“You don’t have the authority to forbid anyone from doing anything.”
Lenaris cleared his throat loudly, and the two lowered their voices.
But, as she had been with her efforts to repair the freighter, Taryl was undaunted. In secret, she met with Lenaris and a handful of others from the cell who thought they could put together a rescue party.
It had been more than a month since Lac’s disappearance when Taryl approached Lenaris, who was washing out some old metal cans with Ornathia Sten, someone Lenaris liked almost as much as he liked Lac. The salvaged cans would be reused for food, or else beaten flat to repair damaged hull plating.
“You’ve got a call on the long-range comm…it’s from Halpas Palin.”
Palin. Feeling a surge of real hope, Lenaris chucked the can to Sten, who caught it neatly, and followed Taryl back to Lac’s empty shack, where the Ornathias’ best communication equipment was set up. Work on the warp ship had been all but forgotten in the wake of the Derna incident, but Halpas had been a pilot since long before the occupation—he could certainly fly the thing, if he hadn’t any ideas regarding how to fix it—and even if he didn’t, he might be able to help locate Tiven Cohr. Lenaris had sent out word months before, trying to get in touch with his old contacts.
“Halpas Palin! It’s Lenaris Holem!” he shouted into the comm.
“No need to scream, Lenaris, I hear you loud and clear. Whoever posted the long-range comm towers did fine work. I got word from someone in Jalanda that you were looking for me.”
“For you—and Tiven, as well,” Lenaris said. “It seems we might have access to a warp vessel that could use a little…adjusting.”
“So, you’re finally ready to apologize, are you?”
Lenaris scowled to himself. “Did you hear what I said?” he asked. “A warp vessel, Halpas! Maybe we could forget the past for a minute and consider what that might mean for the resistance.”
“It was my understanding, Lenaris, that you were through with the resistance.”
Lenaris tried to swallow his anger, but it was not easy. The older man had always been an absolutist in every sense, never forgetting a single slight—Bajoran to his very core. Lenaris tried to forget the many times that Halpas had treated him like a child, the sneering and insistent reminding of every mistake Lenaris had ever made. And then the final, furious rift that had torn the cell—or what was left of the cell—apart for good. Lenaris had foolishly underestimated the old man’s tendency to hold a grudge.
“Listen, Halpas,” Lenaris said tightly. “Let’s just let bygones be bygones. I’ve got a warp ship. One that I think has a good chance of being salvaged. And if anyone could pilot it out of the atmosphere, it’s you. Now, if you know where Tiven Cohr is, then there’s nothing stopping us from using this ship for a full-scale attack. Are you with me?”
“I know where Tiven is,”Halpas said. “He lives near me, at the edge of the Berain Valley.”
“In the city?” Lenaris asked. He’d been to Berain City a few times.
“I also know,”Halpas went on, as though Lenaris hadn’t spoken, “that he wants nothing to do with you—unless you’re willing to apologize, of course.”
Lenaris was incensed. He didn’t have time to pander to the foolish politics of a couple of stubborn old men. “Forget it,” he said sourly. “I’ll find someone else who can fix it.”
Halpas laughed, a faraway sound on the comm. “Still as prideful as abatos,” he said.
“Look who’s talking,” Lenaris muttered, and he ended the call. The warp ship wasn’t a priority right now anyway; he had a rescue effort to help organize.
6
“Hello, my old friend.” Kalisi greeted Miras warmly as the two met near the turbolift at the Ministry of Science. Miras was pleased to see her. Although they both worked in the same building, they rarely saw each other; they had been hired by different departments, worked in different wings of the facility. Kalisi’s position in defense technology, sanctioned and funded by the military, held a great deal more prestige than the field Miras had chosen. Miras found her agricultural studies fascinating, especially from a historical perspective—for it was generally believed that Cardassia Prime had once been green and abundant, before a dramatic shift in the climate had turned it to desert—but she seemed to be one of the few who cared. Miras believed she had seen ancient Cardassia herself, in the unfinished dream that continued to plague her; while she had no illusions that their homeworld would ever again be so fecund, she held hope that it could again be made fertile.
Not that it matters at the moment,she thought. The dream came almost every night now. She felt as though her life had been put on hold, that she could not pursue any matter, personal or otherwise, until she could decipher its meaning.
“What was it that you wished to see me about, Miras?”
In spite of her eagerness, Miras approached the subject hesitantly. “Do you remember that object that we examined just before we completed our final project? The thing from Bajor—”
“Yes, the dirty old box with the strange writing on the sides.” Kalisi smiled. “It hasn’t been thatlong, Miras. Two, three years? Of course I remember it.”
“I’ve learned a few things about it. I learned—some time ago, actually—that it was probably one of the Orbs of the Prophets. Have you heard of them?”
Kalisi frowned. “Orbs of the Prophets? It doessound familiar—the Bajorans call their deities ‘prophets,’ don’t they? So the item is ceremonial, then.”
“Yes, in a way. The Bajorans believe an individual may have…experiences from exposure to these Orbs.” Miras smiled, making an effort not to seem crazy. “Anyway, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I thought I might like to have another look at it.”
Kalisi nodded slowly. “And you don’t have high enough security clearance to access it.”
“That’s right.” Miras felt a tinge of shame, for she didn’t want her old friend to think that asking this favor was the only reason she’d contacted her. “I thought of you instantly, because I haven’t seen you in such a long time, and wanted to catch up anyway—”
Kalisi laughed. “It’s all right, Miras. I’ll clear you to have a look at the object. I can arrange for it to be sent to one of the laboratories here at the ministry—would that be all right?”
Miras nodded enthusiastically. “Yes, that would be perfect. Thank you so much, Kalisi. In the meantime—would you like to have lunch with me?”
It was Kalisi’s turn to look uncomfortable. “Actually, I can’t. I wish I could, but my responsibilities right now…I usually eat lunch in my laboratory, while waiting for my downloads to complete.”
Miras decided that she didn’t envy her friend’s position. There was no one pressuring her for results. “Another time then, perhaps?”
“Yes. Let’s not make it quite such a long time between calls, shall we?”
Miras quickly agreed, and Kalisi ran her thumbscan on a security padd to allow Miras access to a vacant laboratory in the main building’s lower level. “Room 109-green,” Kalisi told her before they parted company. “Wait there while I arrange the artifact’s retrieval.”
Miras wasted little time, feeling a strange kind of giddy anticipation as she walked to the lab. She didn’t know what she expected to find, looking at the object again, but she’d realized only recently that her strange dreams had begun shortly after her exposure to it. They’d been intermittent at first, but as the months had passed, as she’d settled into her new career, the dream had grown in frequency and clarity, almost becoming a part of her. She’d done more extensive research on the artifact and its possible origins in what spare time she had, and when she’d learned that the objects were said to inspire visions, she had made up her mind that she needed to see it again.