Текст книги "Days of the Vipers"

Автор книги: James Swallow

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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 30 страниц)

7

“S krain?”

The old man’s voice was thick with sleep, and Dukat realized abruptly that the time difference between Korto and the capital on Cardassia meant it had to be before dawn. He deflected a stab of irritation, for an instant taking a step back and examining his actions. Dukat was allowing himself to behave emotionally when the best course would be to remain detached and clearheaded. His fingers drew together and he fought to moderate his anxiety. “Father,” he began, “I’m sorry I woke you.” He threw a look over his shoulder and saw that the hatch behind him was shut. The pilot, Pa’Dar, and Bennek had left without speaking, respecting his privacy.

On the tiny cockpit monitor, Archon Procal Dukat settled himself on the chair before the desk in his office where the comm screen sat. Thickset and firm of face, he still maintained the look of a street fighter about him even as the passing years robbed him of his robustness. Skrain, wiry and athletic in build, took after his mother more than the man on the other end of the line, but only in his physical aspect. Inwardly, Procal and his son shared much more in terms of their manner and personality. It was one of the reasons why they disagreed so often, why they had disagreed the last time they had spoken; but both of them understood that this was a matter of greater import than their differences. Unspoken, the two men automatically put their quarrels aside.

The elder Dukat adjusted the robe about his shoulders and threw a glance toward the shadowed bedroom door across the room. He kept his voice low but intense. “You received the message, then?”

Skrain’s brow furrowed in confusion. “From you? No.”

His father chuckled without humor. “Of course not. Why should I have expected any different? Central Command told me you were on a mission of utmost sensitivity. Communications of a military nature only.”

Skrain shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We’re speaking now.” He leaned closer to the small screen. “Tell me what is going on. My wife…”

Procal frowned, matching his son’s expression. “Skrain, this channel is likely being monitored.”

“Athra and my son,” Skrain continued, keeping his voice level. “Tell me.”

The old man’s eyes met his. “As soon as I heard about the Oralians and the rioting, I did what I could to reach the Medical Campus at Lakat…”

“What?” The word burst from Skrain’s lips. “Is she hurt?”

His father held up a hand to halt him. “The week you left, Athra and my grandson took ill. It’s an infection from tainted water. Many people have been affected.”He sighed. “I made sure they were placed where they would get good care.”

“Thank you.” Dukat replied numbly. His face tingled with a rush of blood. At once he felt a churn of emotions: anger and worry, shock and humiliation. All he wanted in that instant was to be home, at Athra’s side.

“Skrain,”the archon continued, “listen to me. The Detapa Council has issued a statement about concerns over insurgent attacks. The Oralians are in an uproar here. The military have sent in peacekeeper divisions to calm the unrest outside Lakat and the other cities in the southern territories. Nothing is getting in or out, including supplies.”

“How will they get the medicine they need?” Skrain snapped. “I have to—”

“Skrain.”His father said his name with such quiet force that it stopped Dukat in his tracks. “What can you do? Unless you’re planning on stealing Kell’s starship and flying it home, what can you do?”The old man shook his head. “This is what it means to serve Cardassia, son. This is a harsh lesson, but you cannot shrink from it.”His voice shifted, taking on the authoritarian tone Dukat remembered from his childhood. “Do your duty. I’ll do what I can to help Athra and the boy.”He reached for the disconnect key.

“Procal,” said Dukat. “His name is Procal.”

The old man halted and nodded to him, then cut the link.

For long moments, Dukat sat there in the acceleration chair and looked at his hands, the gray fingers tightening into fists, releasing, tightening again. He felt helpless and he despised the reaction, a hard loathing coiling inside his chest, pressing against his ribs. He wanted to shout, to break something, but the turmoil had no point of escape. He glared out of the canopy of the cutter at the walls of the Bajoran castle beyond, and a sudden flare of hate shot through him—for Kell, for the Oralians, for the aliens, for this damnable mission.

Burning in his directionless fury, he almost shattered the control panel when the ship-to-ship communicator chimed, announcing an incoming signal. “What is it?” he snarled at the intrusion.

Kell’s indolent voice answered him. “Another officer might consider that tone to be insubordinate, Dalin. However, I’m willing to overlook it, given your personal considerations at the moment.”

Dukat’s teeth set on edge, recalling his father’s earlier comment. Of course Kell had been listening to us. I would have expected nothing less.

