Taryl turned to the holy woman. “He’s my brother,” she said simply, and went right back speaking to Lenaris. “You would do it, then? You would contact Tiven Cohr-even after what he said?”
“Of course I would!” Lenaris said. “It’s like you said, Taryl-he’s your brother. And my friend. We can do this.”
Winn interrupted. “Your birthright is to till the soil, not to leave this world in a ship! Just look at what has happened as a result of farmers trying to be something they are not-your brother has been captured, and according to the monk who attended to him, the conditions in that camp will not sustain him much longer.”
“My birthright is that of a pilot,” Lenaris told Winn. “And if you say Lac doesn’t have much more time, then we had better get moving quickly.”
Seefa broke in. “No,” he said. “Lac can’t know for sure whether the Cardassians took his raider, and I believe they would have done so. I suggest we all leave immediately, without our ships. We should go back to the peninsula.”
“Seefa,” Taryl said. “Lac obviously sent us this message with the hope that we would come looking for him.”
Seefa looked unmoved, shaking his head.
“Please,” Taryl pleaded. “He would do the same for you.”
“Lac would be the first to point out that it would be foolish to risk several lives to save one. I know how upset you must be, but, Taryl…” He reached for her, but she stepped away, her eyes flashing.
“How can you say that?” she snapped. “If there’s any chance that we can save him, we should take it. Holem is going to find Tiven Cohr-and I’m going with him.”
“By the Prophets,” Winn said angrily. “The misguided words of a renounced vedek have penetrated the consciousness of this world so thoroughly that farmers leave their fields unplanted, choosing to fly off on suicide missions instead of providing food for their world. You were never meant to take to the skies, Taryl, and neither was your brother. Perhaps this result is the Prophets’ way of telling us that Lac should have kept his feet planted on the ground-as should you.”
“Ranjen,” Taryl said, her tone softer, “we have long disagreed on this matter. We mean no disrespect to you, but we must do this. I must do this. My mind is made up.” She turned to Lenaris. “How soon can we get there?”
Seefa tried to interrupt again, speaking over Taryl in continued protest, but she paid no attention to him. Neither did Lenaris. He was already formulating what he would say to Tiven. An apology seemed a small price to pay for Lac’s life.
Natima was exhausted and not in a mood to talk when she received the transmission from Cardassia Prime. She and Veja had been on their feet all day long, attending a press conference that addressed some tortuous rearrangement of the civilian government’s leadership role in the Bajoran provinces. It was all she could do to filter a decent report out of her notes. It hadn’t helped that she had been standing right in front of a man with a rattling cough, masking out half of the dialogue. Not that any of it was especially compelling.
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To make matters worse, she and Veja were being sent to Terok Nor tomorrow for yet another long and boring press conference. Every time Natima went to Terok Nor with Veja-there had been four trips since their first-she was made to feel like a superfluous rudder on a ship. Veja would go off with Gil Damar, to whom she still had not been formally enjoined-they were waiting for Damar’s promotion to come through-and Natima was left by herself while she waited for the transport to take her back to the surface.
She rose from her bed and answered the transmission with reluctance, but then brightened a bit when she saw that it was her young friend, the scientist Miras Vara. Miras had consulted with Natima a number of times in the past two years regarding various issues related to the agricultural situation on Bajor, since Natima had originally helped her with her student thesis project-one that had earned her the very highest marks, in the end.
“Hello, Miras,” Natima said cheerfully. “It’s good to see a friendly face from home.”
“Thank you, Natima. It’s good to see you, too. I was wondering if you have a moment…”
“Of course.”
Miras seemed unusually hesitant. “I have some questions for you that I fear you might find… odd.”
“Odd? You know nothing surprises me anymore, Miras. Not after some of the things I’ve witnessed here.”
“I know. It’s just that… I learned some things recently. Regarding Bajor. And… I didn’t know who else I could ask.”
“Learned them… how?”
“I… Natima, I can’t say. Can you understand that? You’ve had to protect sources before, haven’t you?”
Natima nodded wordlessly, puzzled and intrigued.
“Do you know anything of… the death of a Bajoran religious official? I believe he is called the kai.”
