“Welcome to Lakarian City. Or what’s left of it,” the lead woman said sardonically. “You are Gul Macet.”

Macet nodded his head slightly, then gestured toward the Bajoran beside him. “This is Vedek Yevir Linjarin.” Pointing to his assistant, he introduced her as well. He waved his hand toward the rubble. “My other two men are scouting for any potentially threatening interlopers. You said there would be five in your party, and yet there are six?”

“My apologies, Macet,” the woman said. She pointed to the boy, who Macet saw was gaping at him, his mouth forming a perfect O of incredulity. “When the young man heard that youwere coming, he insisted on coming with us. He also said he’d always wanted to see Krendalee. Unfortunately, his father never managed to find the time to bring him here.”

Something about the boy struck Macet as familiar. Something about the eyes, the forehead ridges. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. “Well, it’s not much to look at now, is it?” he said to the lad.

The boy spat at him, the expectoration landing in the dust at Macet’s feet. Then he turned and ran, heading toward a nearby copse of dead, shattered trees.

Macet smirked, then addressed the stout older woman who had been standing with the boy. “Well, that’s a reaction I’ve gotten used to from Bajorans, but I rarely receive it from my own countrymen. Do you care to explain, Cleric Ekosha?”

The older woman looked surprised, and the taller woman began to speak, but she hadn’t uttered more than a few syllables before the matron silenced her with a swift hand signal.

“How did you recognize me? We’ve never met.”

“Years of military duty,” Macet said. “And with all the clandestine skullduggery that’s gone on during the last two wars…Let’s just say I know a decoy when I see one, Ekosha.” He nodded toward Yevir. “Now that we’re all here, and have gotten the introductions out of the way, shall we get on with our business? Time is short. If we hope to bring our plan to fruition, we will have to move quickly.”

The old woman nodded, and her decoy stepped back into the pack. “When you first contacted me, Macet, I was suspicious. The Oralian Way has been underground for so very long. Years of religious persecution against those who revere Oralius, and the First Hebitian Civilization of Cardassia, have made us all quite wary about whom we will agree to speak with candidly.”

“My understanding is that the Oralian Way was legitimized recently,” Yevir said.

A rueful smile spread across Ekosha’s lined face.“There is a huge difference between legitimizing a religion and accepting it. Yes, it is no longer against Cardassian law to be an Oralian, but that does not mean that we are welcomed, or even tolerated. Even as our society rebuilds itself, the old-guard Cardassians—career politicians and military authorities, mainly—still take it upon themselves to try to keep us fearful and fragmented. Many of our churches have been mysteriously burned, and several of our more outspoken leaders have been beaten or have even disappeared in the dead of night. We decided to go underground again. Before we run out of martyrs to canonize.”

“I assure you that our intentions here are far nobler than that, Cleric,” Macet said, hoping she would believe him. If not, this entire venture would prove a colossal waste of time and effort.

“If I didn’t already believe that on some level, Macet, I never would have agreed to meet with you,” Ekosha said.

“Macet arranged this meeting at my request,” Yevir said, stepping forward. “I am deeply troubled by the diplomatic impasse that now exists between Bajor and Cardassia. For both our planets to heal themselves, we need to let the oldest wounds heal first.”

“I suspect those wounds will leave some rather livid scars,” Ekosha said with a tiny sardonic smile.

“I suspect you’re right,” Yevir said, apparently unfazed by Ekosha’s interruption. “Nevertheless, Bajor enters the Federation tomorrow. If we can establish peace between our two peoples now—before the Federation takes such matters out of our hands—think of the good it will accomplish. For both our peoples.”

“And what of the benefits such a breakthrough would bring to both of you?”Ekosha asked, her eyes darting from Yevir to Macet and back again. “Youwant to be kai of Bajor, and if what I’ve heard is true, you’re willing to suppress an offshoot religion if it helps you achieve that. Macetwants respect, and to finally emerge from the shadow of a man whom all of Bajor hates. Not to mention many Cardassians who haven’t forgotten who began our world’s slide into destruction.”

Several troubling questions percolated up from the depths of Macet’s soul at that moment. Is she right? Have Yevir and I flattered ourselves into believing that we’ve come to forge peace between our respective worlds? Or has this all been an exercise in self-aggrandizement for us both?

Yevir appeared to be grappling with similar notions. But unlike Macet, Yevir seemed to have a ready answer. “I swear to you, Cleric Ekosha, without reservation, without doubt, that I am acting solely in the interests of my people. To do that, I must also act in the best interests of yours.”

Then Yevir did something that Macet didn’t expect. Very deliberately, he removed his Bajoran earring and tossed it to the ground. Then he began stripping off his heavy clerical robes, setting them atop the earring in a careless pile. He stood in a plain white tunic and trousers, bereft of any badge of office. But what he had shed in clothing he more than made up for in simple dignity and courage. Until this moment, Macet had not been at all certain that Yevir possessed any such qualities.

“I don’t deny that I might benefit personally from a last-minute rapprochement between Bajor and Cardassia. If the price of such a peace is that I throw all of that aside, then I will gladly do it.

“I come among you not as a candidate for kai, nor as a representative of any religion. I am here with one agenda only: to bring our peoples together without any force or coercion—even the benevolent kind that the Federation would surely bring.

“I ask only that you do the same thing. Forget about whether or not the Oralians will profit from emerging from your bunkers. Think instead about what’s best for your people.You know as well as I do that without a just peace—arrived at freely—there will be war again between Bajor and Cardassia someday. If our two civilizations cannot reach out to one another without outside help, then old slights and injustices will fester on bothsides. We can lance those boils and bring about a healing. But only if we act together now.”

Yevir extended his hand toward the stout woman, who looked at it as though it might turn into a poisonous reptile at any moment. Macet had the sudden sense that the entire axis of history was revolving around this place and time. And that Yevir’s words were absolutely right, whatever doubts Macet still harbored about his own motivations.

Macet felt a stab of regret at the sharp words he had hurled at Colonel Kira when he had confronted her about the intransigence of her world’s political leaders. A remarkable people, these Bajorans.

Yevir’s words had evidently struck a sonorous chord within the Oralian cleric. Ekosha extended both her hands and grasped Yevir’s between them. “I am not so old as to imagine that even a masterstroke of peace will suddenly gain the Oralian Way the respect that is its due. Nor am I still so in love with living for its own sake that I am willing to hide underground forever.”

Macet tried to put aside the jubilation that swelled within his chest. Like the master kotraplayer he was, he tried to anticipate the next move the fragile new alliance ought to make. But all he could come up with was yet another unsettling question, one that he didn’t hesitate to ask aloud: “How do we broker a peace agreement when even our most accomplished diplomats have failed?”