“I failed in that last endeavor,” Solis pointed out. “It was you who helped Yevir to see the injustice he committed in Attainting Kira.”
“But you spoke from your pagh,”Opaka said. “I know, because I read the transcript of your speech. What does your paghtell you now?”
Solis smiled. “That there is much good I can yet do for our people.”
“Then do not hesitate to follow that path wherever it leads,” Opaka told him, just as they reached the door to her chambers. “Just as I will.”
Opaka opened the door and entered first, took three steps inside, and slowly came to a stop, turning to look all around her in amazement. An instant later, Solis saw why.
The modest central room of Opaka’s chambers was filled with what must have been thousands of esaniflowers. They were everywhere. It was like walking into a meadow in full bloom. And though he could tell from Opaka’s expression that she was as surprised as he was to see them, her radiant smile seemed to suggest that she knew from whom they’d come.
Rena
Rena swirled the ale in the bottom of her glass. Restlessly, she kept checking her chrono, wondering when Parsh would show up so they could finalize their plans for Yyn. Inexorable fatigue had plagued her from the start of the evening. She had been up since sunrise to work in the bakery. She would have left all the planning to Kail and Halar—if she had fully trusted Kail. And why shouldn’t she trust him?
Maybe,said a little voice in her head, because he’s been behaving oddly for days now. Today he didn’t show up for his breakfast pastry, and tonight he had obviously been drinking for a long time before you arrived at the tavern.Offering to take over the trip plans for him, she had earlier encouraged him to go home for the night. She had hoped the walk back would give them a rare opportunity to talk without their friends or family around. He had refused and ordered another shodi.
Rena sighed. Sitting and drinking all evening, even in this old haunt of her younger days that was built on Mylea’s docks, wasn’t what she’d had in mind for tonight, but then again anything would be better than skulking around the bakery hoping to avoid Jacob.
So far she’d succeeded: she hadn’t seen so much as a hair on his chin since that horrible, awkward encounter at Fofen’s. He obviously wanted to avoid her as much as she wanted to avoid him. Every time the door chimed, Rena would suddenly find something to clean in the back room. Marja hadn’t commented on her flurry of productiveness, though Rena had noticed tenderness bordering on pity in Marja’s expressions as the days wore on.
She looked around the table to see how the others were doing, wishing that they’d give up waiting for Parsh and just plan the trip. But Kail, an ugly drunk, had lapsed into bellicose behavior, leaning across the table toward Halar, emphatically making a point about whatever it was that he was on about at the moment. They all tolerated Kail’s behavior because they knew the alcohol-infused persona would eventually vanish and the good-natured friend would return. Rena wasn’t feeling as patient with him tonight. She knew she was tired, knew that her judgment was suspect, but she suddenly realized that she had been looking at Kail all night and trying to figure out, Have I changed so much or has he?Being away at university for a year shouldn’t have made so much of a difference. Kail’s working full time in the foundry shouldn’t have made so much of a difference. Perhaps it was Topa’s death. Something in her had changed, and Rena knew herself well enough to know that she had been working very hard all evening to avoid seeing it.
Jacob,a little voice inside her whispered. Jacob is part of it.
She told the voice to shut up and go away.
Again, she shifted her focus outward, studying her friends with new objectivity. Halar, the one whom Rena had always thought of as her best friend—what had changed there? She was still as sweet, still as sincere and forthright, as she had ever been. She worked in her mother’s shop now and spent a lot of time with her family at shrine services while she began preparations to become a prylar initiate. Outwardly, Halar had generally found a rhythm to her life that Rena recognized that she had not yet attained. And how do I feel about this?Rena asked herself. Am I happy for her? Do I envy her?She had to confess that she while she didn’t begrudge her friend’s contentment, she was jealous that Halar had found her peace in Mylea while Rena still struggled to find hers.
Dropping her head to the table, she touched her forehead to the cool, slightly sticky surface and felt her hair tumble down around her ears. What am I doing here?she wondered, and knew that the word “here” could apply to Yvrig Tavern, Mylea, Bajor, or the universe itself.
What you’re doing here is keeping your promises to Topa,the little voice said. Or what you think those promises are.
Rena wished the local band doing bad covers of the latest techno hits from Betazed would play loud enough to drown out her conscience.
She should order another drink—something nonalcoholic and hydrating. But that would mean attracting the waiter’s attention, and she was loath to bring him into range considering the current bent of Kail’s commentary. Despite her musings, one part of Rena’s mind had been keeping track of the trail of Kail’s ramblings. He had grown bored with disparaging his friends and enemies (he had fewer of both than he thought), his parents (two lovely people, really), and his shop supervisor, and had moved on to verbally abusing strangers, primarily non-Bajorans. First on the list had been some of the other customers in the bar, but he had quickly grown bored with the students and youthful vagabonds who populated the tavern, so he had moved on to abusing their waiter, a human, who had stopped over in Mylea on his way to Rakantha Province and never left. Rena had served him at the bakery and found him to be fond of all things sugary and always willing to offer a toothy grin in thanks. He didn’t deserve Kail’s ignorant abuse. He’d never been this way before, had he? True, she was seeing him with the perspective of time and distance between them, but Rena also knew that she wouldn’t be attracted to someone who berated others the way Kail was doing now—or in the past.
Looking back, she recalled thinking that no one had seemed to understand how exciting the times were. Bajor had been on the verge of joining the Federation; they would be the first generation who could enjoy all the benefits and responsibilities of becoming true galactic citizens. And what had her peers obsessed about? They wanted to know how long it would be before their parents would get the newest replicator technology. When would the most cutting-edge holonovels become available? The ones who had really driven her crazy were the parasites who tried to figure out the minimum work they would have to do to be given full citizenship rights. Didn’t they understand what they were being offered? Not that Bajor was a provincial world, disconnected from the rest of the galaxy, but becoming full Federation citizens meant so much more than finding out what the kids on Earth were wearing. It meant providing hope to those, like Topa, who had been born with degenerative, genetic ailments that could be cured with Federation medicine and the educational offerings on worlds Rena had only dreamed of visiting. It also meant showing the Federation’s other worlds the best of Bajor: its art, literature, music, architecture, philosophy, history, and people—all the unique things Bajor had to share that could have a reciprocal influence on the community of which they were now a part.