Natima was taken aback. Matters of Bajoran religion were certainly not typical fodder for Cardassian discussion. It was possible that Miras could have learned the term “kai” from some source within the science ministry, but Natima was sure that nobody in the Cardassian Union would have reported the death of the current one. Dukat saw to it that Cardassians generally remained ignorant of his lenience regarding Bajoran religious practices. “How did you come upon this information?”
“I told you, I can’t say. I’m so sorry, Natima, but I just can’t.”
Natima could not be sure if she should confirm or deny the story. It seemed irrelevant in the greater scheme of things, but it was so strange that Miras should even know about it. “What more have you heard about this?” Natima asked her carefully.
Miras again appeared reluctant to speak. “There is someone named Gar Osen. He… I believe he may have been present when the kai died. He may have been the one who found the body, or perhaps he is someone close to the kai. I only wish to confirm that this information is true. Or simply that such a person exists. That is all I need to know, Natima. Have you heard of him?”
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In fact, Natima did know who Gar Osen was, only because she had learned that he was campaigning to become the new kai. Again, she was puzzled that Miras would know anything about it at all. Natima herself did much of the final edits on what information the service passed along to Cardassian civilians, and she was positive that such specific details about Bajoran religious officials would never have been reported. The very fact that Miras knew about something so obscure set off alarms. What else was being leaked to Cardassia Prime?
“Miras, I will see what I can find out for you,” Natima said, hoping that her friend would not recognize that she was stalling. “If you don’t mind waiting for a day or two…”
“No, not at all, Natima. Take as much time as you need. You have my deepest appreciation for agreeing to help me with this.”
“Think nothing of it,” Natima assured her. “In the meantime, I think it’s best if you keep this information to yourself.”
“I’ve told no one of consequence.”
Natima wondered what Miras’s estimation of consequence was, and she ended the transmission. Her thoughts raced as she sat back in her chair. How should she approach this situation? Miras was her friend, and she didn’t want to get her in trouble. Natima was certain that the younger woman perhaps didn’t understand how dire an offense it could be for her to be spreading around classified information. For although the specific information that Miras had referred to was not classified, the greater connotations of that information certainly were. If citizens on Cardassia Prime realized how much religious freedom Dukat permitted the Bajorans, there would be a great deal of public dissent, and Dukat surely knew it.
Personally, she disagreed with the prefect’s policies-as new citizens of the Union, the Bajorans should be putting aside their antiquated superstitions, should be searching for ways to adjust to a more Cardassian mindset. Instead, they spent their time fighting against the inevitable, making life miserable for the good people who’d traveled to this inhospitable world to help the natives-thanks in no small part to Dukat’s leniencies. But it was her job to see that the news from Bajor supported the Union’s image of infallibility, not a task she took lightly. Her job was her life.
She told herself she’d think about it, but knew already that she’d warn Miras away from the information again and then leave it alone. She could not afford to jeopardize her own career, even for a friend. Whatever Miras decided to do, that was her business.
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Chapter 7
Lenaris made preparations to land the raider along a wooded plateau just beneath the highest peak of the Berain mountains. He was relieved to set down after their long, silent night-the light was strong enough in the sky now to make them an obvious target. He and Taryl had headed out without taking significant precautions that their journey was along a routine flight path-there simply hadn’t been time.
“I don’t think we should take the raider down into the valley,” Lenaris said. “We’ve taken enough of a risk, crossing territory that’s mostly deserted-but I used to fly in this area regularly, and the security grids are pretty tight just over Berain City. I had the pleasure of being stopped more than once in this region.”
“Okay,” Taryl said. She wasn’t familiar with the areas around Relliketh, and wouldn’t have been in a mood to argue, anyway.
“It’s about half a day’s walk from here,” he told her. “We’d better take all the water we brought. I can’t be sure that we’ll come to any other sources along the way.” Taryl nodded, tying several gourds of water around one shoulder. He tossed some dried alva fruits into his pack, and the two began their journey down the narrow ledges and pathways that wound through the trees and along the side of the mountain.
