by Olivia Woods
A second monitor showed Major Cenn, the Bajoran Militia liaison officer, questioning one of the twenty-one surviving mercenaries who had been captured on Harkoum. Nearly a dozen different species were represented among the prisoners, and thus far none of them had offered up any useful information. This one was a female Kressari. Cenn wasn’t having a great deal of success with her either, but that wasn’t surprising; Kressari had hard, textured skin that made their emotions difficult to read for outsiders. You might learn a lot from watching the changing color of their eyes, or from listening carefully to the inflections in their speech, but if the suspect was communicating as little as this one was, then it became difficult to develop an effective interrogation strategy based on exploiting the subject’s emotional state.
The third monitor displayed one of the audiovisual records embedded in the data cache Vaughn had recovered from Grennokar, showing a pair of Cardassian doctors performing open-brain surgery on a live Jem’Hadar soldier. Ro had sent captures of the men’s faces to the station’s closest ally in the Union military, Gul Akellen Macet, who had eventually sent back confirmation of their identities: Drune Omek and Strell Vekeer were two scientists once attached to the Obsidian Order, but both had dropped out of sight not long after the intelligence group’s collapse, over five years ago. Even more interesting, though, was that according to the timestamp on the recordings, these men had been routinely cutting into Jem’Hadar skulls almost from the day Cardassia had joined the Dominion-two years after Omek and Vekeer had both vanished-with the apparent goal of trying to decipher the code behind the soldiers’ genetically mandated loyalty to the Founders. Ro had so far gone through seven of the horrific recordings. Each time, the subjects would go into violent, fatal seizures. Sometimes they died instantly, sometimes slowly. One had convulsed for more than two hours before it finally expired. The surgeons seemed utterly indifferent to the suffering they were witnessing. They merely watched and recorded their observations, sometimes adjusting their equipment as the gruesome scenes played out.
The last monitor was standing by with a menu of every datafile that had passed through Taran’atar’s companel since he’d taken up residence on the station: information on Sidau village, the wormhole, the Orbs, the alternate universe, and any personal or official log that mentioned those items. She’d already gone through the material half a dozen times.
Ro turned away from the console and gazed up at the enormous freestanding viewscreen that dominated the back wall of her quarters, so big it completely obstructed both viewports. She had masked the display when Tarses had come calling, and now, alone once again, she tapped it back on. Here she studied the ever-expanding structure of her hypothetical web-carefully arranged images of people, places, and dated events, with notes or questions beneath each one, many of them connected by red lines denoting relationships among them. At the center of them all, radiating lines to practically every other item on the screen, were two images. One was Captain Kira. The other was the grainy capture of the nearly identical face Nog had extracted from the reconstituted activity log for Taran’atar’s companel: supposedly the Iliana Ghemor of this universe.
Iliana had been off the grid for sixteen years. Most of what they knew about her-and it was very little-had come from her now-deceased handler within the Order, Corbin Entek, when he kidnapped Kira six years ago and attempted to convince her that she was, in reality, Iliana-part of a convoluted scheme to expose Iliana’s father, Legate Tekeny Ghemor, as a dissident.
But Iliana’s fate had never become known.
It made her counterpart’s claim about the true identity of their enemy a compelling one, to say the least.
Ro picked up the padd that had been resting on her lap. She considered the face it displayed and once again she keyed the bookmarked segment of the audiofile she had discovered earlier that afternoon in the station’s databases.
“Your daughter is alive, Ghemor. I know where to find her.”
She paused the playback of the three-year-old recording and stared at the image on the padd’s tiny screen. With grim resolve, Ro touched the upload command and added the speaker’s face to her web: Skrain Dukat.
Ro might not have any personal experience with Bajor’s late former prefect, but she knew him by reputation well enough not to take anything he ever said at face value. The man was notoriously self-absorbed, at times to the point of believing his own lies, and therefore gauging his truthfulness was always problematic. In this instance, the gul had been addressing Tekeny Ghemor, at a time when the former legate was aboard the station, in his final days of life, suffering from an incurable illness. Kira had been recording her sessions with the exiled dissident as he undertook the final rite of shrital, in which dying Cardassians passed on their secrets to loved ones, ostensibly to be used against their enemies. Dukat, who at that time had been the Dominion’s puppet ruler of the Cardassian Union, had obviously been sufficiently concerned about what the old legate might divulge that he’d made a pilgrimage to Ghemor’s deathbed, hoping to coerce his return to Cardassia before he revealed too much. Kira had the foresight to leave her recorder running during the visit and captured the claim Dukat had made about Iliana during his final appeal to the dying man, which Ghemor had valiantly rejected.
Dukat and Iliana-they were connected somehow.
Slowly and deliberately, Ro keyed a vivid red line to extend from one face to the other.
With one guard marching in front of her and one behind, the two armed and uniformed humans escorted Ghemor down one of the curving main corridors that ran through the station’s enormous habitat ring.
Human security guards. The thought almost made her laugh. As an abstract idea it was one thing. The reality was something else entirely. These Starfleet humans bore little resemblance to the barely civilized thugs that made up most of Smiley’s rebellion; they seemed to have more in common with Cardassians…and that likeness was not a hopeful sign.
