Jas stepped down from the podium and walked to the giant brazier, pausing to take a stone flask from Vedek Cotor. The camera drones moved with him in a slow, humming halo. He paused at the lip of the cauldron and spoke in a firm, confident voice, the sensor pickups in the drones amplifying his words for the whole city to hear. “Tesra peldo, impatri bren,” Jas began, speaking the words of the benediction in Old High Bajoran. “Bentel vetan, ullon sten.” With a confident flick of his thumb, Jas popped open the stopper on the flask of consecrated oil and swirled the liquid around. Exposed to oxygen, it immediately puffed into smoky orange flame. Keeping his hand steady, the minister let the fluid stream out over the lip of the great brazier, and with a thump of displaced air the nyawood and straw inside caught alight. Sparks jumped and curled into the evening, and applause streamed behind it. All across Bajor, other Presiders in other cities would be doing the same thing—but now Jas did something different.
In previous years, the Presider would step forward and toss the first scroll into the fire to symbolize the proper start of the festivities; Jas did not. He hesitated, enjoying the moment of mild surprise he engendered. “My friends,” he called out, “we write our dilemmas upon the scrolls and as they turn to ashes in these sanctified flames, so do our troubles. But tonight, before I throw my scroll into the fire, I have something important to add to it.” From a pouch in his belt, Jas produced a stylus and unrolled his paper. The crowd was watching him intently now; this was a break with tradition, and to many it would be considered a breach of privacy. The words on each person’s scroll were a personal thing, to be known only to the one who wrote them and the Prophets who looked on from the Celestial Temple. Yet, here was Korto’s minister, openly showing what he was to write. With care, so that the camera drones could see what he was doing, Jas drew the character for “isolation” in thick, deliberate lines and presented it to the air. Then, with a twist of his wrist, he tossed the paper into the rumbling brazier, and the scroll was flashed into ashes.
“Tonight, I cast Bajor’s isolation to the fires, and I urge you all to join me and do the same.” He met the cameras with a strong smile. “In two days, Korto will take back some of her sons who were lost in the depths of space, and it will welcome those who bring their remains home to us. These people are not of our world. Some of us are afraid of them, of what they represent. Some feel they come with avarice.” He shook his head. There was silence all around him now, save for the low crackle of the burning nyawood. The doubts Holza had felt speaking before Verin and again with Kubus were gone. His jaw stiffened. First it had been the old leader of the council attempting to push Holza from the center of these important events; and then Kubus, parlaying his business connections to the aliens in order to strengthen his own position. He had no doubt that each of them thought Jas to be unsuited to the challenges ahead, that they were the better men to take the helm. That will not be allowed to happen. Korto would be the fulcrum point for change on Bajor, he would see to it. The thought made Holza feel potent and strong, the certainty and confidence propelling him forward. “Some have nothing but distrust for outsiders. But I believe otherwise. I have seen that these visitors have their own path, just as we have ours granted by the Prophets. I believe that we can learn from them and forge a new friendship. I will welcome them. Korto will welcome them. And if the Prophets will it, then so Bajor will welcome the people of Cardassia to our shores.”
The moment the alien name left his lips there was a ripple of astonishment that radiated out around him. Jas nodded as if to say, Yes, you heard correctly. “Mark this day well, my friends,” he told them. “Bajor is about to enter a new era.”
The applause began, and the minister stepped back as scroll after scroll fell into the brazier, lighting puffs of flame as they were consumed.
4
“Slow and steady, Dukat,” said Kell from behind him. “We don’t want to alarm the natives.”
“As you wish, Gul.” Dukat kept his expression neutral as he nodded to the young glinn in the pilot’s couch. The junior officer eased back a little on the cutter’s thrusters, dropping the slab-shaped vessel’s airspeed. It wasn’t as if they had been hurtling through the sky at any great speed, but Kell was the kind of commander who liked to micromanage his crew, to be seen to be doing something even when there was nothing to be done. The gul drew back into the main compartment of the Kornaire’s landing ship, to where the rest of the diplomatic party were seated. Dukat had a glimpse of the Oralians, Hadlo and Bennek and a couple more of their number with hooded heads bowed. Are they praying for a safe landing? The flight isn’t that bumpy. Seated by Professor Ico’s side, Pa’Dar caught Dukat’s eye and threw him a nod before he went back to looking out through one of the armored portholes.
