Текст книги "Twilight "

Автор книги: David George

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Текущая страница: 35 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

56

Kira shrugged out of her dress jacket, pleased to finally be free of the ill-fitting garment. During her years on Deep Space 9, she had often thought to have the jacket altered so that it would sit comfortably on her body, but the idea of Garak touching her clothing had prevented her from ever doing so. Now that the erstwhile tailor had returned to Cardassia, though, a Bajoran seamstress—Hatram something, she thought—had opened a shop on the Promenade. Hatram had even had the good sense to move into a different space than Garak’s old shop, which nobody seemed to want to rent. Anyway, I’ll have to bring it in,she told herself, knowing that she never would. That Garak had owned the tailor’s shop had only been an excuse; Kira tended to avoid minutiae such as this, and her life experience had certainly provided her the ability to withstand a little discomfort.

Besides,she thought, tossing the jacket on her bed, I may never have to wear this again.If Bajor joined the Federation, then she would be wearing formal Starfleet attire for occasions such as today. Of course, there was no guarantee that Starfleet’s dress uniforms would be any more comfortable than those of the Militia.

Kira sat down on the bed and slipped out of her pants. As she dropped them on top of the jacket, she smiled, realizing that she had made a significant decision without even thinking about it. Bajoran membership in the Federation, she knew, would mean that the Militia would roll up into Starfleet. But even with the summit beginning tomorrow, Kira had not really thought about that in terms of her own career—although she had considered the implications for Ro, after Akaar had revealed his disapproval of her. Kira supposed that if she had thought about it, she would have made her choice quickly anyway. As much as she had come to like her position as DS9’s first officer, her half-year as the station’s commander had proven even more fulfilling. No matter what Vedek Yevir might maintain, Kira believed that she had served Bajor well. She wanted to keep doing so, and it really did not matter to her whether she did so as a member of the militia or as a member of Starfleet; in the last weeks of the war, Admiral Ross and Captain Sisko had commissioned her as a Starfleet commander, and her uniform had fit perfectly well.

Kira stripped off her remaining clothes and pulled on a thigh-length, gold lamé robe, the fabric cool and silky against her skin. She headed out into the living area. It had been a long and tiring day—when were her days anything but?—and she sought a measure of tranquillity.

At the small shrine she kept, Kira lighted a candle and then sat down on the floor, folding her legs together and resting her wrists on her knees, palms facing upward. For a few minutes, she concentrated on the candle’s flame, letting its gentle, wavering movement mesmerize her. Then she closed her eyes and tried to empty her mind of thoughts. In place of the flame, she visualized the blue-white pinwheel of light that decorated space when the Celestial Temple opened, attempting to lose herself within its depths. By degrees, the tension in her body and mind melted away, like a morning frost succumbing to the rising sun.

Thank the Prophets they didn’t take this away from me,she thought. In truth, they—Vedek Yevir and the others who had chosen to Attaint her—could not have taken this away. Even had Kira tried to accommodate such a penalty, it would likely have been impossible for her. She spoke to the Prophets too often—virtually every day—and not even in such a structured way as this. Simply walking through the normal course of her life, she maintained a dialogue with the Bajoran gods. It had been her way for as long as she could remember, and it had seen her through many dark times. It was one thing for the Vedek Assembly to forbid her to pray with other Bajorans or to read the sacred texts, and something else entirely for them to try to control her heart.

Of course, Kira still missed temple services, as well as studying the hallowed works. She had read the ancient texts so many times that she could almost recite them– Maybe more than almost,she thought—but there was something special about holding the books in her hands and actually seeing the words.

Again she felt that critical times lay immediately ahead for her people. It troubled her that Akaar might have a say in that, and what he had said earlier in the evening recurred to her. He had spoken of “Bajoran hospitality,” in a way that she had found difficult to decipher. He had repeated what she had said to Ambassador Lent, but that could easily have been a coincidence. But coincidence or not, he could have intended the words as a compliment or as sarcasm; his inscrutable demeanor allowed for either possibility.

Kira recalled all of the questions the admiral had asked her with respect to Bajor’s relationship with Cardassia, and about Bajor in general; she also remembered the discomfort she had felt in answering those questions, and her resistance to his apparent desire to measure the Bajoran people through her. Nobody but Shakaar could speak for Bajor unless the First Minister himself authorized it; according to Kasidy and her friend Prylar Eivos, even the Vedek Assembly seemed on the verge of schism, though Kira had heard nothing more about that in the last week. With Federation membership at stake, though, she knew that Bajoran unity would be more important than ever.

