Opaka smiled again and lowered her eyes. She went to him and took his hand, lifting it slowly to her exposed left ear. Surprised by the gesture of intimacy, Tanin’s hand actually trembled as he pinched her lobe between his thumb and forefinger. He closed his eyes as her pagh opened to him.
Opaka watched his face, his sharp intake of breath, then felt his fingers relax. His eyes opened and focused again as he released her.
“This is a strange path,” Tanin whispered.
The kai took her old friend’s arm and smiled up at him. “But we need not walk it alone.”
Major Kira Nerys stood among the faithful, her eyes fixed on the man standing nearby.
She had returned to Bajor—together with Terok Nor’s new Starfleet administrator, Commander Benjamin Sisko, Sisko’s young son Jake, and the space station’s CMO, Dr. Julian Bashir. They had come to show support for Kai Opaka’s call for global unity. Much of Bajor was still split into squabbling factions in the wake of the Cardassian withdrawal, and the provisional government was having a hard time holding the shattered pieces of the planet together. From the border disputes between Paqu and Navot, to conflicting reconstruction and resource priorities, to the divisions created by the government’s decision to petition for membership in the Federation—a decision Kira herself had opposed vehemently—Bajor was dangerously close to civil war. Kira had been convinced, as she had told Sisko not long after his arrival, that Opaka’s intercession was the only hope Bajor had of getting through this turbulent time.
So Sisko had gone to ask Opaka for her help. And while Kira still had no knowledge of what had passed between them, the kai had remained in seclusion. And the commander ...
Sisko had returned to the station—renamed Deep Space 9 by Starfleet as if it made a damn bit of difference to the people who had suffered and died there during the last twenty-odd years. He brought with him the Orb of Prophecy and Change.
Kira still couldn’t believe it. She hadn’t even known that any of the Orbs had been saved from the Cardassians. When she learned Sisko was in possession of the last one on Bajor, her first thought was that he must have taken it forcibly from the kai, claiming it for his own, just as the Cardassians had done with the other eight Tears of the Prophets. But no, her contacts at the monastery were clear: Kai Opaka had, beyond all reason, bade Sisko to take the Orb with him.
And not long after that ... everything changed.
Sisko had discovered the wormhole—a stable subspace conduit into the unexplored Gamma Quadrant—located inside the Bajoran system itself. Kira had seen the implications of the discovery immediately—Bajor was suddenly at a flashpoint of change for this part of the galaxy. This was an opportunity for her world to rise up from the ashes of the Occupation in a way no one had ever imagined.
Then, as news of the discovery began to spread, word came from the monastery—Opaka’s seclusion was at an end. She was ready to speak to the people. And she wished to do so with Sisko at her side.
Sisko ...
A silence fell over the crowd. Kira shifted nervously, her fingers brushing the newly cropped stubble on the back of her neck as the monastery doors swung open. Kai Opaka emerged from the building. She descended its steps, with an old vedek leaning on her arm, two prylars following behind. She looked older than when Kira had seen her last, but her eyes were full of hope. Kira wondered who was supporting whom, or if they were supporting each other.
The assemblage called to her as one. Cries of “Opaka! Opaka!” echoed through Ashalla and, Kira suspected, throughout the valley. Opaka smiled at the sea of faces. Just seeing her gave them comfort—she was a fire, Kira knew, that burned away all fear and doubt.
The crowd fell silent as Opaka stopped in front of Sisko. Kira watched as a smile spread across the commander’s face.
“It is good to see you again, Emissary,” said the kai.
Sisko’s face fell.
Kira’s eyes widened.
A murmur spread through the crowd. Kira felt her palms beginning to sweat. Gotta be a mistake. She can’t possibly have said—
She heard the mumbling questions all around her, questions that were now hammering her own mind.
The wormhole—the wormhole is the Celestial Temple? This is the fulfillment of the Prophecy of the Emissary? Sisko encountered the Prophets?
Who is this man?
“Kai Opaka,” Sisko stammered, but his words were swallowed up by the noise of the crowd.
