Текст книги "Trill and Bajor "

Автор книги: Andy Mangels

Соавторы: J. Kim,Michael Martin
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Текущая страница: 20 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Rena

The ranger patrol craft met them a few dozen meters down river from the bridge landing. Rena wasn’t surprised to see the fear-mongering officer from the rest-and-sip commanding the boat; she was too tired and irritable to argue with his lecture on the risks involved in recklessly disregarding his organization’s dictums. Her reward for enduring the speech was a promise to deliver her to Mylea Harbor before midday. He would transmit any messages she wanted to send in an effort to reassure any concerned relatives.

Afterward, a female lieutenant brewed hot tea for both Jacob and Rena and escorted them belowdecks to small, interior cabin furnished only with a bunk bed. She had left them both with victims’ aid packs, each of which included a set of lightweight, one-size undergarments (loose shorts and T-shirt), plus some personal-hygiene supplies. The lieutenant had also laid out a pair of green forest-ranger work-duty jumpsuits, faded from age and use, as well as giving them a few extra blankets. Jacob started stripping off his sopping clothes as soon as the lieutenant left. Indignant at his presumptuous behavior, Rena huffed, turned her back, and waited for him to give the all clear that she was safe to start changing her own clothes. Once she had changed, she scrambled up the ladder and leaped into the upper bunk, snuggling beneath the blankets without a word to Jacob. She waited for sleep to come.

From Jacob’s breathing below, she could tell that sleep hadn’t come to him either.

“Rena.”

She debated answering him for a moment, then, knowing it wasn’t fair to punish him for her bad luck, said, “Yes?”

“Your sketchbook…I’m so sorry. I know how I’d feel if I lost my work.”

“I’m sure it’s just the Prophets letting me know they’re aware of my rebellious heart, in spite of my outward obedience.”

“Why would the Prophets take your art away?”

The finer nuances of Bajoran theology were always difficult to explain to nonbelievers, so Rena pondered carefully how to answer Jacob’s question. “The Prophets aren’t taking my art. More like, the Prophets have put Bajor on a path. As a result all Bajorans are on a path. When we follow our path, our lives unfold in a way that brings us confidence and peace. When we resist our path, we find chaos and uncertainty. We demonstrate our faith by how we live. As you can see tonight, my faith isn’t doing so well or I’d probably be asleep safe in a hostel somewhere instead of on a patrol boat, lucky to be alive.”

“Or maybe this is where your path is supposed to take you.”

Rena snorted.

“Seriously, Rena. Last year, I thought I lost my father,” Jacob said, his voice heavy with emotion. “I believed that if anyone could find him, I could. So, believing I was doing the right thing, I went searching for him.”

“You said your father was living farther up in Kendra, so I take it he wasn’t dead.”

“No. He wasn’t. But Ididn’t find him. I ended up on a wild-goose chase, having some crazy adventures, visiting places I never imagined I would, and ended up bringing several someone elses home with me. None of it made sense. Looking back, I know that what seemed like a mistake at the time was just part of a larger pattern that I couldn’t see while I was in it. My hopes came true—my father came home—but not the way I planned. Maybe that’s where you’re at.”

Rena, still puzzling over the image conjured by the term “wild-goose chase,” understood the spirit of Jacob’s words and wished they could be true for her. She allowed his words to hang in the air while she contemplated what she should disclose in return for his confiding in her. “My grandfather died several weeks ago, before Unity Day,” she began, slipping back into memories. “He had a degenerative illness that could have been cured if he’d received treatment in his youth, but the Cardassians didn’t care about helping Bajorans. So he lived out his last years enduring excruciating pain in a body that betrayed him. He was so miserable and yet so brave that when he asked me to leave university to help my aunt take care of him, of course I left immediately. Before he died, he made me promise some things. So far, I’ve only been able to honor one of my promises—going to Kenda Shrine. I need to go home to Mylea to finish the others. Right now, it just feels like my life isn’t going to start until I honor my promises to Topa, so I just want to get on with it.”