The gul continued. “I’ve been in contact with Fleet Jagul Hekit. He concurs with my appraisal of the situation here. The Bajorans are intransigent and there are matters of greater import closer to home that require our attention. We’re to complete our secondary intelligence-gathering scans of Bajor and disengage.”

Dukat hid a sneer. The Kornairehad been in-system for barely a solar week, and already Kell had colluded with his old mentor Hekit to have the mission cut short. The gul’s open loathing of anything that smacked of “diplomacy” colored his every decision. Dukat immediately fathomed Kell’s train of thought; forced into taking the mission to Bajor, he had done only the least required of him to consider it completed so that he might move on to something that would gather more credit for the avaricious officer. Kell craved high rank and made no secret of the fact that he wanted to be prefect of his own planet. In his mind, the gul had doubtless decided the Bajor delegation was a worthless assignment even before they had left Cardassia Prime.

Kell must have seen something of his thoughts on his face. “Come, Dukat, I’d expect you to be pleased. My orders are to go to high warp once we break Bajor orbit and return to base. I thought you’d relish the chance to get home.”

“Yes,” Dukat replied, even as he knew that something did not ring true. “And there is more, sir?”

Kell nodded. “Indeed there is. The jagul informed me that an investigation has begun into the incidents with the Oralians on Cardassia. Apparently, Central Command now suspects that these disturbances were prearranged by senior figures in the church. Suspects are being gathered to be put to the question. Tribunals are already being convened.”

“Hadlo?” Dukat hesitated. Masterminding urban disorder and open conflict? Such behavior seemed out of character for the staid old cleric, but then there was a part of him that didn’t care, a part of him that wanted someone to blame.

“Correct,”said Kell. “Isolate and detain him. I want him back on board theKornaire immediately. See to it personally, Dalin.”

“Sir,” he replied, but Kell had already cut the signal.

Pa’Dar glared at Bennek, his arms folded over his chest. “How can you deny that you know nothing of the actions of your cohorts?”

The priest frowned, trying to find a way to explain the situation to the scientist without patronizing him. “You have to understand, I can no more know the thoughts of my fellows than you could tell me the workings of someone in the Ministry for Public Health! We are one faith, yes, but beneath the gaze of Oralius there are many branches of the church.” He could see Pa’Dar was not listening to him. “One faith, many voices. Do you not follow me?”

The other man sneered, and his voice carried down the length of the cutter’s central bay. “What I followis reason and rationality, not some masked shadow-theater that encourages dissension and unrest!”

Bennek glanced around nervously. He was regretting his offer to Dukat; while the dalin was sealed in the cockpit beyond them, the cleric was alone with the glinn, Pa’Dar, and a couple of men from the enlisted ranks. The two gils in particular hovered at the edge of his vision, intimidating him with their hard glares and the set of their jaws. Bennek’s fingers clutched at the baggy cuffs of his pastel-colored robes and bunched them. “If my brothers have done these things, then there must be a good reason for it!” He blurted out the words with more bravado than he felt, too late realizing that the others might take them for defiance and strike him.

The glinn eyed the priest. “My grandmother went to your temples,” she told him. “She died from blood poisoning, even though she gave the clerics every last lek she had so that they would recite for her. She thought they would save her.”

Bennek blinked, his jaw working. “I’m…I’m sure they did their best to make sure her last days were peaceful ones.”

“Money better spent on medical care,” Pa’Dar grated.

“That’s the problem with you people. You’re all backward-looking.” He pressed a thick finger into Bennek’s chest.

“Prayers and mythology won’t make Cardassia strong again.”

The young priest tried to frame an answer that wouldn’t raise the ire of the others, but before he could speak, the cockpit hatch hissed open and there was Dalin Dukat on the threshold, his eyes hooded and flinty. His gaze locked on Bennek and he took two quick steps toward him. Reflexively, the youth backed away and bumped into a curved support stanchion. The cleric nearly stumbled, the larger of the two gils looming over him, blocking his retreat.

“Where is he?” demanded Dukat. Bennek’s throat went dry as the officer’s hand fell to his belt, dithering over the holstered pistol at his hip. “Hadlo?”

Like a striking snake, the enlisted man’s hand shot out and grabbed a fistful of Bennek’s robes, pushing him to the wall of the compartment.

Bennek glanced at Pa’Dar, hoping that the civilian might come to his aid, but the scientist said nothing, watching. “Please,” he began, “I am so sorry for the conduct of my brethren on Cardassia, but you must understand we knew nothing of it!”