Opaka offered Sisko a knowing smile. Kira caught the look and she realized that the kai had deliberately provoked the uproar that was now surging through the crowd. “Thank you for coming,” Opaka shouted over the tumult, speaking directly to Sisko.
She—she really believes it. Her face ...
“I wouldn’t have missed it,” Sisko yelled back. “But about this emissary business ...”
“Time enough for that later,” said the kai, looking out over the assemblage. Kira noted some people breaking from the crowd and running back into the city. They stopped to speak to a group of pedestrians along the way, pointing back to the dais—which, in turn, set the newcomers running toward the monastery.
“I see that more are arriving and, I suspect, many more are to follow,” the kai observed wryly. She turned to the prylars. “Let us delay the address for now.”
“Kai?” said the vedek at her side.
“Just a few hours,” Opaka elaborated. “Our people are nothing if not patient, and it seems as though more will soon be inclined to gather here.” She turned back to Sisko. “In the meantime, I’d like you and your friends to have a tour of the city. You should get to know the people, and our world. My dear friend Vedek Tanin will guide you.”
Tanin bowed his acceptance of Osaka’s will. Sisko looked uncertain. But what he told her was, “We’d love to.”
The prylars began to disperse the crowd while Tanin led the group from the space station away. Kira followed, trying to control her breathing as she rubbed her sweating palms on the sides of her uniform. She turned around once to look at the kai ... and was shocked to see that Opaka was looking back at her.
Kira turned away and forced herself to keep moving.
Emissary ... ?
The crowd around her continued to thin as people ran off to spread the news. Soon, she knew, the whole planet would be buzzing. Before Kira’s eyes, the doorway to the future had swung wide open, and the doorway to the past had slammed shut forever.
* * *
The scars of the Occupation were everywhere.
Sisko could see that Ashalla had once been a city of breathtaking beauty, possessing a serenity that not even the Cardassians could expunge completely. Nevertheless, the last fifty years had left their mark on the city. From a distance, it hadn’t looked so bad. Up close, the level of devastation was astonishing.
As the group was led down streets strewn with rubble, Benjamin Sisko draped an arm over his son’s shoulders.
“The Cardassians did this?” Jake asked.
“They did,” his father confirmed.
“Why do we have to be here?” Jake looked up at Sisko, his eyes pleading.
“We’ve been over this, Jake-O,” Sisko said. He knew the suddenness of his new assignment had taken Jake off guard. Having spent the last two years reestablishing ties with family and friends back home after the destruction of the Saratoga, Jake had had to leave all that behind so that Sisko could accept a posting beyond the edge of Federation space. So far, the transition hadn’t been an easy one. “We’re here today to support Kai Opaka in a call for planetary unity,” Sisko went on. “Besides, I thought you’d enjoy getting away from the station and into some fresh air. It’s a new world, Jake! Don’t you find that exciting?”
“I guess,” Jake murmured.
Sisko’s forehead creased. This adjustment may take a little longer than I thought.
The group halted near a nondescript structure as their tour guide, Vedek Tanin, gestured toward a narrow opening in one corner of the buil
ding’s exposed foundation. “Do you see that archway?” the vedek asked.
“I see it,” Jake said, his tone of voice conveying his complete lack of interest. Sisko winced. Jake’s first trip to Bajor was not going as well as he’d hoped.
“What is it?” asked Julian Bashir. The doctor was quite a bit more excited than Jake, for which Sisko was grateful. The last thing he wanted to do was offend the Bajorans this early in their relationship.
“The building that used to stand here was a warehouse,” Tanin explained, “until the Cardassians destroyed it, along with many others, when they withdrew. But the foundation is much, much older. That archway leads to a network of catacombs that runs underneath the city.”
“Like where they bury dead people?” Jake asked. His interest was suddenly piqued.
Tanin nodded. “Some of the earliest kais,” he said, “along with some vedeks and others revered for their faith.”
“Can we see them?” Jake asked hopefully.