She and her escorts abruptly halted in front of a door. The lead guard, a red-blond female, tapped the chime once.
“Enter,” came the response, in a voice that was unsettlingly familiar. The door opened into a well-kept Cardassian-designed stateroom. It was furnished to Bajoran tastes but was far less decadent than those Ghemor was used to seeing. Its sole occupant, another Starfleet officer, knelt in front of a small shrine against the right-hand wall. Arms half extended at either side, her slightly cupped hands faced forward at level with her head.
“The visitor, Captain. As ordered,” the leading guard said.
The captain’s arms dropped and she slowly rose to her feet. “Thanks, Neeley,” she said as she extinguished the shrine’s two small candles. “Wait outside, please.”
Both guards took a half step backward, and Ghemor took that as her cue to cross the threshold. When the door closed behind her, she said, “Thank you for seeing me. I apologize if I’ve interrupted anything.”
The captain turned, and Ghemor saw the face that until now she’d known only in a very different context. The earring was different, and the coppery hair was a little longer, but those details did little to negate the uneasy feeling, despite what she knew to the contrary, that she was standing in the presence of Bajor’s Intendant.
“I was just praying,” the Bajoran replied with a hint of a smile. Not the predatory smirk of her counterpart, but a disarming look of self-deprecating humor.
“For what?”
“I’m sorry?”
“When you pray,” Ghemor said, “what do you ask of your gods?”
The half-smile was back. “I don’t ask them for anything. I look inward for the virtues the Prophets have taught us to cultivate. Wisdom…strength…hope.”
Not the answer she expected. “Meditation, then.”
Her host shrugged and strode toward her. “Labels don’t matter. What counts is the act of exploring one’s pagh.”
“Did it work?”
“It’s a process, not a goal.” She stopped in front o
f Ghemor and nodded curtly. “Captain Kira Nerys, commander of Deep Space 9.”
“Iliana Ghemor.”
Kira’s brow furrowed slightly. Then she seemed to realize she was staring. “You’ll have to forgive me. Last time I saw that face, I was looking into a mirror on Cardassia Prime. Seeing you in person is a little…disorienting.”
“I know exactly what you mean.”
“I imagine you do.”
Ghemor slowly circled the room, absorbing what it told her about its owner. As she expected, it said very little; Kira was evidently wise enough not to reveal too much about herself to anyone, even within her personal space. A few things stood out, though: the modest shrine was the only religious icon in evidence, testifying to the seriousness with which she took her faith without feeling the need to flaunt it; simple but comfortable furnishings spoke to her appreciation for the need to unwind occasionally, but not to the point of sloth; a few pieces of Bajoran arts and crafts confirmed her pride of heritage; and the fresh flowers on the dining table betrayed a softer side she wasn’t ashamed of.
Something shiny on a trinket shelf next to the sleepchamber door caught Ghemor’s attention. She stopped dead in her tracks.
Her mother’s bracelet.
She thought she was prepared for anything this continuum could throw at her: friends and enemies with their roles reversed; dead people who were alive; subtle similarities and gross contradictions…. She’d read and heard enough about the alternate universe to think nothing would surprise her, that she wouldn’t be taken off guard by anything she encountered. Yet here, among the possessions of this strangely benign version of the Intendant, was Kaleen’s bracelet.
Ghemor picked it up; it felt absurd to ask permission first. It was whole, pristine. Unsullied and undamaged.
“You recognize that?” Kira asked.
Without taking her eyes off the bracelet, Ghemor nodded. “My mother had one just like it. How is it that you-?”
“On this side, the widower of Kaleen Ghemor was a dissident, secretly working to reform Cardassia,” the captain explained. “Years ago I was abducted by the Obsidian Order and made to look like his long lost daughter as part of a plot to expose him. We both escaped, and as a token of the bond that had developed between us, Tekeny Ghemor gave me the bracelet he’d hoped to pass down to his daughter.”
Ghemor didn’t respond, but in fact she knew that story quite well. Before she’d crossed over to this universe, she had learned a great deal of things, but she wasn’t ready to share all of it. Not yet.
Still not looking up, she asked, “Is your Tekeny still alive?”
“No,” Kira said. “He became stricken with Yarim Fel syndrome and died a couple of years later, believing his daughter was dead. I keep the bracelet to honor his memory…. What’s so funny?”
Ghemor was laughing. She couldn’t help herself; the respect in Kira’s voice when she spoke of Tekeny was the final irony.
“My father,” Ghemor began, “was the brutal, ruthless head of the Obsidian Order for almost a quarter of a century. It’s because of him that I became an operative, and it’s because of him that I turned against the Alliance. In a way, I suppose he’s responsible for my being here.”
“And your mother’s bracelet?”
She saw it vividly in her memory: melted around a burned, blackened wrist. She remembered screaming as Ataan pulled her away from her mother’s smoking body, telling her they needed to get away…
“I’m not sure what became of it,” Ghemor said. “I haven’t seen it in years.” She gently set the bracelet down and turned to face Kira again. “So how do you want to begin?”
