Seefa shined his light over the two women. Natima looked defiant, but something deep in her expression reflected fear. The other woman—Veja—appeared frightened out of her wits.

“You’re civilians, aren’t you?”

Neither woman spoke, confirming it.

Seefa sighed, kicking himself for panicking, not sure what to do. They were Cardies, but not fighters; he’d kill them if he had to, but he didn’t like the idea. On the other hand, by taking a couple of tourists hostage, he’d made himself a target; someone would be missing a sister or a wife, a patrol would be sent to find their shuttle, and they’d surely find his makeshift camp. He couldn’t take them to the Ornathias, not without endangering the entire cell…

I’ll have to kill them.He didn’t see that he had a choice.

“Just let us go,” Natima said. “We won’t tell anyone we saw you.”

“You have our word,” Veja added, her voice practically a whimper.

Seefa had to laugh at that. “The word of a Cardassian?” He gestured with the phaser, and the three began to walk again.

After a few moments, Natima spoke. “Listen, I…I need to relieve myself.”

“That must be very uncomfortable for you,” he said, without sympathy.

Natima arched an eyeridge. “You’ve no idea. I don’t suppose there’s a ’fresher available in these…facilities?”

“What do you think?”

Natima nodded. “If you wouldn’t mind, then, couldn’t I just have a little privacy for a moment? You could turn off your palmlight—no, I suppose you wouldn’t do that. Or—I could go down that corridor there—” She gestured vaguely to a branch, just ahead of them, that intersected the main conduit they were walking.

Seefa regarded the woman and was struck for a moment by how…almost Bajoranshe seemed. Something in her expression, the inflection of her voice, her simple desire to relieve herself without someone watching. The effect was unsettling, and certainly not something he would have expected from a Cardassian.

He flashed his light down the tunnel she had indicated, which was badly deteriorated. He knew that this one had no outlet, ending in a heap of sharp rubble—if she had any ideas of escaping, she’d be disappointed. “Fine,” he said. “But your friend stays here with me.”

“Thank you,” Natima said to him, and turned to go down the conduit.

Veja stared at him like a batosin a slaughterhouse, her fear a palpable thing, and Seefa looked away. It wasn’t his fault that they’d come to Bajor. They were victims of their own arrogance, their own erroneous sense of privilege, and he refused to feel bad serving as the hand of justice.

I have no choice,he told himself firmly.

9

Opaka accepted the offer of dekatea from Ketauna, smiling her thanks. She sipped, looked around his small cottage as Ketauna went to fetch his copy of Dava’s Prophecies. Shev, Ketauna’s neighbor, occupied himself lighting candles. It was late in the evening, the long summer light giving way to shadows in the little house. In her travels, she had encountered a few dwellings like this one, very nearly identical to the cottage she had once shared with Bekar, and later with Fasil, just outside the Naghai Keep. Most of them had a few minor differences, but they were built so similarly, of nearly identical materials and construction, that she had the unusual sensation of being back in her own beloved home. She missed it, sometimes very much.

“The eighteenth prophecy of Kai Dava,” said Ketauna, reverently handing Opaka the open book. He was an artist, and had lived in the house his entire life. A kind man, he’d been a regular member of Opaka’s informal sermons since the day she’d arrived in the small town of Yarlin, several weeks earlier. She’d stayed on when she’d realized how many travelers came through the village each summer; it was the biggest settlement along the pass through the northernmost range of the Perikian mountains, right next to a reasonably clean river tributary. She’d pitched her tent in Yarlin’s spacious courtyard alongside a hundred others. A good many of them belonged to people who’d decided to walk with her, most from her winter camp, some who’d just shown up along the way—people who’d heard the message and were looking for someone to follow, it seemed, at least for a little while.

“Please, read it aloud,” said Shev. Shev believed himself to be an expert on the life and prophecies of Kai Dava. He was a layman, but had several times told Opaka that if his D’jarrahad permitted it, he would have gone into the clergy. “Ketauna showed it to me three days ago, and I was stunned at what it seemed to imply.”

Sulan cleared her throat. “‘The dry ground shall be watered by a generation of sorrow,’” she said.

“That’s thisgeneration,” Shev said knowingly.

Opaka nodded. “Perhaps,” she said. She went on. “‘The tears of the people shall water the land, the Tears of the Prophets cast away.’”

“Because the spoonheads have taken them all,” Ketauna broke in.

“We don’t know that,” Shev said. “They say the Orbs were all destroyed.”

“The Prophets will look after them,” Opaka said. And if They did not, that was also Their will.

“Go on,” Ketauna said.

Opaka had studied this prophecy many years ago, but it had been such a long time, she would never have remembered this particular verse without having been prodded by these two, part of her ever-growing congregation. Sometimes, it seemed as if there were as many prophecies on Bajor as there were people, and they were often too cryptic to be deciphered. Ketauna and Shev had asked her here specifically to discuss this prophecy. It was not the first time she’d been asked to give her impressions of a prophecy since she’d begun traveling, and she was sure it would not be the last.

“‘But the Prophets have not shed the last of their Tears,’” she finished.

“You see?” Ketauna said, looking a little triumphant. “Now, what do you think that means, Vedek Opaka?”

Opaka had stopped correcting those who still addressed her as Vedek, although she felt a twinge of regret almost every time; for what, she was not sure. “I can’t say, for certain,” she told him. “Perhaps it means there are other Tears of the Prophets which have not yet been discovered.”

“Well, this would be a good time for someone to find them, don’t you think?”

Opaka nodded slowly. “It might seem that way to us, but only the Prophets know when the proper time will be.”

“But you have read the prophecies of Trakor,” Ketauna reminded Opaka. “He speaks often of the Orb of Prophecy and Change. Nobody has written of it since the time of Kai Dava—”

“Yes, there are many mysterious tales surrounding Kai Dava, it is true…but not all are fact. Many have theorized that the Orb of Prophecy and Change was simply another name for the Orb of Souls.”

“Or the Orb of Contemplation,” Shev added. “But the evidence seems to suggest otherwise. Did you know,” he went on, “it was rumored that Kai Dava had an Orb fragment, a piece of one of the Prophet’s Tears? They say he had it mounted onto a bracelet, which he wore until the day he died…and that it disappeared after his death.”

Opaka had heard the story, along with many others about Kai Dava. The idea of someone using a broken Orb as their own personal token had always struck her as troubling, to say the least. Fortunately, there was no evidence to support the legend…. None that was known, at any rate.

Her expression must have reflected as much. Ketauna quickly changed the subject. “I suppose you have heard by now that Vedek Gar has been aggressively campaigning for the position of kai. He seeks to manipulate those of us who follow you, Vedek Opaka—he has declared your word to be the viewpoint of the church.”

Shev broke in. “He has even moved into your old house. As though he is trying to be physically closer to you, as well as spiritually. I believe he means to deceive your followers.”