Thus far, all his interactions with the Yrythny, save the manipulative tête-à-tête with the Assembly Chief, had been nonconfrontational and cordial. Vaughn had collided with enough admirals and politicians in his day to recognize that getting a job done sometimes required playing hardball. Since the unpleasantness back in Luthia, the Yrythny had facilitated his every request and resolved every concern he raised. That alone troubled him. Though it wasn’t unreasonable to assume that the Yrythny’s unhesitating cooperation had been bought with Vaughn’s concession to allow Ezri to mediate, Vaughn had become too old and suspicious to take anything for granted. He found himself wondering what the next round of demands would be. If any more unauthorized visitors come aboard, I need to know how, and why, and who’s being so bold—without needlessly worrying the crew. I willnot be surprised again.
With great reluctance, Ezri tore her eyes away from the ceilings, and offered a courtly nod to two door attendants awaiting permission to admit her to the Grand Assembly Chamber. She had assumed upon seeing the hexagonal domes, the vaulted ceilings trimmed in gold, the filigree archways and the kilometer of inlaid marble floor, that she had reached the Chamber, but her escort, with some amusement, had informed her this was merely the lobby. She had gasped audibly when she saw the exterior chamber walls were encrusted with mosaics made of salmon, red, black and melon-colored corals, gemstones and burnished metals. Her escort, upon seeing her interest, explained that the pictures told the tableaux of Yrythny mythology and religion. How the Other had come from a faraway world to stir the primordial oceans of Vanìmel with its magic, thus allowing the Yrythny to leave the dark depths where they had always dwelt and be quickened into warm blooded sentience. Within the artistic flourishes, exaggerated proportions and motifs, Ezri recognized the various stages of Yrythny evolution from amphibious animals to upright sentients, to a space faring people who had constructed Luthia and developed warp drive. The picture-book story spread out above her was a helluva lot prettier than the pages of text she’d been force-fed. Certainly studying the mosaics could qualify as job related; she resolved to request the time to do so.
Shar cleared his throat and she realized the door attendants had placed their ceremonial scepters in a wall rack in preparation to admit her to the Chamber. Breathing out, she smoothed her uniform and waited for her cue. She could do this. Of course she could do this. Hadn’t she made dozens of presentations before her classes at the Academy? This would be a piece of cake. She could tell that joke about the human, the Klingon, and the Romulan who walked into the Vulcan embassy, and then…
Upon seeing close to a thousand stern-faced Yrythny, dark eyes fixed on her, Ezri’s mind blanked. She gulped. All the representatives stood in unison—a thunderous sound in the vast chamber—acknowledging her entrance. Those sitting closest to the center dais, the Upper Assembly representing the Houseborn, wore heavy robes of sapphire; those sitting on the balcony levels rimming the oval-shaped room, the Lower Assembly representing the Wanderers, wore green robes. She climbed a small number of stairs onto a rostrum of the presiding chairs. A backless bench was placed in front of a long flat table where Assembly Chair Rashoh, Vice Chair Jeshoh, Lower Assembly Chair Ru’lal and Lower Assembly Vice Chair Keren sat, soberly waiting for her.
As soon as she sat down, the entire Assembly resumed their seats. Ezri shifted on the bench, trying to remember whether sitting with her legs crossed or tucked neatly together with ankles linked was more dignified.
The Assembly Chair touched a control, illuminating one of the closest representatives. Ezri guessed this was how the chair recognized a speaker. Her guess was confirmed when the delegate stood and addressed the Assembly.
“We have discussed, Assembly Chair, the matter of this outsider, Lieutenant Ezri Dax, functioning as a Third, and both assemblies have agreed by a narrow margin, to accept her input. I propose a resolution, which I am now sending to my fellow representatives.” He thumbed a switch, ostensibly sending the text of his resolution to the other desks in the Chamber, “…that this Ezri Dax take up residence, planetside, in the House of my birth, Soid, where she can best learn the manner of our people and then render a judgment. I move for a vote.”
He hadn’t been sitting more than a minute when hundreds of lights began flashing on every level of the room. The Assembly Chair recognized a delegate seated near the Yrythny who had just spoken, but without permission another delegate on the opposite side of the room stood up and began speaking until yet another delegate stood and began speaking over the words of the other. Ezri jerked back and forth, trying to keep track of what was being said, the speakers, the lights, the points of order and resolutions, but found it impossible. The Assembly Chair’s fingers flew across his desk panel, his jaw clenched, but none of those clamoring for recognition heeded his points of order. Jeshoh, Keren and the others looked on helplessly.
From what little she did follow, Ezri learned that members of each House protested any House but their own being designated as the one she would visit first. In turn, the Lower Assembly representatives felt that focusing on the Houseborn issues would prejudice her before she had a chance to hear the Wanderer side. As lights from the top of the Chamber went off and on, voices grew more heated, argumentative rhetoric stopped being funneled through the Master Chair and instead went directly toward the “enemy” party. Several delegates, robes catching on balustrades or on chairs, climbed over barriers separating delegations and further punctuated their arguments with their fists. Jeshoh shouted for order, as did Keren, but their calls were ignored.
And Ezri discovered that many hate-infused faces directed their venom at her. Seeing contempt and mistrust wherever she looked, she hoped the leadership had a plan to protect her, just in case she was mobbed. Thinking she could even attempt something of this magnitude was such a mistake. Have you lost your mind Ezri? This is crazy!
And then she remembered. A crumb, a fragment of a memory and she rooted around for the rest of it.
…Lela felt their hostility, their scorn, as she made the long trek from the door to her seat. As if being a woman, being young and being her symbiont’s first host weren’t enough to prejudice them against her, she knew she had a controversial proposal to make. Most of her colleagues would vehemently disagree with her idea, and it stood little chance of passing, but she knew that she had to make the proposal anyway because she couldn’t live with herself if she didn’t. Further, she knew that she would deserve their sneers and mocking whispers if she couldn’t stand on the courage of her convictions. She knew that courage wasn’t the absence of fear, but rather, acting in the face of fear. Rising from her desk, she lifted a hand, requesting the president pro tempore’s attention and when he refused to see her, with a shaky voice she said…
“…I am here because I believe in the cause of peace,” Ezri began. “Because I believe that my unique perspective gives me the ability to see through the thick forest of rhetoric and rivalry and find the clarity that lies beyond the dark and shadowed path.” And as Lela’s words flooded back to her, Ezri’s confidence increased, her voice ringing out more clear and strong, striking a chord with the quarrelling Yrythny until gradually, they settled down, resumed their seats and prepared to listen.
Of course I can do this,she thought triumphantly. I’m Dax.
6
“What is this, the eleventh time you’ve searched Jake’s quarters?” Ro observed, the door hissing closed behind her.
Sitting on the couch in front of a storage box, Kira looked up from the antique book she perused. “These items were transported from B’hala. I think I’ve only looked through them three or four times.” She took a sip from a mug sitting on the coffee table. “A fifth time can’t hurt.”