For all the turmoil of the last half-century, Solis Tendren believed that Bajor was once again on the cusp of a great change. As the wars to unite Bajor thirty thousand years ago had changed the course of their civilization. As the discovery of the first Tears had opened up his people’s own self-awareness. As their first tentative steps toward new worlds had altered their perception of the universe. As the Cardassians, and the coming of the Emissary, and the Ohalu prophecies had brought changes…so now was another transformation coming. He needn’t gaze into a Tear to know this. He felt it in his pagh,and in the stone against his hand, and in the breeze that came in from the sea.
Bajor is never still,he thought, enjoying the wind in his thinning hair. Life moves, and Bajor with it.
It was that understanding that had driven him to come to the Shikina Monastery today. He hoped to insure that, whatever came next, Bajor’s path would be lit by the one who had always seemed to see the Prophets most clearly.
Solis heard the shuffle of soft sandals behind him. He turned to welcome she whom he had come to meet with. Opaka Sulan emerged from within the monastery and stepped lightly around the little pool in the center of the balcony. Solis had heard a rumor that the water was merely a hologram disguising a long stair that spiraled deep into the hill on which the monastery was built. Supposedly it had been created secretly during the Occupation to hide the last of the Tears from the Cardassians. If so, visitors to the balcony did well to avoid venturing too close to the pool.
“Vedek Solis, I am sorry to have kept you waiting,” Opaka said at once, taking both his hands in hers. “I was delayed in Janir, where the Oralian temple is being constructed.”
As always, Solis found Opaka’s smile infectious, and he reflected it. “The work goes well, then?” he asked.
Opaka nodded, releasing his hands. “It is far enough along that services may be held within, as of this very day. That’s why I was delayed. The Oralian guide, Cleric Ekosha, invited me to join the first gathering of the Cardassian followers of Oralius on Bajor. I could not resist the opportunity. It was a most moving experience. So like, yet unlike, our own devotion to the Prophets.”
“Which is closer to the truth, I wonder?” Solis asked.
Opaka’s smile widened…and was that a hint of mischief in her eyes? “Why, Tendren, they are of course equally true,” she said, “and equally false.”
“Because if one world’s religion is true, all must be?” Solis challenged good-naturedly.
“No, though I believe there is some merit to that argument,” Opaka said, lowering herself to the stone bench situated opposite the doorway. She gestured for Solis to join her. “It is because any religion is about attempting to comprehend the universe beyond what we, as merely parts it, can perceive. But though the faithful may scratch the surface of Truth, I believe we each see only a fragment of a much larger and more complex totality. Different religions may see different fragments, none of them wrong, but none of them entirely right either.”
“But together…” Solis said.
“Together they may begin to form a mosaic,” Opaka said. “Or a Tapestry. Just as our lives form the tapestry that is Bajor. Just as our experiences form the tapestry that is each of us.”
Solis nodded. Nothing of what she said surprised him, of course. But it was good to listen, to hear her express her thoughts with such enthusiasm, such sincerity and serenity. It made him that much more certain about what he was going to say next. “You know why I asked to see you.”
Opaka sighed. “I suspect I do.”
“I know I am not the first to ask,” Solis went on, “but I feel compelled to add my voice to the others. Will you be kai for us again?”
Her smile grew smaller, but did not quite disappear. “No, Tendren, I will not,” Opaka said.
Solis was disappointed, but not entirely surprised. Still, he was not yet ready to give up, either. “The Vedek Assembly never recovered from your loss, Sulan. It fell into discord, politics, corruption…. Bareil Antos might have kept us from that decay, but once he was gone too, Winn Adami seemed to feed upon it. We lost our way, and we need desperately to find it again, now more than ever, with so much change in the wind. Ohalu, the Avatar, the Eav-oq…” He faltered, overwhelmed. “Can nothing persuade you?” he asked.
“It is not a matter of persuasion,” Opaka said gently. “I know of the damage Winn did. My paghached to learn of it. And yes, recent discoveries are hastening the evolution of our understanding of the Prophets, perhaps with alarming speed. My faith, however, is enduring, and I will continue to walk the path on which They have set my feet, as we all do. But I have come to understand that my path does not lead back to the Apex Chair of the Vedek Assembly.”
“Bajor needs you, Sulan,” Solis said softly.
“Bajor has me,” Opaka assured him. “But perhaps merely not in the way that it imagines it should.”
Solis searched for other words that might sway her, but she was no longer looking at him. Her gaze had turned to take in the rest of the balcony, as if noticing it for the first time.
“Did you know,” she said at length, “I first met the Emissary in this very place?”
Solis shook his head, but he was intrigued, “What was it like?”
“Troubling,” Opaka admitted. “He was in so much pain. So much.He was lost, and did not know who he was.”
“And you showed him,” Solis surmised. “You led him to know his purpose.”
Opaka waved his characterization of her aside. “I merely opened a door. He walked through it on his own.” She turned back to Solis, looking at him carefully. “That is what a true kai does, Tendren. He does not lead. He does not wield power. He does not decide for others what the will of the Prophets requires of them. He merely helps them to find their own way, and to not fear the journey.”
“That is why it should be you,” Solis said. When Opaka gave no further reply, he asked, “If you will not become kai again…what, then, should we do?”
“What the Prophets teach us to do, when faced with doubt,” Opaka said, as if the answer were obvious. “Look for solutions from within.”
Solis blinked.
She smiled at him again, and then patted his arm. “Come, join me in my chambers. Let us take tea.” She was on her feet and moving before Solis could reply. He rose from the bench and had to rush to catch up to her as she went inside, moving swiftly down the winding steps and through the cool yellow stone halls of the monastery.
“You’re saying…you’re saying I should seek the Apex Chair?” Solis asked.
“I don’t believe I said anything of the kind,” Opaka protested. “But if you were to ask me if I know of one to assume the mantle of kai, I would have to answer honestly that I can think of no other besides yourself who would care so deeply for the spiritual life of our people. I have heard you gave the matter thought before.”
Solis spread his hands as they descended another curve of stairs. “Only to challenge Vedek Yevir. But once you returned, even he abandoned any thought of becoming kai.”
“Vedek Yevir turned away from becoming kai because he discovered his true path,” Opaka said. “Not because of me. He has a long road ahead of him, and he has at last taken the first true step on it.”
“Nevertheless,” Solis said as they turned a corner and continued down a another long corridor, “my original motives for seeking the Apex Chair—”
“Are irrelevant,” Opaka said firmly. “There is only one motive to becoming kai that matters: the desire to help our people. As a vedek of Ilvia, you have guided and comforted a great flock for years. As an Ohalavar, you have advocated the exploration of faith and welcomed new ideas. And you fought for Kira Nerys before the Vedek Assembly, to have her Attainder lifted.”