Kira opened her eyes. Her focus drifting, she stared once more at the flame of the candle. She let the minutes pass as she strived to abandon her thoughts, seeking the calmness of her faith. The Prophets would watch over Bajor, she knew. She closed her eyes…
…and saw the face of Gul Macet. Despite the DNA records provided by Cardassia, Macet still made Kira uneasy. Dukat had played that game too many times, claiming to be something he was not. That face—Dukat’s—had haunted her dreams for so many years, and to see those same features now on Macet—
Kira’s eyes opened again. So much for meditation,she thought. She slapped her hands on her thighs, frustrated, then leaned forward on her knees and blew out the candle.
I have to let all of this go,she told herself. All of these things that I can’t change.She could only command Deep Space 9, she could only be true to her faith, and she could only deal with Macet as circumstances warranted.
Kira sighed, then stood up. All she wanted right this moment was to follow the path on which the Prophets had set her. She had weathered the last few months—the months since she had been Attainted—relatively well, she thought, but every now and then she lost her way a bit. Although she maintained her faith, and practiced her solitary rituals and prayers, she felt sometimes as though she had been not separated, but distanced, from the Prophets.
And now—right now—she could not even seem to meditate.
She wandered over to the window and gazed out at the location in space she knew the Celestial Temple to be. She wished it would reveal itself. As many times as Kira had seen the sight, it never failed to thrill her in a profound way.
Now, though, only the distant stars and the emptiness of space between them stared back at her. And suddenly an idea occurred to Kira, an idea born of her faith, and of her need to feel close to the Prophets.
“Kira to ops,” she said, raising her voice a touch.
“Ops, Selzner here, Colonel,”came the reply.
“Ensign, at what time is the Rio Grandescheduled to finish maintenance on the subspace relay tonight?” Kira wanted to know. She walked over to the companel and checked the current time on the chronometer.
“Let me check,”Selzner said. A moment later, Selzner read off the schedule. The runabout would be returning through the wormhole in less than thirty minutes.
Kira smiled.
As she headed back into her bedroom to don her uniform—her duty uniform—she told the ensign what she intended to do, although not why.
Kira notified ops, checked her equipment a second time, then bent and pulled open the access plate. One end of the plate swung upward, revealing the control panel beneath. Kira keyed in the activation sequence, then grabbed the handle there and twisted it ninety degrees left. Her weight quickly vanished as the local gravitational mat detuned, causing a momentary flutter in her stomach. At once, the pad she stood on began to rise. She flipped the access plate closed, stood back up, and waited.
Slowly but steadily, the launch bay slipped away. Kira peered over at the bow of Euphrates,watching it until disappeared from sight. The pad stopped, and she felt a jolt as it locked into place, level with the station’s outer hull. She looked forward and saw the arc of the habitat ring sweeping away before her. The Promenade and ops rose to her left, and above, Gryphonsat moored to the station at the top of a docking pylon.
Kira turned to her right and gazed out past the docking ring. Her magnetic boots made heavy, metallic thuds against the runabout pad as she moved, the sounds traveling through her environmental suit. Unlike a few weeks ago, the space around DS9 contained no free-floating vessels; the two small ships that had delivered the Alonis and Trill delegations sat along the docking ring, as did Ambassador zh’Thane’s ship, and the shuttle that had brought Shakaar and his staff had already departed for the return trip to Bajor.
From her vantage outside the station, Kira noticed that the stars appeared brighter and sharper than when viewed from within DS9. She studied the stars, picking out constellations and orienting herself so that she faced the location of the wormhole directly. After that, she did not have to wait long. Within minutes, the Celestial Temple spiraled into existence, vibrant blue light topping a brilliant white background, with traces of purple moving inside. A sensation of warmth flooded over Kira, and a connection seemed to form, reaching from her small, insignificant body out to the majestic whirlpool of light swirling before her—and reaching back in the opposite direction as well. Kira felt unconditional love and acceptance, for the Prophets and from Them. Her vision blurred, tears pooling in her eyes, as the threshold of heaven began its normal collapse. In a second, the magnificent, churning light had compressed to a point; a flash, and then it had gone completely.
That quickly, Kira had gotten what she had come for. Still, she stood like that, motionless and looking out into space, for a long time. Finally, she went back inside the station.
57
Dax drifted—floated, swam, pushed—knowing that Ezri remained in danger. But they had chosen—as one—this course of action, and Dax would do everything possible to see that they survived this experience—as one. They had a mission, though, and that truth came first right now.
Dax pushed through—
Not the pools this time. Not the Caves of Mak’ala.
Dax pushed through a sea of clouds. A vast sea, reaching not just from pole to pole, but from world to world, and from star to star. Except that there were no worlds, and there were no stars. And yet the sea filled the universe—
And beyond.
The sense of that came to Dax somehow, and Daxknew. Knew that communication had come, from somewhere, from something. Dax sent out tendrils of thought, seeking to find the link, to enhance it. But only silence returned.
No, not onlysilence.
Something like a vibration hummed through the universe, electrified the setting. It pealed like a sound almost beyond hearing, glowed like a color almost beyond seeing. Something was there. Something wasevery where.
Dax attempted to communicate, calling to whatever lived out there. Called and waited, but received no response. Tried again and again, in all the ways Dax knew. Still nothing came back.
Time passed without meaning. Seconds might have been seconds, but they might also have been lifetimes, or any interval in between. Or perhaps time did not pass at all.
Dax struggled to exchange thoughts with the inhabitants of…what?Of another universe, Dax understood. But the tenuous connection seemed as though it might not have been an actual connection, seemed as though it might have been nothing more than a figment. Dax rested, and waited, listening to the near-silence, but haunted by the voices that faintly disrupted the quiet.
Voices?
Yes, Dax realized.Voices. Dax listened. Strained to listen, and found not only voices, but the beings behind them. The sounds became ideas, and Dax tried to discern perceptions and thoughts. At last, they came, and when they did, they surprised.