Star Trek

by Andy Mangels

  Asarem trailed off, seeing a flicker of pain cross Krim’s face. It was gone in an instant, but she knew she hadn’t imagined it. The death of Bajor’s most revered hero of the Occupation, on his watch, remained an open wound.

  “No one blamed you for those things,” Asarem told him. “Nor for refusing to open fire on your own people.”

  “I allowed myself be misled,” Krim maintained. “That cannot be overlooked, or forgiven.”

  “What you really mean is that you won’t forgive yourself. But Bajor forgave you a long time ago, in no small part because you spent a lifetime fighting for our people, and that’s something that will never be overlooked. That’s how you’re remembered, Aldos. Not as Jaro’s fool.”

  Asarem paused before continuing. “I know what it feels like to have your faith betrayed, to follow a leader who turns out to be not what he claimed. But I didn’t have the luxury of retreating when those deceits were exposed. I had to fight harder than ever because that was what Bajor needed of me, and that’s exactly what it needs of you now.”

  “Have you not even stopped to consider that perhaps I no longer care what Bajor needs?” Krim asked.

  “Not for an instant,” Asarem answered emphatically. “Service to our people is what your life was always about, whether it was fighting in the resistance, or leading the Militia. Walking away from that life was a mistake. Don’t shake your head at me! You knew I was coming here, and you knew the reason for my visit. Why would you continue to stay informed on the most current goings-on within the government if you no longer cared? You can’t help yourself. It’s who you are. Even when you resigned, you thought you were serving Bajor, that it was better off without you. That I was better off without you. You even convinced me of that. Well, now I know we were both wrong.”

  Krim remained silent. She tried to discern what he was thinking, but his face revealed nothing.

  “I’m not here to tell you we can get back what we lost,” she went on to say. “Our marriage ended for the wrong reasons, and I moved on. Your career ended for the wrong reasons, too, and the Militia moved on. But your value to Bajor isn’t ended . . . and you never moved on.”

  “Wadeen, do you hear yourself? You’re spinning a fantasy. Even if everything you’ve said is true, I was always an opponent of Federation membership. Time may have proven that they are not the ‘new Cardassians’ the Circle once tried to paint them, and that Bajor has benefited thus far from our association, but I remain skeptical.”

  “But don’t you see, Aldos?” Asarem said. “That’s why it has to be you.”

  “I am not a diplomat. I’m a soldier.”

  “Then be a soldier!” Asarem said. “Walk out onto the battle-field and fight for your people! Defend, advance, strategize, make alliances, attack if you must, fall back when necessary. Do what needs to be done as Krim Aldos would do it. Be the voice of Bajor.”

  Krim seemed to be studying her eyes as if searching for signs of madness there. Part of her wondered if he’d be entirely wrong to do so.

  “This will not endear you to the Chamber of Ministers,” he said. “You’ll have many more political adversaries if I accept.”

  “Let me worry about the Chamber of Ministers.”

  “Be serious, Wadeen. If your popularity slips because of this, it will only make it that much harder for you to govern effectively, and to win reelection.”

  She let out a sigh of frustration. “I’m not concerned right now with my chances for reelection.”

  “Then why are you doing this?”

  Asarem looked at him, surprised that he still didn’t understand. “Do you even know why I got into politics? It was because I wanted power. Not the way Jaro wanted it. I wanted power so that, when I amassed enough of it, I would wield it to do the most good. If I don’t seize this opportunity to put a strong, effective Bajoran voice on the Federation Council, regardless of the consequences to my popularity, then my power as first minister will have been wasted, and my assumption of this office meaningless.” She paused and smiled at him crookedly. “Besides, if you do the job the way I expect you to, my approval ratings will skyrocket. But first you have to give me your answer. I need you to say it out loud. Will you accept this appointment?”

  * * *

  Ten minutes later, night had fallen, and the stars over Janitza shone down from a clear black sky. Asarem’s personal guards, keeping their discreet watch on the house, spotted her approaching and signaled her skycar, which promptly hummed to life. Theno emerged from inside and stood alongside the conveyance, holding the hatch open for her.

