She said nothing.
"Ah, here it comes." McHogue nodded in recognition. "The stuff of melodrama, the standard line addressed to big thinkers, by those who can't quite ramp up to their scale. You're mad, McHogue. Crazy as a bedbug. I'm well aware that's what you're thinking. But then, that's what you believed before you came here, isn't it? The usual tawdry therapeutic line: you're so wise, so sane, and you thought you could inject that sanity like some sort of mental vaccine into the madness I've created. What were you going to do, Jadzia, put me on the couch and have me talk about my unhappy childhood? What you still don't realize is that your notions of what is sane and what isn't no longer apply here. You yourself found out that all the CI modules were linked together on their own subspace frequency; now you know where the network led. Right here,Jadzia; to me. And as every little fantasy was created and made real—as I made them real—then bit by bit, this world, this universe, became real."
Now she found her voice. "That's what defines insanity—for you, at least. You've convinced yourself that your fantasy has form, a substance, a physical existence."
"Oh? And you in your wisdom think it doesn't? Then prove it, Jadzia." McHogue's smile turned feral, his eyes narrowing to slits. "I know all about the plans you made—I can see it inside your head—and all about your escape route. It's really quite clever of you. All you have to do is take a single step backward, in that world you left behind you, and you'll be beyond the CI module's effect." He shrugged, in an elaborate show of disdain. "Then do so. Leave. You might as well—there's nothing you can accomplish here, anyway."
A knot of fear seized inside her gut, blanking out the rational control she had maintained. Instinctively, she stepped back, as the lord of this world had commanded—
And in that other place, in the research lab aboard Deep Space Nine—
There was no one.
"You see?" McHogue reached out and grabbed her wrist, squeezing it tight. "I told you so. The unreal has become the real."
CHAPTER 17
In her dreaming, she turned from the lifeless, blackened ground drifting below her. Kira turned, and saw a streak of fire cut the night sky in two. From so far away . . . a spark brighter than the stars.
She wondered what it was. It was already gone, the dream wrapping itself tighter around her. She opened her hand as she slept; somewhere, she could almost feel her fingers brushing across the bed. But here, in her dreaming, there were only ashes trickling from the hollow of her palm. . . .
He wiped the blood from his brow.
Leaning forward, Sisko could see a blot of red that fallen upon the controls of the Ganges. He drew in a deep breath, the ache across his shoulder muscles beginning to ease.
At the midpoint between DS9 and Bajor, the shock wave of the spatial disturbances had hit again, the edge pulsing through the runabout's coordinates like an invisible tsunami; he had traced its approach on the craft's instruments and had braced himself as best he could. He still hadn't been prepared for the whipcrack blow, the gravitational inversion that had seemed to cycle from zero mass to a small sun's densest core in less than a second. Where the station's structural members had groaned a basso from the storm's force, the lighter frame of the Ganges had screeched in treble, as though the pulse engines were about to be torn from its heart.
While he had been struggling to regain control, a corner of the pilot seat's restraining harness had broken loose; the plastoid housing of the astrogation monitor above the forward viewport was now dented and cracked, the impression roughly corresponding to his bloodied temple. He'd had to claw a hold onto the instrument panel with his one free hand, knowing that the density trough between the shock waves would tumble him helplessly into the rear sections of the runabout if his grasp were to be torn free. The flow from his torn skin—he'd had no way of determining if the bone beneath had been fractured—had spun in a red mist before his dizzied eyes, then had spattered against the front of his uniform as he had punched in additional thrust. Only when the Ganges had broken through to less turbulent space did Sisko have a moment to press a forearm against his brow, trying to stanch the bleeding with his sleeve.
I shouldn't have bragged to Bashir, about how good I am at this. It had been the sort of remark that was listened to by the universe's deities, if Sisko had believed in such, who then promptly set about one's comeuppance.
There had been enough time, a few minutes between the pulses of the spatial disturbances, for him to fumble open the first-aid kit with one hand, while keeping the other on the runabout's controls. A sterile bandage pressed onto his brow had kept the trickle of blood from getting into his eyes.
The first impact had been the worst. After that, his combat piloting skills had risen from whatever chamber of memory in which they had been buried, and instincts faster than his thought processes had taken over the craft's operations. The instruments arrayed before him only served to confirm what his sharpened senses could feel coming: the prickle of a low-level ionic discharge across his arms signaling the approach of another shock wave, a hollowness in his gut foretelling the depth of the gravitational trough behind the pulse. His hands had darted from thrust advance to navigational vectors with a sureness born of long experience.
At the edge of Bajor's atmosphere, the Ganges was beyond communication range with DS9; the spatial disturbances he had managed to put behind him now effectively overwhelmed the small craft's subspace gear. There was no one with whom to consult, not a voice whose opinion he could ask, when Sisko looked below and saw the dark clouds part, as though in welcome. It didn't matter; he knew, at this point, he wouldn't have taken any words of help. All that he needed, prophecies and blessings, had been given to him a long time before.
I should have expected this as well. . . .
This close, to Bajor and the city of Moagitty, and to McHogue himself . . . the path had been smoothed for him. The storm clouds had parted, rolling back like the curtain before an old-fashioned theatrical performance.
Before he had exited from the station's launchpad, he had loaded into the runabout's onboard computer the building plans that Odo had brought back from the meeting with Gul Dukat. The entire physical layout of Moagitty could be scrolled onto the screen before him. But Sisko saw now that there was no need for the information.
As he let the Ganges descend through the stilled air, he could see below, brilliant in the rain-washed daylight, the broken walls and towers of the city McHogue had built. Its great central chamber was exposed to sight, the crenellated roof torn and scattered by the hurricane winds.
He's expecting me, thought Sisko. All had been made ready for his arrival. There was even space enough to land, within the white ruins.
Looking up, through the viewport's top edge, Sisko saw the clouds coming together again, sealing the rift that had been opened for him. As though he had been locked into this world, beyond even the vision of the sun.
His hand reached out to the control panel, finding and activating the braking thrusters. Even as he guided the runabout's slow descent, he sensed the watching gaze being raised toward him . . .
The gaze of one who smiled.