Original Sin

by David R. George III

  Kasidy opened the door. Tey stood on the porch wearing a light-blue A-line dress beneath a cropped white cardigan, open at the front. “Good evening, Ms. Yates,” she said. “I’m sorry for—” She stopped speaking as Rebecca darted past Kasidy and threw her arms around Tey’s legs.

  “Hello there, Miss Rebecca,” Tey said. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Look,” Rebecca said, pointing first to Tey’s blue dress, and then at her own. “We match.”

  Tey peered down at herself, as though she’d forgotten what she’d worn that day. “You’re right, we do match,” she said. “Are you copying me?”

  Rebecca reached her pointing finger forward until it rested on the skirt of Tey’s dress. “You’re copying me.”

  “I guess you’re right, but who wouldn’t want to copy a pretty girl like you?” Tey said with a smile, and she looked up at Kasidy. “I’m sorry for arriving unannounced, but I was hoping that I could speak with you and Mister Sisko. If I’m intruding, I can come back another time.”

  “Don’t,” Rebecca protested, grabbing Tey’s hand and trying without success to pull her inside. “Come have ice cream with us.”

  “Rebecca, why don’t you go back to the table with your father,” Kasidy said. “Let me talk to Ms. Tey for a moment.” Rebecca tried once more to pull Tey inside, then gave up and stomped back to the dining room. Kasidy stepped aside so that Tey could enter, then closed the door and quietly asked, “Is everything all right?”

  “Yes,” Tey said, also speaking softly. “I’m sorry if I alarmed you by just showing up. I only wanted to update you about the investigation.” She gazed past Kasidy, then said, “To be completely honest, I also wanted to see how Miss Rebecca was doing.”

  “She obviously wants to see you too,” Kasidy said. “Why don’t you come in and have dessert with us? We can talk after Rebecca goes to bed.”

  “That would be fine, thank you,” Tey said. She joined them in the dining room, and while she didn’t partake of either the bread pudding or the ice cream, she did have a cup of Kasidy’s herbal tea.

  Tey’s visit lasted longer than Kasidy had expected it to when it began, and perhaps longer than Tey had expected, though if that were the case, she gave no indication. Rather, she engaged in pleasant conversation with Kasidy and Ben when she could. She mostly found herself the center of attention for Rebecca, who took her on a tour of her room, proudly showed her several drawings that she had done, and introduced her to all of her dolls and stuffed animals.

  With the last shreds of the day gone and night fully descended, Rebecca’s energy flagged. When Ben took their daughter down the hall and into the refresher to get her ready for bed, Kasidy asked about the real purpose of Tey’s visit. “I know you said that everything was all right, but . . .”

  Tey apologized again for not contacting Kasidy and Ben before coming to their house. “I wanted to tell you that Radovan Tavus confessed to kidnapping Rebecca,” she said. “We’ve confirmed all of the information he’s given us, as well as details he hasn’t. I thought you’d want to know that we’re certain that he acted alone.”

  “What about the woman you found in his flat?” The discovery of a dead body in the kidnapper’s home, where he had evidently kept Rebecca hostage, continued to chill Kasidy.

  “Winser Ellevet,” Tey said. “She was someone Radovan knew in the Ohalavaru, but we don’t believe she played any part in the abduction. It appears that she accidentally learned about it when she visited him and saw Rebecca. He killed her for it, though he claims he only meant to incapacitate her.”

  Kasidy listened and tried to take it all in without allowing it to overwhelm her. Although the specific danger of Radovan had passed, it felt as though other perils might lay in wait. Kasidy considered asking if they had identified his motive, but wasn’t sure she really wanted to know. If the beliefs of the Ohalavaru had pushed one person to threaten Rebecca, that might mean that more could follow. But Kasidy asked anyway.

  “Radovan claimed to be doing the work of Ohalu as imparted to him by the teacher Prophets,” Tey said, confirming Kasidy’s fears. “But his explanation of what drove him doesn’t make much sense. He’s quoted The Book of Ohalu, except that the words he uses are nowhere in its pages. More than that, his interpretation of Ohalavaru tenets is unique; we haven’t been able to find even a splinter group that construes their beliefs in the way that he does. All of which supports the results of his psychological evaluation: he’s mentally ill.”

