Original Sin

by David R. George III

  Tey had spoken with Derwell for three-quarters of an hour. Although he criticized Bajor’s government and mainstream religion, he did not seem overly angry. Neither did he acquit himself as particularly bright, though Tey allowed that his behavior could have been an act. Eventually, she maneuvered the conversation to a discussion of his whereabouts three days earlier. He claimed to have attended a daylong training seminar; currently a transporter operator, he hoped to become a technician. Once she left Derwell’s flat, she confirmed his presence for the entire seminar, which provided him an alibi at the time of the abduction.

  After that, Tey beamed to Johcat. There, she visited a small, two-bedroom house in the outer reaches of the city. To her surprise, she discovered that Endred Koth lived there with his romantic partner. Though Endred and the woman, Fanna Elis, had never married, they told her that they’d been involved for three years, and living together for two. Tey had a pleasant enough conversation with the pair. Because Endred no longer fit her profile, she moved quickly to establish his movements three days prior. The couple spoke easily and imprecisely about what they’d done—a natural occurrence for people with nothing to hide—but they managed to supply enough detail for Tey to verify, which she had done immediately after leaving their home.

  With no more suspects, Tey had returned to Ashalla. She visited Militia headquarters again, asking herself if she’d erred in the profile she’d produced for the kidnapper. Others involved in the investigation—most notably, Major Orisin—believed that the abduction of Rebecca Sisko had been accomplished by more than one person. Many also felt that the motivation for the crime had less to do with the girl and more to do with her father, and that a ransom demand of a religious nature—based upon Benjamin Sisko’s role as the Emissary rather than upon Rebecca’s as the Avatar—would materialize. Tey understood the reasoning. She even granted that it made sense. It just didn’t scan with her intuition, a sense constructed not of supposition and guesswork, but of her training and experience. Tey did not believe herself infallible, but she felt strongly about her analysis of the situation.

  Back at Militia headquarters, Tey revisited the list of the Ohalavaru who’d been on Endalla with Rejias Norvan. She expanded her efforts to cross-check against the directory of transporter operators and technicians by including all of the individuals who’d survived the incident on the Bajoran moon, rather than just those she considered suspicious based on their recorded statements. By doing so, she found a third name, an unattached man in his forties who crewed a public transporter in the city of Elanda, but who resided in Johcat. Tey immediately beamed back to the city.

  As she strode along the narrow pedestrian avenue, Tey moved not from one pool of light to another beneath the streetlamps, but from one stretch of darkness to another. She had no particular reason to move furtively—it seemed unlikely that anybody would recognize her—but she did so out of instinct. She had chosen to wear soft-soled shoes, allowing her to move quietly.

  Tey reached her destination and found the outdoor staircase at the end of the building. She climbed to the top story and made her way to the far end of the floor, to what turned out to be the end unit. She looked for a welcome panel but didn’t see one, so she raised her hand and rapped with her knuckles on the door. Thirty seconds passed, and then Tey knocked again. She waited for five full minutes, then banged on the door a third time.

  Still no answer.

  Tey understood that the man could simply be out, that his apparent absence could mean nothing. People left their homes to go to restaurants, to visit friends, or for uncounted other reasons. Despite that night had just fallen, the man might even be inside his flat but asleep, oblivious to her knocking.

  Or he could be holed up inside with his kidnapped victim.

  Tey had to be certain. She looked around to be sure she was unobserved, then leaned in and pressed her ear to the door. She held her breath and listened. When she heard nothing, she moved to the front windows so that she could attempt to look inside, but she saw that they had been set to reflective—not unusual, especially at night, but that failed to put her mind at ease.

  Unwilling to leave, Tey took the stairs back down to the ground level, where she walked back to the far end of the building. There, she peered up at the other windows of the flat in question. She saw that they too had been rendered reflective. But then, so had most of the windows she saw.

  Still, Tey believed in being thorough. She circled the building, looking for anything out of the ordinary. She saw nothing unusual, but when she reached the outdoor stairs, she noted that they also descended one flight to a basement. Doubting that the building contained belowground flats, she took the steps down.

