Текст книги "Twilight "

Автор книги: David George

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Текущая страница: 38 (всего у книги 42 страниц)

63

Kira looked up when the door signal sounded. Admiral Akaar waited outside. “Come in,” she said, and the office doors parted to allow him entry.

Kira remained seated and looked up at the admiral, his enormous size still noteworthy even after all the weeks that he had been on the station. “Good evening, Colonel,” he said.

“Good evening, Admiral,” she said. “I imagine the summit has been adjourned for the day.”

“No,” he said. “We are taking a break at the moment, but we will meet for a few more hours later tonight.” He paused, and then added, “And of course, we will be here for at least several more weeks.”

Kira could not tell, but she thought Akaar might be attempting to bait her with this information. He clearly must have perceived the coolness between them—he had been the source of it—and he would have known that his continued presence on the station did not particularly please her. He can’t even use the wordhospitality without me suspecting his motives.Right now, though, she decided not to allow him to bother her.

“Well, you’ve got important work to do,” she said. “What can I do for you this evening, Admiral?”

“Nothing,” Akaar said. “I came here to inform you of the break in our session.” At first, Kira thought that he must have been joking—why would she need to know about that?—but then he went on. “During the interim, First Minister Shakaar will be addressing the people of Bajor.”

“Yes, that’s right,” Kira said. Shakaar had mentioned the address to her at the reception last night, and she had ensured that he had been provided access to a dedicated comm channel today. “He wanted to announce the summit and its purpose to all of Bajor.”

“The first minister will be on the Bajoran communications network five minutes from now,” Akaar told her. “I suggest that you watch him.” As had been the case since the admiral had first arrived on the station, what he claimed to be a suggestion seemed to carry the weight of an order. In this case, it also sounded rather ominous.

“All right, I will,” Kira said. She considered asking Akaar why he wanted her to watch Shakaar’s address, measuring her curiosity against the difficulty of extracting even basic information from him. Before she had even decided, though, the admiral bowed his head and started to leave.

Kira watched him go. She waited a moment after the doors had closed behind him, and then said, “Kira to ops.”

“Ops, Selzner here.”

“Ensign, First Minister Shakaar will be addressing the Bajoran people on the comnet in a couple of minutes,” Kira said. “I’d like you to patch it into the station’s comm system.”

“Yes, Colonel,”Selzner said. “I’ll tie us in right now.”

“Thank you. Kira out.” She stood up and walked over to the replicator. “Tarkalean tea,” she ordered. “One-half measure of kava.”She preferred her tea not nearly as sweet as she liked her raktajino.The replicator hummed, and a cup of the hot beverage materialized on the pad. She picked it up and walked over to a companel set into the bulkhead. She activated it with a touch, and saw the elliptical symbol of Bajor hovering in the center of the screen. She backed up and sat down on a padded seat along the wall, then sipped at her tea and waited. Shortly, the companel blinked, and the image of Shakaar appeared on the display. He wore a formal, dark brown Bajoran jacket over a white shirt. He was seated, with his forearms at right angles to his body and resting on the table in front of him. A padd sat between his arms. Kira recognized the wardroom behind him.

“Good day to all of Bajor,”he began. “For years now, since the first days after the end of the Occupation, many of us have discussed the possibility of our people joining the United Federation of Planets. Opinion has long been divided on the matter, and likely always will be, but in recent years, a large majority of Bajorans have come to favor aligning with the member worlds of the Federation, and becoming a part of a larger community. As we embark…”

How far he’s come,Kira thought, her attention wandering from the speech. Shakaar had never lacked for confidence or charm, but he had never cared much for politics, even after being elected first minister. Only his love for their people, and his sense of responsibility to them, had caused him to seek his office, and then to sustain it. For a long time, though, Shakaar had practiced his public service in a homespun sort of way, and although he had not entirely lost that simplicity and lack of pretension, Kira had seen a sophistication grow in him—particularly in the last few months, as he had been dealing with the Federation.

“…three years ago, the Federation approved Bajor’s petition for membership, but at the counsel of the Emissary of the Prophets…”

Kira sipped at her tea again, thinking back to her days in the resistance. Shakaar had always been such a strong and effective leader, never wavering from his purpose to free their people. As a girl, Kira had been awestruck by the man, and as a young woman, absolutely dedicated to his command. Only later, as an adult, when she and Shakaar had become romantically involved, had she truly learned how sensitive and solitary he actually was, and how much of a price he had paid—and continued to pay—by choosing to lead their people.