“I will not ask you again,” Dukat growled. “Where is Hadlo?”

The cleric wanted to be strong; he was willing himself to say nothing, but the terror washed through his veins in a cold flood and he stuttered out the answer. “Th-the keep. In the rooms the Bajorans granted us.”

Dukat gave the gil an almost imperceptible nod, and the trooper jerked his wrist, pushing Bennek away so that he stumbled to the deck in a heap. The dalin went to the airlock and stabbed the control pad. “Keep him here,” he told the pilot. “See that he doesn’t speak to anyone.”

Bennek looked up to find that nobody was offering to help him to his feet. “Dukat!” he called. “We’re not to blame!”

Without looking back at him, the officer hesitated on the airlock ramp. “I don’t blame you, Bennek,” he said, with an icy calm that was more frightening than his earlier moments of fury. “You think you are a good man. Perhaps you are right. It’s misguided beliefs that allow good men like you to do terrible things. That’s where the blame lies.”

Dukat took care to moderate his stride and his outward mien so that the aliens he passed in the corridor would not realize that something was amiss. He found his way quickly to the east tower and paced into the area where the Oralians were staying. The other clerics, the minor functionaries who rarely seemed to speak in Dukat’s presence, came to their feet at he stalked past them toward the door of Hadlo’s room.

One of them reached out to touch his arm, the other bringing a hand to his lips in a gesture calling for quiet; in return Dukat shot the priest a steely glare and tore his pistol from its holster, ripping the peace bond ribbon around it with a tight snap. With a single sharp blow from the heel of his hand, Dukat forced open the electromechanical lock on the door and entered, slamming it shut behind him. He kept the disruptor at his side, his finger an inch from the trigger plate.

Hadlo was kneeling in the center of the room. The old man had moved all the furniture to the walls, the table and the wooden chairs pushed out of the way so that he had a spread of open floor to work on. There were sheets of paper everywhere, arranged in a ragged halo around the cleric, and Dukat recognized some of them as scrolls like the one that Bennek had used in his recitation for the dead. Hadlo was scratching at them with a stylus, writing in the margins and adding spidery lines of text in every blank space he could find. He shot a watery look at Dukat and paused. “I have to complete this,” he said vaguely. “Come back later.”

“Get up,” Dukat snarled, angry at the priest’s defiance.

“If you wish to do this with some dignity, then stand up!”

The old man looked at him again, and it seemed to Dukat as if Hadlo were seeing him for the first time. Hadlo did as he had been told to, padding forward on bare feet, hands outstretched. “Do you know this?” He waved at the papers. “Have you seen the vipers, my brother? Ashes and the future.” The cleric shook his head as if he were trying to clear it. “It’s difficult to marshal all the images. There’s a code, I think. A code. Yes.”

Dukat raised the pistol. “I’m placing you under detention by the order of Cardassian Central Command. Attempt to resist me and you will be shot.”

He expected the cleric to fold and panic just as Bennek had, but instead a cool smile emerged on the old man’s lips. “Who ordered this? Gul Kell?” He nodded before Dukat could answer. “Yes. Very well. Take me to him.”

Dukat tapped the communicator bracelet on his wrist. “Kornaire,this is Dukat. Lock on and transfer two to shipboard, immediately.”

Hadlo kept on smiling, even as the transporter beam enveloped him and swept him away.

As Gul Kell reached the security compartment, his lip curled in cold amusement to find Rhan Ico standing at the heavy hatchway before Dukat. The dalin’s expression was all chained anger and repression, while the woman wore the same default mien of watchful neutrality. Everywhere he turned on this mission, Ico was there. It was getting to be comical, in its own sinister way.

“Report,” he ordered.

“The cleric did not resist arrest,” Dukat explained, in a way that made it clear he was disappointed. “I have secured him in holding quadrant two. He has made repeated demands to speak with you.”

Kell raised a thick eyeridge. “Well. Perhaps I should indulge him, then.” He took a step toward the hatch, and as he expected, Ico interposed herself.

“Gul, I would like to attend you. It’s of interest to me to hear his comments regarding the unrest on the homeworld.”

“Is it?” Kell replied. All three of them knew full well the scientist had absolutely no authority to be granted such access; her posting, after all, was only that of a civilian adviser outside the starship’s chain of command.

“With respect,” began Dukat, “Professor Ico’s remit does not extend to prisoners in custody.”

“Quite so,” said Kell, tapping the keypad to open the hatch. “But I’m choosing to extend it for the moment.”

