He pulled her away from the other crew members. "What are you doing here, Major?" His surprise was based on an assumption that she would still be resting in her quarters.
"I know I'm relieved of my duties, but that doesn't matter now. This is important. I think someone else has gone into the altered holosuite—"
"That's not possible. The alarm hasn't sounded."
"Who besides yourself has authorization to take the alarm circuit off-line?"
He had to consider for only a fraction of a second. "No one. No one but the chief of security—"
"That's who it is." Kira's face set grim. "Odo's gone in there."
They found him sprawled facedown on the floor of the holosuite chamber. Before even heading for the corridor with Kira, Sisko had had O'Brien cut off all power to the sector. The emergency shutdown circuits built into the holosuite had triggered the retracting of the door; the beam from the portable light in Sisko's hand had swept across the area, immediately catching the unconscious form at the center.
He handed the light to Kira and knelt down, turning Odo onto his back, then lifting him to a sitting position. "Constable—" Sisko drew a hand across Odo's face; the eyelids fluttered for a moment, then blinked and held open. "Are you all right?"
Odo's gaze looked past the commander for a few seconds, as if still focused on some vision conjured by the holosuite hidden workings. Then he nodded slowly. "I'm . . . I'm quite satisfactory. Thank you. . . ." His voice sounded hollow and distant.
"What happened?" Sisko helped him to his feet. Beside them, Kira watched, her face marked with worry. "What did you see in here, Constable?"
The look that Odo shot the commander was one of undiluted fury; he pushed the commander's arm away. "Nothing—" His voice softened as he regained control of himself. "I saw . . . nothing."
Sisko studied him for a moment longer. He decided against making any further inquiry, at least for the time being. "Perhaps you should go down to the infirmary, and have Dr. Bashir check you out—"
"That won't be necessary, Commander." Odo's voice resumed its normally brusque tone. "I know more about my own physiology than any doctor does. I can tell that I've sustained no injury." He gave a short nod to both Sisko and Kira. "I'm sorry for any anxiety I may have caused you. This was an ill-advised experiment on my part. However, there seem to have been no consequences stemming from it, either good or bad."
"Be that as it may," replied Sisko. "There are not going to be any further opportunities for such research—on anyone's part." He hit his comm badge and was put through to O'Brien. "Chief, I want the CI module pulled from this holosuite. Immediately."
"Gladly, sir."
He broke the connection and looked back to the others in the chamber. "I regret not having ordered that sooner. At this point, I don't think there's any further value to be derived from keeping a trap like this up and running."
"As you wish, Commander. I'll have the security barriers taken down as soon as O'Brien has finished with the unit." Odo stepped toward the holosuite's door. "If you'll excuse me—I have . . . work to do."
When Odo had departed, Sisko turned toward Kira. "Perhaps when you have time, Major, you could give me some details about how you knew Odo was here. But right now, I'm equally concerned about you. Dax informed me that you were close to total exhaustion."
"Believe me, Commander, I feel that way. You don't have to give any orders—I'm heading back to my bed right now."
Once he had seen the major to the door of her quarters, he decided against immediately returning to Ops. It would take only a few minutes for him to go and check on his son Jake.
The interior of his own living quarters was dark. He needed no light to walk through the familiar spaces. Outside Jake's bedroom, he pushed open the door and looked in. Jake's computer panel had been left on; even with the screen blanked, it gave enough dim radiance for Sisko to see by. Jake had fallen asleep, still dressed. His baseball bat and glove were propped up in the corner near the bed. Sisko drew back pulling the door shut.
The temptation to fall down on his own bed and try to catch a little rest was almost overwhelming. He was about to contact Ops and tell them that he would return in an hour or so, when he sensed that someone else was there with him, out in the quarters' main area.
"Who's there?" he called out, but no reply came.
Cautiously, he walked back down the short corridor. His eyes had adjusted to the point where he could make out the shapes of the furnishings . . . and the figure sitting on the sofa.
Silver metal and pinpoint gems flashed like the stars visible through the viewport, as the waiting person turned her face toward him. He recognized the Bajoran ear ornament, even before his thoughts could comprehend the rest.
"Benjamin . . ." Kai Opaka smiled at him. "Did you not think I would be here with you? At such a time as this?"
JADZIA
CHAPTER 14
In that other world, where he walked among memory and dreaming . . . even there, he had never thought of her coming to him in this way. To this place, a tiny section of Deep Space Nine, where its metal skeleton had been partially hidden beneath the touches of human life—he had always thought of the Kai only on her own world, in the temple's sheltered peace.
"Sit beside me, Benjamin." Kai Opaka gestured toward the vacant side of the couch. "We have much to talk about. And there is so little time—at least for you, at this moment."
Then I can't be dreaming, thought Sisko. That explanation for what he saw had already occurred to him: that he had fallen asleep, exhausted from overwork and all the concerns that had swarmed over him in the last few shifts, and was even now lying with his eyes closed on the couch or his own bed. But if what the Kai said was true—and why, in this world, would it not be?—then he knew it was no dream. In dreams, there was always plenty of time, or no time at all, merely eternity.
She smiled, having perceived the course of his thoughts. "You trouble yourself over matters of no consequence, Benjamin. What wisdom is there in dividing one life from another, of saying that one happens while you are sleeping and the other when you are awake, and that one is greater or lesser than its opposite? Better you should hold it to be all one life—your life, Benjamin—and one experience of it."
The fatigue seemed to drain from his shoulders as he sat down beside her. Or what he perceived of her—this close, Sisko was able to discern another element of the truth. "But you're not really here." He couldn't keep a note of disappointment out of his voice. He reached and touched her arm, or where he saw her arm to be; his hand disappeared through the folds of her robe. "You see that, too, don't you?"
"Of course I do," chided the Kai. "Has it been so long since we've talked, that you would think I had become old and foolish? I still have eyes with which to see, and a way of knowing what is seen. Perhaps it is you that appears as a ghost to me."
A more worrying thought struck him. "Kai . . . are you dead? In the way that I would know?" He looked more closely at her image. "Is that how you've come to be here?"
"In the way that you would know . . ." She shook her head. "That moment is not yet arrived, Benjamin. My physical being is quite well, thank you. Though there is part of it—here—" She touched a few inches below the base of her throat. "A part that still grieves at having been cast so far from Bajor. That is a small death that I suffer with each dawning of light upon the place I have chosen for my labors—my answering of the Prophets' call. It hurts a great deal to be separated from the world and the people that I served for so long. But as long as that pain is there, then I know that my body and spirit are not yet set apart from each other. Someday, the empty husk will be brought back to Bajor, for its silent rest . . . but not yet."