“He didn’t ask you to give up your art, did he?”

She could sense the disapproving look on his face. “Oh no,” Rena said, smiling. “But he asked me to commit to building a life that would honor Bajor, to preserve what is unique about us in the face of all this change….” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to offend Jacob by expressing uncertainty about the Federation. Like most Bajorans, she supported joining but she had her concerns as she watched the generation younger than hers being plied with holovids from Risa and recreational technology she couldn’t have even fathomed. Would their fortune in being born in a time of prosperity—without the demons of Cardassia and the Occupation haunting them—change what being Bajoran meant to future generations? She sighed. “I can best honor Bajor by living in Mylea. After my aunt retires, there is no one in my family to run the bakery. The unique way Myleans have worked, recreated, lived for thousands of years feels like it is on the cusp of slipping away unless some of us try to hold on to our traditions.” The lower bunk creaked; Rena assumed that Jacob was making himself more comfortable, but moments later his silhouette appeared at the foot of her bed.

“I hate not being able to see your face when we talk,” he said by way of explanation. “If you really mind me being here, I’ll go back down.”

Sitting up beneath her covers, Rena gestured for Jacob to sit down. He assumed a cross-legged position at the foot of her bed. “I know what you’re saying, Rena, but from the way you’ve talked about your grandfather, I have a hard time believing he would want you to give up your art studies.”

“I won’t give up my art exactly. More like, instead of finishing at university, I’ll help Marja with the bakery and when I have time, I’ll pursue my painting as I always have.”

In the half-light, his inscrutable expression made her nervous. She knew, without him saying, that he disagreed with her choice.

Crossing her arms across her chest, she said, “Look, nothing against you Federation people, but you don’t have tens of thousands of years of history to protect. I owe it to Bajor.”

“You owe it to yourself to paint.” Leaning closer to her, he rested a hand on her knee. “I saw you out there, screaming at the Prophets, more angry than almost any person I have ever seen in my lifetime, and considering that I’ve seen Kira Nerys angry, that’s saying something.”

Rena’s mind caught on something. Kira Nerys?The Kira Nerys?

He raced ahead before she could answer. “You weren’t screaming about preserving Bajor, you were screaming like someone who was having her soul—her pagh—torn out of her,” he whispered. “Tell me again that you need to give up your art.”

Swallowing hard, Rena formed the words, in her mind, but her mouth opened soundlessly, then closed. Her eyes burned with the beginnings of tears. She’d been wrestling with this conflict since returning from school, torn between her past and what she imagined her future to be. My promises to Topa. He devoted his life to raising me; I promised him I would help save Mylea for his grandchildren.She clasped a hand against her breastbone, took a deep breath, and said, her voice quavering, “I’ll do what I have to…” Her shoulders quaked with silent sobs.

Before she could finish speaking, Jacob had folded her into his arms and was rubbing her back as if she were a small child. He spoke gentle, quieting words in her ears. She was too tired and overcome to question whether or not this was right or wrong. Real and true in this moment were his strong arms and the compassion flowing from him. And as she drew comfort from being close to him, barriers that had held back other feelings gradually dissolved, feelings that had hovered around the edges of her emotions since she first saw him in the rest-and-sip.

Beside her, Jacob accidentally pulled her bedcovers away when he shifted, allowing their legs to touch; Rena’s heart jarred into a quickened rhythm. A long pause. He moved his leg away. She still felt the ghost of his touch. And she liked it. Unthinkingly, she moved her leg back toward his, heard his sharp intake of breath, felt satisfaction that she evoked in him what he evoked in her.

She couldn’t clearly see his face; she didn’t have to. Tentatively, he traced the line of her jaw, tangled his fingers in her hair, touched her lips. She inhaled sharply in blissful shock and drew closer.

He kissed her.

