“You won’t be on board at all,” said Pulaski. “You can get off this ship now and crawl back under whatever stone Starfleet Intelligence keeps on top of you when you’re not on the loose causing trouble.”
She turned to her friend. “Maurita, this goes against everything we’re trying to achieve—that you in particular are trying to achieve. How do we create a cooperative ethos on the Athene Donald when we start the journey with a blatant display of mistrust? Worse than mistrust. Contempt. What will Metiger think if we let this man come on board?”
There was a pause. Alden turned away from her and looked pointedly at Tanj.
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Maurita?”
Tanj turned to Alden. “Thank you for coming to see me, Commander. I’ll consider your request and let you know in due course.”
Alden smiled and stood up. “A pleasure to speak to you both.”
When the door closed behind him, Pulaski exploded. “Maurita, no way are you going to allow him and his associate—whatever the hell that means—to come on board this ship—”
“The problem is, Kitty, that I don’t have the authority to prevent him coming on board—”
“This is a civilian ship! We’re sponsored by a private research body!”
“But the ship, the physical hardware”—she rapped her knuckles against her desk—“comes from Starfleet. All non-Federation personnel are here at their discretion. And Starfleet these days—”
“Means Starfleet Intelligence.” Pulaski fell back in her chair. “What have we created?”
There was a pause. “I’m not happy about this either,” Tanj said. “If you want, we can speak to Captain Ro. She might be able to assist. Put some behind-the-scenes pressure on whoever can alter this decision.”
Pulaski gave her friend a straight look. “This is a deal breaker for me, Maurita.”
Tanj looked back unhappily. “Don’t issue ultimatums that you can’t live with, Kitty. I don’t want you forced off this ship at this stage. And I certainly don’t want to see you have to eat humble pie. I don’t want Alden on board either—”
“So don’t let him on board!”
“But my hands are tied. We’ll take this to the captain and see what she can do.”
* * *
In the temple, a service was under way. Cory slipped quietly into a seat at the back, closed her eyes, and listened. Prayers were being said, a soft chant in a language that Cory did not know but that seemed ancient and full of power. She ran through what she had learned about Bajor and the Occupation. It seemed remarkable to her that this language and this religion survived. Cory admired survivors, particularly those who venerated their own cultures.
She knew little of religion. For Tzenkethi of her status, the Autarch was the sole focus of their worship. He looked down on them from his palace on the Royal Moon, and they ached to serve him to their best of their abilities in the function that he had ordained for them. They sang songs about him. They knew that he loved them and wanted them to be happy, and that he would take care of them if they became sick and needed to be reconditioned. They trusted him, even if they did not always understand why the world was the way it was.
Religious practice had therefore been one of the things that most interested Cory after leaving Ab-Tzenketh, and, for obvious reasons, she had been particularly interested in those religions whose gods were present. The Bajorans—their gods lived in the Celestial Temple. They had intervened directly in Bajoran history—this was documented fact. And then there were the Jem’Hadar and . . . Now, what were the others called? Cory searched her memory, full of information learned during her recent wanderings. The Vorta, yes, that was it—the Jem’Hadar and the Vorta worshiped the Founders, who, like the Autarch working through his Yai servants, had created people to love and serve them. Cory wondered whether any Jem’Hadar or Vorta had ever experienced what she had. She still loved the Autarch, who had given her everything most beloved about her life. But she no longer believed he was all-powerful. She no longer believed everything he did was for her benefit.
Cory realized that her hand had crept up to her chest to begin the habitual gesture made by all Tzenkethi when they thought or spoke of their beloved Autarch: pressing one’s hand against one’s heart and then, head bowed, raising one’s hand in respectful gratitude to salute the Royal Moon. She thought of what Alden would say if he could see her, and she put her hand back down in her lap. She listened, dully, to the chanting. Cory loved to sing and loved most to sing with others. But out here, in the wider world, there was nobody to sing with. Nobody here knew Cory’s songs. They were useless.
