“They’ve left me,” Sisko said. “Do you want to know why I’m really here at Shikina? I needed a place to stay, so I told myself, why not here? I told myself that I wanted to find a place of silence and seclusion, where I could rest and reflect and make sure I was making the right choices in my life. And I suppose all of that’s true, to one degree or another. But really, I came here to find the Prophets.”
Kira took a step toward him, her face a mask of compassion. “They’re here, Benjamin. They’re with you, even if you don’t know it, even if you can’t feel it.”
“No, they’re not,” Sisko said. “It took me six days to summon up the courage to consult an Orb, but I finally did it today.” He reached forward as if it sat in front of him. “I opened the doors of the ark and beheld the Orb of Prophecy and Change.” His hands parted in midair, as though revealing the Orb. “All it did was immerse me in its light.” He peered up at Kira, feeling dazed. “There was nothing else. I saw nothing. I felt nothing. That’s never happened.”
“It happens all the time,” Kira said gently. “People often consult the Orbs without having an Orb experience.”
“Not me,” Sisko said. “I am the Emissary of the Prophets.” A sudden realization struck him. “At least I was the Emissary.”
“You still are.”
“No,” he said. “I see that now. The Prophets ensured my existence, guided my path, and eventually communicated with me . . . all for their own ends.”
“For the people of Bajor,” Kira said. “You helped save us from the Cardassians, and then from the Dominion. You helped us join the Federation and enter a new age of peace and prosperity.”
“Yes,” Sisko said. “And now that I’ve completed the tasks the Prophets set for me, they have no further use for me.”
“Benjamin, of all people, you must have faith.”
“I do have faith,” Sisko said. He moved back over to the bench and sat down again, feeling exhausted. “I believe in the existence of the Prophets, and in their love for the people of Bajor. I trust the Prophets, and I know what they told me. You know what they told me.”
“I’m . . . not sure what you’re talking about,” Kira said.
“They told me I must ‘walk the path alone,’” Sisko said.
“Kasidy.”
“Yes,” Sisko said. “The Prophets told me that if I spent my life with her, I would know nothing but sorrow. I told you about that, and you didn’t think that I should marry Kasidy.”
Kira quickly returned to the bench and sat beside him. “What I thought doesn’t matter. It was foolish and wrong of me to say anything. I can’t know the will of the Prophets.”
“But you were right, Nerys. They were right. They were worried about what would happen to me, and I didn’t listen. Now look what’s happened.” Sisko thought about his father and the cold fact of his death. It seemed impossible that he would never see him again, never hear his stentorian voice, never taste his cooking.
And my father is only the latest casualty of my arrogance, he thought. “Think about what’s happened since I returned from the Celestial Temple. The Sidau Massacre. Iliana Ghemor and the Ascendants. The calamity on Endalla.” He paused in his litany of disasters as he recalled that, prior to battling the Borg at Alonis, the last time he’d seen Elias had been on Endalla.
“But you provided help with those events,” Kira said. “You saved people’s lives.”
“But people did die,” Sisko said. “And what about in my own life? The deaths of Eivos Calan and his wife. The kidnapping of my daughter. The brain injury to Elias Vaughn.” As he mentioned Vaughn, he realized that Kira might not know what had happened to him, and that he might have insensitively revealed that to her. He knew that during the time Vaughn had served as Kira’s first officer aboard Deep Space 9, the two had become good friends. “Nerys, I’m sorry,” he said. “Captain Vaughn—”
“I know,” Kira said. “His daughter contacted me. But you can’t blame yourself for that, or for anything you’ve mentioned. It’s a terrible truth that as we grow older, if we continue to live, then more and more of the people around us die.”
“My father died last week.”
“Oh, Benjamin.” Kira leaned forward and put her arms around him. “I’m so sorry.”
They stayed that way for a few moments, and Sisko didn’t want it to end. He felt a connection in his friendship with Kira that he needed, but as with all of the connections in his life, he had to let it go. He pulled away from her.
“It’s getting closer,” he said. “The sorrow. If I remain with Kasidy, then someday soon it will be her death that tears at my heart. Or the death of Rebecca. Of Jake and Korena.”