Kira opened her eyes. Her focus drifting, she stared once more at the flame of the candle. She let the minutes pass as she strived to abandon her thoughts, seeking the calmness of her faith. The Prophets would watch over Bajor, she knew. She closed her eyes…

…and saw the face of Gul Macet. Despite the DNA records provided by Cardassia, Macet still made Kira uneasy. Dukat had played that game too many times, claiming to be something he was not. That face—Dukat’s—had haunted her dreams for so many years, and to see those same features now on Macet—

Kira’s eyes opened again. So much for meditation,she thought. She slapped her hands on her thighs, frustrated, then leaned forward on her knees and blew out the candle.

I have to let all of this go,she told herself. All of these things that I can’t change.She could only command Deep Space 9, she could only be true to her faith, and she could only deal with Macet as circumstances warranted.

Kira sighed, then stood up. All she wanted right this moment was to follow the path on which the Prophets had set her. She had weathered the last few months—the months since she had been Attainted—relatively well, she thought, but every now and then she lost her way a bit. Although she maintained her faith, and practiced her solitary rituals and prayers, she felt sometimes as though she had been not separated, but distanced, from the Prophets.

And now—right now—she could not even seem to meditate.

She wandered over to the window and gazed out at the location in space she knew the Celestial Temple to be. She wished it would reveal itself. As many times as Kira had seen the sight, it never failed to thrill her in a profound way.

Now, though, only the distant stars and the emptiness of space between them stared back at her. And suddenly an idea occurred to Kira, an idea born of her faith, and of her need to feel close to the Prophets.

“Kira to ops,” she said, raising her voice a touch.

“Ops, Selzner here, Colonel,”came the reply.

“Ensign, at what time is the Rio Grandescheduled to finish maintenance on the subspace relay tonight?” Kira wanted to know. She walked over to the companel and checked the current time on the chronometer.

“Let me check,”Selzner said. A moment later, Selzner read off the schedule. The runabout would be returning through the wormhole in less than thirty minutes.

Kira smiled.

As she headed back into her bedroom to don her uniform—her duty uniform—she told the ensign what she intended to do, although not why.

Kira notified ops, checked her equipment a second time, then bent and pulled open the access plate. One end of the plate swung upward, revealing the control panel beneath. Kira keyed in the activation sequence, then grabbed the handle there and twisted it ninety degrees left. Her weight quickly vanished as the local gravitational mat detuned, causing a momentary flutter in her stomach. At once, the pad she stood on began to rise. She flipped the access plate closed, stood back up, and waited.

Slowly but steadily, the launch bay slipped away. Kira peered over at the bow of Euphrates,watching it until disappeared from sight. The pad stopped, and she felt a jolt as it locked into place, level with the station’s outer hull. She looked forward and saw the arc of the habitat ring sweeping away before her. The Promenade and ops rose to her left, and above, Gryphonsat moored to the station at the top of a docking pylon.

Kira turned to her right and gazed out past the docking ring. Her magnetic boots made heavy, metallic thuds against the runabout pad as she moved, the sounds traveling through her environmental suit. Unlike a few weeks ago, the space around DS9 contained no free-floating vessels; the two small ships that had delivered the Alonis and Trill delegations sat along the docking ring, as did Ambassador zh’Thane’s ship, and the shuttle that had brought Shakaar and his staff had already departed for the return trip to Bajor.

From her vantage outside the station, Kira noticed that the stars appeared brighter and sharper than when viewed from within DS9. She studied the stars, picking out constellations and orienting herself so that she faced the location of the wormhole directly. After that, she did not have to wait long. Within minutes, the Celestial Temple spiraled into existence, vibrant blue light topping a brilliant white background, with traces of purple moving inside. A sensation of warmth flooded over Kira, and a connection seemed to form, reaching from her small, insignificant body out to the majestic whirlpool of light swirling before her—and reaching back in the opposite direction as well. Kira felt unconditional love and acceptance, for the Prophets and from Them. Her vision blurred, tears pooling in her eyes, as the threshold of heaven began its normal collapse. In a second, the magnificent, churning light had compressed to a point; a flash, and then it had gone completely.

That quickly, Kira had gotten what she had come for. Still, she stood like that, motionless and looking out into space, for a long time. Finally, she went back inside the station.