Suddenly, the quiet of the temple was disrupted. A handful of children ran in, laughing and shrieking, chasing another of their number who was sprinting ahead and shouting back at his pursuers, “You can’t catch me! You can’t catch me!” Cory smiled. Even Tzenkethi children knew this game, although children of her status played it quietly, in the moments when they were not working, and under direction.
The children dashed around the temple. The portly vedek who had been leading the service made the mistake of going after them, huffing and puffing, which only served to make the children laugh more. Some of the congregation joined in their laughter, quietly. Eventually the children, thoroughly unquenched, chased their leader out again. Cory listened to their happiness disappear down the Plaza. Meanwhile the vedek mopped his brow, gathered up his robes and his dignity, and shuffled back to the front of the temple to bring the service to a close.
The congregation filed out. Cory pressed back into her seat, but one or two people looked at her with surprise and interest. She lowered her eyes and dimmed her hue, wishing she could fade away. Once the temple was empty, she looked up. One other person remained, sitting on a bench across the room, and he looked at her curiously. She sighed. Would she never be left in peace?
Her observer was an odd creature. His features were half formed, like the dough of the salt breads that Cory used to eat every day. She had not seen anyone like this before . . . No, she thought, remembering, that was not entirely true. She had seen faces like this in some of the many files she had studied while Peteh was busy. Cory found this man’s face quite difficult to read, but she did not sense any threat from him. When at last he spoke, his voice was friendly and kind.
“May I join you?”
Cory pondered this. Usually she shrank from interaction with strangers, but she had been feeling lonely. Perhaps some company would be nice. “Yes,” she said. “This one . . . I would like that.”
The man came to sit beside her. His smile did much to leaven his strange features. “Forgive me for asking,” he said. “But—”
“Yes,” said Cory, who only a few short months ago would never have dreamed of interrupting anyone, not even one of her workmates. “I am Tzenkethi.”
The man nodded and grunted in satisfaction. Cory waited for the inquisition, but no further questions came. The man merely folded his arms and relaxed back into his seat, looking around the temple and enjoying the peace. “I like this new temple,” he said. “I knew the old station very well and thought that perhaps I would judge the new one harshly against it. But so far I’m satisfied by what I’ve seen. My name is Odo, by the way.”
“This one is the Ret Corazame,” Cory said. “My name is Cory,” she tried, before settling on, “I am Corazame.”
“Corazame. And before you ask, yes, I am a Founder. Or a Changeling, if you must.”
“I would not have asked,” Cory said truthfully, although she was quietly pleased that she had recognized him. “And I’ll think of you as a Founder, if that’s the name you prefer.”
He smiled again. “A pleasure to meet you, Corazame.”
“Likewise, Odo.”
They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the tranquil space. Eventually Odo said, “I imagine you find yourself attracting all kinds of unwelcome attention. Particularly given that your people have been at odds
with the Federation. You have my sympathies. It’s not easy being the only one of a kind, and not easy being from a kind that is at odds with everyone else.”
“No,” said Cory, with feeling. “It is not.” They sat quietly together again for a while before she dared to ask the question uppermost in her mind. “Can you really change your shape? Is that true? Or simply an unwarranted belief held by those who fear your species?”
Odo’s smile broadened. “Never has such an impertinent question been so courteously phrased—”
“This one hopes she has not given offense—”
“Not in the slightest. Watch.”
With a golden shimmer, he was gone. In his place was a bird—she did not know what kind, but a grand bird, a great bird, one that would hunt and dive and fly across unbounded skies. It flapped its huge wings and rose up to the ceiling, then flew around the temple, freely, like the children running about. Coming to rest again beside her, it looked at her with one great yellow eye, and cawed—and then the shimmer came again, and Odo returned.
“Oh,” breathed Cory. “Thank you! Thank you! That was marvelous!”