Dukat checked the glinn’s course and saw she was keeping perfectly to the prescribed air corridor that the Bajorans had transmitted to them. Coming in over that curious blue-green ocean, they were now flying upriver toward their final destination. A flight of swift, needle-hulled aircraft were moving in echelon a few hundred decas above them, an escort of atmospheric fighters from the Militia’s Aerial Guard. The shuttle’s passive sensors showed him exactly where each flyer was, and he had no doubt that the men piloting those planes had one hand on their active scanner controls, ready to illuminate the ship with targeting systems if they diverged from their course by so much as a wing’s span. The Cardassian smiled thinly. If the roles had been reversed, he would have done the same—then Dukat corrected himself. No, I would never allow one of them to set foot on Cardassia. Not unless they were under guns or in chains.
“Estimated time of arrival is seven metrics, Dalin,” said the pilot.
Dukat nodded. “Look sharp. Your landing will be the first impression we make, so do it with skill.”
“I will, sir.”
Dukat peered out of the cutter’s forward canopy and saw the Bajoran metropolis through the wisps of low-lying cloud. The colors, like the teal ocean, seemed peculiar to the eyes of a man used to the ashen gray and rusty umber of Cardassian cityscapes. Lush parkland of a kind that could never survive on Cardassia Prime’s water-scarce continents was everywhere, each major artery lined with trees and great square commons laid out over the radial terraced districts. The buildings were largely of a uniform red-gold hue, most likely made from some kind of local stone, and there were spires and minarets on each intersection. Dukat saw nothing like the imposing towers and majestic arcs of his homeworld’s architecture. Instead, the Bajorans favored domes that lay wide and low to the ground, or glassy orbs that seemed too fragile to be dwellings. With a practiced soldier’s eye, the dalin examined the scope of Korto, thinking of the city in the guise of an invader. What forces would a commander need to commit to take a conurbation like this one? Where would he need to strike to cut off lines of supply, yet ensure that the prize remained intact?
Filing away his impressions for later deliberation, he shifted back in his acceleration chair as the shuttle turned gently into a banking maneuver, toward the towering castle on the hill overshadowing the city.
“Beginning final descent,” said the pilot, and Dukat tapped the intercom and repeated the report to the rest of the passengers.
The shuttle slowed, coming over the walls of the Naghai Keep to stop in a hover above an open space in the broad inner courtyard. Dukat saw a pavilion down there, a small crowd of overdressed Bajorans looking up at them and shielding their eyes. To one side, beneath a set of ornamental arches, there was a raised dais and on it shrouded shapes that could only be the bodies of men. The white cloths that concealed the corpses fluttered as the shuttle dropped gently to the ground, the ship’s repulsors casting up small cyclones of air and dust.
The crew of the Bajoran scoutship had been turned over to the locals so that they could prepare for whatever death rituals were needed. He wondered idly if the Bajorans had examined the bodies as thoroughly as the Cardassians had before returning them. He made a mental note to ask Pa�
�Dar later if they had gleaned anything interesting.
Settling on its landing struts with a hiss of hydraulics, the cutter touched down with barely a tremor of motion, and Dukat inclined his head at the glinn in a gesture of praise before rising from his station. He checked the hang of his duty armor and the flimsy peace-bond seal over the butt of the phaser pistol in his belt holster, then crossed to Kell’s side.
The gul shot Hadlo a hard look as the elderly priest paused on the threshold of the hatchway. “I believe it would be best if I exited first, cleric.”
Hadlo’s lined face hardened. “What sort of message does that send to these people, Gul Kell?”
“Precisely the one I want to send,” Kell replied, and thumbed the control that opened the wide gull-wing door.