57

Dax drifted—floated, swam, pushed—knowing that Ezri remained in danger. But they had chosen—as one—this course of action, and Dax would do everything possible to see that they survived this experience—as one. They had a mission, though, and that truth came first right now.

Dax pushed through—

Not the pools this time. Not the Caves of Mak’ala.

Dax pushed through a sea of clouds. A vast sea, reaching not just from pole to pole, but from world to world, and from star to star. Except that there were no worlds, and there were no stars. And yet the sea filled the universe—

And beyond.

The sense of that came to Dax somehow, and Daxknew. Knew that communication had come, from somewhere, from something. Dax sent out tendrils of thought, seeking to find the link, to enhance it. But only silence returned.

No, not onlysilence.

Something like a vibration hummed through the universe, electrified the setting. It pealed like a sound almost beyond hearing, glowed like a color almost beyond seeing. Something was there. Something wasevery where.

Dax attempted to communicate, calling to whatever lived out there. Called and waited, but received no response. Tried again and again, in all the ways Dax knew. Still nothing came back.

Time passed without meaning. Seconds might have been seconds, but they might also have been lifetimes, or any interval in between. Or perhaps time did not pass at all.

Dax struggled to exchange thoughts with the inhabitants of…what?Of another universe, Dax understood. But the tenuous connection seemed as though it might not have been an actual connection, seemed as though it might have been nothing more than a figment. Dax rested, and waited, listening to the near-silence, but haunted by the voices that faintly disrupted the quiet.

Voices?

Yes, Dax realized.Voices. Dax listened. Strained to listen, and found not only voices, but the beings behind them. The sounds became ideas, and Dax tried to discern perceptions and thoughts. At last, they came, and when they did, they surprised.

Elias Vaughn lay on the ground, arms at his sides, eyes closed. He could have been asleep or unconscious or dead. Dax understood that the beings had perceived the commander like this, doubtless down on the planet’s surface, obviously sometime within the last couple of days.

Dax strived to delve past the image of Vaughn, to contact the beings that had seen him. But communication continued to prove impossible. For Dax, access came for ideas and echoes, but not for a direct link to the minds behind them. Dax could vaguely perceive the beings, but could not apparently be perceived by them.

And so Dax searched the ideas, seeking to understand the intentions of the beings. None were revealed. Dax stumbled mentally, weakening, finding it difficult to maintain the drive to penetrate this alien society. But Dax battled on, turning to the echoes—

Memories, Dax suddenly realized.The echoes are memories.

Dax dived down, pushing into the echoes, watching, listening, perceiving. A wall rose up, infinite and impenetrable, but on this side of the wall, Daxsaw: this had all begun with the invaders…with the saviors…with the Prentara.

The Prentara had once populated the world around which the sea of clouds now circled. They had discovered the other realm, and had been astonished by it. Sights and sounds, scents and tastes, sensations and emotions, all had followed with the Prentara, carried along by technology, and all had been magnified. An avalanche of emotive and perceptual experience spread across a universe in which none of this had previously been known. A battle to push outward from the strange realm ensued, and the Prentara fought for their lives.

Just as Ezri fought for hers right now, Dax realized.

The symbiont swooped down into the echoes, hunting for memories and collecting them up. Somewhere, images of Prynn and Shar down on the planet appeared. Representations of Vaughn also arose, although they seemed confused—Vaughn at an ancient launch facility, on a battlefield, on a ship with dead Bajorans and Cardassians. There were the Prentara too, wired in to their machines, wired in to the other universe.

And then Dax pulled back. Drifted upward, floating, swimming, pushing. Again, it was time to find Ezri.

Lieutenant Bowers waited patiently for her to begin, as did Julian. Ezri lay propped up on the diagnostic bed, a glass of water raised to her lips. She sipped, finding the act of drinking both refreshing and strangely foreign, as though she had never done it before now—a consequence, she knew, of Dax’s exposure to the other universe.

Ezri handed the glass to Nurse Juarez, who stood beside her. Julian and Lieutenant Bowers waited just past the foot of her bed, and somewhere, Nurse Richter also worked in the medical bay. Ezri took a long, deep breath, gathering herself for the coming conversation. She had reintegrated enough with Dax to have assimilated the symbiont’s experiences, but interpreting the images—the echoes—had taken some time. Even now, not everything Dax had perceived had bowed to reasonable analysis. Still, she thought that she understood enough that Bowers and the crew had to be told.