Taryl walked closely behind him, occasionally touching his shoulder to steady herself on the uneven terrain. Lenaris pushed branches aside, pointed out exposed roots. It had rained recently, and the air was clean and sweet. The smell brought back many memories.
“So,” she said casually, after a while. “Are you ever going to tell me about why Tiven and Halpas are so mad at you?”
Lenaris sighed. “It’s a long story,” he said.
“Seems to me we’ve got nothing but time.” She touched his shoulder again, and this time he stopped walking and turned to face her.
“Yes, I’ll tell you,” he said, deciding that it might do him good to speak of it to someone at last.
Taryl nodded, and they resumed their hike.
“I joined the resistance with my best friend,” he began. “Our families had been close since before we were born. His mother took it especially hard when we decided to go off and fight. He was an only child, you see, his father killed when he was a babe.
“His name was Darin. Lafe Darin. He was very enthusiastic about fighting. He was…” Holem paused, tried to think of the easiest way to sum up their friendship. “We were like brothers. I suppose I knew that it was possible that one of us could be killed…” Lenaris did not look at her.
“But it’s still very abstract, isn’t it? To think of a loved one dying. Or disappearing. Before it actually happens, that is.”
“Yes,” he agreed, relieved that she understood. He ducked beneath a low-slung vine as they carefully made their way down an especially steep path. The terrain evened out again, and he resumed speaking. “As time passed, so many years of fighting together, maybe we had begun to feel a little invincible. I know he must have, considering what he did.” He fell silent, lost for a moment to memory.
“What happened?” Taryl prodded gently.
“Our cell was one of the first to find out that the Valerians were supplying the Cardassians with weapons-grade dolamide,” Lenaris said. The words were familiar, he’d thought them a million times, but had never spoken them aloud. “We had the idea that if we terrorized the Valerians, they would stop trading with Cardassia.”
“Cut them off at the source.”
“Yes. We found out where the Valerian freighters were docking, where they were unloading their product-at their processing camp, in the Karnoth mountains. It was heavily guarded, very difficult to get past the security there, but we believed we could do it. Well, some of us did. I admit, I was one of the skeptics. Darin, though-he was fearless.
“So, someone came up with the idea to put a bomb on one of the freighters. The trouble was, the security was set up so that you could get on one of those ships easily enough, but you couldn’t get back off. That was where they would detect you. We found that out the hard way-one of the people in our cell tried to get aboard to learn the schematics. We never saw him again.
“I thought the plan should be scrapped until we figured out exactly how and where our man had been captured, but Darin was impatient. He and several of the others conspired-without me-to place the bomb on the ship anyway, even though whoever carried it would have to accept that he was almost certainly sacrificing himself. Death or capture.”
“How did you learn about the plan?”
“I knew Darin was hiding something from me.” Lenaris sighed. “I could just tell-I knew him so well. I followed him to the camp, and I tried to stop him. Tried to talk him out of it, but of course he wouldn’t listen.”
Lenaris shook his head, recalling the scene. “We had ugly words. He accused me of being childish, said that I was just angry at being left out. I told him he was selfish to be depriving his mother of her only child, and he reminded me that he had been risking his life for Bajor since the day he joined the movement-that we both had. That taking that risk was part of joining the resistance. Of course I knew he was right, but a mission where capture-or more likely death-is a near certainty… I couldn’t get behind it. I actually took a swing at him when I saw that he couldn’t be persuaded, but he ducked, and I missed him. He didn’t miss me, though. We parted ways on… unhappy terms.” He laughed bitterly at his own understatement.
“I watched the freighter take off from a point a few kellipates beyond the landing site. It almost came to nothing. The captain of the ship ejected the cargo less than a minute after taking off. He must have noticed that something wasn’t right in the cargo bay, where Darin had planned to place the bomb. But the captain was too late; the bomb exploded just as he ejected it, and he lost control of the ship. I saw it come down.”
He slowed, remembered the feelings of horror and loss as he’d watched the ship fall from the sky. “It seemed to take an eternity. It was hard to tell at first where it landed. I ran through the forest, following the smoke trail, just hoping that by some miracle of the Prophets, Darin would be alive.”
