Now a different Truth was upon him, and it stood revealed as his own folly and arrogance.
He shook his head and pushed the padd away. “This is nothing.”
“I very much disagree,” the woman said. “I find it quite compelling. Your imaginative approach to theoretical physics is not merely unexpected, but inspired. You believe the wormhole is not what it seems to be.”
“No,” Hovath said tightly. “I believe it is morethan it seems to be.”
“Explain.”
Hovath brought his fist down on the table. “If you’ve read my work, you already know the explanation.”
“Indulge me.”
Hovath said nothing.
His captor addressed the Nausicaan, who still stood next to the screen showing the image of Iniri. “Space her.”
Rena
The ranger patrol craft met them a few dozen meters down river from the bridge landing. Rena wasn’t surprised to see the fear-mongering officer from the rest-and-sip commanding the boat; she was too tired and irritable to argue with his lecture on the risks involved in recklessly disregarding his organization’s dictums. Her reward for enduring the speech was a promise to deliver her to Mylea Harbor before midday. He would transmit any messages she wanted to send in an effort to reassure any concerned relatives.
Afterward, a female lieutenant brewed hot tea for both Jacob and Rena and escorted them belowdecks to small, interior cabin furnished only with a bunk bed. She had left them both with victims’ aid packs, each of which included a set of lightweight, one-size undergarments (loose shorts and T-shirt), plus some personal-hygiene supplies. The lieutenant had also laid out a pair of green forest-ranger work-duty jumpsuits, faded from age and use, as well as giving them a few extra blankets. Jacob started stripping off his sopping clothes as soon as the lieutenant left. Indignant at his presumptuous behavior, Rena huffed, turned her back, and waited for him to give the all clear that she was safe to start changing her own clothes. Once she had changed, she scrambled up the ladder and leaped into the upper bunk, snuggling beneath the blankets without a word to Jacob. She waited for sleep to come.
From Jacob’s breathing below, she could tell that sleep hadn’t come to him either.
“Rena.”
She debated answering him for a moment, then, knowing it wasn’t fair to punish him for her bad luck, said, “Yes?”
“Your sketchbook…I’m so sorry. I know how I’d feel if I lost my work.”
“I’m sure it’s just the Prophets letting me know they’re aware of my rebellious heart, in spite of my outward obedience.”
“Why would the Prophets take your art away?”
The finer nuances of Bajoran theology were always difficult to explain to nonbelievers, so Rena pondered carefully how to answer Jacob’s question. “The Prophets aren’t taking my art. More like, the Prophets have put Bajor on a path. As a result all Bajorans are on a path. When we follow our path, our lives unfold in a way that brings us confidence and peace. When we resist our path, we find chaos and uncertainty. We demonstrate our faith by how we live. As you can see tonight, my faith isn’t doing so well or I’d probably be asleep safe in a hostel somewhere instead of on a patrol boat, lucky to be alive.”
“Or maybe this is where your path is supposed to take you.”
Rena snorted.
“Seriously, Rena. Last year, I thought I lost my father,” Jacob said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I believed that if anyone could find him, I could. So, believing I was doing the right thing, I went searching for him.”
“You said your father was living farther up in Kendra, so I take it he wasn’t dead.”
“No. He wasn’t. But Ididn’t find him. I ended up on a wild-goose chase, having some crazy adventures, visiting places I never imagined I would, and ended up bringing several someone elses home with me. None of it made sense. Looking back, I know that what seemed like a mistake at the time was just part of a larger pattern that I couldn’t see while I was in it. My hopes came true—my father came home—but not the way I planned. Maybe that’s where you’re at.”
Rena, still puzzling over the image conjured by the term “wild-goose chase,” understood the spirit of Jacob’s words and wished they could be true for her. She allowed his words to hang in the air while she contemplated what she should disclose in return for his confiding in her. “My grandfather died several weeks ago, before Unity Day,” she began, slipping back into memories. “He had a degenerative illness that could have been cured if he’d received treatment in his youth, but the Cardassians didn’t care about helping Bajorans. So he lived out his last years enduring excruciating pain in a body that betrayed him. He was so miserable and yet so brave that when he asked me to leave university to help my aunt take care of him, of course I left immediately. Before he died, he made me promise some things. So far, I’ve only been able to honor one of my promises—going to Kenda Shrine. I need to go home to Mylea to finish the others. Right now, it just feels like my life isn’t going to start until I honor my promises to Topa, so I just want to get on with it.”
“He didn’t ask you to give up your art, did he?”
She could sense the disapproving look on his face. “Oh no,” Rena said, smiling. “But he asked me to commit to building a life that would honor Bajor, to preserve what is unique about us in the face of all this change….” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to offend Jacob by expressing uncertainty about the Federation. Like most Bajorans, she supported joining but she had her concerns as she watched the generation younger than hers being plied with holovids from Risa and recreational technology she couldn’t have even fathomed. Would their fortune in being born in a time of prosperity—without the demons of Cardassia and the Occupation haunting them—change what being Bajoran meant to future generations? She sighed. “I can best honor Bajor by living in Mylea. After my aunt retires, there is no one in my family to run the bakery. The unique way Myleans have worked, recreated, lived for thousands of years feels like it is on the cusp of slipping away unless some of us try to hold on to our traditions.” The lower bunk creaked; Rena assumed that Jacob was making himself more comfortable, but moments later his silhouette appeared at the foot of her bed.
“I hate not being able to see your face when we talk,” he said by way of explanation. “If you really mind me being here, I’ll go back down.”
Sitting up beneath her covers, Rena gestured for Jacob to sit down. He assumed a cross-legged position at the foot of her bed. “I know what you’re saying, Rena, but from the way you’ve talked about your grandfather, I have a hard time believing he would want you to give up your art studies.”
“I won’t give up my art exactly. More like, instead of finishing at university, I’ll help Marja with the bakery and when I have time, I’ll pursue my painting as I always have.”
In the half-light, his inscrutable expression made her nervous. She knew, without him saying, that he disagreed with her choice.
Crossing her arms across her chest, she said, “Look, nothing against you Federation people, but you don’t have tens of thousands of years of history to protect. I owe it to Bajor.”
“You owe it to yourself to paint.” Leaning closer to her, he rested a hand on her knee. “I saw you out there, screaming at the Prophets, more angry than almost any person I have ever seen in my lifetime, and considering that I’ve seen Kira Nerys angry, that’s saying something.”
Rena’s mind caught on something. Kira Nerys?The Kira Nerys?
He raced ahead before she could answer. “You weren’t screaming about preserving Bajor, you were screaming like someone who was having her soul—her pagh—torn out of her,” he whispered. “Tell me again that you need to give up your art.”