Vaughn opened his mind. He threw off the walls, he threw off the secrecy, the denials and rationalizations. As his long day waned, he searched for the truth, for the essence of himself.
He opened his eyes again, and saw himself…
…setting the interdimensional devices around the vortex, ready to die alone, unable to have made peace—to have made a bond—with his daughter…
…on a battered starship, engaged with a mystical object that showed him how much death he had been privy to, and that death had been no companion to him…
…standing in a transporter room and watching the love of his life leave, pretending that she would return, knowing that she would not…
…leaning over the corpse of a person he had killed, in the name of saving others, and realizing in that moment that he had sealed himself off from the rest of humanity…
…listening to the words of the officer who had set him on his path, allowing himself to be extracted from the fellowship of the innocent…
…sitting in a sickroom, holding on to the hand of his mother, who had filled his world and left him too soon…
…being born into an existence that promised true connection—of the mind, of the body, of the heart—but in the best of circumstances, delivered isolation in almost every instant…
…and from all those moments, all those Vaughns peered back—peeredforward— at him right now, as he fell within the thoughtscape, gone from one universe and into another, alone as always, and yet alone as never before. Vaughn’s consciousness stretched across all those moments, existed at the same time in all those moments, and in all those in between. And he witnessed all at once, as he thought no one should, the extent to which he had existed, did exist, and would always exist, separated from every other being in the universe.
The loneliness extended from the instant of his birth, across uncounted—billions, trillions—of instants, to now. Not every instant, but almost all of them. The understanding crippled him.
Vaughn was dying, and now he would wait to die.
Waiting, Vaughn understood that the loneliness was a lesson, and he learned from it. He could not have done otherwise, not as he searched for the truth of a life that stretched away behind him. And not as the life that surrounded him, and occupied him, cried out in the pain of an isolation it had never known until inadvertent invaders had brought it the unintended gift of companionship—and then taken it away. The thoughtscape had considered the Prentara both invaders and saviors, Dax had said, and Vaughn now grasped precisely why. Even a tormentor could provide company.
Waiting, Vaughn considered the prison that the home of the Inamuri had become. Still existing in every moment of his life, he closed his eyes on the thoughtscape, and opened them on the morning he left home—after his mother had already gone, and really, had she not taken home with her when she had? Vaughn had always wanted to explore, and now he saw that he had left home a long time ago, and that he had been looking for it ever since.
Waiting, Vaughn realized that these lessons and the learning were connections. The teacher and the student. The thoughtscape had tied itself to him.
Hear me, Vaughn screamed without words.I am here.
Vaughn searched for the right moments of his life. He peered across the thoughtscape and saw everything he had ever been, everything he had ever done, all laid out before him, each instant distinct from the next. He closed his eyes, and opened them on the bridge ofDefiant, returning again to the moment when he knew Prynn had gone.
Not this, he said as his heart ached.Not this.
He closed his eyes, and opened them on the distressed figure of Ensign ch’Thane, thrown onto the desolate plain of a dead planet.
Not this, he repeated.
Vaughn stopped waiting to die, accepting that he had decided to fight again, to struggle for even the smallest connection, for as many moments out of a lifetime that he could. No longer waiting to die, he saw that those moments, no matter how few, no matter how fleeting, were all worth fighting for. They were worth dying for.
His last conscious thought was of his daughter.
67
Kira strode purposefully down the corridor, the bright illumination and openness aboard Gryphona noticeable contrast to the dark, cramped corridors in Deep Space 9’s habitat ring. She read the room-identification plaques as she passed sets of doors, until at last she found the one Commander Montenegro had provided her. She reached up and touched the door chime set into the bulkhead there, and a moment later the doors parted and slid open.
Kira stepped inside, and although she saw Akaar immediately—across the room, seated in a chair—she could not resist looking around. The cabin was spacious, easily twice the size of most of the crew accommodations aboard the ship, she was sure. Unlike standard guest quarters, it had been decorated with more than a few adornments, and not just in a generic manner. Why wouldn’t he make these quarters his own?Kira thought. Akaar had been living here for several weeks now, and who knew how long would be here after today?
Some of the items she saw—including what appeared to be primitive ceremonial masks and totems—reminded her of similar items that Captain Sisko had kept in his quarters. In addition, though, numerous textiles hung on the walls: sashes, headdresses, capes, many of them in brocaded fabric, and in a mixture of both muted and vibrant colors. She also saw an object that appeared to be a weapon: three curved blades arranged in an essentially triangular shape, with a circular hole in the middle that she guessed functioned as a grip.
“Colonel,” the admiral said. “This is unexpected.” He did not stand.
Kira stepped farther into the room. She had come here after the summit had finally adjourned for the day. Now, in a moment of spontaneity, she raised her right fist to the left side of her chest, then opened her hand and held it out in front of her. “I come with an open heart and an open hand.”
Akaar’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Indeed,” he said, and now he did stand. “Then I certainly must welcome you with an open heart and hand.” He returned her gesture.
Kira smiled, skeptical. “Admiral,” she started. She brought her hands together in front of her and paced to her left. “I have to tell you,” she said, “I’m not really sure what to make of you.”
Akaar’s shoulders moved slightly, his equivalent, she supposed, of a shrug. “I am a Starfleet admiral,” he said. “I am here simply executing my duties.”
Kira stopped and faced him across the room, folding her arms across her chest. “And your duties included interrogating me?”
“Interrogating you?” Akaar said. “Yes, they did.”
“Why?” Kira demanded, throwing her hands up and out, and then letting them fall to her sides. “To understand Bajor through me? That’s not really fair. I’m not an elected representative. I don’t speak for my people. I can’tspeak for my people.”
Akaar nodded. “Is this the open heart you come with?” he asked her.