He didn’t look at Taryl, who had fallen in step with him. “But of course, that was impossible.”
Taryl’s voice was quiet. “You found it?”
“A few hours later, I suppose. It’s hard to remember for sure. Several others from the cell got there about the same time. It was dead in the middle of the forest, far away from anything. It had sustained a lot of damage, took out a massive swath of the forest where it landed-incinerated at once, with little fires still burning when we got there. The landing gear was completely obliterated, the entry hatch fused shut-I tried to get in anyway, but I burned both my hands…” He remembered the smell of his own flesh burning, and went on, pushing it away. “Halpas acknowledged that there weren’t any survivors aboard. He scanned the area twice-not that he needed to. Nobody could have walked away from that mess… and then everyone in the cell immediately started squabbling over the ship, before we’d even discussed what to do with the… bodies.
“I was outraged that they didn’t even bother to acknowledge Darin’s death, and I told them so. They said I was a coward, told me I’d been living in a delusion if I hadn’t expected to lose a friend someday. They said that if I was so reluctant to sacrifice anything for Bajor, the cell was better off without me.”
“Was that when you left?”
“No. It was after-after the…” He trailed off, began again. “They set up a guard, though I told them the Cardassians would come for the ship, if the Valerians didn’t. They told me to stop being an old woman, and they put three men in charge of watching her for the night-including one of Tiven’s brothers. It wasn’t three hours later the Cardassians found the wreckage, and they didn’t hesitate. They just dropped a bomb on her and didn’t look back, making sure there was nothing we could salvage from her.
“Everyone was devastated. They could see I had been right, but of course they weren’t about to admit it… especially Tiven, who was crazy with grief after the loss of his brother. I think they expected to hear ‘I told you so’ from me-which they wouldn’t have-but they continued to shout at me just as they had done before. They… wouldn’t let up on me, and… I lost my senses, a little bit.”
He felt shamed, remembering the words he had spoken. “I… told them it was their fault, for not listening to me…. Tiven didn’t take that very well, he called me a coward again, and I told him… I said that he shouldn’t be so reluctant to sacrifice a mere brother for the greater good…”
He took a shaky breath.
Taryl spoke carefully. “It sounds like the incident produced bitter memories for a lot of people.”
Lenaris nodded, silent for a moment before he spoke again. “You know what the worst part of it is?”
Taryl stopped walking, and Lenaris stopped with her. She turned to face him. “Tell me.” Her voice was very soft.
“Taking down that ship interrupted the flow of dolamide to Bajor for exactly one month. One month, and then traffic went right back to the way it had been before.”
Taryl met his gaze, and he saw a great sadness in her own. After a few beats, they started walking again.
The two hiked for several hours, moved down the deep forests of the foothills, still mostly untouched by the Cardassians. The Union had a mining operation north and east of these woods, partway up a ridge that bordered the Berain mountain range, but it was barely maintained, now that almost everything of value had been stripped from the soil and stone.
The threshold to Berain City seemed to be eluding them, but every time Lenaris started to worry that they were going in the wrong direction, he would see a familiar landmark, an assurance that he had not lost his way. Berain City held less than a third of its pre-occupation populace, but at least a few thousand people still called it home; there were signs of civilization among the trees this close to it, even coming from the mountains. Finally, he found the creek he’d been looking for, and the bridge-several old logs that had been lashed together to form a crude but functional crossing. Taryl looked down at the rain-swollen stream, hampered along the sides by bright green leaves that had fallen from the dense trees overhead.
She shook the string of gourds. “Not much left. Should we refill here?”
“No. The water looks clean, but it isn’t. We’re a ways downstream of a Cardassian tailings pond. I would drink it if I had to, but given the choice-“
Taryl nodded as she worked to keep her footing on the slippery old bridge. Lenaris took her hand, and she squeezed his briefly before they came to the other side.
It was just a short distance beyond the creek that they came to the edge of a clearing, one that had apparently been man-made, for there were several cleanly cut stumps dotting the yellow-green meadow. “This is the very outskirt,” Lenaris told her, “where timber used to be harvested. In the old days, we picked and chose among the trees to maintain the forest, but after the Cardassians came, people started getting more desperate.”
