Sisko hadn’t always enjoyed the taste of springwine, but during his time on Deep Space 9, he’d cultivated an appreciation of its subtle flavors. He’d even thought about growing kava on their land in Kendra Province so that they could produce their own vintage. He’d never gotten around to doing that.
There are a lot of things I haven’t gotten to do, he thought. A lot of things we haven’t gotten to do. “We’re a mother and father and daughter,” Sisko said, “but we can’t be a family.” Each time he uttered words to that effect, each time he considered the Prophets’ warning, he hated it. He hated the situation, and he hated himself. But he had to protect Kasidy and Rebecca, and that meant that he couldn’t spend his life with Kasidy.
“Yes, you can,” Kira said. “You can be a family.”
“Nerys,” Sisko said. He placed his flute of springwine down on his desk. “You know how much I want that to be true, but you also know the Prophets’ warning to me.”
“I do know,” Kira said. “You told them that you wanted to spend your life with Kasidy, and they told you that if you did, you would know nothing but sorrow.”
Beside Sisko, Kasidy closed her eyes. He knew how badly the situation had hurt her—how badly he had hurt her. “As much as I want to, there’s nothing I can do.”
Kira smiled. “But you already have done something,” she said. “You haven’t spent your life with Kasidy.”
Kasidy opened her eyes. “What are you saying, Nerys?”
“I’m saying that nearly eight years ago, the Prophets told Benjamin that if he spent his life with you, he would know nothing but sorrow,” Kira explained. “But he defied their warning, and, eventually, the prophecy began to fulfill itself: Benjamin began to know nothing but sorrow. But then he stopped spending his life with you, so there’s no longer anything to be concerned about. You can be together.”
“What?” Sisko said. “If I go back to Kasidy, we’ll be right back where we started.”
“No, you won’t be,” Kira insisted. “There’s an old saying: you can’t step twice into the same river.” Sisko knew the aphorism, but thought that it had originated on Earth, not Bajor.
“What does that mean?” Kasidy wanted to know.
“It means that as a river flows, it changes,” Kira said. “When you enter it for the first time, it’s in a certain state. Every drop of water in a particular place, exerting a particular force on the drop next to it. But just by entering the river, you change it. If you leave it and enter it a second time, the drops of water have moved, their forces have changed, and it’s not the same river.”
“And time is a river?” Sisko said. He could hear the desperation in his voice disguised as hope.
“The Prophets say that it’s a continuum,” Kira said.
“You’ve spoken to the Prophets?” Kasidy asked. “Did they save you?”
“They’ve spoken to me,” Kira said. She set her glass down on Sisko’s desk. “Benjamin, they want you to know that you can enter your continuum again.”
Sisko’s heart began to beat rapidly in his chest. He felt his lips widen and spread of their own accord. He had never expected to feel such elation again. “I’m going to transport down to Bajor,” he said. “I’m going to consult an Orb. I’ll—”
“Benjamin,” Kira said, casting her gaze downward.
“What?” Kasidy asked. Sisko could hear the fear in her voice, the belief that something would put the lie to what Kira had just told them. “What is it?”
“Benjamin, you have fulfilled your destiny,” Kira said, looking back up at him. “At least, with the Prophets.”
“They’re done with Ben?” Kasidy asked, excitement rising in her voice.
Kira continued to peer at Sisko, but she didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. He understood precisely what she meant. He’d understood it for a long time, ever since the period since his last contact with the Prophets had begun to draw out longer and longer. He knew that he’d accomplished all the tasks they’d set him, and that they therefore had no further need to communicate with him, to be a part of his life.
Back when he’d first come to that realization, Sisko had been angry about it. He felt used, unappreciated, and abandoned. But how could he truly be sorry for all that he had been allowed—all that he had been led—to achieve in his life? Whether a mere instrument of the Prophets or not, he knew he had played a significant part in saving the people of Bajor, not just from the horrors of war, but from how they had lost their way, how they had lost themselves. He had helped guide the Bajorans back onto their collective path.
Sisko would miss that responsibility. He already did; even though many still regarded him as the Emissary of the Prophets, he hadn’t been able to think of himself in those terms for some time. As much as that hurt him, though, Sisko would gladly forsake that role for another: husband.
“You’re sure, Nerys?” Sisko asked. “About all of it? The Prophets are done with me, but I can safely go back to Kasidy?”
