No wonder there are no chairs, Sisko thought. None of them could fit into a humanoid-style seat. Moreover, it wouldn’t be possible to craft a standardized piece of furniture to accommodate all of their many forms.
Sisko took a step forward and identified himself by rank and full name, then pointed to each member of his team and similarly introduced them. The squat entity with wings likewise moved up to the captain and said, “I am Pavartic of the Glant.” It then gave the names of the others. It identified the balloon-headed creature as Voranesk, the one that had contacted Sisko aboard Robinson.
“Are you the leader of the Glant?” the captain asked.
“Am I the what?” Pavartic asked, its confusion plain.
“Do you speak on behalf of the Glant?” Sisko said.
Pavartic turned its lumbering body to one side and then the other, regarding its colleagues. “All Glant speak on behalf of the Glant. How could we do otherwise?”
Sisko felt a light touch on the back of his left shoulder, and he glanced over to see Kasidy just behind him. “They don’t understand the concept of a leader any more than they understand what children are,” she said quietly. “It’s possible that they have a genuine democracy, with every individual within it contributing equally.”
Sisko wondered if that could mean that the Glant also possessed a collective consciousness—a hive mind, not unlike the Borg—but he didn’t get that sense from them. They didn’t appear to act with any more than an expected degree of coordination among them. To Pavartic, he said, “We seek a peaceful resolution to our encounter with the Glant.”
“We seek that as well,” Pavartic said. “We mourn the end of the existence of eight of our number by your hand, but there is nothing we can do, and nothing you can do, to change what has happened. We can only guide what next will happen.”
For a moment, the statement struck Sisko as a threat. The Glant could not undo the killing of the eight that had perished, but they could take consequent action. The captain braced for something to happen, but then nothing did. “We understand that one of the things you want to happen next is for us to end our explorations of your world and your space. We are willing to do that, to depart from here and never return.”
“That is what we want,” Voranesk said, speaking up for the first time. “But in the wake of the end of the existence of eight Glant, we wish for more.”
“Yes,” agreed the snake-like entity, which had been introduced as Kerchen. “We want you to return what you stole. We want you to return our Gist.”
“Your . . . Gist,” Sisko repeated. He understood the Glant meaning of the word no more at that moment than when Voranesk had mentioned it during its contact with Robinson. “We admit to ‘ending the existence’ of eight Glant. We did not want that to happen, but we were forced to take such actions in order to recover our—” Sisko almost said children, but stopped himself, knowing that it meant nothing to the Glant. “In order to recover what you stole from us,” the captain said. “We did not steal from you. We only took back what the Glant took from us.”
“But you are not [untranslatable],” Kerchen said, Sisko’s universal translator filling in the uninterpreted word with a flat tone. “You are not Glant. You have no need for Gist.”
“Captain,” Althouse said, moving up beside Sisko. “If I may.” She motioned toward the Glant, and the captain nodded his authorization for her to speak to them. “Do you understand the notion of individuality, of distinctiveness?”
“The Unique is everything,” Pavartic said. “Every Glant is imbued with It. Every Glant lives with It and brings more of It into the world.” Pavartic spoke with what Sisko perceived as reverence, as though uniqueness held a primary position among the Glant’s spiritual or religious tenets. That made sense to the captain. So much of what he had seen of the Glant underscored their desire for differentiation—in their ships, in their rooms and corridors, in their individual bodies.
Althouse took another step forward and turned to face Sisko and the others. She raised her arm and motioned to include all of them before looking back at the Glant. “Are we unique?” she asked.
None of the Glant replied at first. As the silence extended, Pavartic looked to the other Glant. They seemed uncertain. Finally, Pavartic said, “We do not wish to offend you.”
“We’re not imbued with the Unique, are we?” Althouse asked.
“You . . . are all the same,” Pavartic admitted. “Surely, you can see that.”
Sisko pondered the nature of the Glant’s idea of humanity’s lack of uniqueness. Two arms, two legs, a head, a torso—did those basic commonalities make all human beings like all other human beings? That felt wrong to Sisko, flying in the face of individuality, but at the same time, it had been humanity’s collective acceptance of itself as a single race that had allowed it to evolve as a society, to rid itself of its internal fears and prejudices.
“All Glant are imbued with the Unique,” the counselor went on. “But did the Glant evolve?”
For several seconds, nobody said anything, and then Voranesk replied, “We do not understand this word, this concept. Much of what you convey to us is meaningless.”
Althouse nodded, as though she had expected such a response. “How far back in time does your history reach?”
“The Glant have existed for thousands of generations,” Pavartic said.
“How do you reproduce?” Althouse asked. The question could have been considered rude, but given that the Glant did not understand the concept of children, Sisko wanted to hear their answer.
Voranesk’s balloon-shaped heads spread out above its angular body. “Your words do not translate,” it said.
“How does one generation . . . create . . . the next generation?” Althouse said.
“By contributing to an Issuance,” Voranesk said, as though that explained everything. But Althouse did not seem deterred.
