by S P Somtow
She glanced at Simon, clearly unsure of what she should do next. Simon understood how she felt. He had spent so many years feeling unsure of himself; of where he belonged; and of what he could accomplish. But now, he realized, he was capable of faith after all, if not in himself then in Kio. He smiled at her, willing her to read his thoughts. She smiled back.
“I am yet young,” she said, “and if I am to lead the world, I must learn everything I can about the Federation, about the many alien races in our galaxy; for the knowledge we used to have has become meaningless, just as the Panvivlion says. But my first decree is clear: I abolish the caste system. Let each person find his own level in the world, based on his own talents and ambitions.”
“There’ll be chaos!” someone shouted.
“No,” she said. “This is a new beginning. We will begin as equals. And here is my second decree. I am going to leave you. I need to study among the people of the Federation. I need to work out which ideas are best exchanged and which belong exclusively to ourselves. I do not know how long I will be gone for. In the meantime, I appoint as regent the one who was High Shivantak in the previous cycle. I trust he will accept my decision.”
Humbly, the Shivantak nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Artas
A MEADOW OF GRAY-GREEN GRASS. A breeze. A deep blue sky. A dark, mysterious sea. Clouds, too, silver clouds fringed with gilt and purple; the moon that danced and the moon that wept.
A bridge across the ocean.
The bridge woven from the insubstantial; from the webs of arachnids in the deep forest, from the shadows of running children, from the fringes of rainbow—and yet the bridge seemed to support his feet as he took a few tentative steps.
Beneath him, the ocean howled. In the distance, a dailong breached the tide, and many moons danced over the jeweled waves.
You don’t have to forget anymore.
[256] He could hear his mother’s voice, singing to him in the wind.
But Mother, why do you sound so ancient?
Time has passed, my son. Time for you to begin to heal.
My anger—
Let it go.
Am I dreaming? Am I truly dreaming?
You have stood at the brink to the country of dreams for five millennia, son, and now you will cross over to the other shore—the far side of the sea.
Are you. really my mother?
Yes.
But this is a dream.
You have lived a dream up till this moment.
Am I dead?
Life, death—these are the concerns of those who still inhabit the world of shadows.
Am I to forget?
No, son. Remember. Remember everything. And when you have remembered to the full, as though you downed a full glass of the most potent peftifesht—then let go. Let it all dissipate into the air. And then, when you are ready, cross the bridge. I’ll be waiting.
For a long time, Artas stood on the first step. The memories came flooding back. The song was the catalyst. He remembered hearing the song, lying in his mother’s warm embrace, long before he even knew the meaning of the words. His mother had [257] heard the song too, and her mother before her; that lullaby was what connected him to pasts beyond remembering, to futures beyond imagining.
He knew he would be ready soon—but he wanted to savor the sound of the ocean—just another moment—just another—another—
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Ready Room
THERE WAS A QUEUE to see the captain; for a few moments, Picard sat back, enjoying rare solitude. But duty called. A captain cannot afford too much of the luxury of aloneness.
The first ones to come in were his officers—one at a time, he commended them, said those things that a captain must say to boost morale and to congratulate them on a job well done. And then there were the arrangements for Patricia Ballard’s funeral; Picard had not known her well, but her death saddened him; there had been, perhaps, no need for casualties on this mission.
Perhaps, as the Thanetians believed, her noble sacrifice would allow her to be reborn in a higher caste.
“Next,” said Captain Picard. “Ah, Dr. Halliday.”
[259] The venerable xenologist barely made it through the door. His son Adam was in tow.
“Good job, Adam,” said Picard. “And Dr. Halliday—your reports were invaluable to Starfleet and the Federation. Thank you.”
“Just doing my job, Captain,” Halliday said, “and gaming a lot of weight in the process. With seventeen castes and hundreds of subcastes and all those dietary laws, there certainly were a lot of dishes to taste on Thanet.”
“I have been asked to offer you a temporary consulship on Thanet,” said Picard, “until such time as a permanent diplomatic mission is established.”
“Yippee!” Adam cried. “We’re staying. Can Commander Data stay too?”