Sisko saw Kira smile sadly at the boy’s curiosity. “Perhaps later,” the vedek said. “But we wouldn’t be able to venture in too far; we might never find our way out.”
“Why?” Bashir asked. “Haven’t the tunnels been mapped?”
“The catacombs are a labyrinth. Knowledge of them was lost to us for centuries and they fell into legend. During the Occupation they were rediscovered by members of the resistance, and only now is the significance of the find becoming public.”
At mention of the resistance, Sisko and Bashir both looked at Kira. Shifting uncomfortably, obviously not expecting to share Tanin’s task as guide, she said, “Uh, a resistance cell found the opening about five years ago and started using the tunnels as a bolt-hole. No one ever went in too far—the tunnels seemed to extend for tessijens, and there hasn’t been time to chart them safely.”
Bashir’s brow furrowed. “But sensors—”
“There are refractory minerals below ground in this region that inhibit sensor scans,” Kira explained. “That’s what made the tunnels ideal for hiding from the Cardassians.”
“We hope to chart them by more conventional means at some point,” Tanin said, and then gestured at the battered city around him. “But, as you can see, we have other priorities right now.”
“Who built them?” asked Sisko.
“My forebears,” Tanin answered. “They were constructed many millennia ago. One of the legends surrounding them—and which may explain why knowledge of the catacombs was eventually lost—is that ancient Bajorans used them to seek the wisdom of the Prophets.”
“How did they do that?” Jake asked.
“If a believer had lost her faith,” the vedek said, “she would descend into the catacombs to look for it. Supposedly, the lost soul would wander in the darkness until the Prophets touched her, and only then would she return to the light above. For that reason, the catacombs are known as The Paths of the Lost.” When his listeners didn’t say anything, the old vedek smiled. “It’s quite a lovely metaphor, actually.”
The tour moved on and, while they walked, Vedek Tanin paused in his recitation of the local points of interest to address Sisko directly. “I just want to say,” he offered in a quiet voice, “that I am honored to meet you, Emissary.”
Sisko fought the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he gave the vedek an uncomfortable smile.
Tanin hesitated as if he had something more he wanted to say. It took him several moments, during which the tour group neared the end of the street. As they came upon an intersection, the vedek turned to Sisko once more.
“Emissary,” Tanin said, bowing his head. “If it would not be too presumptuous ... would you offer me your blessing?”
“Blessing?” Sisko asked. He caught Bashir’s confused expression, then shot a look at Major Kira, his eyes practically begging his first officer to bail him out somehow.
Kira stared back at him, her expression unreadable.
Sisko shifted uncomfortably. He tapped Vedek Tanin lightly on the shoulder, hoping that was enough.
Tanin lifted his head, a look of complete contentment on his face. “Thank you, Emissary.”
Sisko licked his lips, unsure of what to say. He really was going to have to speak to Opaka about this emissary matter; whatever messianic figure the Bajorans were waiting for, he was fairly certain Starfleet wasn’t going to appreciate it when they found out he’d been tapped for the job. Besides, it made him uncomfortable as hell.
Bashir finally spoke, breaking the uneasy silence that had settled on their little group. “What’s that building?” he asked. He was pointing to a blackened structure that stood out among every other building in that part of the city.
“That is the Taluno Library,” Tanin said. “It was constructed over eighteen hundred years ago, and was once the center of learning in Dakhur Province. The Cardassians set it on fire during an uprising of Bajoran laborers.”
“No regard for history,” Bashir said under his breath.
Off to the side, Sisko heard Kira grunt, as if to say, “No regard for anything.”
Tanin reached into a satchel that hung inside his robes and drew out a small handlight. “I would be pleased to show it to you. There are aspects of the interior that are still quite extraordinary, despite the damage.”
Sisko smiled politely. “By all means. Lead the way, Vedek.”
As the group approached the library, they heard a series of excited shouts coming from the next street over. A group of children were playing in the street.
Jake’s eyes widened, the sight of other kids seizing his attention. Kira drew near to him, a wistful smile on her face. “Springball,” she explained. “It’s a popular sport on Bajor.”
