meanwhile, Ezri had finished up at Starfleet Academy, then had shipped out on the Destiny.
Ezri had left home, and had stayed away. She had resisted the all too frequent squalls of withering maternal criticism that had kept both her brothers on such short tethers for so many years. She hadn’t allowed herself to be moved by Yanas’s levers of guilt and duty and obligation the way Norvo and Janel had.
It came to Ezri then why the cathedral had confronted her with this simulacrum of Yanas Tigan: It was an external representation of her need to separate herself from the infinitude of Ezri Tigans whose lives weren’t hers. It was her touchstone for avoiding taking a path traveled only by some phantom-Ezri in some other hypothetical reality.
This artifact-generated creature had to be the key to avoiding becoming “unmoored,” as Shar had put it, from the life she knew, washed away in a torrent of might-have-beens. She’s got to be my ticket to fixing those tangled “worldlines” Sacagawea kept talking about.
Ezri noticed then that Bokar was still talking. “There is a bright side to your little brother’s passing, though,” Bokar was saying, facing Ezri. “Some of those paintings of his are finally fetching some decent prices. It’s too bad that nobody appreciates artists while they’re still alive.”
Ezri could feel something moving within her. Shifting. Something at the core of her being was changing, awakening. She had her own life to lead, and now she was determined to take it back. Sacagawea’s translator-filtered voice rang in her mind: Misaligned in their worldlines.
She reached up and doffed her hat, tossing it to the ground. She touched her hair again, noting without surprise that it had returned to the severe, short style that she’d adopted shortly after her joining.
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