And it was marvelous, one of the most wondrous sights she had seen since leaving Ab-Tzenketh, and all the more so because it was a gesture of comradeship. “You watch now, Odo,” she said, and Corazame relaxed and let her skin become as luminescent as it could be. She heard Odo gasp.
“So beautiful!” he said. “I had no idea!”
“No,” she said shyly, dimming herself again. “Nobody does.” Not even Peteh had seen a display like that.
“It’s hard, isn’t it,” said Odo, “concealing oneself all the time? Suppressing one’s physical abilities so as not to frighten others?”
“Very hard,” Cory agreed. “But then . . . I did the same at home.” She thought about how much to say to this man and decided that she trusted him. “In my old life back home, it was rarely appropriate for someone of my status to show oneself in such a way. Once or twice a year, perhaps, at Spring Festival and the Autarch’s Birthday—and then only ever among others of my status.”
“Never when you were alone?”
“Oh, no!” Cory was shocked at the idea. “That would be presumptuous. Our beauty exists to glorify the Autarch, not to please ourselves.” She smiled at Odo. “And to show ourselves uninstructed to someone outside our status would be very wrong. I have broken a great taboo showing you that.”
“Good for you,” said Odo. “But it sounds to me that even if you are now free to do what you like, you miss home.”
“Of course I do. Do you miss your home too?”
Odo gave a low rumble at the back of his throat.
“This one hopes she is not being impertinent,” Cory said. “This one offers her humble apologies if that is the case.”
“No, no need—but home is a difficult question for me,” Odo said. “My first memories are of Bajor. The old Deep Space 9 was my first home, but that no longer exists. For a while I lived among my own people, in the Great Link. And now I live on Bajor.”
“But you are not at home there?”
“Home is where you make it, Corazame,” he said. “I’ve learned that in a lifetime of exile. Even returning to the Great Link was not a real homecoming. I had never lived there before.”
“Ab-Tzenketh is where I was born,” Cory said simply. “I grew up in the coral schooling chambers, where we were disciplined to our tasks and taught the songs and how to love the Autarch. Where we learned what was needful for us to know, and to obey an Ap-Rej, since he or she always spoke with the voice of the Autarch. I was happy there, at home. Now I am away from home and I am unhappy.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Odo said gently. “Can you go back?”
“I have thought about that a great deal,” Cory said. “There are complications.”
There was a pause. “You’re here with someone from Starfleet Intelligence, aren’t you?” Odo must have seen her jump, because he carried on quickly. “Word passes around a place like this. Everyone knows there’s a Tzenkethi on board. And I was once a security officer. I can’t help myself. I was interested, so I found out more about you.”
“Did you know that you would find me here today?” Cory said. Suddenly she felt wretched. Had this meeting—which had felt so natural, the most natural she had felt since leaving home—been contrived?
“No,” said Odo. “I had no intention of coming to find you at any point. I was simply interested in learning more about a fellow exile. It’s only by chance that I found you here today. I would not have met you otherwise.” He looked around. “There is something about a place like this. It draws the lonely, I think, and those who need peace to reflect upon their lives and choices.”
Cory relaxed, a little.
“I’ve had a busy day, you see, and I needed some time to think,” Odo said conversationally. “I’m here on the station to help a friend of mine. Her son has been held captive by the Romulans for ten years. She wants him to come home.”
Cory’s heart filled with pity. “Do you think you will be successful?”
“We’ll see. An old friend of mine is involved now. If he can’t do something, nobody can.”
“I hope you are successful, for your friend. It is not right to be kept away from what you love best.”
“No,” Odo agreed, “it’s not. Does that mean you intend to go home, Corazame?”
“I don’t know. My friend Peteh”—she glanced at Odo—“Commander Alden”—Odo nodded to show he had understood her meaning—“he seems to be in two minds. He thinks that I can remain in the Federation, but I know that some part of him wants me to go home.”
“Hmm.” Odo didn’t look pleased about that. “I think that if you do return home, it should be on your own terms and not at the request of Starfleet Intelligence.”