“What are you saying?” Kira asked. “Are you leaving Kasidy?”
“If I spend my life with Kasidy, I will know nothing but sorrow,” Sisko said. “I must walk the path alone.” He waited for Kira to protest, to tell him that he could not possibly leave his wife and daughter. Instead, she slowly stood up and turned to face him.
“I know that you’ll do what you feel you must,” she said.
“I have no choice,” Sisko said. “Not when it comes to the safety of my family.”
“There are always choices,” Kira said, once more sounding like Opaka. “Have you told all of this to Kasidy? Explained it all to her?”
“I can’t explain it to her,” Sisko said. “Kasidy doesn’t believe, at least not the way I do. If I told her my reasons, she wouldn’t let me leave. And if I did, she would follow me.”
“So you’re just going to leave her with no explanation?” Kira asked. Sisko heard not only surprise in her tone, but disapproval.
“I’ve already left,” Sisko said. “Things haven’t been comfortable for a while.”
“Because you made them uncomfortable?”
“At least in part,” Sisko said. “It made my leaving easier for her. It’s hard now, but she will get over it.”
“Maybe if you did try to explain—”
“It wouldn’t matter,” Sisko said. “But . . . would you go to her, Nerys? You can’t tell her what I’ve told you, but you can comfort her.”
Kira slowly nodded her head. “I will,” she said. “But what about you?”
Sisko shrugged. “I’ll live my life,” he said. “Go back to what I know.”
“Starfleet?”
“Yes.”
Kira walked back over to him and reached a hand toward his right ear. He put his own hand up to stop her. Kira looked him in the eye, and he felt selfish for not trusting her. He dropped his hand, and she touched his ear. He waited for her to tell him that his pagh was strong. She didn’t.
“Your pagh is . . . wounded,” she said.
Sisko nodded. He had no doubt of it.
Kira stepped back. “Benjamin, please be careful. If—”
Sisko saw movement past Kira, somebody coming around the bend in the path. The figure wore a hooded, loose-fitting robe, brown in color. Kira turned to follow Sisko’s gaze, and as they both watched, the figure pushed the robe’s hood back.
“Vedek Kira,” she said in a high, musical voice. She stood quite tall, with a body covering that resembled a silvery, fluidic armor more than it did flesh. Fluted around the outer edges, her large golden eyes seemed to melt into her metallic skin. “Forgive the intrusion, but you asked to be notified when the time came for your meeting with Vedek Garune.”
“Thank you, Raiq,” Kira said. “I’ll be there in a moment. Would you please wait for me by the entrance to the arboretum?”
“Yes, Vedek,” Raiq said. She pulled her hood back into place, then disappeared around the bend in the path.
When Kira turned back to Sisko, he said, “It was good to see you, Nerys. I’m sorry to have burdened you, but thank you for listening.”
“It’s no burden, Benjamin,” she said. “If you ever need me, to listen or to help in any other way, I’m here for you. I’m usually at the Vanadwan Monastery in Releketh.”
“Tha
nk you,” he said again. They hugged, and he watched her go. He felt deeply grateful for her friendship, and for her offer of future assistance. Of course, he could never avail himself of her friendship or her help again. He could not risk putting her in danger.
He must walk his path alone.
18
Alizome Tor Fel-A, special agent to the autarch, arrived well before her scheduled meeting with the Tzenkethi leader and several of his advisors. Though Alizome had visited Autarch Korzenten’s residence on numerous occasions, and though she had entered the home in a considerable number of its different configurations, she liked giving herself as much time as possible to locate the entrance. That had meant allotting herself less time earlier to satisfy her other responsibilities, but she’d managed to shave enough moments from each of her other tasks that day and still complete them.
The automated hovercraft alighted on the outskirts of Tzenketh, the capital city of Ab-Tzenketh, the homeworld of Alizome’s people. The door rolled upward inside the cabin, and she stepped down onto the enclosed security platform, where a quartet of guards stood watch. Having been through the procedure often enough, Alizome knew what to do without being instructed. As she moved to the center of the space, the door behind her rolled shut.