  As she crossed the clearing, she took out her comlink and called Ledahn. “Yes, First Minister?”

  “He accepted,” Asarem said simply. Game, set, and match.

  There was a moment of silence over the link. Asarem suspected Ledahn was giving a quick mental prayer of thanks to the Prophets. “That’s excellent news, First Minister.”

  “I told him a craft would be by tomorrow morning to take him to the capital. I’d like to make the public announcement at midday, from the Chamber gardens.”

  “I’ll alert the communications staff and have them make the necessary arrangements. Will you be returning to Ashalla?”

  “Not yet,” she said. “I have a commitment in Kendra Province this evening. I’ll speak with you in the morning.”

  “Try to enjoy yourself. You deserve it,” Ledahn said. “And congratulations, First Minister.”

  “Good night, Muri.” Asarem cut the link as she neared the skycar, halting in front of Theno. She looked into her aide’s impassive face, and finally asked the question that had been nagging at her all afternoon. “So what made you think of Krim?”

  Theno continued staring straight ahead. “You did, First Minister, when you said you missed him.”

  Asarem’s brow furrowed. “When did I say that?”

  “This morning, when you complained about the tea.”

  Asarem replayed the conversation in her mind. After a moment, she smiled and shook her head. “There are times, Theno, when I don’t know whether to thank the Prophets or curse them for your service,” she said, and entered the skycar

  “I’m often puzzled by the same question, First Minister,” Theno answered, and closed the hatch.

  21

  Rena

  “How old is this place?” Jacob asked.

  Rena tried to remember details from her last art-history course, one of the few historical classes first-year students were required to attend, but she had studied halfheartedly, distracted by Topa’s deteriorating condition, so her memories of the details were scant. “Not really sure,” she admitted. “Twelve, fifteen thousand years at least. Not as old as some other cities that have been unearthed. Not like B’hala, but old enough. Do they have ruins like this on Earth?”

  Jacob shook his head, then seemed to reconsider the question. “Well, sure, there are ruins. Mostly temples or public buildings like the Parthenon or the Colosseum in Rome. I’m sorry—I know you don’t know what these places are—but they’re a few thousand years old at most and many of them aren’t much better than piles of rubble compared with this place. There have been a lot of wars on Earth and, compared with you, we only recently learned the value of preserving the past.” He took a step backward, as if one more step would give him the perspective he needed, then stood transfixed by the edifice before him.

  The site—the archeologists called it Yyn—was open to the public only a few days every year, but despite this fact attendance was sparse so early in the morning. Rena assured him that within a few hours the place would be packed with tourists, making it more than worth their time to visit early, though they hadn’t been able to convince Parsh and Halar to leave their beds and join them.

  Yesterday’s ten-kilometer hike to the site had flown by—much sharing of personal stories, discussion about Jacob’s new project reworking old Bajoran legends into modern contexts, Halar’s religious studies, and Parsh’s confession that after unive
rsity he hoped to open an inn on the coast near Mylea. Kail—or his absence from this trip—hadn’t been discussed, thank the Prophets. To placate Halar’s curiosity, Jacob had gamely offered insights into Benjamin Sisko and had appeared amused at her gleeful reception of each tidbit. She had been amazed at how little she seemed to know about her friends. Having shared their growing-up years together had presumably created deep connections between them, though Rena wondered, perhaps, if she had assumed much where she had truly only seen the surface. Only Jacob’s presence could explain these new insights. He had a steady, kind way about him that allowed people to feel comfortable peeling away their layers to reveal themselves. Take Parsh, for example, who had been the pale, skinny boy who had a crush on her as long as she could remember. Listening to him articulate his future plans to Jacob, she sensed a passion and depth in Parsh she didn’t know existed.

