They found it!Was it as she’d seen? She did her best to keep her sudden excitement hidden, but she had no further reason to prolong their conversation.

“Vedek Gar—Osen—you have my apologies. I see now that my journey here was a mistake. I wish you luck in the outcome of the choosing.” She stood.

Gar looked disarmed. “Sulan! You leave me so abruptly! Can I at least offer you accommodations for the night? You’ve come far, and we still have not discussed your status—”

Opaka smiled at him. “Your graciousness is appreciated, but my path lies elsewhere. The Prophets will look after me. I pray Their guidance will always be with you.”

Gar’s expression hardened slightly, but he stood also. “Of course,” he said. He bowed to her politely as Opaka let herself out of the cottage.

Shev was waiting for her. He grabbed her arm and half-sprinted into the copse of trees behind the keep, practically carrying her. Her son waited there with Ketauna. Ketauna had his arms around a large object, too large to fit in his pack, wrapped in a piece of wool from his bedroll.

“It was just as you said, Mother!” Fasil told her. “A cellar, converted to a reliquary—”

“The Orb,” Ketauna breathed, his face shining with the brilliance of new hope. “As you saw.”

“We must go,” Opaka said quickly. “We cannot stay here.”

“As you say, Kai Opaka,” Shev said reverently.

“Did you cover over the place where you—What?”

“You are the kai now,” Ketauna said, nodding. “You were visited by the Prophets. The people will hear of this.”

“After we find a place for you to hide,” Fasil added.

“And a place to hide the Orb,” Shev said. “The Cardassians will not find this Tear of the Prophets. We must all agree to keep this information to ourselves, until it is safe to reveal it. Do you agree, Your Eminence?”

Opaka nodded, too concerned for the Orb’s safety—and their own—to laugh at her new title. She would refuse the position later, when she had time to consider her arguments, when she was sure the Orb was safe.

They started immediately, heading back toward the mountains, Opaka looking often at the bundle Ketauna carried. How precious, to find such a thing, at such a time! They could speak to the Prophets again, could seek Their wisdom upon the scourge of their world.

You will be secret, but the faithful will know,she thought, watching Ketauna shift the ratty blanket as he walked, carefully, reverently shifting the long-hidden Tear. The Cardassians would not take it—she had seen as much, in the knowledge granted her by her vision, her pagh-tem-far.

Things were unfolding as they should. She prayed again for strength, to do as They wished, to find in herself the potential that They had seen in her.

Basso Tromac walked in his usual quick manner as he returned from the shuttle pad. He carried a rather imposing bouquet of Bajoran lilacs, which embarrassed him somewhat. He knew what the flowers were for; Dukat always ordered them when he was trying to patch things up with his Bajoran mistress. Idle gossip saw to it that nearly everyone on the station knew, too. Basso supposed that he felt uncomfortable because he didn’t like to advertise the prefect’s business so blatantly; he considered that the ins and outs of people’s relationships ought to be kept private.

He was relieved that he didn’t see any other Bajorans on his way to the habitat ring, though he did encounter some snickering Cardassian soldiers. Basso wanted to believe that they were laughing because they found Dukat’s personal life to be a source of amusement, but he knew that there was more to it than that. He knew that they had no respect for him, that they considered him nothing more than a simple errand boy, and consideration of this never failed to create a rise of fury in his throat. Well, at least the Bajorans were afraid of him. Though they sometimes acted bold, they knew that he could deliver a death sentence with a single transmission to Dukat. He supposed he should have pitied the idiots on the station for being so stupid as to have landed themselves in ore-processing. If they had only cooperated, as he had, their lives could have been perfectly comfortable. Although, he considered, there would always have to be someoneleft to do the dirty work. It was just the natural order of things, like the D’jarras.

Basso knocked softly on the door of Dukat’s quarters. There was a door-chime, but Dukat had instructed him to always knock, and to always do it softly. The prefect answered the door with his usual stretchy smile. “Thank you, Basso.” He accepted the flowers and turned away briskly.

Basso bowed. “Is there anything else?”

Dukat shook his head wordlessly and the door closed, but not before Basso caught a glimpse of Kira Meru, sitting on the bed with her head down. The back part of her dress was unfastened, which made Basso flush. The image of her bare back, the delicate knobs rising up from her spine, the golden color of her skin…Basso could not immediately erase it from his consciousness. He found it replaying back to him for a moment, and he was forced to swallow down a lump in his throat.

Something compelled him to linger for a moment in the hallway, straining to hear, but he couldn’t make out much of anything. Just the low timbre of Dukat’s rumbling voice. Basso didn’t have to make out specific words to know what was probably going on. Not that it was anyone’s business, but he was well aware of the nuances of Dukat’s relationship with Meru. She would feign sadness for a little while, maybe about her children or something, and Dukat would be patient with her for much longer than Basso thought was reasonable. Basso had to admire Dukat’s patience, for he himself had never been able to maintain much of it when it came to women. He supposed that was why Dukat was prefect—patience. An admirable quality, to be sure—one that simply did not come naturally to everyone.

He tried to listen at the door once more, until he caught himself and remembered the security feed in the hall. It reset itself after a few moments, and it wouldn’t look right if he was still standing here when the sweep came back. He headed off to ops, trying to think of who would be most interested in hearing about Dukat and Meru’s latest fight. Of course, it wasn’t anyone’s business, but having intimate information about the prefect had turned out to be a useful means of getting a captive audience from the Cardassians on the station, if only for a little while.

12

Natima had been sleeping, dreaming of a child in the orphanage on Cardassia II. He had been clawing at her arm, trying to get at a bit of bread she had been given, a piece she had intended to save for later, though she was as hungry as she had ever been. He was raking his fingernails down her arm, and she pushed him. He took a step back from her, and she was suddenly overcome with horror, for his breathing had become odd and shallow, squeaking grotesquely as he tried to take in heavy breaths.

“Here!” she cried out, throwing the bread at him. “Take it!” But he did not respond, his eyes bulging horribly in their sockets—and then she was awake, and she saw the flickering orange of the palm beacon, the Bajoran with his mud-matted hair, crouched in the corner over the broken communicator. And Veja. She was writhing, her fingers hooked into claws, and Natima realized that the horrible, thin squealing of her dream was coming from Veja.

“Seefa!” Natima cried, and the Bajoran’s head snapped up—he had fallen asleep over his work. “Help me! I don’t know what to do!”

Seefa moved quickly to Veja’s side. He listened to her chest, and then he put his hand under her back. He lifted her up, slightly, and then moved her head from side to side. Veja didn’t seem conscious, but she continued to make that terrible hitching, gasping sound.