Kira gestured toward a chair on one long side of the dining table. Iliana seated herself, while the captain took the chair opposite her. “Why are you here?”
“That’s the wrong question.”
The Bajoran frowned. “Then what’s the right one?”
“What really happened to the Iliana Ghemor of this universe?”
“Do you know?”
“I know some things,” Ghemor said. “For example, I know her deep-cover assignment to infiltrate the Bajoran resistance involved not merely making her look like you but also suppressing her real identity and replacing it with yours.”
Kira didn’t answer immediately. She seemed to be growing agitated. Finally she said, “I was fed that lie once before, and nothing ever came to light to back it up.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” Ghemor said. “Not all of it.”
“I suppose you’re going to tell me it happened at Elemspur Detention Center.”
“That’s right.”
“Except I was never at Elemspur. I was never replaced by a Cardassian operative.”
“But you were a target for replacement,” Ghemor said calmly. “Do you think that the underlying resemblance between you and my counterpart-between you and me-played no part in the assignment she was given?”
Again Kira hesitated. “When you rescued Vaughn and Tenmei, you told them Gul Dukat had betrayed the Obsidian Order’s plan to have Iliana replace me.”
“That’s right.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I have no idea,” Ghemor lied, “and I can’t say that I care.”
“No idea,” Kira repeated, clearly skeptical. “None at all?”
“If I was to guess, I’d say it had something to do with your mother…. Meru, wasn’t it? As I understand it, she was his comfort woman for a time.” She watched Kira’s expression darken. I seem to have touched a nerve. I’ll have to remember that. “It’s true, then?”
“Yes,” Kira said quietly. “But she’d been dead for years by the time Iliana was sent to Bajor. She wasn’t in a position to influence him on my behalf, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“You underestimate my people’s capacity for sentimentality,” Ghemor said. “But maybe you’re right. Maybe it was less about helping you than it was about hurting someone else. Or maybe there’s a different explanation entirely. Do you think it makes any difference now?”
“Let me tell you what I think.” Kira angrily pushed away from the table and stood. “I think you’re working for the Intendant. I think she’s the one behind all of this, and that you’re here spinning this insane tale to distract us from whatever it is she’s really up to. Or maybe your job is to deliver us into a trap.”
“Perfectly logical,” Ghemor conceded. “And also perfectly wrong.”
“Then what happened to your counterpart? Where has she been all this time? And what does she want now?”
“I don’t have all the answers, Captain. But I do know that she’s completely insane and extremely dangerous. She still thinks she’s you.”
“After all this time? Sixteen years?”
“That’s one of the reasons she’s out of her mind, Captain. She was never reactivated. The galaxy is very different from the one she remembers, and you’ve been living the life that she believes should have been hers.”
“This is all about getting to me? That’s why Taran’atar tried to kill me and my chief of security?”
“There’s much more to it than that,” Ghemor said. “I told your interrogator, Lieutenant Dax, that I believe my counterpart crossed into my universe with the intention of replacing the Intendant.”
“And?”
“I don’t believe she has any intention of stopping. She plans to keep going-eliminate every Kira Nerys in every universe she can reach. And she thinks that little trinket she murdered a village to get hold of is the key.”
Kira stared at her. Ghemor held her gaze, watching her face as the revelation sank in.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Do I look as though I’m joking, Captain?”
Kira sat back down. “Even if you’re telling the truth, what do you expect me to do about it?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I failed to stop her. I need your help to go after her.”
“Why should I trust you?” the captain asked.
“You don’t have to trust me,” Ghemor said. “You just have to believe me.”
“Believe you? I still don’t believe you about Elemspur, and you want me to-“
“It happened the week you stopped blaming yourself for the death of Dakahna Vaas.”
Kira gaped. Ghemor was almost amused by her speechlessness.
“That’s right, I know about Dakahna. She was your partner the day she was lost on the mission to raid the geological survey station in the hills outside Tempasa. Her death was eating you from the inside out for months afterward…until Elemspur.”
Ghemor paused. “So now, Captain, here’s the question you need to answer: Does my impossible knowledge of this dark and deeply personal chapter of your life make me more trustworthy…or less?”
Kira had maintained her composure throughout, but now there was a glimmer of hatred in her brown eyes, and Ghemor knew she had overplayed her hand.
The captain tapped her combadge. “Kira to Neeley. Take our guest back to confinement.”
3
“A ll right, let’s say she’s telling the truth,” Dax said, clasping her hands behind her back. “What then? What are our responsibilities? If it really is our Iliana that Taran’atar has followed into the alternate universe, do we leave them for the other side to deal with? Or do we have an obligation to go after them for the crimes that were committed here?”
“Those are all excellent questions,” Kira said, sounding a little short of breath as she paced Ro Laren’s quarters. Ezri remembered how Julian had warned Kira that the accelerated regen treatments could take their toll on her, especially if she insisted on returning to duty too soon. Clearly that’s what Dax was seeing now, and she wasn’t the only one to notice.