  Now, though, watching Jacob’s face as he studied the cliff face, she wondered what he saw. Did he see rock with faces carved into it or stories coming to life or history? Could he coax them into revealing their secrets the way he had with Parsh? And yes, she had to confess, even her.

  Though she had lived within a day’s travel of Yyn, had heard about the place her entire life, she had never taken the time to come here. Now, though, seeing it through this foreigner’s eyes, she began to wonder why. In and around the low buildings, narrow pillars, and roped-off sections of engraved paving stones walked small groups of tourists, including one or two families, but mostly pairs like her and Jacob, though few were studying the carved wall as intently as her friend. As was usually the case, most of the other tourists were either dividing their attention between reference padds or listening to interactive tour guides through small earplugs as they slowly ambled along.

  The cliff they stood before was over fifty meters high, and despite the stone’s age and proximity to the sea, the carvings were remarkably unweathered. Perhaps it was some secret of the carver’s art that Rena did not know, but the expressions on the faces of the twenty or twenty-five tall, narrow individuals were as distinctive as those on the men and women who wandered through the ruins at the cliff’s foot. One—the woman whose feet they stood at—was obviously a pretty but vain young maiden, and another, the slumped figure to her right, was clearly an avaricious merchant who saw none of the wonders around him, not even the pretty maiden. Rena wondered if the artists who had created these works had modeled these characters after individuals, men and women of their acquaintance, or if they were all conjured up out of someone’s imagination. There could be no denying that the design of all the figures had been the result of a single guiding individual; though each face was different, they were all the product of one remarkable mind with a compelling vision.

  “Do you have anything like this on Earth?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jacob said. “I’ve heard of large relief sculptures carved into cliff walls, though I can’t claim to have seen them with my own eyes, but something like this right in the middle of a town? This was supposed to have been the town center, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then, no, never anything like this.” He inhaled deeply, then let the breath out slowly. When he was finished, his eyes shined brightly. “Does anyone know who did it? Does it have religious significance?”

  “Culturally, Yyn is primarily known for the Legend of Astur, the pageant we’ll see later. But there’s probably some religious meaning too that’s been lost over time.”

  “And Bajor was aware of the Prophets this far back?”

  “Sure,” Rena said. Recalling her readings from art history, she said, “One theory is that the artists wanted to create something that the Prophets could see from their home in the Celestial Temple.”

  Jacob smiled, but he didn’t take his eyes off the carvings. As they talked, he continued to step backward, to try to take in the whole work. “Well, that’s one argument for working on a large scale.”

  “Yes. The other theory is that these are the Prophets.”

  This made Jacob look at her. “Really? That’s the first time I’ve ever heard of anyone on Bajor attempting to personalize them. I mean, on Earth most gods and goddesses have some kind of form. Not all of them, mind you. I can think of at least one religion where the believers are prohibited from attempting to visualize the primary god, but for most of the others there’s some generally acknowledged avatar. But I can’t remember ever seeing a depiction of the Prophets.”

  “I don’t know of any others,” Rena said. “It kind of makes you wonder, though. Look at those faces: it’s like every one of them was someone the artists were intimately familiar with, like they were people who lived here. Why would someone decide that the Prophets looked like someone who lived down the street?”

  Rena looked over at Jacob and saw that though he was still staring at the cliff face, he was no longer really seeing what was before his eyes. “I can’t imagine,” he said softly. Then he seemed to sense her gaze and looked over at her and smiled. “Maybe the Prophets came down to meet the artist and she said, ‘Hey, you look just like my cousin Fila.’”

  “You think the artist was a woman?”

  “Is there any reason why that couldn’t be?”

  “None that I know,” Rena said. “Which reminds me of something I’ve been meaning to show you.” Slipping her backpack off her shoulders, she unlaced the flap and rooted around inside for her new drawing pad. Flipping open its cover, she held up the sketch, a charcoal and pastel piece.

  “Topa’s memorial,” Jake said. “It’s beautiful.”

  Rena watched as his eyes took in the drawing. “I couldn’t sleep last night so I stayed up and worked.”