As had been the case after her first contact with the object, Julian had wanted her to rest immediately after she had regained consciousness. Again she had insisted on remaining awake, and this time, on speaking herself with Lieutenant Bowers. Julian had relented at once, accepting her claim that she had vital information to impart.

“I saw…I experienced…another universe,” she began. She looked to her left, to where she had brought her hand down into the dark gray substance, but both it and the stand on which it had sat had been removed.

“Could you explain that?” Bowers asked. Ezri looked at him, then raised her hand to her forehead and rubbed at her temple.

“Are you all right?” Julian asked. He moved toward her along the side of the bed, glancing up at the diagnostic panel.

“I’m okay,” Ezri said, dropping her hand back onto the bed. “It’s just that there’s so much in my head right now…I need to find a coherent way to tell this.”

“Take your time,” Bowers said. But of course they all knew that time weighed heavily on them right now. As far as they could tell, they were less than a day away from the next pulse.

“Some time ago,” Ezri started again, sorting out her narrative, “a humanoid race lived on this planet.” That was not new information; the crew had been able to draw the same conclusion from the readings of cities that the probe had returned to Defiant.“They called themselves the Prentara, and they developed a sophisticated virtual-reality technology.”

“Virtual reality?” Juarez said. “Like holosuites?”

“No, not like that,” Ezri said. “They tied powerful computers directly into people’s minds.”

Julian raised his eyebrows. “That can be very addictive,” he stated. “Very addictive, and very dangerous.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ezri said. “But I do know that, sometime later, Prentara scientists discovered this other existence, a pocket universe outside our own that…that…it was…” She grew agitated as she struggled to express the concepts in her mind.

“Easy,” Julian said, resting a hand on her upper arm. “Easy.” She looked up at him, and he offered her an effortless smile. His obvious support meant a lot to her.

“I’m all right,” she told him, and she put her hand atop his. “This other existence that the Prentara found, it was a universe of the mind…the very fabric of it supported and nurtured and… augmented…mental activity. The scientists who discovered it reported amazingly profound experiences.”

“Like a mind-altering drug,” Julian suggested.

“Yes, like that, I think,” Ezri agreed, “but far more powerful. They called the other universe the thoughtscape.”

“Let me guess. They used it to enhance their VR technology,” Bowers said.

Ezri nodded. “They wired their virtual-reality equipment into the interface they had opened between this universe and the thoughtscape. It enhanced their experiences beyond their imaginations, and it worked for them for years. But then something happened.” She paused, still coming to understand the horror in what she had learned. “They found out,” she went on, “that the thoughtscape was alive.”

They all looked at her without saying anything. Even Nurse Richter, across the room, stopped whatever she had been doing and peered in Ezri’s direction. The sudden silencing of their voices left the medical bay throbbing with the beat of Ezri’s diagnostic scanner. Finally, Julian spoke.

“Did the Prentara know?” he asked. The expression of revulsion on his face reflected Ezri’s emotions. The notion of somebody forcibly tapping into another mind, usingthat mind—it was rape of the lowest order. “Did they stop?”

“They did stop,” Ezri said, actually relieved about that part of the story. “But I don’t know if they ever knew that the thoughtscape was composed of living beings.”

“Then why did they stop using it…using them?” Juarez asked.

“They stopped when the first pulse emerged from the interface,” Ezri explained. “The force of it thrust outward, leaving the planet intact, but we’ve seen what the pulses have done to the rest of this solar system.”

“And to the Vahni’s system,” Bowers added.

“The Prentara tried to close the interface, but the pulse had widened it considerably and they couldn’t do it,” Ezri went on. “A substance also came out of the interface with the pulse, and it began forming the cloud cover around the planet. Except that those aren’t clouds.”

“Is that a manifestation of the thoughtscape?” Bowers asked.

“The Inamuri,” Ezri said. “The Prentara called the beings of the thoughtscape the Inamuri. And the clouds aren’t the thoughtscape; the clouds are an extension of the interface. That’s how Dax could commune with the Inamuri when I touched the substance.”

“‘Commune’?” Julian asked. “Not communicate?”

“No, there was no communication,” Ezri said. “Dax could sense the minds of the Inamuri, and their memories, and maybe even Prentara memories imprinted on or swallowed up by the Inamuri. And this story I’m telling…Dax didn’t learn all of this in this form; we’ve deduced it from what Dax did learn.”