“ ‘By contributing to an Issuance,’ ” she repeated. “So you conceptualize a new generation, and then you design it, and finally you build it.”
Pavartic lifted its front two feet and thumped them down on the floor in a gesture that could have indicated frustration or anger, levity or surprise. “One cannot conceptualize an entire generation,” it said. “One present Glant contributes one future Glant.”
“There are tales from ancient times that tell of one Glant creating many Glant,” Voranesk said. “But those are mere myths.”
Sisko had numerous questions, but he wanted to allow Althouse to complete her line of reasoning. “One present Glant conceives of one new Glant, drafts a blueprint for it, and then lastly builds it.”
“Not ‘lastly,’ ” Kerchen said. “Idea, design, creation, and then, lastly, actualization.”
“And you interfered with an attempt to actualize the next Issuance,” Voranesk said, its heads coming together and sinking forward.
Sisko saw the pattern forming out of the information Althouse drew from the Glant. He thought he understood the conclusion she had arrived at, the conclusion for which she sought confirmation, but he didn’t want to accept it. It was too horrible.
“After the creation of a new Glant,” Althouse asked, “that is when you require Gist?”
“Of course,” Pavartic said. “Gist actualizes a new Glant.”
Beside Sisko, Kasidy gasped. She knew. She had puzzled it out. He had too. The Glant didn’t understand the concept of children because they didn’t have any. They were wholly artificial life-forms. They might have incorporated organic materials into their creations, they might have grown flesh and organs to be used as building materials, but they created every new individual in a laboratory.
But without minds, Sisko thought. And so they had to harvest existing minds—what they called Gist—to transfer into the bodies that they built. Which is why they had taken the Robinson children. Perhaps they required brains of a certain form, ones that had not completely grown, or consciousnesses that had not become too rigid, but whatever th
e case, the Glant had selected those minds aboard Robinson that they could transfer into their newest creations.
Sisko reached out and set a hand on Althouse’s arm, and she moved back behind him. “You claim that we stole Gist from you,” he said. “But you took that Gist from us. It is ours.” He knew that he could not argue about the importance of children to the Glant. He needed to speak to them in their own terms.
“We do not steal Gist,” Voranesk said.
“How could we steal Gist from you?” Pavartic asked. It lifted one of its forward wings and pointed it at Althouse. “You admitted that you are all the same. Therefore it is not Gist to you, and so we could not steal it from you.”
“It may not be Gist to us, but that doesn’t mean it is unimportant,” Sisko said. “In our society, the small beings you have taken from us are the most important part of our society. They are our next Issuance.”
“The Glant have heard such arguments before,” Voranesk said. “But our collection of Gist is a liberation, freeing it from the rigors of existence in a homogenous society and the ultimate end of lives all too brief.”
“You have taken my daughter from me,” Kasidy suddenly said.
“We do not know—” Pavartic said, doubtless objecting to the word daughter, but Kasidy interrupted.
“You have taken my creation for the next generation,” she said. “I offer my life for hers. Release her and I will stay.” While Sisko knew that Kasidy would, if necessary, make such a bargain—because he would too—he understood that she did not intend to forfeit her life. She knew that if they could not negotiate with the Glant for the release of the children, Sisko intended to make another rescue attempt. Kasidy would count on that to free her, but she clearly wanted to take that risk herself rather than have Rebecca remain in danger.
“You . . . do not have Gist,” Pavartic said, lowering its head, giving it an apologetic air.
“I have a mind,” Kasidy protested. “That’s what you’re talking about.”
“Gist is more than just mind,” Voranesk said. “It is a quality of malleability. It is the ability to accept change and a new reality. It is the highest capacity for learning.”
Sisko thought for a moment, tried to find the right words, the right ideas, to convince the Glant to release the children. “The Glant see us as all the same,” he said. “We don’t. We believe that we have our own version of the Unique within each of us.” Two of the Glant looked at each other, and Sisko could feel their skepticism. “We are different from you,” he went on. “Maybe we are not as advanced as you. But we have created individuals for our next generation, and you have taken them from us. You felt horror when we took back sixty of our children. We felt that same horror when you took them from us. We still feel it for those that remain on your world. They are ours. They belong with us.”
“We are sorry for your horror,” Pavartic said. “But your claim to the Unique, while moving, is irrational and obviously untrue. The needs of the Glant are real.”
“We are willing to negotiate with you,” Sisko said. “There must be other things you need, other things that we can provide to you, or services we can perform.” He preferred not to threaten the Glant if he could avoid it, but he stood on the cusp of doing just that.
“We appreciate your point of view, as well as your willingness to negotiate,” Kerchen said. “But the only thing the Glant want from you is the return of the Gist you stole from us in your attack.”
It was unbelievable. Sisko had offered whatever he could for the return of the rest of the Robinson children, but all the Glant wanted was for him to give back the children he had already rescued. He could think of nothing more to say.
“It is clear that you will not return the Gist you stole, nor will we give up the Gist we have,” Kerchen said.