Rena knew she should stop this. She had made promises—some of them implied, but promises nonetheless. The late hour, the charged emotionality of the night, never mind the huge risk she took being with an alien stranger this way—all of it warned of foolishness. But Jacob felt neither alien nor stranger: rather familiar and comfortable and home. So she yielded to Jacob’s wordless entreaties, parting her lips, allowing the kiss to deepen. He wound his arms around her waist, pulling her closer, and she aided him by draping her leg over his, pulling their bodies flush. The first kiss blurred with another. Kisses gave way to tender caresses and more kisses until Rena joyfully abandoned all reason.

After a time, they collapsed in drowsy oblivion. Drifting off to sleep, they spooned together, Rena noted ironically as she dozed off, with the comfortable familiarity of experienced lovers.

A knock on their door roused Rena from a sound sleep. “Wha-what-what is it?” she said, half-yawning. Beside her, Jacob mumbled something incoherent.

“Mylea Harbor in twenty minutes,”came the muffled announcement.

Home.

Disentangling herself from Jacob’s arms, Rena sat up in bed and ordered the lights illuminated. She rubbed her eyes and yawned again, realizing that she had no idea what time it was when the gradual recollection of what had happened last night began returning to her. She flushed hot. Swinging her legs over the side, she dropped down to the floor.

I have to get out of here.She found the pile of her damp clothes where she had shed them the night before; they remained too filthy and wet to be practical to wear. Her mud-coated knapsack, its disheveled, dirty contents spilling out the sides, served as a reminder of the miserable night of traveling.

Another groan from the top bunk reminded Rena about the rest. She quickly donned her discarded undergarments, as well as the oversized ranger jumpsuit, gathered up the rest of her victims’ pack, and left the quarters in search of a ’fresher. The facility she stumbled on provided a brief refuge and an opportunity to regain some semblance of normalcy, but once she had performed all the cleanup rituals she had the tools for, she knew she had to go back and face Jacob. She had no idea what to say.

Rena had never been one to toy with male emotions. More than a few of her classmates would think nothing of a few stolen kisses and most likely would have few regrets about a drunken night of sex with a stranger if it was pleasurable. Rena didn’t behave that way; she didn’t kiss men casually, so she had no experience to draw from in determining what to say. She decided on the truth.

With trepidation, she tapped in the door codes and discovered upon entering that Jacob was already awake, dressed, and repacking what few possessions he had gotten out when they’d arrived. The tender expression on his face quickly became wary when he saw her. She cursed her inability to hide her emotions but perhaps, in this case, her readability had served to soften the blow.

“Don’t tell me,” he began, shaking his head. “It was a mistake, you want to be friends—” He stuffed his dirty clothes into a pocket of his gear bag.

“No. It wasn’t a mistake,” she said, reaching to touch his arm. “I chose– wechose, and it was right because we both needed the comfort.”

He jerked away from her. “Comfort? You make me sound like a favorite pillow.”

“I can’t make this more than that.”

“Why not? Because I don’t fit into Topa’s plan? I’m not from Mylea? What, Rena? Tell me, since I don’t have the benefit of having the Prophets lay my path out for me,” he said bitterly.

She could hardly blame him. “If I could, I would ask you to come home with me when we get off this boat. I would invite you to stay in our family’s apartments and we’d see what could happen between us. But we can’t.”

Recognition lit on his face. “There’s someone else. Someone that Topa wanted you to be with.”

“Yes. And no.” She clenched her teeth, exhaling sharply in frustration. “Before I went to university, there was an understanding between me and someone I’d known since I was a child. I was prepared to break it off when I first came home a few months ago, but when I saw how happy Topa was, I felt like I owed it to my grandfather to see if I could make it work.”

In one swift, exaggerated gesture, Jacob fastened his bag and hefted it onto his shoulders. “Fine. Far be it from me to stand in the way of your path.” He pushed past her without another word.