“What happened to the Prentara?” Juarez asked.

“I don’t know,” Ezri said. “I don’t think even the Inamuri know. But we saw the probe’s readings. There’s nobody alive down there except for our people.”

“Maybe the subsequent pulses killed them,” Bowers suggested.

“But what are the pulses?”

“I think they’re the result of the Inamuri trying to push their way into our universe,” Ezri said.

“They may still be trying to fight the invasion into their domain,” Julian said.

“Yes,” Ezri said, the word invasionprompting Dax’s memory. “The Inamuri considered the Prentara to be invaders…but…” She searched for the remainder of the recollection. “…they also thought of them as saviors.”

“I don’t understand that,” Bowers said.

“Neither do I,” Ezri admitted. “But I know what we have to do to prevent any more pulses.” Again, all eyes in the room focused on her. “We have to close the interface,” she said.

Per Julian’s orders, Ezri would remain in the medical bay for at least another day—a recommendation perfectly acceptable to her. She felt fatigued beyond any measure she had ever known, even back during the war. Before she could sleep, though, she needed to complete the information load. Julian had provided her with a mild stimulant so that she could do so, but the effects had now begun to abate.

Ezri operated the padd in her hands and played back the last few sentences she had recorded. The clarity of one piece of data seemed suspect to her, and so she erased that part and rerecorded it. Then she listened to it again. Satisfied, she moved on to the final part of her tale.

While she worked at this task, she knew that Nog and his engineering team worked at another. Within an hour of Ezri’s contention that they had to close the thoughtscape interface, Nog had devised a means of doing just that. As she understood it, his plan involved triggering a series of explosive devices to detonate simultaneously in various dimensions of space, including subspace. The idea reminded Ezri of the “Houdini” mines that the Jem’Hadar had used against them at the siege of AR-558.

Nog had explained that each device would destroy a portion of the “walls” of the interface. If enough of the interface was destroyed at the same time, then the surrounding space in this universe would essentially cave in and permanently seal off the realm of the Inamuri. Nog had been specific about the number of devices—thirty-two—because if too few were detonated, then the energy of the Inamuri would be able to overcome the force of the collapsing space, and would instead widen the interface.

Once the devices had been completed, they would be loaded onto a probe, along with Ezri’s account of the Inamuri and the Prentara, and then the probe would be sent down to the planet’s surface. Keyed to lock on to human and Andorian life signs, or to land beside the interface if bioscans could not locate the crew, it would reach the site about half a day before the next pulse. That left more than enough time for the away team to set the devices in place, and retreat from the site to safety, before the multidimensional explosions closed the interface.

Ezri finished her recording, then worked the padd to transfer it onto an isolinear optical chip. “Julian,” she called. With Ezri out of danger, both Richter and Juarez had left the medical bay. Now, across the room, Julian turned from a console.

“Have you finished?” he asked, walking over to her. She held up the isolinear chip, which he took from the tips of her fingers. He slapped at his combadge. “Bashir to Nog.”

“Go ahead, Doctor,”came the lieutenant’s response.

“Lieutenant Dax has finished recording her data,” Julian reported.

“All right,”Nog said. “I’ll send somebody up for it. Nog out.”

Ezri felt herself outlasting the stimulant Julian had given her, but amid all the difficulties of the last week or so, a moment of playfulness suddenly asserted itself in her. “So,” she said.

“So?” Julian asked, looking down at her, his blue eyes peering into hers.

“I told you so,” Ezri said, referring to her belief that her contact with the object might help the crew stop the pulse.

“You did indeed,” Julian said, obviously picking up her meaning. “I guess that nine lifetimes of experience trump mere genetic engineering.”

“I guess so,” she said, and chuckled.

“You know, I’m proud of you,” he told her. His intense gaze held hers. “Not for being right about this, but for fighting to do what you thought needed to be done. For being strong enough to lead this crew even in the face of your own personal troubles.”

His words touched her deeply, because they meant that he had been able to see in her what she had striven to be. “Thank you,” she said, and she could not keep from smiling. Her eyes slipped closed for a second, and she forced them back open.

“It’s all right,” Julian said. “Get some rest…Captain.”

Captain,Ezri thought, the word like a medal pinned to her chest—or a couple of extra pips on her collar. It echoed in her mind as her eyes closed once more, and she imagined Julian’s voice saying it again as she fell asleep: Captain.