“I’m sure of it,” Kira said.
Sisko looked at Kasidy. “Then we can celebrate,” he told her. “If you’ll have me.”
Cassie held up her glass of red wine. “To family,” she said.
“To family,” Kay echoed, tapping her glass against Cassie’s with a clink.
Benny reached forward and touched his own glass against the other two. “To family,” he said, the single word as sweet as poetry to him. He lifted the wine to his lips, closed his eyes, and drank.
When Sisko opened his eyes, he saw that he held his empty hand up to his mouth. He dropped his arm back to his side and peered around his ready room. He stood behind his desk, alone.
What did I just experience?
Sisko walked over to the tall viewport in one bulkhead. He gazed out at the beautiful form of Bajor against the black backdrop of space, an oasis in the desert. Was all of that real? he thought. Was it a hallucination? Was it contact with the Prophets?
It seemed like none of those things. But it had felt . . . substantive. Important. And if not real, then at least . . . honest.
Sisko looked at Bajor. He could feel Kasidy’s presence, and Rebecca’s. He knew what he had to do—what he finally could do.
Sisko turned and hurried across his ready room, headed for Robinson’s nearest transporter.
Kasidy Yates sat in her home office and regarded the face on the companel with appreciation. “Thank you, Jasmine,” she said. “It’s really important.”
“You’re welcome, Ms. Yates,” said Tey. “I hope there’s nothing wrong.”
“No, not at all,” Kasidy said, though in truth, she couldn’t say for sure. She didn’t believe anything was wrong, but she had to admit the possibility that she might be losing her mind. “It’s just an unexpected appointment,” she said. “I’ll contact you in a little while to let you know when I’ll be back, but I shouldn’t be too late.”
“Take as much time as you need,” Tey said. “I never mind picking up Rebecca from school and spending time with her out at the house.”
“Thank you,” Kasidy repeated. “I’ll talk to you later.” She ended the transmission with a touch to the companel. “Computer, I want to contact—”
Kasidy heard the chime that signaled somebody at the front door. Without shutting down the companel, she stood up and raced from the room. She ran down the hall, past the dining area, and across the living room, until she reached the door. She immediately pulled it open, already knowing in her heart who would be standing there.
Ben looked in at her from the porch, as dashing as always in his Starfleet uniform. It required all of Kasidy’s willpower not to step forward and throw her arms around him. She had to remind herself that she didn’t really know what she’d experienced.
“May I come in?” Ben asked. “I really need to speak with you.”
“Of course,” Kasidy said. She closed the door, then turned to face Ben. “Actually, I was just about to contact you.”
“Is everyt
hing all right?”
“Yes, everything’s fine,” Kasidy said. “I just needed to talk to you.” She didn’t know how she would broach the subject, or even if she really should, but what she’d been through had seemed so . . . honest . . . that she had to try.
“I hope it can wait, because I have to tell you something,” Ben said. His sense of urgency seemed clear, since he made no move to sit down. “I don’t really know how to say this, since it may not mean to you what it meant to me, but I have to say it: I just experienced a . . . I don’t know what it was. A pagh’tem’ far. A vision. A dream. I don’t really know.”
Kasidy stared at Sisko. She felt dizzy—almost as much as she had earlier when she’d sat down on the sofa and looked up to find herself in a dilapidated, antiquated apartment. Almost as much as when she’d suddenly found herself aboard Ben’s starship, in his ready room. “Tell me.”
“We were in an apartment on Earth in the twentieth century,” Ben said. “You and me and Rebecca.”
“Except we weren’t always us,” Kasidy said. Her voice sounded to her as though it came from far away. “And when we were, we weren’t in the apartment, but in your ready room aboard the Robinson.”
Ben’s eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
Kasidy hesitated to say the words, knowing how preposterous they would sound. But then she said them anyway. “I was there.”
For long moments, Ben only stared at her. When finally he spoke, his voice came out in a whisper. “Was Nerys there?”
Kasidy nodded.
“You heard what she said?” Ben asked. “That the Prophets are finished with me? That I have my life back? That we . . . ?”
Kasidy’s vision blurred as tears formed in her eyes. She completed Ben’s question. “That we can be together?” Then she answered it: “Yes.”