“Sir,” said the dalin, “Central Command will—”

“Central Command is not here,”Kell growled. “I am.” He beckoned Ico to follow him. “Return to the bridge, Dukat. I want privacy.”

“As you command.” The other man’s reply was terse.

Once the hatch closed again, Ico gave him an arch look.

“Thank you for accommodating me, Gul.” She paused. “If I might say so, your junior officer appears quite unhappy with the situation at hand.” Ico had a knack for making everything she said appear to be no more than an innocuous observation; she always spoke without weight.

Kell didn’t look at her. “Dukat’s a fine officer, but he lacks an understanding of the nature of command. Some hounds need to be kept on a tight chain.”

“Some hounds bite,” she added.

They came to a halt at an oval space opening onto a narrow chamber. A humming force field hazed the view into the cell, traces of yellow sparks flickering at the edges of the glowing emitter bars surrounding it. Hadlo stood in the center of the holding compartment, watching them.

“There’s no need for this,” he said, pointing at the field.

“I’m not a threat.”

Kell rubbed his chin. “I’ll let a tribunal decide that, cleric. Your fellow zealots have made quite a mess in your absence. I’m sure the people will be interested to know what hand you had in that.” He glanced at Ico. “How many deaths so far, Professor?”

“Fifty-three,” said the woman. “Some of them children and the infirm.”

Kell shook his head, concealing the relish he felt at having the priest incarcerated. “Terrible business. I’m sure you’ll be made to answer in full for it.”

Hadlo came forward in an abrupt rush. “No, listen to me. Your attention is in the wrong place! This is not about Cardassia, it is about Bajor! About both!” His face flushed dark gray. “If you could open your eyes, if you could listen! I’ve seen it!”

“Seen what?” A sneer crossed the gul’s face. “Has your silly little sect given you some holy revelation to impart to us?”

“In the temple at Kendra, in the shrine there, I saw such things as a man like you could never comprehend!” thundered Hadlo, suddenly animated. “The Bajoran kai showed me, and the Orb…the Orb was the vision!”

“Orb?” The word stuck in Kell’s mind, and he dwelt on it for a moment. He recalled a fraction of data from his pre-mission briefing, the vague intelligence reports from the Obsidian Order about the aliens and their culture. Doubtless the reports were deliberately unclear where the Order chose to keep the more sensitive data to itself—such a practice was not uncommon—but there had been mention of some sort of relics of religious significance to the Bajorans. He glanced at Ico and saw with some interest that the woman’s previously off hand attention toward the cleric had gained a new intensity.

“I saw our worlds, the ashen wilderness and the snakes. Death and destruction laid forth, the blinding smoke…” He trailed off, gasping. “As real to me as you!”

Kell snorted. “Oh, how pathetic. This is the best defense you can offer? Your perfidy is revealed and all you can do is play the madman? Visions? What idiocy.”

“I saw tomorrow!”The cleric let out the words in a screech. “The future emerging from the Orb of Truth, skeins of possibility unraveling! And the shape of them vanishing, taken away and stolen by serpents…”

Ico’s eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer to the force field. “Stolen,” she repeated. “You saw the Orbs being taken away?”

He nodded curtly. “One by one.”

The gul grimaced. “Rhan, please do not tell me that you of all people find some shred of cogency in this babble?” He shot Hadlo a hard look. “It’s clear to me. He is either arrested by some sort of dementia brought on by his primitive beliefs, or he is concocting a web of nebulous statements in an attempt to appear more knowledgeable than he is!”

“Perhaps,” Ico said.

Kell laughed. “Aren’t you a woman of science? A student of the rational? Do you actually put any credence in talk about Orbs that show the future? This is the desperation of a condemned man, nothing more.” He sniffed. “I have seen all I need to see.”

“Science is the pursuit of knowledge,” she said quietly, speaking with steady intensity. “I want to know more about these Orbs.” There was something in her words that told Kell she knew far more about them already than either he or the cleric did.

“Yes. Yes!” Hadlo came so close to the glimmering barrier that the emitters rose in pitch with the proximity of his body. “And that will only come through me, through the Oralian Way!”

“If that was an attempt to convert us, it was a weak one,” Kell retorted.

The old man’s face twisted in a snarl, and suddenly the gul was seeing the pious, imperial manner he remembered from their earlier confrontations. “I would never dirty my faith with you, Kell! I speak of larger issues, of survival and what must be done to ensure it!”

“Go on,” said Ico.