  The door there had been propped open, a triangular piece of wood wedged below its bottom rail. Tey walked inside to find herself in a hallway that ran the length of the building. Numerous doors ran along one side. She paced over to the first one and saw a number on it, which she surmised corresponded to a flat number.

  Storage spaces, Tey thought.

  She headed down the hallway. She had no expectations and no plan. Tey knew that she could not legally force her way into the storage space that went with the flat of the man she had come to interview, but she also understood that most successful investigations required an attention to detail.

  Tey found the man’s storage space, like his flat, at the far end of the building. To Tey’s surprise, the door stood slightly ajar. “Hello?” she called out.

  No response.

  Tey used the toe of her shoe to push the door slowly inward. As it opened, lighting panels overhead switched on. The storage space measured about three meters wide and twice as deep. It contained nothing but two stacks of crates. Tey walked over and examined them. Constructed of a translucent material, they revealed their contents, which looked like personal items: framed photographs, books, articles of clothing.

  When Tey saw a thin layer of dust coating the top crates, she looked down at the floor. Grime covered the gray concrete, but for several footprints and a large rectangular area. He moved something from here, Tey thought. Recently.

  It could have been nothing, but in Tey’s mind, the pieces added up. It started with the crime itself, which led to her profile of the perpetrator. Juxtaposing all of that with the Ohalavaru individuals extreme enough to support an effort to bomb Endalla in an attempt to prove their beliefs, it all led to one man.

  Well, it had led to three, Tey thought, but she’d been able to cross the other two off her list.

  Mindful of the passage of time, including the three days that had passed since Rebecca’s abduction, Tey had to find her latest suspect. That meant she needed to get into his flat—either to confront him if he was there, or to find clues to his current location. She briefly considered putting her shoulder into the man’s door and forcing her way inside, claiming exigent circumstances, but she knew that wouldn’t hold up in a court of law—particularly since she had already interviewed and exonerated two other suspects that day. She would have to obtain a judicial warrant.

  Tey tapped at the secure comm unit she wore around her wrist, then raised it to her lips. “Jasmine Tey to Minister Menvel,” she said.

  “This is the minister’s office,” replied a man’s voice “I’m his aide, Tol Danur. Go ahead, Investigator.” Although she had never before spoken with Tol, Tey knew that the justice minister’s entire staff had been informed of her identity and instructed to handle her requests with the highest priority.

  “I have a time-sensitive need for a warrant to search the residential premises of a criminal suspect,” Tey said. “I will send an encrypted file of the details to Minister Menvel within the next five minutes. I am on-site and require the warrant as soon as possible.” Tey would go back outside and find a shadow from which she could observe the flat, just in case anybody entered or left. “The suspect’s name,” she concluded, “is Radovan Tavus.”

  • • •

  On the outskirts of the city, he saw
the ad hoc security checkpoint too late to avoid it. Radovan should have expected it, but even if he had, he couldn’t have done anything about it. If he turned the travel pod around, the Militia personnel stationed there would see and pursue him. He would lie, tell them that he’d simply forgotten to bring something—another blanket, perhaps, or extra rations—and that he needed to return home to get it, but that would only focus more attention on him. He knew that security officers believed innocent people didn’t try to avoid them, and so doing so would likely lead to increased scrutiny—of him, of the travel pod, of everything he’d brought with him.

  As Radovan entered the checkpoint, he told himself to remain calm, but also not to overdo it, not to behave too casually. He saw a number of Militia officers working at a portable kiosk. Another stood in the center of the lane, her hands up in a halting gesture. Radovan slowed the travel pod, bringing it to a halt over the sensor mat that had been laid across the avenue. A second officer stepped up to the side of the vehicle and indicated that he wanted to speak to him. Radovan tapped a control that retracted the window.

  “Please shut off the vehicle, sir,” the officer said.