  Kasidy’s vision blurred as tears formed in her eyes.

  “Ms. Yates, I’m sorry,” Tey said. “I didn’t come here to upset you.”

  “You didn’t,” Kasidy said. She took a napkin and dabbed at her eyes. “What you just told me actually helps. That this man was just sick . . . that there probably aren’t more like him out there . . . other Ohalavaru plotting to kidnap Rebecca . . . it’s reassuring.”

  “I’m glad,” Tey said. “I was hoping it would help you find a measure of closure.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Well, I won’t take up any more of your time.” Tey pushed back from the table and stood up, plainly intending to leave, but then Ben and Rebecca emerged from the refresher. Rebecca ran down the hall and back into the dining room, dressed in pink pajamas decorated with drawings of Bajoran animals—batos and pylchyks, among others.

  “Good night, Auntie Jasmine.” Rebecca held her arms out wide. Tey crouched down and hugged her.

  “Good night, Miss Rebecca.”

  After Kasidy kissed her daughter and said good night, Ben took Rebecca to her room to put her to bed. As Kasidy accompanied Tey toward the front door, the young woman said, “I have to tell you that I’m touched that you wanted Rebecca to call me ‘Auntie.’ ”

  “I’m glad she likes you enough to want to call you that, but we didn’t tell her to.”

  “What?” Tey said. “You mean—?”

  “Rebecca just decided to do that on her own,” Kasidy said. “She really must like you a lot.”

  At the door, Tey offered thanks for welcoming her into the house, and then she turned to go. Kasidy stopped her with a touch to her arm. “May I ask what you intend to do now?” she asked. “I know you recently stepped down from the first minister’s security detail, but do you have any plans for what you’re going to do next?”

  “I’ve been exploring different options,” Tey said. “I was considering leaving Bajor, but now I’m not so sure. Major Orisin asked me if I would join his investigative team, or at least consult with them, so I’m thinking about those opportunities.”

  “You’d obviously be very good at that,” Kasidy said, and meant it. The major had lauded Tey for her efforts, which had led directly to the identification of the kidnapper. Kasidy and Ben could not have been happier with the recommendation of the first minister, whom they’d contacted to thank after Rebecca’s return. After seeing her daughter with Tey that evening, another idea had occurred to Kasidy. “I was wondering if you might consider another possibility.”

  • • •

  Tey stepped from the porch and onto the grass, to the edge of the illumination thrown by the outside lights. She raised her wrist, ostensibly to activate her comm, but then she dropped her arm back to her side and gazed up at the night sky. Endalla had already risen and hung three-quarters of the way up from the horizon. Even after more than two years, Tey had yet to grow accustomed to the shades of gray coloring its surface; until the Ascendants’ attack, the moon had been a living world, painted mainly in the greens of vegetation and the browns of soil.

  Her visit to Kendra Valley gratified Tey. She had stopped by to inform Yates and Sisko about the investigation, and to check on the welfare of Rebecca. Tey had wanted the parents to know that their probe into Radovan and the details of their daughter’s abduction had yielded no surprises, and that they had found no other threats to their daughter—credible or otherwise.

  One detail still gnawed at Tey—not because she thought it hel
d any significance, but because it had not yet been definitively explained. They had found Radovan and Rebecca in the Talveran Forest when scans conducted from the Mission Operations Center in Renassa had detected an explosion there, but when she, Orisin, and the Militia team had arrived at the location, there had been no evidence whatsoever of any kind of detonation. Subsequent detailed scans of the site confirmed that.

  Orisin’s staff had suspected a malfunction in the sensors, but a complete diagnostic had refuted that—and in any event, it had seemed exceedingly unlikely to Tey that a system failure would have coincidentally led them directly to Rebecca and her kidnapper. Other theories included glitches in Radovan’s sensor mask or transporter inhibitor, but all of that equipment had likewise checked out as fully functional. Somebody suggested that the bomb had somehow manufactured the erroneous reading, but analysis of the homemade explosive failed to uncover any mechanism for that to happen.

