“I’m leaving now, Kail. Don’t bother following me. Don’t come to the bakery tomorrow with your apologies.”
Kail snarled, and stepped into her path, and his arm began to swing.
Hovath
“Wait!”Hovath screamed.
The Nausicaan’s hand was poised over a switch. The underling looked at his master, who said, “Stop. Is there something you wish to say, Hovath?”
Shaking, Hovath stared down at the table, clutching at his hair with both hands. “Please don’t kill her. Please!I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you anything.Just don’t kill my wife.”
“Then we have an understanding?” his captor asked.
Hovath nodded.
“Begin, then. Tell me your thoughts about the wormhole.”
Hovath pulled his trembling hands away from his head and placed them atop the table. “The Temple does not behave like an ordinary wormhole,” he began slowly, trying to keep his hands from shaking. “Its stability alone is proof of that, but it also has an interior.It is a continuum unto itself, outside normal space-time.”
“Bajoran and Starfleet scientists have known these things for years,” his captor said impatiently.
“They study the wormhole as it appears to them,” Hovath said. “Their minds do not venture beyond what their instruments can measure. I began with a simple question: Why does the wormhole open to the Gamma Quadrant? Answering that requires an understanding of the thoughts behind the Temple’s makers, the Prophets, who exist within it, outside the linear continuum.”
“You attempted to reconcile the theology surrounding the Temple with scientific inquiry into the wormhole.”
Hovath shrugged. “I learned early in my life that I have an aptitude for both, and I have tried to keep a balanced perspective.” He recalled his private arguments with the old sirahon that very aspect of Hovath’s personality. Sitting here now, he wished he had listened more, seen the wisdom of focus and selfless obligation that his mentor had tried to impart.
“Bajoran theology is usually consistent with the physical universe,” he went on. “The question for me became whether that meant it could offer any new clues about why the Temple behaves as it does, and whether the science of the wormhole could lead to new insights into our faith.” Hovath looked up for a moment, once again trying to discern something more about the silhouette facing him. The heat and glare of the light forced his gaze back down to the table. “Bajorans do not question why the Temple opens above our skies. We merely accept it, and see it as validation of our connection to the Prophets. After all, it is upon us that their Tears have fallen, and it is for us that the Emissary was sent.”
He paused, remembering the controversy during that first year. “But to learn that the Temple opened in two directions puzzled us,” he said. “At that time, there was no discernible reason, from a theological perspective, for why it also opened in the Gamma Quadrant. It left us to wonder if Bajor was as unique as we had believed.
“I considered what was known and observable about the wormhole. We know it is stable, but it is not fixed in space; though its distance to B’hava’el is constant, the wormhole’s Alpha terminus moves through the galaxy withBajor’s star. The Gamma terminus, we have since learned, is somehow anchored to the star Idran in much the same way.
“I asked new questions. What if the Alpha and Gamma termini of the wormhole were not the only points in this continuum on which the wormhole opened? What if they were merely the firsttwo? What if the Prophets’ interest in our universe was not confined to Bajor, but extended to other worlds as well? The return of the Eav-oq to this continuum at the wormhole’s Gamma terminus is at least consistent with that assumption. But what if it does not end there? What if the Temple has not two endpoints, but many?”
“Howmany?”
Hovath shook his head. “Who can say? Perhaps an infinite number.”
“Meaning that the wormhole could, under that assumption, open anywhere in the universe.”
Hovath stared down at the table. “Yes.”
“How can that be? The termini we know about are triggered at an event horizon. If the wormhole had an infinite number of endpoints—”
Hovath shook his head. “The Alpha and Gamma openings are unlocked. My speculation is that while the Temple may have an infinite number of doors, most of those are locked from the inside.”
“Which suggests you would need a key to open them.”
“No such key exists,” Hovath said, unable to keep the anger out of his voice. “Don’t you understand? My ideas were little more than flights of fancy. They have no credibility within the scientific community, nor within the theological one. They are unsupportable. Without a way to test my hypotheses, they are merely philosophy, not theory.”
His captor’s hand came into the light and set a small golden object down on the table, well out of his reach. Hovath saw a pinpoint glint of green, and knew what it was: the Paghvaram.
“What if I were to suggest,” she said softly, “that you may have had the key all along?”
Hovath felt as if his chest would explode. He buried his head in his arms and sobbed. “Please…let my wife go.”
“You disappoint me, Hovath. Your mind is so thirsty, yet you won’t drink, even when the well of knowledge is so close.”
“It was presumption,” he moaned. “Vanity. Arrogance. I thought the wormhole was an invitation to further knowledge, but I see now that it was instead a test of faith. And I failed it. My quest to comprehend the Temple doomed my people, and damned me.”
“Hovath, how can you believe such a thing?” the woman asked, her voice tinged with kindness, with sympathy. “The Prophets haven’t punished you. They’ve rewarded your vision, your willingness to look beyond your little village and peer into the true structure of the universe. You’ve been unshackled, don’t you see? The death of the village is not a condemnation of your choice, but an affirmation, a sign from Them that you are on the verge of something new and wonderful.”
“You are twisting my faith to suit your ends,” Hovath said. “To justify mass murder.”
“Am I?” His captor slid the padd back to him. “Did you not go down this path in pursuit of a truth that you hoped would transcend the one you knew? Did you never even once stop to consider that what you learned would be incompatible with what you believed before? That your discoveries would transform your life? What clearer sign could the Prophets send that you have fulfilled your quest?”
“The death of nearly everyone I love is not a sign from the Prophets. You know nothing of my faith.”
“Are you certain of that?”
“Yes!”
Then something altogether unexpected happened. His captor stood up and stepped around the table, moving into the light. Hovath saw her face for the first time, and his world unraveled completely.
“I ask again,” she said, “are you certain?”
How?his mind screamed. How is this possible?
Aloud he whispered, “Why would you do this?”
She came closer, finally sitting on the edge of the table next to where he sat. “Because, like you, I thirst for understanding. I burn to see what only the Prophets can reveal.”
Try as he might, Hovath could not turn his eyes away from her. She stared down at him, as if waiting for an answer….
The room shook. A low boom reverberated through the deck. There was a chime from the console beneath the screen that showed Iniri. The Nausicaan detached an audio receiver from the panel and pressed it to his ear. “Attacked,” the underling reported. “Defiant.”