  Radovan did as instructed. The gentle whirr of the travel pod’s power cell faded to silence, and the vehicle settled down onto the ground. The officer—a sergeant by his rank insignia—peered inside the cabin.

  “Are you traveling alone, sir?” he asked.

  “Yes, I am, Sergeant.”

  “Can I see your identification, please?”

  “Certainly.”

  Radovan reached to the top of the control panel and tapped a control surface. The isolinear chip with his digital ID popped out of its receptacle. He handed it to the sergeant, who raised a handheld device and inserted the chip into it. He studied the readout for a moment.

  “I see you live in Johcat, Mister Radovan,” the sergeant said. “Can I ask why you’re leaving the city tonight?”

  “I’m going camping for a few days out in the Deserak Wilderness,” Radovan said. He hiked a thumb up over his shoulder, pointing to the back of the travel pod. “I’ve got all my gear in the rear compartment.”

  “Kind of late to be heading out camping, don’t you think?” The sun had gone down an hour before.

  “Too many things to do, not enough time to do them,” Radovan said. “I wanted to get out earlier, but it’s all right. I’m going to my uncle’s cabin for tonight, then I’ll head out to the campsite in the morning.”

  The officer nodded noncommittally, then handed Radovan’s ID chip back to him. “Would you please open the rear compartment and step out of the vehicle, sir?”

  “Sure, Sergeant.” Radovan reinserted his ID chip in the control panel, then activated the latch release for the rear compartment. Once he heard it open, he slid the door back and exited the travel pod.

  “Stay there, sir.”

  As the officer walked to the back of the vehicle, Radovan asked, “What’s this all about, Sergeant?” He didn’t expect the officer to answer.

  “An important work of art has gone missing from Ophiucus Three,” he said. “It was supposedly stolen and brought to Bajor to sell.”

  “Huh,” Radovan said, a reaction he hoped would sound genuine to the sergeant. In actuality, the explanation did interest Radovan. He assumed that the cover story had been created so that the authorities could avoid making public the abduction of the Avatar.

  A purr emanated from beneath the travel pod, and Radovan realized that the sensor mat had been activated. He fought the urge to hold his breath. As time passed, he stood there, suddenly unsure what to do with his hands. He crossed his arms over his chest, which felt both unnatural and conspicuous. He saw the officer who had motioned him to a stop gazing over at him, and he forced a smile onto his face. When she looked away, he dropped his arms and shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Sir,” called the sergeant from behind the travel pod, “would you please come here?” Radovan pulled his hands out of his pockets and joined the officer at the back of the vehicle. The hatch of the rear compartment hung open, revealing the items he’d brought with him from home: a large antigrav trunk and a couple duffels of clothing.

  “Is all of this yours, sir?” the sergeant asked.

  “Yes,” Radovan said. “The trunk used to belong to my mother, but . . . her path ended at the Celestial Temple about a year ago.” He did not have to feign the pain he still felt over his mother’s death—only his belief in an afterlife presided over by the Prophets.

  “I’m sorry,” the sergeant said, but he quickly moved on. “This is a public travel pod, so we have the right to search it and anything inside. We’ve scanned it, but would you mind opening the trunk?”

  Radovan’s heart immediately began to race. He tried to cover his distress with movement, stepping close to the travel pod and reaching for the top of the trunk. “Of course,” he said. He unfastened the clasps and pushed open the top. The sergeant looked over the contents of the trunk—concentrated foodstuffs, water, a tent, and other camping equipment—then started to paw through it. Radovan took a pace backward to stay out of the officer’s way, and also to hide his anxiety. He wished that he’d chosen to carry the hypospray in his pocket, though he realized that would have made no difference to his situation. Even if he could incapacitate the sergeant, he would still have to face the other Militia officers at the checkpoint; he counted at least four. But escaping their clutches would only demonstrate his guilt and set the authorities on his tail.

  The sergeant finished looking through the trunk and turned his attention to the two duffels of clothing. He felt along their lengths, squeezing them as he did so. Radovan waited, trying not to look eager for the search to end.