  Tey shrugged to herself at the edge of the pool of light, peering out into the darkness. She would pursue the question as far as she could, but she suspected that she would never find a satisfactory answer. Things always happened for a reason, but that didn’t mean those reasons always divulged themselves.

  Tey glanced back over her shoulder at the house. Though she barely knew them, she genuinely liked both Yates and Sisko, and she had a particular affinity for their daughter. Perhaps because she had no family of her own—none to speak of, anyway—she found herself considering the proposal she’d just been offered. Tey had left her position on First Minister Asarem’s security detail because she had tired of the routine, and in some ways, what Yates had suggested would be more of the same: safeguarding a single individual. Still, providing continuous security for a head of state could hardly be deemed on a par with protecting a little girl, even if the Ohalavaru believed Rebecca to hold the prophesied position of the Avatar.

  Yates had explained that she and her husband would spend most of their time with their daughter, but that they would appreciate some occasional assistance, so that they could spend some time alone or attend to other matters—perhaps several hours a day, a few times per week. It would provide Rebecca with security, her parents with peace of mind, and Tey with enough downtime to pursue other interests.

  “Maybe,” she said aloud, the single word swallowed up by the wide-open space before her.

  Tey tapped her wrist comm. “Tey to Adarak Transporter Terminal,” she said.

  “Adarak Terminal,” a woman’s voice replied. “This is Coste Sholl.”

  “One to transport.” Tey took a deep breath of the crisp, fresh night air. Then she dematerialized.

  Gamma Quadrant, 2386

  Sisko watched as his wife peeked into Rebecca’s room. Just inside the doorway, her dark skin disappeared in the shadows, but the light in the main part of their cabin caught her eye, which gleamed like a bedewed jewel. Even in darkness, Kasidy had a presence.

  The captain sat in the living area of their quarters aboard Robinson, still in his uniform even though alpha shift had ended hours earlier. He intended to visit the bridge before retiring for the night. He just needed to talk with his wife.

  Five days had passed since the Styx away team had saved the last of the abducted children from the Glant. Since then, Doctor Kosciuszko and his medical staff had conducted full workups on all of them, each one receiving a clean bill of health. Counselors Althouse, al-Jarjani, and Vint had begun therapy for the children, sometimes in individual settings, sometimes with their families. At the urging of Althouse, Kasidy continued to lead a support group for the parents.

  Most of the children reported remembering only fragments of their experiences, although they all knew that they had been kidnapped by a strange and uncommunicative alien species. But the Glant’s aural weapon had rendered all of them unconscious before they’d been abducted, and they’d mostly been kept that way during their captivity. The notable exceptions were those children who had at some point been connected to the actualization equipment. Not surprisingly, that group exhibited the highest levels of post-traumatic stress.

  Kasidy withdrew from the entryway to Rebecca’s room, and the door closed silently behind her. As she walked across the wide cabin, she said, “She’s out.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Sisko said as Kasidy edged past the low table and slipped onto the sofa beside him. “Today was a big day.” For the first time since their ordeal, the children who had been taken had returned to school. In their first days back aboard ship, they’d had to deal with reunions with their families, extensive medical exams, and the start of counseling sessions. As a result, Althouse recommended allowing a few days to pass before making additional demands on them—although she also suggested not waiting too long before renewing their routines. “Rebecca seemed like she was happy to get back to school. That’s all she talked about at dinner.”

  “I think, more than anything, she just wanted to see Elent again.” An animated girl, Elent Dorson had become Rebecca’s best friend aboard ship. An unjoined Trill a year older than Rebecca, she too had been abducted by the Glant, though the two had not been held in the same group.

  Sisko pointed toward the dining area in the inner corner of their cabin. “I was going to get something to drink,” he said. “Can I pour you a glass of wine?”