“…spent time touring Federation worlds. I have spoken with their representatives, as well as…”

Kira’s romantic relationship with Shakaar had ended abruptly, but amicably. It had been later that they had drifted apart, the gulf seeming to widen especially in the last few months. Although Kira still loved Odo—since he had left, she had not seen anybody, and she did not know when, or even if, she ever would—she also missed her closeness with Shakaar. Not their romance, but the closeness that had come from having a shared history and shared values. When they had talked alone in his guest quarters yesterday, the distance between them had been apparent to her, though the conversation had gone perfectly well. And since it had not been Kira’s inclination to diminish their friendship, it must have been Shakaar’s choice. And sometimes that saddened her.

“…and on behalf of the Bajoran people, I officially requested the renewal of our petition for membership in the Federation. Today, here aboard Deep Space 9, a summit commenced to consider that petition. Attending are ambassadors from…”

Kira turned her full attention to Shakaar, now that he had come to the official announcement of the summit. She wondered what the reaction on Bajor would be, and just how long it would take the Federation representatives on the station to come to a decision.

“There have been many struggles for our people in the past,”Shakaar continued, “but now we look to a bright, positive, and peaceful future.”He paused, seemingly to underscore the words he was about to say. “Today,”he went on, “I am happy to report to you that Bajor’s petition for membership in the Federation has been approved.”

Kira was startled. She had believed that there was a good chance that this would happen within the next few months, but for it to happen so soon…

“The summit will continue, as there are many issues still to be resolved, but the official signing ceremony will take place six weeks from today. At that time, Bajor will become a member of the United Federation of Planets.”

Shakaar continued speaking, but Kira heard nothing more. She felt dazed by the rapidity with which this had happened.

The quaver of the companel drew her eyes back to the display, and she saw that Shakaar had finished his speech, and that his image had been replaced by a Bajoran icon. She put her teacup down on the arm of the seat, then stood up and paced over to the companel. She switched it off. Still feeling stunned, she peered aimlessly around her office. Her gaze came to rest on the bookshelf, and then to the large, red tome there. She walked to the shelf and pulled When the Prophets Crieddown.

“‘Anew will shine the twilight of their destiny,’” Kira quoted the ancient prophecy. “Not the end of the day,” she whispered. “The beginning.” Holding the sacred text flat in one hand, she ran her fingers across the faded gilt letters of the title inlaid into the cover.

Alone in her office, Kira smiled, knowing that a new dawn had come to the people of Bajor.

Part Four

A Newer World

The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks;

The long day wanes; the slow moon climbs; the deep

Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends.

’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.

–ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON,

“ULYSSES”

64

“Do you have regrets?”

Prynn raised her head and peered over the open top of the survival locker at Shar, not surprised by his question. Her own thoughts had turned to many subjects over the last hour or two, and regret had certainly been among them. Still, even considering the uncertainty of their situation, she did not wish to discuss such matters right now. What’s the point?she thought. Instead, shrugging and attempting to change the subject, she said, “Well, I’ve never been surfing on the Canopus Planet.”

Shar smiled, but in a way Prynn had noticed before, like a mask with no emotion behind it; she had always taken the empty expression to be his form of a polite response. She had wanted him to ask her what surfingwas, but he would not let go of his question to her. “I think you know what I mean,” he said.

“Yeah,” she said, nodding, “I do.” She ducked back down and pulled a ration pack from the survival cache. Holding it up so that Shar could see it, she asked, “Would you like something to eat?”

“No, thank you,” he said.

Prynn walked around the locker and back over to where Shar lay on his back atop his bedroll. On the way, she decided that she was glad they had opted to transport. Unable to get much closer to the source of the pulse, they had done as her father had ordered and beamed in the opposite direction. She did not believe that it would do them any good, but she was pleased that she no longer had to see the shuttle wreckage. The rest of their new surroundings appeared the same as the old—flat and featureless—just without the embellishment of the crash site. Now there’s a regret for you,she thought. If I’d only been able to land the shuttle….

Shaking off the thought, she sat down on her own bedroll, awkwardly lowering herself onto it. Though they had taken off their helmets, neither she nor Shar had removed their environmental suits since they had transported. In Shar’s case, with his mangled leg, the process would have been unnecessarily painful. And since he had not been able to take off his suit, Prynn had simply not bothered to take off hers.

She began to unwrap the ration pack. Beside her, Shar said, “I should have gone home sooner.” Prynn looked over and saw him staring up at the sky. She did not say anything. If he needed to talk about this now, then she would let him. “I could have taken a leave of absence from Starfleet,” he went on. “I could have even gotten posted to some planetside assignment on Andor.” He paused, and when the seconds began to stretch out, Prynn felt that she should say something.