For a long moment, Rena stood in the middle of the room, too miserable to move. What she was more miserable about—violating her implied commitment or hurting Jacob—she couldn’t honestly say. Watching him leave had been crushing. She had consciously pushed down the impulse to chase after him, to beg for his forgiveness and the chance to start fresh without any secrets. His words to her and his understanding about her art—his kindness—the way she felt when he kissed her—all of it had touched a deep place inside. What she would give to have one of those orbs here to help her know what she should do next.

The deep baritone horn announcing the patrol boat’s arrival into the inner harbor disrupted her thoughts. Can’t hide anymore, Rena. Time to face your life.She configured her knapsack the best she could before starting up the stairs to the upper deck.

Rena stood on the opposite side of the railing from Jacob. Unsurprisingly, he wouldn’t look at her. Soon, as the boat drew closer to the docks, Rena saw a few familiar faces in the waiting crowds: Halar, her fair-haired childhood friend, clad in her study robes, and rugged, muscular Kail, the person she thought that, once upon a time when she was a girl, she was supposed to marry. Now she wasn’t so sure.

When the gangplank descended, Rena waited until Jacob had made his way off the boat before she left. Her feet had barely touched the dock planking when Halar had thrown her arms around her and squeezed her enthusiastically.

“You’re safe! Oh Rena! We were so scared when we heard about the storm.” Halar indicated Kail as being part of the “we.” “You must have been terrified!”

“I’ve had easier trips down the valley,” Rena confessed. Kail assumed his place beside her, his clothes saturated with the oil smoke from the foundry fires where he worked. She managed not to cringe when he hugged her.

Apprenticed to an artisan, Kail hadn’t always worked the fire room, but a recent falling-out with his supervisor had resulted in a demotion. Rena had tried to listen with a sympathetic ear, but she struggled to reconcile Kail’s indignation at what he perceived as mistreatment with the belligerence and complaining she’d seen in him since she first returned home. Taking care of Topa during his final days hadn’t allowed her to spend much private time with Kail, but from what little time they had shared, he seemed like he’d changed. In that regard, she was grateful that she hadn’t accepted any betrothal agreement, hoping that with more time they would get used to each other again; oddly, she hadn’t even missed sleeping with him since she’d been back. There had always seemed to be a reason why making love didn’t feel right, whether it was the long hours she spent nursing Topa or working in the bakery. With Topa’s death, Rena had wanted to be alone to grieve. In light of what happened with Jacob, Rena saw her reticence with Kail and wondered if her reasons for avoiding intimacy were more than circumstantial. She sighed and moved a bit away from Kail, loosening his grip on her waist.

Jacob’s height made him easy to spot in the crowds of Bajoran fishermen and aquaculture workers on the docks. He walked confidently, even in this strange place. Remembering the first time she saw him—had it been only a day since the rest-and-sip?—she decided that was what had caught her eye: his being comfortable in his own skin. Rena followed him with her eyes until she felt Halar’s gaze on her.

“You’re looking at Jake Sisko, aren’t you,” she said, clasping her hands together gleefully.

Of course Halar would have known who the son of the Emissary was; she’d fanatically followed his “ministry” to Bajor since the kai had announced the reopening of the Celestial Temple eight years ago. And then it occurred to her that Halar wasn’t referring to someone unknown to her. Halar was talking about herJacob. Staring, Rena said, “Jacob Sisko?”

“Jacob, Jake.” Halar shrugged. “No matter—he’s a Sisko. Son of the Emissary. I practically squealed when I saw him coming down the gangplank. Did you see him aboard the ship?”

Jacob Sisko. Son of the Emissary. I guess I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets.