Dukat was right behind him, and the rush of Bajoran atmosphere welled up and into the shuttle’s interior, washing over the dalin’s face. It was cool and sweet, lacking the dry edge of home.
Pa’Dar and Ico were the last to disembark, followed by two grim-faced glinns who wore the watchful look of men waiting in vain for a threat to emerge where none was lurking. Kell and Dukat, there in their black battle gear, next to the pastel robes of Hadlo, Bennek, and the other Oralians, and now the two scientists in the neutral blues and grays of their duty uniforms; Pa’Dar wondered what the natives would make of them, the three groups within the diplomatic mission all alien, all different.
The clothing worn by the Bajorans was a contrast as well. They seemed to favor earth tones, brown and ochre that reminded the scientist of the stonework of the city. Perhaps the colors are supposed to represent some sort of metaphorical link between the people and their world? It was an interesting hypothesis, and one that Pa’Dar might share with Ico when they returned to the Kornaire, if, of course, she could spare him the time. Of late, as the ship had come closer and closer to Bajor, his supervisor had been harder to pin down, always engaged in communications with the homeworld, distracted by assignments she was unwilling to discuss. Secrecy was part and parcel of life in service to the Cardassian government, but Ico’s recent behavior had gone beyond that. He wondered idly if she were doing something illicit, perhaps engaging in a liaison with one of the ship’s crew members.
Pa’Dar dismissed the thoughts and turned his attention back to the aliens. He was being provided with a unique opportunity here, and he would be remiss if he didn’t make the most of it. His family were politicians and administrators back on the homeworld, and they had made no attempt to hide their disapproval of his choice of an academic career path. At best, his parents saw themselves as indulging a youthful caprice that they fully expected Kotan to grow out of in due course; the Bajor mission was a chance to prove them wrong, to show them that he could do something of value from the halls of the science ministry.
Pa’Dar studied the group of Bajorans who approached them from the larger group. At their head were a trio of males in ornate tunics of varying cut, one who clearly had assumed the mantle of command bearing a weathered face, the others following a step behind. Past them, there were three more in robes that shared some similarity to the dress of the Oralian clerics, although the Bajorans wore skullcaps or headgear that arched over their odd, wrinkled brows instead of hoods. And at the rear, a group of figures in what were unmistakably military uniforms. The sketchy cultural briefing Pa’Dar had absorbed before the mission’s departure told him that much, but he was unsure how to interpret the colors of the tunics or the oval gold insignia on the collars. He elected to avoid addressing any of the Bajoran soldiers in the event he mistook a rank and offended one of them.
“Gul Kell, I am Verin Kolek, First Minister of Bajor,” said the one with the heavily lined face. His voice had the timbre of age and acumen. Pa’Dar had watched the feed from the Kornaire’s communications a few days earlier, but until he stood here, staring at the alien, he had not truly understood how peculiar the Bajorans looked. Their flesh, with hues ranging from pinkish yellow to dark ebony, were nothing like the stony, harmonious gray of his own species; and the faces were so smooth and uncharacterful, with only a small patch of nasal ridges to suggest anything like the fine ropes of muscle and bone that adorned the Cardassian aspect. The one who called himself Verin was an elder, and Pa’Dar wondered how old he could be. Cardassians aged at a steady, stately pace, growing more regal as they did so—but this alien seemed almost wizened by comparison. And he is their ruler? Are all their leaders so decrepit?
The minister was still speaking, indicating the younger men standing with him. “This is Kubus Oak, whom I believe your people have already met, and Jas Holza, whose hospitality we all share today.” He gestured to the robed Bajorans, beginning with the lone female. “This is the honored Kai Meressa, and her adjutants Vedek Cotor and Prylar Gar.” Finally, it was the turn of the soldiers. “Our Militia representatives, Jaro Essa and Coldri Senn.”