“I cannot return without their help,” Cory said simply.
Odo’s eyes narrowed. “I see.”
“I owe Peteh a great deal. He has been kind to me. He could have abandoned me—but he didn’t.”
“No true friendship takes account of credit and debt. It gives freely, without thought of compensation or reward.”
“But a friend wishes to show gratitude and make gestures of love and thankfulness.”
“Perhaps. But not at the cost of self-extinction . . . Oho!” Odo said suddenly. “Who do we have here?”
Cory looked around. A child, small and somewhat ragtag, was peeking at them both from behind one of the bulkheads.
“Out you come,” Odo said, gruffly but not unkindly. “Let’s take a look at you.”
The child crept forward. He stood in front of them for a moment or two, wide eyes staring and unblinking. Then he said, “Will you do your tricks again? I liked to see you changing.”
Odo looked back gravely. “Very well. What would you like to see? The bird?”
The child nodded and, once again, the great bird took a turn around the temple, coming to rest by the little boy, who gazed upon the sight, transfixed. Then Cory released her true colors, and the whole temple glowed with her full and unconstrained beauty.
“Are you a demon?” asked the child, looking at her in awe.
“I don’t know what one of those is,” Cory replied. “I am Corazame. Who are you?”
“Ioemi,” the child said. “We were playing hide-and-seek, but no one came to find me. I don’t know how to get back home.” He said it quite straightforwardly, as if abandonment was a matter of course, but Cory could see his small arms shaking. “I think I am forgotten.”
“Are you here with the ships?” asked Odo.
“Yes,” said the boy. Suddenly he looked proud. “We’re the People of the Open Sky! We’re travelers and adventurers!”
And, sometimes, lost children. “I know where you are billeted,” said Cory kindly. “I can take you back to your overseers.”
“Overseers?” Odo muttered. “His parents, perhaps?”
“We’re the People of the Open Sky,”
Ioemi said. “None of us have parents!”
“Your carers, then,” said Odo.
“Yes, yes, yes, that’s who they are.” He looked sad, a small child far from home. “I’d like to go back to them.”
“I’ll take you.” Cory offered the boy her hand. She let it glow a little, and he seized it in delight.
“Overseers,” Odo muttered again, looking at her thoughtfully and shaking his head. He sighed. “But what do I know? I grew up in a laboratory.”
Four
Captain’s Log, Personal.
It is certainly regrettable that much data about other civilizations has, in recent years, been collected by spies and undercover agents.* There is surely a debate to be had as to whether knowledge acquired through unethical or dubious means is tainted or disfigured in some way by such modes of acquisition. Certainly the mistrustful mind-set that this characterizes is not ideal for scientific research: nuances may be missed; prejudices may be confirmed. The spy comes to his or her operation with his or her mind already made up: this is the opposite of the approach taken by the scientist, who must remain open-minded and ready to disprove a cherished hypothesis when the evidence stacks up against it.
Yet many of our recent encounters with alien species have been carried out under the jurisdiction of Starfleet Intelligence—under the auspices of this bureau or that desk—and I fear that exactly such contamination of data (and mind-set) has taken place. What might a xenolinguist, for example, make of the Tzenkethi, coming to them without any preconceptions about their complex and fascinating society?
Beverly Crusher told herself that the reason she was interested in the People of the Open Sky was that Ro had made them sound so fascinating, but she knew it was also because she missed René. The sight of these children reminded her of him, both sweetly and painfully.
And she was interested in the People for their own sake. Crusher had met many species over the years, and part of her work as a doctor, she believed, involved understanding and responding to the specific cultural needs of patients as much as their physical or psychological needs. She would not, she thought, be much of a Starfleet doctor if she ran roughshod over other people’s customs or beliefs. Observing the People in order to learn came naturally to her, and when Ro sent Oioli’s request that the People might make use of the medical facilities, she jumped at the chance to see more of them at close hand.
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