Sisko

A cool, syncopated rhythm insinuated itself into Ben Sisko’s dreams, gently lifted him and tried to carry him back into the waking world. Not just yet,he thought. Let me linger here for just a moment….And, briefly, for a timeless instant, he thought he remembered how it was done, how to take a second, parse it, and keep it hanging in the air, vibrating. As the piano licks, bass, and drums wove their tale through his mind, he felt the metronome behind his eyes slow down, then stop, and he hung there for an instant, between the tick and the tock. The music still moved, but he, Ben Sisko, did not. And then the Prophets speak,he thought. Pausing, he tried to keep his inner eye from wavering, waiting…. Or perhaps They don’t…

He opened his eyes, and the moment between moments receded. Pale green light dancing through a leaf canopy. Garden. He touched the patch of grass beside him and felt the chill. Kasidy must have abandoned him once he fell asleep. A sigh-breath against his bare collarbone. Baby. She stirred, hitching up farther on his chest, curling her knees against her body and snuggling into his chest. Sisko smiled, tucking her dislodged blanket back around her legs. But, yes, there was music playing. Coming from the open patio doors. Dave Brubeck, he thought, recognizing the tune. When did Kas start listening to jazz?He had done his best over the years to introduce his wife to good music, but she had willfully resisted every entreaty. Kasidy liked what she liked: modern classical, Centauri folk, and the occasional piece of youth-contemporary for mindless humming. Nothing wrong with most of it, Sisko generously concluded.

The bundle on his chest shuddered with a sneeze.

Bless you,he thought, patting the bundle comfortingly.

A shadow passed between him and the dappled sunlight. Kasidy. She plopped down beside him, propping herself against the tree trunk. “I think Rebecca has caught a cold. Which means we’ll both have colds in a day or two if we don’t take antivirals.”

“Can’t we immunize her for all these little diseases?” he asked. Careful not to disturb Rebecca, he lifted his head off the ground and pillowed it on Kasidy’s lap.

She inhaled deeply, caressed his face. “We can, but Julian recommended we let a couple of these run their course so she can build up immunities. Nothing works better than nature.”

“Except when it doesn’t.”

Kasidy shrugged.

Sisko tried to remember the last time he had lived through a cold. Sneezing, runny nose, headache, congestion. “If she has to be miserable,” he asked, “shouldn’t we be miserable, too?”

Kasidy laughed. “Sorry, I don’t subscribe to that theory.”

“Think of it as an anchor to corporeal life.”

“I prefer what we did last night,” Kasidy teased.

Feeling the residual ache in his stomach muscles, Sisko had to admit he did too.

“When did you start listening to Dave Brubeck?” he asked.

“Is that who this is?” Kasidy asked. “It was on one of Jake’s mixes and I liked it.”

“Jake’s?” He was genuinely surprised. “Something that happened while I was gone?”

“I don’t think so,” Kasidy said. “The recording was a few years old, from back in that period when he and Nog tried to convince Quark that he should open a dance club.” Rebecca, who had been dozing, awoke and immediately began to nuzzle against the cloth of Sisko’s flannel shirt. Breathless, frustrated grunts gave way to a puckered-up scowl: the bundle trembled with mewing cries.

Sisko wrapped his arms around her, whispering soothing words to his daughter, but Kasidy pushed him out of her lap and plucked the baby out of his arms.

“Goodness, little girl. How can you be hungry again so soon?”

“I remember that,” Sisko said, “but I don’t remember Jake listening to jazz. How could I have missed that?”

“I can’t imagine,” Kasidy said, loosening her shirt. “I seem to remember something about a war. Ring any bells?”

“Seems vaguely familiar.” He sighed, rolling over so he could prop himself on his elbows. Rooting around the grass, he plucked out stems of miniature, blush-faced daisy flowers and started piling them up. “I should make lunch.” Deftly, he knotted the flower stems together, making a chain of blossoms.

“Yes you should,” Kasidy agreed. “Why not reheat the gumbo you made yesterday?”