The Kornaire’s commander nodded with grave solemnity, and Pa’Dar wondered if the Bajorans detected the element of careful pretense beneath the motion. “I greet you in the name of the Cardassian Union and the Detapa Council. We regret that it must be under such circumstances as these”—he gestured toward the arched enclosure where the dead bodies were lying—“but it is Cardassia’s fervent hope that on the foundation of such a tragedy our two peoples may come to better know each other as interstellar neighbors.” He took a breath. “This is my first officer Dalin Dukat, and these are representatives of our Ministry of Science and the Oralian Way.”
The woman Verin had called the kai stepped forward and bowed. “I welcome you to our world in the name of the Prophets,” she began. Her voice was clear and melodic, and it carried across the courtyard. She looked to Hadlo and the other clerics. “Before we go any further, please let me express my personal delight in meeting a deputation from the followers of Oralius.”
“You know of our faith?” said Bennek.
“Indeed,” said the kai. “Our ecumenical scholars study the beliefs of many worlds, and we have come to understand that our faith can learn great lessons from those of other beings. I hope that during your visit here we will be able to speak of Oralius’s teachings. We are interested to learn more of Cardassian spirituality.”
Pa’Dar could see that Hadlo was surprised by the woman’s openness. On Cardassia, matters of so-called faith—such as they were in these more enlightened times—did not usually find such a warm response from outsiders. The cleric nodded woodenly. “Of…of course. And I too would be fascinated to learn more about your Prophets.”
Meressa glanced at Verin and Jas. “With the minister’s permission, we will speak of them now.”
Jas returned a nod. “Please, Kai, you may begin at your discretion.”
The woman bowed slightly, and the troupe of alien priests moved to join several others of their number near the shrouded bodies.
The Bajorans made a sign over their chests. “Before we proceed, the kai will perform a blessing for the spirits of the Eleda’s crewmen,” explained the younger minister.
Bennek craned forward to get a better look at the Bajorans, and Hadlo shot him a terse glance. “Show decorum,” rumbled the old cleric.
“Of course,” Bennek replied, but the priest’s manner belied his statement. Bennek was fascinated by the aliens, and had been ever since the Oralians were approached to join the Kornaire’s mission. What he had seen of Bajor through glimpses of the wrecked ship and the dead men was compelling. Bennek had never set foot off Cardassia Prime in all his twenty-seven years, spending much of his life buried in Oralian scriptures and tomes from the ancient Hebitians. He had grown up steeped in the past of his planet, never once considering how life might exist in other places; but a chance moment, accompanying Hadlo when the cleric had been allowed to examine the Eleda crew’s personal effects, had sparked something in him. Among the wreckage of the ship were the remains of a small alcove containing a portable shrine, and there he had come across fragments of a votive icon that resembled—albeit onl
y slightly—a Face of the Fates. He remembered the physical shock at seeing it. Hadlo had dismissed the moment, describing it as a mere coincidence and nothing more, but Bennek couldn’t shake the sense that there was something greater to the similarity. Oralius lives above all, he had reasoned. Is it so strange to imagine she might have touched the souls of other beings as well as Cardassians?
The daring thrill he felt at actually entertaining so radical a thought coursed through him once again. It was something he would never have dared to voice in the chapels of the Way—the conservative nature of his fellow believers was well known to him—but out here, far from home…Suddenly, the possibility seemed real. He watched Kai Meressa and the other Bajoran priests making patterns in the air with their hands. Bennek was energized by the idea of learning everything he could about these “Prophets,” and perhaps taking the first step toward bringing these aliens to the light of the Way.
The youngest of the Bajoran clerics, the one the First Minister had introduced as Prylar Gar, saw Bennek watching him and inclined his head with a cautious smile. He wondered if Gar was thinking the same thoughts. The kai took lit tapers from two females in simple shift dresses and used them to light fat yellow candles on a portable altar, in front of the enclosure where the dead men had been placed. Bennek’s gaze lingered on the women. The forms of the Bajoran females were so different from the women he had known on Cardassia; his culture favored wives and daughters to be muscular and athletic in build, mothers and elders to be robust and sturdy. These were willowy and lithe in comparison; they reminded Bennek of the desert nymphs from old fables. Their smooth, flawless skins made them seem ephemeral, almost angelic.
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