“I’m not so sure how easy it is to get Starfleet to transfer you wherever you want to go,” she offered.

Shar turned his head to the side and looked over at her. “I was selfish,” he said flatly.

Prynn looked at him for a moment, and then said, “I don’t know you very well, Shar, but you don’t strike me as a selfish person. I suspect that if you were, then you wouldn’t be feeling such remorse right now.” She glanced down at the partially unwrapped ration pack in her lap, and found that she really was not hungry after all.

Shar turned his head back and stared up at the sky again. “I just wish I had done things in a different way,” he said.

“We all make choices,” Prynn told him. “And they’re not always the right ones.” She thought she had come to understand that in the past few days better than she ever had. “Look, you can’t change the past,” she said, and the picture of her mother’s face rose immediately in her mind. Not wanting to risk any painful emotions following after it, she quickly pushed the image away. “At least, you can’t change it,” she said, seeking to lighten the moment, “without getting paid a visit by the Department of Temporal Investigations.”

Shar smiled again, but in a way that seemed genuine this time. “Have you ever had to speak to one of their investigators?” he asked, his tone a strange mix of curiosity and disdain.

“Not personally,” she said, “but one time, when I was on the Sentinel—” Something moved quickly to Prynn’s right, and she looked in that direction. In the distance, a huge plume shot into the air, a thick, agitated column of smoke—

Not smoke,Prynn saw as the rising mass joined seamlessly to the gray sky above, both obviously of the same composition. She quickly stood up, the ration pack falling to the ground from her lap. As she watched, the column expanded outward, like the result of a massive explosion. “The pulse,” she speculated, but then wondered if her father had managed to detonate the devices—

Dad,she thought, and then realized that she had opened her mouth and screamed the word. She stared in horror at the scene. The gray mass continued to spread outward.

“Prynn,” Shar called. “Prynn!” She tore her gaze away and looked down at him. “The helmets,” he said, and pointed past her. She turned like an automaton, stiffly, not really conscious of her movements. “Prynn!”Shar called again, and she looked out and saw the middle third of the horizon filled now, and the column advancing in all directions. She shook her head, as though waking herself from a dream.

The helmets,she thought, and she finally moved, picking them up off the ground. She raced over to Shar and gave him one. He pulled it on over his head, and she bent and helped him twist it into position and then lock it into place. Then she stood back up and did the same for herself.

The instant before the shock wave struck her, she saw the lid of the survival locker crash closed. Then a wall of increased pressure slammed into her, knocking the wind out of her and carrying her backward off of her feet. She flew through the air like a leaf before a hurricane.

At least five seconds passed before she hurtled back onto the ground, hard. Her head snapped back, hitting the back of her helmet. She gasped for air, trying to catch her breath. The gale rushed past, clawing at the contours of her environmental suit, and roaring loudly in her ears. Below her, the ground began to shake violently.

Prynn inhaled great, desperate gulps of air, involuntary attempts to return oxygen to her lungs. She struggled up onto her elbows, and saw blue electrical charges arcing across the metallic portions of her suit. Ahead, she saw nothing—not Shar, not the bedrolls, not the survival locker, nothing but a great, writhing wall of gray bearing down on her. Her gaze followed it upward, and she saw the cloud cover above descending rapidly toward the planet’s surface. Instinctively, she threw her arms up in front of her face.

Suddenly, she was surrounded by the thrashing, penumbral mass. The pressure around her increased, and she felt her environmental suit pushing in on her on all sides.

Her last conscious thought was of her father.

65

Quark stood behind the bar, motionless and staring at the display on the companel. He knew what was coming.

“During the past half-year,”Shakaar said, “I have spent time touring Federation worlds…”

This evening, the bar was busier than it had been in a long time, with a virtual mob surrounding Hetik at the dabo table. Earlier, the hum of voices, the ring of glassware, and the delicious clink of gold-pressed latinum had combined in a way Quark had come to think of over the years as the sound of success. But after Shakaar had begun his speech, the mélange of noises had dulled as the attentions of his customers had been drawn first to Shakaar’s voice, and then to his image on the companels around the bar and out on the Promenade. Bajorans had mostly been the ones initially distracted from their drinking and gambling by the first minister, but before long, almost all of the bar’s patrons had stopped to watch and listen to Shakaar.

“Today, here aboard Deep Space 9,”the first minister continued, “a summit commenced to consider that petition. Attending along with me are ambassadors from Alonis, from Trill…”

“Yeah, yeah,” Quark said, waving his hand in front of the display. “We know who the players are.”