“Excellent suggestion. But none for you, little girl,” Sisko said, stroking her velvety cheek with his index finger. “Maybe when you’re older. None of that replicated lunch food at school. I’ll send you jambalaya.” He continued the flower chaining, his fingers smudged with powdery orange pollen grains.

Rebecca squirmed and tensed, followed by an unmistakable series of gaseous “phlbets.” Relaxing, she pulled away, bloated and happy, offering her mother a tipsy half-smile.

Kasidy draped the blanket over her shoulder, then lifted the baby up and began to gently pat her. Looking at her husband, she asked seriously, “Will you?”

“Will I what?”

“Pack her lunch for her on school days? Do you really see that as part of our future?”

Sisko kept his eyes on Rebecca. “What makes you think I can see the future?”

“Then what do you wantto happen next?” Kasidy asked earnestly. “You must have some hopes for how you want our lives to unfold, or it doesn’t matter whether you can see the future or not.”

He rolled off his belly, onto his back, watching the frantic ministrations of a mother bird delivering squirming insects to her nest of young in the branches above. “What I want,” he said soberly, “is to be here with you and the baby. But you know the truth: It’s never going to be about only what I want. I still have a duty.”

“To whom?”

Sisko stared out over his tessipates of land, the miasma of variegated greens and browns garnished with straw-colored seed clusters ripening as midsummer approached. He inhaled deeply, drawing in the scents of moldering leaves, the scents of the river, deep into his lungs. In a split second of awareness, he knew the insects gnawing through the tree bark, the schools of fish darting around the water lilies, the plump seed grains burgeoning with life, the katterpod seedlings twining up the garden arbor. The land infiltrated the marrow of his bones, binding him. Just as the sky still did.

“To the Bajorans,” Sisko said. “To these people who have placed their trust in me. To the Prophets who allowed me to return here. To Starfleet. And to those others…”

“What others?” Kasidy asked, her voice rising with emotion. “Who else is there who’s more important to you than your family?”

Scooting back to sit beside her, Sisko threaded his arm behind Kasidy’s waist, drawing her head onto his shoulder. The baby heard him coming and, head wobbling, turned toward her father’s voice. “My dear love,” Sisko said softly, touching her knee, “none of them is more important than my family. But consider this: What do you think we need to do to protect our daughter?”

Kasidy’s eyes, which had been growing red-rimmed, suddenly narrowed. “What do you mean, Ben? Do you think someone is going to try to hurt Rebecca?”

“No,” Sisko said, trying to keep his voice low and reassuring. “Not specifically for Rebecca, but, yes, something is coming. The Prophets tried to explain it to me.” He shook his head. “I wish I could be plainer than that, but it’s difficult. The way they communicated—when I was there with them it all made sense, but now, here, meaning fades.”

“But it’s something that could harm Rebecca?” Sisko saw the fierce gleam in his wife’s eyes.

“It’s something that could affect us all, every Bajoran, yes.”

“Bajoran, Ben? Is that what we are now?”

Sisko held her eye for several seconds, then smiled. “Aren’t we?” he asked. He nodded at the world around him. “If Rebecca could answer, what would she say about this place?”

Kasidy looked. Sikso followed her gaze. The tree branches curved to form an archway over the dirt road; wildflowers, a riotous burst of color, carpeted the beds around the house; trails of cloud tufts lazed out over a luminous blue sky. And the house: He had designed it, Kas had built it.

“It’s home, Ben. It’s our home.”

“Yes, it is,” Sisko said. “And if we need to defend it…”

“…We’ll do what we must.”

He kissed her on the forehead, then quickly scrambled up to his feet. “I hear that gumbo calling to me.”

Kasidy chuckled, and the sound made the baby jump, then hiccup, a bubble of milk exploding on her lips. Her mother wiped the baby’s mouth, then called out to her husband again, suddenly serious. “So what do we do now?”

“First, we should have lunch,” Sisko said, pausing where he stood and meeting her eyes. “Then, when we’re done, I think we should begin to plan a dinner party.”