And at the same time, she knew, Odo and Sisko—and she herself as well—had to present a united front to everyone outside DS9, from the Federation authorities who could withdraw their support for the station's mission at any time, to the Cardassians who were continually sniffing around for any crack through which they could worm their way back in and reestablish their control, now that the station's true value had been revealed. A united front against all of that and more, no matter what conflicting forces might be building up inside.
Kira rubbed harder at the corner of her brow, to ease the ache that had started throbbing behind the thin wall of bone. She had promised herself not to think about all this stuff, at least not now, and again she hadn't been able to stop herself.
There had been a time when things had been easier to figure out, when there had been no question who the enemy was. When she had been fighting with the Bajoran resistance, the rule of thumb had been that if it was Cardassian, it was wortha full-strength phaser shot to the head. Her moral landscape was rendered in shades of gray now, the effect of having become, in essence, a political animal. She had already encountered fellow Bajorans who would have been happy to see her dead; how much longer until she felt the same way over every little squabble about their mutual birthright, the fate of their home planet?
How much longer—what a joke, Kira ruefully chided herself. Bajoran politics had already reached that stage. That was what she was here to talk to Commander Sisko about.
"With the compliments of the house . . ."
Another voice broke into her self-lacerating thoughts. She turned and saw a familiar grinning face as the booth's curtain was moved aside.
Quark set a tray with two synthales upon the table and tilted his head in a parody of a formal bow. "In appreciation for the fine demonstration you just gave out on the Promenade. Well done, Commander."
One of Sisko's eyebrows arched. "It was not done for the amusement of you and your patrons." He picked up the mugs and set them down in front of himself and Kira.
"What a pity, then." Quark held the tray against his chest. "If we could schedule a display like that on a regular basis, it might prove very entertaining. We could use something to draw in a few more customers."
Sisko looked across the tables to the bar. "It doesn't seem as if you're hurting for trade."
The grin disappeared, replaced by a heavy-browed scowl. "Of course, Commander, I couldn't expect you to be as knowledgeable about business conditions as we poor entrepreneurs have to be. Let's just say that people are finding . . . other means of entertainment these days."
"Please." Sisko held up his hand. "The major and I have a great many things to discuss. If you're not making the usual house percentage from your Dabo tables, I'm sure you'll find a way to rectify the situation. In the meantime . . ."
The bow was repeated, a little deeper and more obsequiously this time. "Your privacy is assured, Commander; our esteemed chief of security inspected these premises—or at least this part not more than three shifts ago, and found nothing amiss." Quark stepped back. "Just signal if you'd like another round."
With the booth's transparent shield in place, the murmur of voices from outside was cut to dead silence. Kira took a careful sip, then pushed the mug away from herself. "It's gotten worse, Commander." She studied her hands laid flat upon the table for a moment, then looked up at him. "Much worse than we had thought it would be."
Sisko nodded slowly. "The Severalty Front?"
"Who else? But then again, I would never have thought they would be able to organize so quickly, or so effectively." The details of all that Kira had discovered during her mission were now bleakly arrayed in her thoughts. "It looks like we severely underestimated the strength of anti-Federation sentiment on Bajor. Or to put it another way, we were completely unaware of all that was being done to neutralize the separatists. And by whom it was being done."
She didn't even need to speak the name aloud. Just by looking at Benjamin Sisko, the slump of his shoulders under an invisible burden, the grim set of his face, she could see that he knew exactly the person referred to.
"It certainly bears out the wisdom of that old Earth aphorism—" The commander tapped the mug before him with a fingernail. "—that one doesn't miss the water until the
well runs dry. I'm afraid that with Kai Opaka's absence, we're going to see a lot more dry wells, both here and on Bajor."
Absence, not death—Kira was grateful he had said it that way. She and Commander Sisko were among the handful of people who knew the exact details of the Kai's fate. A fate that, as far as other Bajorans were concerned, was the same as Kira had been aware, even before this mission, that an entire school of theological debate had sprung up over the Kai's having "answered the call of the Prophets" meant that she had suffered a corporeal death or had been transfigured to another plane of existence. Given the fervor of the disputants, it probably wouldn't have made much difference if Kira had told them that the Kai was still alive, albeit on a war-torn moon on the other side of the galaxy.
And in practical terms, the Kai's absence from Bajor, no matter what its true nature, meant a great deal. Now we really are missing that water, thought Kira. She and the commander had suspected for some time that Kai Opaka's influence on the simmering cauldron of Bajoran politics had been more than just that of a conciliatory spiritual presence. This just-completed mission had confirmed that all along the Kai had been working behind the scenes, deftly playing one faction off against another, pulling strings that were hardly more than spider threads, a whisper in one ear, a gentle smile of blessing that could shift a crucial vote one way or another. It had been the good fortune of Starfleet that all those delicate wiles had been expended on behalf of moving Bajor toward full membership in the Federation. The Kai had seen the future of Bajor in league with other worlds, a part of a galaxy-wide net, and not as an isolated world withdrawn into itself.
That wisdom, and all of the Kai's maneuverings behind the scenes, had given the pro-Federation forces a slim majority in the Bajoran provisional government. Given the passions of those who held contrary beliefs, it would have been impossible to have brought everyone around to the same conclusions.
"So what do you think?" The commander set his half-empty mug of synthale down. "From all that you learned this time, what would you estimate the chances are for the Severalty Front?"
Kira shook her head. "I don't know." Since the Kai's absence from Bajor, the splinter groups and factions opposed to membership in the Federation had managed to unite their efforts behind a single banner. "Who am I kidding? I do know. The Front's chances are good—real good. As I said, we had no idea of the opposition's numbers. That's the downside of what Kai Opaka accomplished on this issue; with her doing so much that we weren't even aware of, we were lulled into believing that the anti-Federation forces were ineffective and actually decreasing in number. Now that the lid's off them, it's clear that they're a much bigger threat than we ever gave them credit for."