“I’m afraid not, Adam. We wouldn’t be able to do without him.”
“But he was the only one I ever made friends with here.”
“I believe Commander Data has a rug he needs to return to someone on Thanet; shall we—lend him to you for a few days?”
“Captain, you’re the best!”
“Thank you, Captain,” Dr. Halliday added. “I must admit that sometimes I get a little—distracted. But it gives me pleasure when my son is happy.”
They said their good-byes.
Then there was the young ensign Envig, his wounds quickly healed through Dr. Crusher’s rapid intervention.
[260] “So,” Picard said to Tormod, “do you think you’ll have something to report back to the prizewinning essay committee?”
“Yes, indeed, sir!” Tormod said.
“Perhaps you’ll consider a career in Starfleet in the future; I am sure I can provide a letter of recommendation. As long as you keep those grades up.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tormod, saluting smartly. “In these past days, I’ve done everything—I’ve helped rescue a planet, lived through a diplomatic crisis, seen a millennia-long feud averted, and made friends with some great people. I’ve touched history, Captain, shaken its hand. If this is what a week in Starfleet is like, I can imagine what an entire career would be—”
The next person to come in was Lieutenant Simon Tarses. He was with Kio sar-Bensu—and she looked particularly fetching in uniform, for Picard had made her an acting ensign for the duration of the voyage back to Earth.
“Lieutenant Tarses reporting, sir.”
“A mission well done, Lieutenant,” the captain said.
“May I say—may I—
“Permission to speak freely granted, crewman.”
“Sir, since that incident when you—defended me—all those years ago—I’ve been torn. Those accusations made me feel like a perpetual alien, neither human nor Romulan, someone no one dared trust. The things you said were the right things, sir, but they didn’t totally hit home until—
[261] “Until you met a certain person?” Picard said, smiling.
“Yes, sir,” Tarses said. “I met someone equally torn between two worlds.”
Kio sar-Bensu, lately named ruler of an entire planet, who had set her power aside in order to fulfill her quest for knowledge, only smiled.
“Well, what about you, Kio sar-Bensu?” the captain asked, smiling.
“I’m thinking of going to school on Earth for a while, Captain. Starfleet Academy, if they’ll have me.”
Tarses looked wistful. Undoubtedly he was calculating how long it would be before Enterprise returned to this sector. Quite some time, alas. Picard glanced down at the blank padd on his desk.
“Mr. Tarses, this duty roster says you’re due for some shore leave.” The young crewman looked confused.
“But, sir, I just had a week on—” Kio nudged him.
“Oh. Oh! Thanks—I mean, thank you, sir!”
After the two left, there seemed to be no one else waiting.
The computer told him the former High Shivantak of Thanet wanted a word
with him.
“On screen,” Picard said, and he was looking into the face of a man who had changed a world.
“A metaphoric End of Days,” the Shivantak marveled. “So simple, yet so brilliant, Captain. Thank you for all you did.”
[262] “I did very little, Your Radiance. It was you who executed the plan and spoke so eloquently to your people. It was your wise words that set an entirely new society in motion. But I would like to know something—did you know that when you set off the Bells of Shivan-Saré, hydraulic engines would kick in and transform the towers into plazas and the plazas into towers?”
“I had an inkling of it, Captain. But with all such things—you never know what will happen until you push the button.”
“I suppose one can never underestimate the power of faith.”
“No indeed, Captain Picard. And faith can remain powerful even when we do not take so literal a view of our holy books.”
“Ambassador Straun seems to have reached a similar conclusion.”
“I regret having had to lie to him and to so many others. My former position required mastery of the greatest magic of all—the art of illusion.”
“The world is web of shadows, spun by a master of the dark,” said Picard. It was the very opening lines of the Holy Panvivlion. “Are you that master?”
“You are quite the scholar, Captain. Let us just say that—for a brief moment—to quote again from one of your planet’s sacred texts—I was the Great and Powerful Oz.”
Picard could not help smiling a little. “Adieu,” he said softly, as the former god-king’s image dissolved into blackness.
About the e-Book
(AUGUST, 2003)—Scanned, proofed, and formatted by Bibliophile.