He stabbed a crooked finger at them. “You want to open the path to the Bajorans, but they will not listen to you. They see only aliens, the shadow of expansionist warmongers and soulless clinicians! Without weapons, you will never gain a foothold on Bajor! You know it and I know it! They reject you, they distrust you!” He laughed bitterly. “If it were not for us, if the children of Oralius were not with you now, they would have turned you away at the edge of their space!”

Kell’s jaw stiffened. “Be thankful you had a use, you old fool. But now, like any tool that has failed to perform, you’ll be cast aside. You and your whole sect.”

“Not if Cardassia wants Bajor!” roared Hadlo. “I can give it to you! Kai Meressa will listen to me, she trusts me. The Bajoran church holds great sway over their people…If the kai welcomes Cardassia, then Bajor will follow in her footsteps and not even the First Minister will stand against her. I can bring that to pass. Already she has granted my petition to create a theological enclave on her planet. I have taken the first step!”

“You would make your faith the bridge between our two worlds? This is your bargain?” asked Ico.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? A channel to their riches and resources?”

The gul folded his arms over his chest. His mind was racing. Here he was, hoping for nothing more than a chance to gloat over the cleric’s reversal of fortunes, and instead the old man had offered him a chance to gain the glory Ico had taunted him with earlier—a bloodless victory. The lure of the moment made his mouth flood with saliva. “And suppose you did this, priest,” he began, “what would you want in kind?”

Hadlo rocked back, the flush of emotion on his face fading. “Assurances. You will use your authority with Central Command to call off the persecution of my kinsmen. The Oralian Way will be allowed to go on as before.”

Kell spread his hands. “I am only a gul of the Second Order. I think you overestimate my influence.”

Hadlo glared at him through the transparent barrier. “Spare me your false modesty, Kell. We all know you are well connected. You could do this if you wished to.”

Kell shrugged. The cleric was right. “Perhaps so. But it will be difficult to withdraw after your fellow Oralians have done so much damage.”

The old man’s eyes narrowed. “There is little doubt in my mind that the majority of the unrest was stirred up not by followers of the Way but by men who impersonated them at the government’s behest.” His voice was low and loaded with cold fury. “But still. I understand there must be closure for the common folk. I submit instead, then, that the Central Command might learn that the Oralians who did these things were not of my branch of the Way, but of another. Perhaps the followers of the Desert Path sect or the Church of the Love of the Fates.”

Ico nodded. “Those are the smaller, less pliant factions of your religion, if I recall correctly. I imagine you would not be saddened to see them reduced in number?” She smiled coldly. “My dear Hadlo, I must apologize to you. I had thought you to be soft and idealistic, lacking in the ruthless instinct of the Cardassian spirit. I see now I was incorrect. You can be without pity if you want to.”

“This ‘enclave’ of which you spoke,” said Kell, “it will be a retreat, then? An embassy of sorts on Bajor?” Hadlo nodded. “It would serve the Cardassian Union well if the pilgrims you sent there were to include certain additionsamong their number.”

“If you wish,” Hadlo replied.

The gul glanced at Ico, and then at the cleric once again. “To ensure your sect remains free of persecution, what you speak of would need to be implemented in quick order. If I contact Central Command and tell them that I am ordering the Kornaireto remain in Bajor orbit, they will need assurances.”

“Let me out of this cage and I will make it happen. You have my word. I will do this for the future of my world and my faith, I swear it on the Recitations.”

“Gul,” said Ico silkily, “if I might prevail upon you to communicate with my colleagues at the ministry, I think I will be able to bring some weight to bear on the matter.” She smiled demurely. “I have some substantial contacts across the spectrum of our government.”

“Those that exist toward the darker end of that spectrum, I don’t doubt.” Kell grimaced. “Very well.” He tapped a control, and the energy field stuttered and faded. The gul studied the cleric. “Cardassia expects much of her sons and daughters. If they are lacking, then her mercy will be fleeting and her anger quite terrible.” He tapped the comcuff on his wrist. “Bridge, status.”

“Bridge here, this is Dukat,”came the reply. “Drive control reports systems at the ready, sir. Homeward course is laid in. We are ready to break orbit once the last of the ground party has been secured.”

Kell’s lip curled. “My previous orders are rescinded. Stand down from flight stations and remain in orbital mode. Prepare a Priority Black hyperchannel link to Cardassia Prime and connect it to my quarters.”

“Sir?”Confusion was evident in the other man’s voice.