Jake Sisko stood there, mesmerized. Aside from the idea of bodies buried beneath them, this was the first sign of genuine interest in anything Bajoran he’d shown on the whole trip. Jake hadn’t made any friends since they’d left Mars. There was only one kid his age on Deep Space 9 so far, and he was a Ferengi—one with delinquent tendencies, at that. Not exactly the kind of influence Sisko wanted for his son.
Jake turned back to the tour group. He looks, Sisko thought, like the loneliest boy in the Alpha Quadrant.
Sisko approached his son, pulled him into a tight embrace, and kissed him on the top of the head.
“Jake-O,” the commander said, “how’re you doing?”
“Fine,” Jake said. His eyes wandered back to the kids playing in the street.
“Why don’t you stay and watch the game,” his father suggested.
Jake’s face lit up as he spun out of his father’s bear hug. “Can I?” the boy asked.
“Sure,” Sisko said. “Have a good time.”
Clearly warmed by his father’s smile, Jake quickly darted off toward the other children across the way.
Sisko was about to rejoin the tour when he noticed Dr. Bashir lingering in the doorway of the library.
“Do you want to watch, too?” Sisko asked.
“Oh,” stammered Bashir. “No, sir, I ... um ...”
“Go on,” encouraged Sisko. “You can keep an eye on my son.”
Bashir grinned. “Of course, sir. I’d be happy to.” Moving away from the library, Bashir called out, “Hey, Jake! Wait for me!”
With a final look at his son’s receding back, Sisko turned and entered the Taluno Library.
The air was stale inside the ancient building. It smelled of old books and fires that had burned out long ago. Sisko stopped and stood in the foyer of the ruined building, his senses overwhelmed with the loss of so much knowledge. Despite the rays of sunlight lancing through cracks in the damaged roof, the place was quite dark. Making out details was difficult.
“There used to be a painting on the ceiling,” Tanin indicated, “a starscape.”
“I saw it once when I was in the resistance,” Kira added in a quiet voice. “It was beautiful.”
No one spoke as the vedek shone his handlight across the broken beams and boiled plaster. Sisko
thought he saw some wisps of blue. It reminded him of the wormhole.
* * *
At the sound of Dr. Bashir calling his name, Jake turned around just in time to see his father step through the doorway into the old library. As Bashir came to a stop beside him, offering a friendly grin as he did, Jake turned his attention back to the game and tried to get a sense of springball. Brightly colored but crudely drawn scoring and foul zones decorated three walls of a wide alley, while four children equipped with paddles stood in the center, chasing after and dodging the wild ricochets of a small blue ball darting from wall to wall.
Eventually deciding the game had a lot in common with racquetball, Jake narrowly missed catching the ball as it went flying wildly into the air. It sailed over his head and into the library through an open basement-level window.
“I’ll get it,” one boy said.
“I’ll go with you,” said a young girl who skipped after him.
Without the ball, the game ground to a sudden halt. It was about that time that the Bajoran children noticed the aliens watching them. While their game was in time-out, they turned to Jake and Bashir as the next best source of entertainment.
“Where are you from?” one child asked.
“What’s your name?” wondered another. “I’m Ferin.”
“Jake Sisko. And this is Dr. Bashir.”
“We’re from Earth,” Bashir added.
“Sisko?” Ferin asked. “Like the Emissary?”
Jake stared at the boy, confused. He had heard Kai Opaka say something about an emissary back at the monastery, but hadn’t really been paying attention.
“I’m sorry,” Jake said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You haven’t heard about the Emissary?” The boy was shocked. “He found the Celestial Temple and is here to protect Bajor.”
“My dad found a wormhole,” Jake offered, wondering if they were confusing his father with someone else.
Eyebrows furrowing as if Jake had just sprouted an extra head, Ferin evidently decided to move on to more important matters. “Do you guys want to play, too?”
STAR TREK: DS9 - Prophecy and Change Page 2