“Shhh,” Treir said beside him, slapping him lightly on the arm.

Quark’s mood plummeted by the second as he watched Shakaar delivering his address from the station’s wardroom. I can’t believe I served that man drinks there,he thought.

“There have been many struggles for our people in the past,”Shakaar went on, “but now we look to a bright, positive, and peaceful future.”He paused—rather melodramatically, Quark thought—and Quark knew that the moment was at hand. The summit had only begun today, he had only found out about its purpose a few hours ago, and yet here the first minister was, already making the announcement. After all these years in the bar, and after all that he had been through on the station, Quark’s time here was finally at an end. “Today,”Shakaar droned on, “I am happy to report to you that Bajor’s petition for membership in the Federation has been approved.”

The bar erupted, cheers and applause going up from the Bajorans present. And probably the Starfleet types too,Quark thought bitterly. He did not bother to look around or listen closely enough to find out. He remained frozen behind the bar, glaring at the image of Shakaar on the display. Amazingly, the oaf kept talking, obviously not understanding either the value of a good exit line, or the dreariness of an anticlimax.

At last, Shakaar finished speaking, and the companel blinked into standby mode. Quark continued to stare at the screen. “I guess that’s really something,” Treir said next to him, reaching up and touching him on the arm. Quark shrugged her hand away, then reached forward and jabbed at the companel’s controls, deactivating it.

“I’m sorry,” a voice said softly behind him, perfectly audible through the buzz that now filled the room. He turned to see Laren sitting at the bar, her hands folded together in front of her. He had been so preoccupied with the announcement that he had not even heard her come in. An expression of concern dressed her features, which touched Quark. Even with the difficult decisions that lay ahead in her own life, she still managed to feel badly for him.

Laren looked at Treir, who still stood next to Quark. There seemed to Quark to be no animosity in the look, but it also seemed clear that Laren wanted Treir to leave the immediate area. “Uh, I need to go see if Hetik needs any help,” the dabo girl said at once, and she quickly moved away.

“So,” Laren said once Treir had left, “what are you going to do?” They had each asked the same question earlier, when they had spoken in her office, but neither of their answers had been terribly specific.

Quark regarded Laren for a long moment, appreciating her strong features, the girlish cut of her hair, and the closeness that he had begun to feel with her. He suddenly felt the urge to make a bold gesture, not to impress her—not for her at all, really—but to symbolize for himself the new and indeterminate path down which his life had just begun to travel. He smiled broadly, then reached back and touched a control on the companel. Two loud chimes rang through the bar, and the lively hum of conversation faded. “The next round of drinks,” he called loudly, locking his gaze with Laren’s, “is on the house.” Another cheer went up in the bar, actually even louder than the one following Shakaar’s announcement.

Laren smiled back at Quark, apparently delighted by his gesture. The moment seemed to stretch out as they stared into each other’s eyes. Everything around Quark seemed to wilt out of existence, and he and Laren together seemed to make up the entire universe. Then a tall, ribbed metal mug came streaking down between them, slamming onto the bar and ending the moment.

“Yridian brandy,” said a loud, slurred voice belonging to the Yridian whose hand gripped the mug. Laren turned her head slowly toward the bleary-eyed drunk. Quark watched as she reached up and, just as slowly, slid the mug out from between them.

“Sorry,” she said. “Quark isn’t working right now. Find one of the waiters to help you.”

“But…but…” the Yridian stammered.

Laren reached out quickly as Grimp raced past, headed for the bar, a tray of empty glasses in his hands. She stopped him with a touch to his arm, and said, “Grimp, would you please find this—” She paused and glanced over at Quark, offering him a comic expression. “– gentlemana table to sit at.”

“Uh, okay,” Grimp said. “I just need to—”

“Do it now,” Quark ordered the waiter.

“Here,” Laren said, and she took the tray from Grimp, then passed it over the bar to Quark. Quark turned and put it down beside the recycle shelf, then turned back to see Grimp leading the staggering Yridian away.

“Thanks,” Quark said to Laren, and he knew that his gratitude carried well beyond her relocation of the drunk.

“Believe me,” she said in a soft tone, “it was my pleasure.” Then she asked, “Are you all right?”

Quark considered the question briefly, and then shrugged. “Not everything always turns out the way you expect it to,” he said. “And you know what? That’s not always a bad thing.” To his great surprise, he realized that he actually believed that.

“I think you’re right about that,” Laren told him. Then she leaned in over the bar, and Quark moved forward and leaned in himself. “Now then,” she said, “can I buy youa drink?”

Quark smiled again, already feeling intoxicated.