Alizome placed the only item she carried, a data cube, atop a scanner. She then splayed her fingers and laid her hand palm-down on a standard DNA sequencer. Though she could not feel the process, she knew that the device removed an epidermal sample from her hand, then extracted and analyzed her DNA in order to confirm both her identity and her echelon.
Once that verification had completed, she stepped forward and held her arms out to the side. She contracted the sacs lining her arms and slipped quickly out of the top of the tight, black jumpsuit she wore. Making her arms rigid once more, she contracted first her left leg and then her right, removing the lower half of the flexible suit. One of the guards retrieved her outfit and took it to a scanning and inspection station, while another guard examined her fully exposed body, both visually and with a portable sensor. Finally, the leader of the security squad returned her clothing and data cube to her.
“You are cleared, Tor,” the guard said, employing her title.
Alizome quickly dressed, then headed for the door on the far side of the platform, which rolled up at her approach. She walked through it and out into the evening air. Both moons had already risen, one in full phase, the other in crescent. As always, their reflected light reached the surface of Ab-Tzenketh hazily, partially obscured by the virtual shell of artificial satellites ensphering the planet. Those satellites, Alizome knew, contained a wealth of different equipment that performed a wide variety of functions, from weapons platforms and external sensor grids, to communications arrays and global-positioning systems, to transporter management and weather control. They also provided an effective multipurpose defensive shield for Ab-Tzenketh, making sensor scans of the planet surface, and transport down to it, extremely difficult.
Following a narrow, winding path, Alizome passed through a copse of phosphorescent trees, their dazzling golden leaves a lingering echo of the day’s sunlight, and a close approximation of her own flesh tone. When she emerged from the grove, the grand house spread out before her. Its shimmering metal skin admitted of no straight lines, its rigid form twisting and flowing like the frozen waves of a great silver sea. To the right, the walls bowed outward, the roof above a range of moderately sized swells. Deep troughs and high crests marked the central portion of the structure, with shadows enclosing the lower regions. On the left side, the roof swept up to its highest point, its convex outline suggesting a tidal mass about to crash down on shore. The house possessed no discernible openings, or even potential openings, of any kind.
On none of Alizome’s previous visits had the building been so arranged. She stopped and studied it, attempting to puzzle out both the logic and the artistry behind the new design. Mathematical terms rose in her mind and tried to parse themselves into equations that defined the architecture. Various styles of creativity and construction superimposed themselves on the edifice. The intellect and personality of the autarch suggested possibilities. But even after Alizome considered her destination for a while, its new configuration did not confess its secrets to her.
The path she’d taken from the security platform and through the trees led across an uncomfortably open space to a paved area that surrounded the home, permitting visitors to walk up to it at any point. Alizome could approach the building anywhere she chose and tap on an exterior panel, and it would either prove to be the entrance or not. She could only make a certain number of unsuccessful attempts, though, before the autarch’s staff would appear and either invite her inside or ask her to leave. With her record of successes as an agent of Korzenten, she did not believe that failing to find her own way inside would lead to her dismissal and recategorization, but at the very least, it would sow doubt in the autarch’s mind about her abilities.
Alizome paced the final length of the path and over toward the midpoint of the structure. Though she often assumed other titles and echelons for her assignments—such as on her mission to Typhon I as a vik, a speaker, in the Tov echelon of government leaders—she was actually a Fel, a problem solver, and not one of just moderate aptitude, but a level-A Fel. Since she had completed her pre-placement education half a lifetime ago, she had failed only a handful of the everyday tests of ability that all Tzenkethi confronted within their natural disciplines. And since she had been elevated to the position of Tor, special agent to the autarch, she had failed none at all.
Having time to spare before the meeting, Alizome circumnavigated the house. She examined the curve of each arc, and related it not merely to its context within the current design but to the iterations of designs past. Like Tzenkethi bodies, the fluidity of the structure allowed for great adaptation, but also faced limitations. Theoretically, the entrance could open anywhere, but in practice, the set of reasonably possible locations should narrow her search.