“We are not leaving?”

“No, Dukat. There’s been a change in the mission.”

The applause faded away, and Jas nodded into it, maintaining the same careful expression of studied intellect that he had grown up seeing on his father’s face. Camera drones drifted over the assembled dignitaries like untethered balloons, moving this way and that so the view of the podium could be transmitted to screens around Bajor. Unlike the relative privacy of the Eledamemorial, this was a big affair, outside the keep walls in the gardens where the city and the plains beyond were clearly visible as a backdrop. The setting was a good bit of theater, and Jas made a mental note to compliment Lonnic on her deft placement of the stands. His gaze ranged over the faces around him and he forced himself not to dwell on the gray expressions of the Cardassians. Even after weeks of seeing the aliens in the corridors of the castle and elsewhere, he was still finding it difficult to adjust to them; but he was a politician and he was experienced at concealing things.

He launched into the concluding part of his speech. “And so, it gives me great pleasure to announce that our new friends from Cardassia will join us here in Korto District on a permanent basis, so that we might learn from one another and build a stronger understanding between our two peoples.” Jas gestured toward the plains; from this distance a good eye would be able to pick out the square of land marked for construction, purchased by the aliens through Kubus Oak’s corporate holdings. “This enclave will be a symbol of friendship and cooperation, and an opportunity for Bajor to look beyond her own horizons, to the galaxy beyond.” There was more applause, and the minister bowed slightly before stepping away from the podium. Regal in her full formal robes, Kai Meressa stepped up to take his place, with the Oralian cleric Hadlo at her side. As they stepped past one another, Jas could not fail to notice that the fatigued, wary cast to the old man’s features—so evident when the aliens had first arrived more than a month ago—was gone, replaced by a new, boundless confidence. The kai reflected the same energy and passion; Jas had no doubts that anyone here did not understand that the enclave had only come to be because of her single-minded drive to make it happen.

Verin had opposed the proposal to welcome the Cardassian priests from the moment Meressa had announced it on the floor of the forum in Ashalla. Jas recalled the stony cast to the First Minister’s face as the kai had given a heart-felt entreaty to the Chamber of Ministers; while she talked of “hands across the stars” and twinned faiths, Jas stole a glance at Kubus and found the other minister smiling to himself. Kubus had been correct when he had told Jas that the Prophets would provide the impetus for a Bajoran-Cardassian treaty, and that was exactly what had happened. For his part, Verin all but called the kai naïve and did his best to exercise his influence to reject the proposal. But Bajor is a world of the faithful,thought Jas, and the word of the kai carries greater weight than a politician’s ever could. She spoke with the will of the people and the clergy behind her.

He wondered if Verin Kolek understood where his isolationist outlook had taken him; with a little over a year remaining in his term of office as First Minister, his defiance of Meressa and his continued intransigence toward the offworlders had done nothing but weaken his position in the eyes of the people and the other ministers. Verin’s political allies were leaving his side one by one, shifting to follow the same path as Jas and Kubus; foremost among them was Lale Usbor, a moderate from Tamulna. He was everything Verin was not—warm and open, thoughtful and considerate. Kubus was already talking about Lale in terms of the elections, grooming the man for high office. The current First Minister would not return to that posting for another term, that was as clear as the sky. It was telling that Lale was here at the ceremony and Verin was not; the First Minister had cited some poor reason not be in Korto for the announcement, but it was a snub, pure and simple. Jas imagined Verin fuming in his office in Ashalla, unable to comprehend why the people were ignoring his conservative counsel; for all the man’s political acumen, at heart Verin was a staid, inflexible traditionalist. It was remarkable how the arrival of the Cardassians had rotted the roots of the old man’s power. Bajor was fascinated by the aliens and wanted to know them, while the First Minister just wanted them gone.

Hadlo and Meressa were speaking of the great import of this moment, of the historic coming together of two cultures and two faiths, of their hopes that the Korto Enclave would be the first of many. Jas nodded in all the right places, just as he knew he should, but inwardly he was elsewhere. The churn of anxiety had returned, the questions rolling over one another in his thoughts. Is this the right path? Am I making a mistake?He caught Kubus looking at him, and the Minister for Qui’al gave him a shallow nod. The other man had wasted not a moment in applying his political and business capital to the development of the Oralian enclave, and Jas was going along with him. For better or for worse, Korto was now at the center of things on Bajor. Where that would lead his city was something that Jas Holza could not predict, and the thought chilled and excited him in equal measure.