  “Is this the final draft?”

  “I think so. Putting aside all the baggage of what I thought I should do, I tried to remember how I saw Topa. I mean, I know all the facts, and I think creatively, I was stumbling over them.”

  “I’m impressed.” And she could tell from his voice that he was not delivering an idle compliment. Leaning in closer to study the drawing more carefully in the morning light, Jacob reached out, but stopped a millimeter short of touching the page, then traced the outline of the arch, studied the runes and pictographs Rena had incorporated into this latest design. “Will you explain it to me?”

  They found a bench across from the stone faces. Jacob kept the notebook on his lap while Rena explained the drawing to him. “I’m working in a few gemstones that are native to Mylea,” she began. “Then I chose the style of runes used here at Yyn.” Pointing to a row of writing, Rena said, “The text reads, ‘I know the light is there. When it finally breaks through the mist, I will be ready.’” And then she explained her memories of Topa from when she was a little girl, of how he would stand in the street and wait for the sun. “It isn’t dramatic. No recitations of his exploits in the resistance. But to me, this is Topa. I hope it’s enough.”

  “He asked you because he wanted to be remembered the way you saw him—not the way everyone else did,” Jacob said pragmatically. “Maybe he didn’t want to be known as part of Mylea’s history—just as a grandfather.”

  Rena wasn’t sure she agreed with him and said so.

  “Sometimes, there are good reasons to let go of the past. If we’re constantly looking backward, sometimes we don’t move forward.” Jacob scooted closer to Rena, leaning down so only she could hear him speak. “Once when my dad tried to explain his first encounter with the Prophets, he told me that in the vision, he was in his ship during the Borg attack when my mother died. The Prophets showed him that even though he had physically moved forward in time, he remained trapped in the past.”

  “Why would Topa be trapped in the past? He was a hero—one of Mylea’s greatest!”

  “I probably sound like an old man when I talk like this, but you have to know that what seems heroic from a distance sometimes isn’t when you’re close up. I lived through a battle in which I saw people at their best and their worst. Many of them were
killed or maimed—it was a nightmare. I have friends with similar stories. But to hear the official reports you would have thought we were conquering heroes. Topa’s past might be exactly as heroic as you’ve been told, but it might not. So what you’ve done here is told the truth—your truth. That’s what matters.”

  “I don’t know . . .” Rena said, wrinkling her forehead and contemplating where she might make a few more changes.

  Jacob snapped the notebook closed and stuffed it back into her pack. “I do. We’re going to finish checking out this ruin, we’re going to meet Parsh and Halar for lunch. Then tonight we’re going to watch this famous Legend of Astur pageant. An exfiancé of a friend of mine informed me that it’s quite romantic.”

  Men. Rolling her eyes, she pulled him off the bench by the hand and dragged him off to see the next cluster of ancient buildings.

  * * *

  Within the last hour, the vestiges of sunset had been wiped away by night. Halar, Parsh, Rena, and Jacob had joined the thousands of visitors spread out over a grassy hillside that formed one of Yyn’s boundaries. The audience faced a large semicircle dais at the base of the hill.

  A little giddy from the wine at dinner, Halar chatted more than she normally did, but Rena didn’t believe the wine could be blamed for Parsh’s moony-eyed gazes at her friend. She had never considered them a potential couple, but maybe circumstances had never been right before. The inverse was certainly true: Something that had been right for a long time (her and Kail) could become wrong over time. Thinking of Kail and the ugliness of their breakup, Rena felt grateful that both of her friends had treated Jacob kindly, including them in their plans and conversations; remarkably, Halar had managed to rein in her eagerness at having access to a Sisko. Of course, Rena and Jacob weren’t an official couple, which might make it easier for Halar and Parsh to accept him without seeing him as a replacement for Kail. Rena hadn’t yet defined what she had with Jacob, but the signs were there: occasionally taking her hand, sitting beside her at dinner, the lingering looks when he thought she wasn’t paying attention.