As Alizome looped around the building a second time, she began to take better note of the shadows. With the movement of Vot-Tzenketh and Lem-Tzenketh across the sky, some areas of the house’s previously unseen exterior became visible, while others remained in the darkness still enfolded within the wavelike elements of the roof. Alizome wondered if those constant regions of blackness formed a progression of any kind.
She had time enough to make a third ring around the house, but as soon as she started to do so, she saw it. She continued walking, reading the string of shadows and fitting them neatly into a mathematical series based on their relative distances from one another. When she’d gone a third of the way around, she felt confident that she had broken the code.
Reversing course, Alizome strode back to the transitional space between the crests and troughs of the middle section and the tidal wave of the left-hand section. She reached forward, the golden glow of her flesh reflecting in the silver metal of the building’s exterior. Without hesitation, Alizome placed the flat of her hand against the house.
A mechanical hum began at once. Where no seams had shown, they now appeared, delineating a roughly elliptical depression in front of her. The oval withdrew into the structure, until light poured out from around the edges. Eventually, enough of a gap formed to permit her to enter.
Inside, Alizome felt immediate relief, not only from having solved the entry puzzle, but also for the comforting closeness of the floors that now enclosed her. She stood in a foyer tastefully decorated with furniture and artwork she recognized from previous visits. All of it had been arranged traditionally, displayed for the appreciation of visitors situated on the inferior floor. She doubted that the foyer even contained more than its single, natural gravity envelope.
As the door closed behind her, one of the autarch’s many servants greeted her. With a pale-orange glow and matching eyes, Narzen Nok Ren-A had always looked blind to Alizome, as though he had been born with empty orbits in his skull-sac.
“You are expected,” Narzen intoned. Without awaiting a response, he turned and headed down a large elliptical hall that advanced forward out of the foyer. Alizome followed.
On the way to the autarch’s office, Narzen led her past several open doorways, the rooms beyond showing off the autarch’s vast fortune. Alizome stole glances into an enormous library, a parlor, an art gallery, and a gymnasium. Ahead, at the end of the hallway, the autarch’s sigil garnished a large door. As she neared it behind Narzen, the servant veered left, his feet stepping onto the curve of the lateral floor. Alizome followed, feeling the slight shift in gravity as an artificial envelope supplanted the natural gravitational field of Ab-Tzenketh. Narzen continued moving left, through another alteration in gravity, until they had traveled one hundred eighty degrees and stood on the superior floor, upside-down relative to where they’d started.
At the door, Narzen said, “Alizome Tor Fel-A to see you, Autarch.” Alizome did not see any communications hardware, but a moment later, the door irised open. Narzen moved aside, and she walked past him into the autarch’s office.
Korzenten Rej Tov-AA sat at his sprawling desk. As always, Alizome found his bright-red skin breathtaking, his golden eyes shocking in their contrast to the rest of his face. Tall even by Tzenkethi standards, he cut a striking figure.
As one of only a small number of AA levels in Tzenkethi society, Korzenten also held a classification as a Tov, the echelon of governmental leaders, making him one of only a handful of individuals qualified to serve as Rej, Autarch of the Tzenkethi Coalition. His genetic composition derived from that of the previous Coalition ruler. Upon her death during the last Tzenkethi-Federation War, Korzenten had succeeded her, his superior DNA makeup remaining unsurpassed through all the years since.
“My Rej,” Alizome said as she approached the massive block of polished black stone at which he sat. Though the house had been reconfigured since her previous visit, the office looked virtually identical to how she’d last seen it. Glancing up at the inferior floor, she saw the inverted contents of the luxurious sitting area, where, presumably, the autarch entertained visiting dignitaries. The superior floor, on which she stood, had been set up as a working office, with the desk, several computer interfaces, a communications panel, and a large viewscreen. Parts of the lateral floor had been utilized as decoration for both the inferior and superior floors, with artwork such as tapestries and paintings placed for the appreciation of people in both the sitting and office areas. The rest of the lateral surface functioned as a transition zone, allowing individuals to traverse from the inferior to the superior, and back again.
Star Trek: Typhon Pact: Rough Beasts of Empire Page 15
