My memory cathedral.
Relief vied with incomprehension. “How?”
Jules beamed at him. “You’ll have to find your own answers, Julian,” the boy said as he began walking. Julian quickly followed, easily keeping pace as Jules moved through the gallery.
Julian felt a rush of gratitude for the inexplicable return of his mental acuity as one possible answer immediately presented itself. Making my peace with Jules must have snapped me loose from all the other quantum realities. All those other worlds in which Mother and Father never brought me to Adigeon Prime.
Jules nodded, as though he were privy to Julian’s innermost thoughts. Of course,Julian thought, how could henot be?
“That’s undoubtedly part of it,” the boy said, coming to a stop beside the staircase leading to the main library. “But not the biggest part.”
“So you’re saying that I’m missing the point about what happened here,” Julian said as he walked a short distance up the staircase. He put all his weight on the fifth step, and it made a satisfying squeaking sound in response. Just as it was supposed to.
“Yup,” the boy said.
He looked down the staircase toward Jules. “This doesn’t make sense. How could this place ‘realign my worldline’ when I actively prevented the procedures that would have turned youinto me?”
Without saying a word, Jules strode toward a large stained-glass window that loomed nearby. Julian abandoned the staircase and followed the boy, noting that both of their reflections were clearly visible in the glass. Julian realized then that he was clad once again in a Starfleet duty uniform—complete with a combadge—and wondered idly what had become of the environmental suit he’d been wearing when the away team had beamed into the cathedral.
The child smiled up at Julian. “Let me give you a hint, then. Every decision you made in here was without the benefit of Adigeon Prime genetic engineering.”
“I wasn’t given much choice about that.”
“Exactly,” Jules said. “But in spite of that, you displayed courage and compassion. And not just here. Back aboard the Defiantas well.” Then the child approached him, as though seeking a brotherly embrace.
Julian put his arms around the child—and was surprised to feel the youngster’s volume seeming to diminish. Looking toward their reflected images, he watched in shock as the child’s body grew insubstantial, literally melting into his own before vanishing, wraithlike.
Except for the image of the boy’s smile, which seemed to linger on the glass a moment longer before it, too, disappeared.
In that instant, Julian came to an epiphanic understanding of his unexpected rapprochement with his long-vanished alter ego. For the first time in his life, he saw that there was no difference, at the core, between Jules and himself.
Jules never left me. He’s been with me all my life. And Adigeon Prime never changed that.
Julian looked up, taking in the vista that stretched into infinity above his head. The Hagia Sophia’s central dome had given way to the mind-bending internal geometries of the alien cathedral. A Wonderland, Julian thought, recalling a beloved bit of verse from his childhood.
Ever drifting down the stream
Lingering in the golden gleam
Life, what is it but a dream?
The combadge on his chest began speaking, but he paid scant attention to it. Instead, he continued staring up into the infinite, exultant. Himselfonce again. Whole and complete. He wondered if this was how Kira had felt during her now-forbidden communions with Bajor’s enigmatic gods. The volume of the ambient quasi-music rose to an almost cacophonous level, utterly drowning out the sounds of the combadge, but Julian found he didn’t mind it at all.
Some measureless interval later, a coruscating shaft of light enfolded him. And the cathedral splintered around him, breaking into jagged shards like the memory of a dream.
24
Vedek Yevir could scarcely stop himself from blurting out the truth. First Minister Shakaar and Second Minister Asarem stared at him from the Trager’s main viewscreen. Shakaar seemed almost unable to control his anger as his words hissed through clenched teeth.
“Have you taken complete leave of your senses, Yevir? The reconciliation talks with Cardassia are stalemated, and any maverick action on your part can only result in a great loss of standing for you among both the Vedek Assemblyand the Chamber of Ministers.”
When Shakaar paused for breath, Yevir interrupted him. “As I said, First Minister, what I will be presenting today will likely change everything. Forever and for the better. My standing with either chamber of the Bajoran Great Assembly is as nothing compared to that. Please join me on the Promenade in ten minutes.” He punched a button on the Cardassian console, and the viewscreen went blank, cutting off the tirade that was obviously coming.
Yevir smiled to himself. It wasn’t like him to be so abrupt with Shakaar—doing so certainly wasn’t politically advantageous—but the elation that he was feeling far outweighed his concern over any potential consequences. The Prophets are indeed guiding me. They could not have sent a clearer sign.
Immediately after contacting the other vedeks who constituted his inner circle, Yevir rose. He led the way as the group disembarked from the Trager,though Gul Macet and Cleric Ekosha trailed him by only a step or two. Several lower-level Oralian Way functionaries—rectorates—guided four small antigrav sleds through the docking ring passageway.
Vedeks Eran, Scio, Kyli, Bellis, Frelan, and Sinchante all crowded the hall in front of him, their aides and several guards moving behind them. Yevir saw that each of his compatriots’ eyes were bright, their smiles wide. He grinned in response and gestured past them. “I assume we’ll have an audience?” he asked.
“Most definitely, Linjarin,” Frelan said. “Word has spread throughout the station. Everyone is buzzing with anticipation of your announcement.”
Yevir nodded and continued past the others as they parted to allow him a path through the center of the corridor. He cast a quick glance over his shoulder, pleased to note that the others had fallen into procession behind the sled bearers.
As they made their way onto the habitat ring, Yevir saw that Frelan had not exaggerated. The station was already lavishly decorated for the signing ceremony, with Bajoran flags, ornate Old Bajoran tapestries, and UFP banners all suspended from the tall ceiling. But what was most impressive were the large numbers of people crowded onto the Promenade. Representatives of dozens of races, as well as hundreds of Bajorans and humans, milled about. Yevir looked up and saw Shakaar and Asarem on the Promenade’s upper level, glaring down at him from over the railing. Nearby stood Trill Ambassador Seljin Gandres, who was chatting amiably with Bajor’s supreme magistrate, Hegel Ytrin, who looked resplendent in her dark judicial robes.
Yevir mounted a small riser nearby, a prop intended for use during the many Bajoran cultural festivities planned for the evening’s celebrations. He couldn’t see any amplification devices, but the past few years of administering at temple had given him a more than adequately audible public-speaking voice. He reached into the pocket of his robe, touched the cold object within, then withdrew his hand and raised his arms to the assembled throng.