Time seemed to slow. Kasidy knew they would have to work through all that had happened, not only since Ben had left, but in the months leading up to that point. She also knew they wouldn’t be staying on Bajor, but what did that mean? Would she and Rebecca join him aboard Robinson? Once, Kasidy never would have considered such an option, but now it seemed like a real possibility to her. The Galaxy-class ships had even been designed to accommodate the civilian families of Starfleet personnel.
“Does that mean that you believe what Kira said?” Ben asked. “Does that mean that . . . that we can be together again?”
As an answer, Kasidy took a step forward and melted into his embrace. Her lips found his. She closed her eyes, sending tears spilling down her cheeks.
When at last they parted, Ben said, “I love you.”
“I love you.” Kasidy looked up at Ben, and for the first time in a long time, she saw in his eyes that everything would be all right.
September 2384
Ab Initio
Captain Ro Laren sat at the forward console of the runabout Rio Grande. Beside her sat Prynn Tenmei, never missing an opportunity to pilot one craft or another. Behind them, other members of the crew filled the cockpit: Cenn Desca, John Candlewood, Zivan Slaine, Jefferson Blackmer, Aleco Vel, Miles O’Brien, and Nog. Doctor Bashir and Sarina Douglas didn’t hold hands, but their connection seemed clear.
“Well, Chief,” Ro said, looking over at O’Brien, “it looks pretty good to me.”
Through the forward viewports, Bajor’s new space station gleamed. Construction hadn’t been completed, and wouldn’t be for another year. The first pair of fusion reactors had just gone online, though, and nearly half the interior space had been made habitable. The Starfleet Corps of Engineers had officially informed them that the crew could move into that portion of the station.
“It’s coming along,” O’Brien agreed. “I have to admit, I’m not going to miss that old Cardassian bucket of bolts.”
“Me either,” said Nog.
Standing beside Ro, Dalin Slaine cleared her throat. O’Brien glanced over at the Cardassian officer, and the captain saw his face flush in embarrassment. Nog also looked abashed.
“I think what you fail to understand,” Slaine said, “is that the problems Terok Nor held for you had little to do with it being a Cardassian space station. It was that it was designed to be an ore-processing facility. Who would want to live or work on one of those?”
“Good point,” Ro said, attempting to bail out O’Brien and Nog.
“Absolutely,” said Nog at once.
“Point taken,” said O’Brien.
Ro peered through the viewports at the new station. “I just hope we won’t have to move it once it’s completed,” she said. Despite the collapse of the Bajoran wormhole a year earlier, Starfleet had opted to continue construction in the same location. Although Federation scientists had been unable to confirm the existence of the wormhole, everybody continued to hope that the aliens within had survived and would, if needed, make repairs and reopen the great subspace tunnel. If that didn’t happen, then Starfleet Command would likely consider relocating the station to the orbit of Bajor.
“I hope we don’t have to move her either,” Nog said, “but if we do, she can take it.”
O’Brien clapped a hand on Nog’s back. “Spoken like a proud papa.”
As Rio Grande neared the station and it grew larger in the viewports, Ro took a long look at it. Peering past the lattice of hemispherical modules from which the SCE staged its construction efforts, and past the flurry of engineers in environmental suits and the support craft that moved about, the captain gazed at the new structure. Despite the radical design, it shared many characteristics with other Starfleet facilities: the gray-white surface of its hull, the curves and proportions of its components, the familiar lettering along one arc that read UNITED FEDERATION OF PLANETS. The overall, essentially spherical shape of the station, though, reminded Ro of its predecessor. The new facility would ultimately comprise three rings, oriented at right angles to one another. They would all surround an inner sphere, connecting to it via half a dozen crossover bridges. The rings would provide docking and cargo services, while the sphere would house work, commercial, and residential sections. Ro decided that she liked it—and with apologies to Zivan Slaine, it would represent a marked improvement to the facility it would replace.
“Captain,” Tenmei asked, “has Starfleet settled on a name for the station?”
“They have,” Ro said. “Starfleet Command consulted with the Federation president and the Bajoran First Minister about it, and they all came to an agreement.” Ro raised her hand and pointed through the viewports toward the half-constructed station. “Welcome,” she told her crew, “to the new Deep Space Nine.”
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Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Raise the Dawn (Star Trek, the Next Generation) Page 44