  “Are you having some?”

  “No, I’ve got to head up to the bridge in a few minutes,” Sisko said.

  “Then no, I’ll just have water,” Kasidy said. “So why the late duty on the bridge?”

  As Sisko rose and walked over to the replicator, he said, “We’re supposed to finally set sail out of Glant space, and I want to make sure we’re on schedule.” He ordered two glasses of chilled water.

  “I’ll be glad when the Glant are well behind us,” Kasidy said.

  “I think the entire crew feels the same way.” Since fleeing from the Dyson section, the crew had kept their distance from Glant vessels, but Sisko had ordered Robinson to remain in the region. He and his senior staff had debated about their responsibilities with respect to the Glant. They considered returning to the Dyson section to mount an offensive to pinpoint and destroy all of the actualization equipment, but even if they could do that without any risk to the ship—which they assuredly couldn’t—Sisko argued that it wouldn’t prevent the Glant from constructing new machines to accomplish their nefarious goals.

  But nobody had wanted to leave the region without trying to prevent what had happened to the Robinson crew—and doubtless to the personnel aboard the other ship they’d found floating dead in null space—from happening to anybody else who entered the area. The senior staff suggested several schemes to accomplish that goal, and Sisko eventually chose to employ a variation on the self-replicating minefield that Miles O’Brien, Jadzia Dax, and Rom had constructed during the Dominion War. Relkdahz and his engineers modified a number of warning buoys, incorporating small industrial replicators into them. The Robinson crew then seeded them at wide intervals all around Glant space. If one of the buoys failed or was destroyed, its nearest neighbor would create a replacement and deploy it to a slightly different location.

  Sisko took a sip of water, then set the two glasses down on the table in front of the sofa. When he sat back down beside Kasidy, he asked, “Do you know if Rebecca and Elent talked about what they went through?” So far, Rebecca had said almost nothing about her experiences on the Glant world, even though other children who had been placed into the actualization equipment had spoken vividly about what that had felt like.

  “I don’t know, but I hope so,” Kasidy said. “I’d rather she talk about it with us, but if she won’t do that, then she should still talk about it with somebody.”

  “Has Counselor Althouse told you anything?”

  “Only that Rebecca was reticent during their first session,” Kasidy said. She held her hands in front of her, palms up. “You know our little girl, Ben. She’s almost always reserved.”

  “So Rebecca didn’t sa
y anything at all?”

  “The counselor told me that they mostly spoke about Rebecca’s return to the Robinson, since she didn’t remember much of her time off the ship,” Kasidy said. “The counselor did say that she tried to probe Rebecca about how she felt about what the Glant had intended to do to the children . . . to do to her . . . and her reaction was that she would never allow that to happen.”

  “She would never allow what to happen?” Sisko asked. “She’d never let the Glant transplant her conscious mind into one of their creations?”

  “That’s apparently what she told Counselor Althouse.”

  Sisko shook his head. “I wonder how she thinks she would’ve been able to stop them.”

  Kasidy dropped a hand onto Sisko’s knee. “She’s your daughter, Ben,” she said. “Sometimes she thinks she can do anything.”

  Sisko started to think about that, about the quiet confidence with which their daughter typically conducted herself, but then the boatswain’s whistle sounded. “Bridge to Captain Sisko,” said the voice of Scalin Resk, the officer of the deck during beta shift.

  “This is the captain,” Sisko said. “Go ahead, Lieutenant.”

  “We’ve just finished placing the last of the warning buoys,” Scalin said.

  “Understood,” the captain said. “I’ll be up to the bridge shortly. Sisko out.” He leaned in and kissed Kasidy slowly on the lips. After everything that had happened with Rebecca and the other children, it felt good to be on the cusp of leaving Glant space for good. Even with all of his responsibilities as Robinson’s commanding officer, Sisko finally felt like he could breathe again. “I shouldn’t be long,” he told his wife, holding his face just inches from hers and peering deeply into her beautiful eyes. “Maybe then we can open that bottle of wine.”