The two passed through the rest of the forest, which bore evidence of the sustainable timber practices Lenaris had described. The first houses began to appear where the trees were still thick, and then the forest opened and they came to the lowest point of the valley, panning out with a spread of homes, businesses, shrines, and factories, a crooked river twisting through the center of town.
“How will we find him?” Taryl wondered, looking out at the city from the edge of the forest where they stood.
“Simple,” Lenaris said. “We go to the nearest tavern, and we ask.”
Miras was sick.
She had been struggling for some time now just to avoid falling asleep altogether, working until late into the night for days on end, reading in her bed instead of sleeping in it, fighting her exhaustion to the point of weakening her immune system. Now she had fallen victim to a viral infection of some kind, and was confined to her bedroom where she knew that the most sensible thing to do was succumb. Her aching joints screamed out for rest. She did not want to dream, but she also did not want to prolong her illness. She wanted to get better and get back to work as quickly as possible.
It was late before she finally fell asleep, and despite her exhaustion she still tossed and turned, agonizing over every detail of her past nocturnal experiences-and the one that had not happened in the night. The one that had happened in those lost hours when she had been in the laboratory with the Orb. She was sorry now that she’d ever pursued the artifact. It had affected her mind, somehow, and her only real hope was that time would make the instability fade, would return her peace of mind.
Miras, the serene voice of the Hebitian woman beckoned her into sleep. Miras, I have something to show you.
“Please, I don’t want to put the mask on again,” she said, and the blackness of sleep melted into the temperate little room in the black-bricked cottage. The Hebitian woman’s face read tender amusement.
“No, Miras. You will not evoke the spirit of Oralius this time.” She was holding the mask in her hands.
“Why do I keep seeing you? Why is this happening to me? Is it the Orb?”
The woman smiled. “This corporeal being to whom you now speak. Her name is Astraea.”
Miras swallowed. “Do you mean… that your name is Astraea?”
The woman hesitated. “Astraea is a guide.”
“A… guide?”
The woman went on. “Astraea is a lineage. My mother’s name was Astraea, and my daughter’s name will be Astraea.”
“Astraea. Please, tell me why I am here. Is this a dream?” It was an absurd question, but she was desperate.
The woman put the mask on her own face for a moment. “All will be revealed. You must find the Book of the Hebitians-the Recitations, where it is all written.”
“The book of… How am I supposed to find… Please, is this real? I don’t know what I’m meant to do! Can’t I just forget these dreams ever happened, wake up and go to the ministry tomorrow, as I’m supposed to? I don’t want this!”
“The Book can be found just beyond the city. It rests within a vessel that is hidden in plain sight.”
Miras tried to make sense of this puzzle. The city? What city? She must mean Lakarian City. The ruins. Where the Hebitian civilization had flourished, millennia ago.
The woman removed the mask, and Miras was startled to find that the woman’s face had changed. “I am Astraea,” she said, and her voice was different as well.
“But…”
She put the mask back on her face. “My mother’s name was Astraea, and my daughter’s name will be Astraea.”
She removed the mask, and once again, her face had changed. Miras watched in fascination as the woman repeated the motion again, and then again. She continued to repeat the name Astraea, physically representing how the name was passed through many generations. As she cycled through each new persona, Miras could see that it was not only her face that was changing. Her shoulders were gradually broadening, her limbs becoming more compact, her skeletal ridges more defined. Finally, Miras understood.
“My name is Astraea,” the woman said, removing the mask one last time, and Miras was stunned into absolute silence, for she recognized the face now.
Her own face.
Lenaris had started to wonder if it wouldn’t be quite so easy to find Tiven Cohr after all. He and Taryl had been to three taverns; at each, the patronage knew exactly who Tiven was, but not exactly how to find him. But at the fourth place they walked into, Lenaris immediately spied Tiven himself, hunched over the edge of a wooden bar with a clay mug of copal between his hands, blustering his long-winded war stories and opinions to anyone who was listening-and that appeared to be nobody.