  Finally, the sergeant backed away from the travel pod. “Thank you, Mister Radovan,” he said. “You can close it up.” Radovan did so, and moments later, he piloted the travel pod away from the security checkpoint and out of Johcat.

  Several kilometers outside the city, he guided the vehicle off the thoroughfare that ran through the countryside all the way to the town of Revent. Radovan brought the travel pod to a stop and opened the rear compartment. He quickly emptied his mother’s trunk, then pulled up the false bottom he’d constructed inside it. He reached into the shallow hidden recess, which he’d lined with the gray, sensor-resistant material he’d replicated, and collected the tools he’d stored there. He also checked on the girl, who lay unconscious, a breathing mask strapped to her face. She seemed fine.

  Returning to the cabin, Radovan utilized the tools he’d retrieved to access the travel pod’s transponder, which he then disabled, rendering the vehicle invisible to Bajor’s satellite-based tracking system. He then piloted the pod almost halfway back around Johcat and set off in a different direction, out into the wilderness. He spared one last glance back at the city as it faded into the distance behind him.

  Radovan still didn’t know exactly what he was going to do, although the general form of a plan had begun to take shape in his mind. He wondered how he would be remembered, and what history would say about his role in ending the tyranny that the Avatar brought with her. Many had interpreted The Book of Ohalu, but none had read the prophecies with the clarity and understanding that he finally had.

  Radovan couldn’t predict just what would happen next, but he knew, deep down, that when he eventually returned to the city, he would not be bringing the girl back with him.

  Gamma Quadrant, 2386

  Kasidy’s knees threatened to give out. Her thoughts swirled and she felt faint. Before she could lose consciousness, she lurched over to the desk and sat down in one of the chairs before it.

  “How can this be happening?” she heard herself say. It seemed inconceivable that Ben and the Robinson crew could mount a rescue operation, bring back more than two-thirds of the stolen children, and Rebecca not be among those recovered. Ben had even led one of the away teams, which had freed twenty-nine of the children, but that had not included his own daughter
.

  Did he know which of the three groups of children Rebecca was in? Kasidy asked herself. Couldn’t sensors have identified her? Did he even try to explicitly locate our daughter?

  Ben got up from the sofa, where they’d both been sitting when he’d delivered the news. Her disappointment—her horror—had driven her to her feet, but she’d become almost instantly light-headed. Ben followed her across his ready room and sat down beside her.

  “Kas,” he said softly. He reached forward and placed his hand atop both of hers, which she twisted together in her lap. “We’re going to get her back.”

  Kasidy looked up at him and felt a sense of déjà vu. Hadn’t he said essentially the same thing to her six years prior, when their daughter had first been taken, and then again, when she had been taken from Robinson three days earlier? The first time, on Bajor, he was right, Kasidy reminded herself. But at what cost? Rebecca had seemed fine after her ordeal with the Ohalavaru kidnapper, but Kasidy had never been fully convinced that their daughter hadn’t suffered emotional damage that would eventually take a toll on her life.

  “Didn’t you know which group Rebecca was in?” Kasidy asked her husband. “Didn’t you want to lead the away team to rescue her?”

  “What?” Ben said, pulling back from her as though she’d slapped him across the face. “Kasidy, how could I? We probably could’ve isolated Rebecca’s DNA on sensors, but that would’ve taken time away from our actual rescue attempts. But even if that wasn’t the case, how could I have done that? How could I have demonstrated to members of the crew that our child was more important than any of theirs? My responsibility—”

  “Your responsibility is to your family,” Kasidy snapped.

  Ben regarded her with hurt in his eyes. He could’ve gotten angry—probably should have—but instead, he reached for her, put his hands on her upper arms. “My responsibility is to my family,” he said quietly. “But as long as I command this ship, I’m also responsible for the other thirteen hundred lives aboard. I can’t elevate one above the other.” He squeezed her arms. “You know that. We talked about this.”