“The negotiations are ended,” Pavartic declared.
“It doesn’t matter anyway,” Voranesk said. “Very soon, there will be a new Issuance. Once done, it is irreversible.”
“What do you mean, ‘very soon’?” Sisko demanded.
“The actualization,” Voranesk said, “has begun.”
Bajor, 2380
Among all of the dead bodies littering the barren crater that had been blasted out of Endalla, one did not belong. Radovan had followed the Emissary’s gaze to locate it, then weaved his way toward it across the bottom of the basin, through the multitude of burned and unrecognizable corpses. He arrived at the center of the bowl-shaped depression to discover the lifeless form of a small child. It lay facedown on the polished glass of the ruined terrain. Radovan squatted down beside the diminutive body, reached out, and turned it over, revealing the unblemished face of the Avatar.
The little girl’s eyes stared upward without seeing. She did not look at peace. Death had immobilized her face in a rictus of fear and surprise. Radovan did not know what to make of the Avatar’s loss at so early an age.
And then the girl blinked.
Radovan almost lost his balance as he quickly stood up. He looked down and saw the Avatar peering up at him. Then her mouth moved and she spoke: “What are you going to do?”
That was the question he had been asking himself for so long. He had no place that he belonged, he had no family. His father had fled shortly after Radovan’s birth, his older brother had lost his life in an accident, and his mother had left him in the most painful way of all: bit by bit, her health slipping away like a boulder rolling downhill, building momentum as it became an unstoppable force. Now what? he wanted to know, but no answers came.
Radovan expected to feel a hand on his shoulder, so when the touch came, he did not feel shock, but relief. He turned to see Benjamin Sisko, who had somehow escaped the devastation on Endalla. The Emissary looked upon him with an expression of benevolence.
“What am I going to do?” Radovan asked him.
In response, the Emissary reached forward. He held a device in his hands. As Radovan took it, the Emissary nodded his approval.
Radovan smiled. He rounded on his heel and crouched down to where the Avatar still lay. He tried to hand her the device, but her little arms could not hold it aloft, so he settled it atop her midsection.
The device started to tick. Radovan felt joy deep down in his gut, a sensation of pure elation like nothing he had ever known. For the first time in his life, he had purpose.
Radovan opened his mouth to laugh—
• • •
—and bolted upright on his sleeping mat. His heart beat in his chest with a rhythm of rapture. He still felt the smile on his face, the laugh in his mouth, that had decorated his dreams like the colorful trappings people hung for the Gratitude Festival.
Radovan threw off the blanket covering him. He stripped off the clothes he’d slept in, then dug through the duffel he’d brought into his tent. He found some of the clothes he sometimes wore to the Elanda District Three Transporter Terminal—dark slacks and a green, long-sleeved sweater—and threw them on.
Outside, the day had dawned brightly. The early-morning sun threw long shadows across the clearing. Insects buzzed about in the still air, circling in seemingly random orbits above wild esani and kidu plants before alighting to feast on their colorful blossoms. The trees stood like mute sentinels on the periphery of the field. Above the leaves, on the distant horizon, Radovan saw murky, gray clouds gathering.
Perfect, he thought with satisfaction. Because there’s more than one storm coming.
Radovan crossed to the girl’s tent. He pulled the flap open and looked in to see her sleeping in a knot of covers. The blanket had somehow twisted about the chain that bound her manacled wrist to the piton he’d pounded into stone.
“Wake up,” he told her. She stirred briefly, then settled back down, her eyes still closed. “Wake up,” Radovan said again, louder, taking hold of the foot of her sleeping mat and shaking it. The girl opened her eyes, looked around as though trying to figure out her location, then seemed to remember and peered over at him. “I’m going
to unlock you so you can go,” he told her. He repeated his procedure from the night before, getting refresher tissue for the girl, then taking her just past the edge of the wood.
After he brought her back to her tent, as he locked her back up, he told the girl that he would get her some clean clothes for the day, along with something to eat for breakfast. She nodded her little head, but she said nothing. Radovan grabbed the second duffel, which he’d left just outside his own tent, and pulled out beige pants and a patterned blue-and-red sweater, along with socks and underwear. He brought them over to the girl’s tent and set them down at the foot of her sleeping mat. He unlocked the manacle and waited as she pulled on the sweater. When she finished, he clapped on her restraint again, then exited the tent.
Back outside, Radovan checked over his supplies. He’d brought enough provisions for a few days, perhaps even a week if he rationed the food and water, but his dreams of the previous night told him that he would need virtually none of it. He cut up a piece of kurna fruit and put the slices on a small plate, along with a handful of milaberries. Then he found a container of kava flakes, filled a bowl with them, added kava milk, and poured jumja syrup atop it. After sticking a spoon into the cereal and picking up a small bottle of pooncheenee, he put the meal on a tray and carried it over to the girl’s tent. He set it down before her and opened the bottle of fruit juice. Unlike the night before, the girl offered no complaints about the food. She’d already begun eating by the time he left her tent.
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