She brushed her soft, light hair before donning the modest headpiece of her order. These days, only Jaro Essa had the privilege of seeing her without it, and she took some measure of pride in that knowledge. She had always worn her robes casually when she was younger, often forgoing the traditional headgear, but after being stripped of her vestments at the prison camp, Winn felt that she would not take them for granted again, that her physical presence was to be carefully guarded from anyone except for the very few to whom she submitted her trust. Right now, Essa was the only person who fell into the category.
She belonged to Essa now, as much as she could belong to another person. He was an influential man; though he held no power under Cardassian authority, he was powerful nonetheless. It made Winn proud to think of her Essa: he was honest, he was true to Bajor. He had gained his reputation by his own merits, not by licking the boots of the despicable aliens who had come to try to steal this world. But the Prophets would eventually see the Cardassians away—Winn believed that as surely as she believed in her own potential. And when that happened, Jaro’s star would rise along with hers.
A soft rap came at the door, and Winn presented herself to the monks who were to take her to see the Orb.
“Vedek, I come to inform you that we cannot take you to the Tear of the Prophets this morning, for there is to be—”
“Cannot take me?” Winn repeated, with fierce politeness. “But…I have waited all this time already.” It galled her that this underling apparently had the authority to deliver such a message to a member of the Vedek Assembly.
The monk went right on speaking as if he had not been interrupted. Her irritation with his insolence made Winn miss the first part of his message. “…or what there are of them here at the shrine. We have received an encrypted message from Prylar Bek at Terok Nor—”
“Prylar Bek? What could this possibly have to do with the Tear of the Prophets?”
“An emergency council of the Vedek Assembly,” the monk stated, repeating the first part of his message. “You, of course, are required to attend. It must be done immediately. There is not time for anyone to travel, and we cannot rely on communiqués, even encrypted ones. Prylar Bek insisted it was imperative that the Cardassians not hear the content of his message, for it concerns the kai herself.”
Winn swallowed her bitterness and followed the aging monk as he lurched his way down the glossy, echoing corridor of the monastery. He took her to a chamber where she was met by another member of the Vedek Assembly, an old, unlikable woman named Sharet Ras. Winn nodded to her with the appropriate measure of deference, thinking that perhaps someday she would be in a position to make the other vedeks feel like children, as Vedek Sharet often seemed to like to do.
Soon they were joined by seven other vedeks of the assembly, with Sharet presiding as the senior member. There were several core members away, but as the Shikina Monastery was currently home to the main body of the Assembly, it would be up to the attending vedeks to conduct the meeting, to hear the message, and to make whatever decisions might need to be made. In spite of her disappointment, Winn had to consider that perhaps it was the Prophets’ doing that she should happen to be here at this time.
“Prylar Bek has sent us a coded message in the hand of a mock prisoner smuggled off Terok Nor,” Vedek Sharet informed the others, not wasting any time. “He has learned from someone on the station that a new detection grid could put the life of the kai—and, indeed, the lives of every Bajoran—in grave danger. The grid is purported to be almost ready—it will be operational within the week. He has insisted that the shrine where she has hidden must be completely evacuated, for the Cardassians will be sure to find it just as soon as the new system goes online.”
“Who is his source?” Vedek Preta demanded. “How can we even be sure that the coded message is genuine? This could be a trap to bring the kai out into the open.”
Winn had been thinking much the same thing, but something in her constitution wouldn’t permit her to speak—not only because she was the youngest member of the assembly, nor because her first concern had been for the kai. Her anxiety was for the resistance fighters who would likely be targeted by the technology in question. There had been a time when Winn had disagreed with the rebellion, but times had changed. The Vedek Assembly’s positions had changed. Of course, the kai was a symbolic beacon of hope for Bajor, but she did not hold the same importance to its future as did the resistance. Winn was suddenly eager to contact Jaro Essa.
Vedek Sharet smiled patiently. “We must come to a quick conclusion, my brothers and sisters,” she said. “We must decide which poses a greater risk: evacuating the kai—preferably here, to the Shikina Monastery—or doing nothing.”
“Bek is a trustworthy man,” Vedek Marin said. “We must do this.”
The other votes were cast, with four of those in attendance voting to reject the warning as a trap, and four opting to immediately inform the kai of the possible danger and to arrange to have her secretly transported to the Shikina Monastery. It fell to Winn to cast the deciding vote, which pleased her not a little. After a brief moment of reflection, she decided to warn the kai, for she ultimately felt that Kai Opaka was good for Bajor. She wondered if the kai would ever learn of Winn’s role in the vote. How will I reply when she thanks me?
The decision made, some monks were recruited immediately to take the message to Kendra, so that Ranjen Stassen could be contacted at the shrine of the kai. Winn was relieved that the ordeal was over, and eager to resume her scheduled appointment with the Orb. But Vedek Sharet had other ideas.
“Vedek Winn,” she said, with a gentleness that Winn surmised to be false, “I think it is best if we do not take anyone down to see the Orb just now. There has been so much excitement for a single day…and you must have heard that an Orb experience is not something to be taken lightly. I sense, Vedek Winn, that you are not ready for such an experience today. We will speak further on the matter tomorrow.”
“But…Vedek, after all the time I’ve waited, I am more ready today than I will ever be,” Winn protested, but she could see a kind of finality in the eyes of the old woman. She would not be getting her chance to see the Orb today—maybe not even this week—especially if the warning concerning the kai turned out to be genuine. The “excitement” would not be ebbing any time soon. As she returned to her rooms, Winn thought to herself that the warning had better turn out to have substance; if she’d been prohibited from seeing the Orb without cause, it would certainly make her regret her vote.
Russol met Natima at her house with a skimmer, a means of transportation that she supposed he felt was more discreet than public transport. But Natima knew only too well that if Russol had been marked as a possible dissident, it wouldn’t matter how he chose to travel; the authorities would know where he was going before he even got there.
Natima was taken to the residence of a retired archon, where she was greeted in the lobby of his impressively large house by one of his many servants. The furniture was rich and heavy, the art expensively austere. She was surprised that one so wealthy would have associated with government nonconformists; she had always supposed that rebellion stemmed from desperation, from the young, the poor, or men like Russol who’d been forced to take part in conflicts that they did not agree with.
There were many people here, seemingly from all walks of life and within every age category beyond young adulthood, though most of the people she saw were nearer to her own age. There were only a few women, and most of them seemed to be someone’s wife. It may have just been the backdrop, but everyone Natima saw seemed to come from wealth or prestige. She supposed she should have felt out of place, but she mostly only felt curious. She was uncomfortable speaking too freely to anyone she met, though the conversations she overheard quickly confirmed that these people were indeed radicals; she no longer believed Russol was trying to trick her. Staging something on a scale like this, with so many other people involved, seemed highly unlikely.