“Okay, I’ll go with you. But don’t try to fix me up with anyone, please. And we should come up with some sort of signal, if you and Damar want to go off alone.”

“Oh, we won’t need a signal. If we want to go off alone, you’ll know it. Trust me.”

Natima rolled her eyes, hoping the station would be worth it.

Vedek Opaka bowed to her son, who stood at her left, and then she bowed to the woman on her right. She recited from Taluno’s Seventeenth Prophecy with the rest of the congregation, and then she closed her eyes, to silently thank the Prophets for another day.

Once a month, the vedeks were free to join the gathering of faithful like any other worshipers, their spiritual duties adjourned. Although Opaka loved serving the Prophets, she also looked forward to these days, especially for the opportunity to be with her son. Fasil usually stood with another family until services were concluded, waiting for his mother to complete her tasks so that they could go home to their small cottage, a short distance beyond the sanctuary, and prepare their daily meal.

She smiled at Fasil. He was a good boy, responsible, with a strong sense of right. She had truly been blessed. But he was growing so quickly…

Vedek Gar had stepped to the front, and she turned her attention to him. She was looking forward to his sermon. It was during services that Gar’s quiet, enigmatic qualities were temporarily suspended, giving way to reveal a fiery and inspirational spirit.

“My brothers and sisters,” he began. “It inspires me to see such a strong turnout on a day like today, when many of us would prefer to be outside, to enjoy the sunshine. I know that when the weather has been so unpredictable, many of us feel as though it has been an eternity since we have been warmed by the sun. I commend you for choosing to come to services, for remembering to honor Those whose light replenishes our spirits.” He smiled broadly, but then his expression gave way to one of deep regret.

“Of course, it brings to mind an allegory. One with which I know you are all familiar. For there are some among us who, in these times of despair, begin to wonder if the warmth and comfort brought to them by the Prophets will ever return. And as they lose their faith, they begin to lose their way as well. And even when the Prophets are felt again, like the sun on an uncertain spring day, it is not to Them that those wayward travelers attribute their good fortune. Instead, they believe that it is only by their own initiative that fate begins to smile upon them. They forget where proper thanks are due.”

The congregation responded with a collective affirmation.

“The Prophets ask so little of us. They ask for our faith, and nothing more. And if we have faith, we know that we must continue to walk in the paths laid out by our fathers and mothers.”

Sulan recognized the last bit as a fragment of familiar prophecy. Let him who has tilled the soil till the soil, for the land and the people are one…

It was a common theme, one that appeared numerous times in prophecy. The land and the people are one,the importance of the harvest, and the importance of those who facilitated it; each Bajoran assigned to his or her role, an elaborate, ancient system meant to promote peaceful cooperation among all strata of society—no one role less important than another. Though some may have held more prestige, it was understood that without even one element of the D’jarras, Bajor would cease to function. At least, before the Cardassians came, that had been the way.

Gar began to recite the rest of the verse as it appeared in her mind. “… but the land will cry fallow without the efforts of the many. She who is a merchant, he who tends to the sick, she who guards the flocks, all must look to their own callings, and follow in the paths laid out by their fathers and mothers.”

Opaka bowed her head and clasped her hands together, feeling humility swell in her breast. She knew that Gar had chosen this message deliberately. Though it was a favorite topic of Kai Arin’s, Gar had never previously chosen to address the abandonment of the D’jarras, not directly.

“My brothers and sisters,” Gar continued. “It may seem a small thing, tradition,in the face of hardship, in the fluctuations of a hard spring. But we all know that those Bajorans who choose to participate in acts of terrorism have begun to advocate for the dissolution of the D’jarras. I know there are those of you who have become impatient, waiting for the Cardassians to restore our full privileges, to want to shirk your natural-born identity and perhaps take up the mantle of some other profession in the meantime. But those lost privileges will never be restored if the Cardassians cannot trust us. And if these uprisings of violence do not cease, I fear that this essential trust may never come to be. Only patience, and faith in the Prophets, will bring about the better world we so desire. The message of the resistance is tempting to those whose faith has faltered—fight, destroy, let our anger rule us. But make no mistake—the men and women who turn from the path that fate has assigned them, who encourage others to do the same, will serve only to hurt us all. They build a wall between us and our Prophets, Who weave the Tapestry in which all our lives are threaded.”

Opaka Sulan’s humiliation was soundly complete. She pressed clasped hands against her face. Tears of shame threatened.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” Fasil whispered, his hand—nearly an adult’s hand—pressing against his mother’s shoulder with still-childlike concern.

“Hush, Fasil. After the sermon concludes, I will speak to you.”

“I’m sorry, Mother, I didn’t—”

“Shh!”

Fasil turned his attention back to the service. Sulan watched as her son faithfully raised his hands and murmured the ancient chants in concert with the Bajorans around him. A heavy lump formed in Sulan’s throat to see Fasil so nearly grown, and so like his father.

Fasil regarded her with curiosity as they left the shrine. “You seemed unusually affected by this morning’s message,” he said cautiously, as the two walked the distance to their old stone cottage. The air was warm but humid from days of rain, the weeds suddenly knee-high at the sides of the worn dirt path. The cottage was located halfway between the shrine, with its adjacent monastery, and the ancient ancestral castle that still stood at the edge of the woods to the south, the Naghai Keep. The fusionstone structure had withstood much of the destruction that marked the early years since the Cardassians declared Bajor an annexed world.

“Yes,” she told her son. “Vedek Gar reminded me that I must never forsake the Prophets, no matter my personal misgivings about the occupation.”

Fasil was quiet for a moment. “I believe Vedek Gar was trying to manipulate the congregation,” he said.

Sulan was surprised. “Fasil!”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

Neither spoke again as they came upon their little house, nestled up against a wide thicket of trees that was just big enough to be called a forest. The cottage had served many purposes throughout the centuries: as a buttery, a tool shed, even a coop for livestock. Opaka Bekar had claimed it years ago, just before the birth of their son, when he and Sulan were both prylars at the second Kendra Shrine. It was generally accepted that married couples lived separately from the rest of the priory. At the time, Sulan was anything but happy to accept the squat little structure as her home. The cottage had never been much, and it still bore evidence of its past as a storage facility and a pen for animals. But Opaka had come to love it. She knew how very lucky she was to even have a roof over her head, let alone one as sturdy and comfortable as this beloved little house.

As they entered, Fasil went immediately to the cupboard in the corner where the wooden dishes were kept. He removed two bowls and watched his mother as she lifted the lid from an iron kettle on the woodstove.