Tiven looked almost just as he had when Lenaris had last seen him, nearly three years before. His gray hair was twisted into several matted strands that were gathered at the nape of his neck with a piece of rawhide. His face was as heavily lined as a map, and his brown eyes seemed to look in opposite directions, belying a man with vision like a sinoraptor.
Tiven hadn’t seen him walk into the bar. Lenaris approached quickly, Taryl following.
“This man’s next drink is on me,” Lenaris announced, though he had very little in the way of currency. He might have to do more than apologize just to get Tiven to stay in the room with him.
The old man’s head turned abruptly. “Who the kosst…” He stopped and leaned back in his seat, looking at Lenaris as if seeing him for the first time-and not liking what he saw. He made as if to stand up.
“Please, hear me out,” Lenaris said. He slid into the seat next to Tiven’s. “Did Halpas tell you that I-“
Tiven’s voice was as bitter as makara herb. “He told me that you’re still as arrogant and full of yourself as ever.”
“Please,” Taryl interrupted, her voice almost shaking with pleading sincerity. “Mr. Tiven, my name is Ornathia Taryl. My brother’s life is in danger, and I’ve heard that you’re the best warp engineer on all of Bajor.”
Tiven softened, but only by a fraction. “You brought a pretty girl with a sob story, eh?”
“She’s telling the truth,” Lenaris said. “When I was looking for you before-it was just because I thought a warp ship was an intriguing project-but now… my friend is in danger, and we need to leave the system if we’re going to have any chance of rescuing him.”
“Friends die,” Tiven said.
“I know they do,” Lenaris said. “I understand that.”
Tiven turned to Taryl, his voice rough but not without sympathy. “Brothers die, too.”
“My brother doesn’t have to die,” Taryl said. “We can save him, and you can help us.”
“And what’s in it for me?” Tiven finished the dregs of his cider.
“You could come with us,” Lenaris said. “You always said how much you missed space travel-“
“Fine, I’ll do it,” Tiven said, slamming down his mug.
Lenaris was stunned. “What… what did you say?”
“I’ll do it, Lenaris-if you just admit that you were wrong.” He grinned.
“I was wrong,” Lenaris said immediately. “I never should have questioned any of you about the mission, and I never should have said any of those things after it all went wrong, and I never should have left, and I never should have-“
“Whoa!” Tiven said, lifting his hands to his chest in mock defense. “I didn’t think you were actually going to do it!” He laughed, gestured for the bartender to refill his mug. “This one’s on you,” he reminded Lenaris.
“Of course,” Lenaris said quickly. “I’ll buy you another one after that, if you want.”
Tiven cleared his throat, looking away from them. “Truth is, Lenaris, you were right. Of course you were. We were all emotional after… what happened. I guess Halpas and I just resented you… for being young, and for knowing what you were talking about when you told us not to go through with it.”
Lenaris said nothing, feeling nothing from Tiven’s validation. It didn’t matter who was right-he realized that now. Darin was still dead, Tiven’s brother was dead, and Lac would be, too, if they couldn’t get to him in time.
“I’ll help you fix your ship, if she can be fixed,” Tiven said, and pulled on his drink. “I’ve got nothing better to do these days, nothing but standing in ration lines and running up a tab at every tavern in town.” He eyed the bartender. “Tabs that probably won’t ever be paid,” he said confidentially. “So maybe it’s better if I get out of here for a little while. After all-you came all this way… and you even apologized!” He laughed, a drunken sound without much mirth. He was the same Tiven that Lenaris remembered, unstable, drunk, mostly well meaning.
Lenaris looked at Taryl, who was smiling with gratitude, the first time Lenaris had seen a genuine smile on her face since Lac’s disappearance. “One more thing,” Lenaris said, turning back to Tiven. “We need to find Halpas.”
The old engineer nodded. “I know where he is,” he said, “but whether he’ll come is another story.”
“He’ll come,” Lenaris said. “The chance to fly a warp ship? He’d never pass it up.”
Tiven removed himself creakily from his stool. “You may be right,” he said. “I confess, the chance to work on a warp engine is no small motive for me, either.” He took one last draught of his cider. “After all,” he added, “I’m an engineer by D’jarra-it’s what I was born to do.”