“Shhh,” she said to him, leaving Kalem to wonder how much the child had known of what everyone believed was going to happen. Had his mother explained any of it to him, or simply insisted that he come along to spend the nights in a stranger’s house? How well-behaved the children have been these past days, Kalem thought to himself, and he imagined the things these children had seen in their short lifetimes, so different from his own carefree childhood. He would do almost anything in his power to change it for this youth—for all of them.

“You’ll be just fine, son,” Kalem told the boy, swallowing down the lump in his throat and trying on a smile. A few others made attempts at weak reassurances to one another, more and more people coming up from the basement now and out into the glinting sunlight of a cold morning.

But those assurances quickly turned to sorrow as the flyers began to dive, at a point too far away from where they all stood now to get a proper picture of what was happening, but the resultant echoing thunder in the sky gave a clear voice to the unseen horror, and the people commenced to wailing again, even louder than when they had thought their own lives were in danger.

23

Bareil had been unable to focus on his studies at the Dakeen Monastery. The place was remote, and sequestered completely from outside influences. Bareil already knew that he had been sent to the monastery to keep him from learning the outcome of the prefect’s ultimatum. For whatever reason, the kai did not want his interference in her plan, if she even had a plan.

From Dakeen, he had been summoned to Terok Nor, where Prylar Bek was in a nearly inconsolable state, where Bareil was finally informed of what had transpired. The prylar had been in almost constant contact with the Shikina Monastery for the past week or so, demanding to see Bareil, but apparently Opaka had not granted his request until now—now that it was too late.

Feeling desperately sad, Bareil traveled home to Shikina, flanked by Cardassian escorts. They dumped him off at the shuttle port just outside of Iwara, the farthest village from the monastery. He could see the peaked roofs of two of the larger structures in Ashalla, just visible over the tree canopy directly in his path: the stone house of a former member of cabinet, now occupied by some of that man’s extended family, and an old building of commerce.

It had rained early this morning, and the smell of wet grasses was overpowering. He traveled on foot through two small villages and through the winding passages in the forest, used by almost no one. On Terok Nor, Prylar Bek had arranged for a religious official’s permit to be issued to Bareil, so that he might travel without fear of interference by soldiers, but it mattered little now that the detection grid had been disabled.

Bareil felt half-lost for most of his journey, following a few ambiguous landmarks he relied on to help him find his way. He scarcely ever left the monastery himself, and was not familiar enough with the journey to have the route committed to memory. It was almost fully dark before he saw the lights of the monastery. The kai was waiting for him in her dayroom, the chamber where she conducted most of her daily business. He felt he had a thousand questions, but when he saw her face, saw the loss there, the resigned despair, he could find only one word. “Why?”

There was silence for a long time, and then Opaka spoke, her tone soft. “I don’t know, Vedek Bareil. I don’t know why. I only know that it had to be.”

“But…Your Eminence…”

He saw that her eyes were shining with tears. Her voice was hoarse from weeping, but she spoke with the same coolness that she always employed. “Vedek Bareil, I realize that this is difficult. But your faith must not waver now, for things are only going to become more difficult in time.”

He shook his head, not understanding. “But you keep insisting that Bajor is going to be free soon. You keep saying that peace is just within our grasp!”

“This is so,” she said. “But circumstances will grow worse before they can get better. We must not falter.”

“Worse than the death of your son? Kai Opaka, what more can the Prophets ask of you?”

Her face did not change, though her tone was noticeably less cool. “You must have faith.”

“I have faith in the Prophets,” he said. “And I have faith in you.”

She nodded. “I know. But it is not what the Prophets will ask of me, Bareil. If we are ever to have peace with Cardassia, it will be because of you, not because of me.”

Bareil took a moment to try and absorb what she had told him. He did not know if he liked the message he gleaned from what she was saying—that she expected him to succeed her. He was not sure if he would be up to the task, especially not if the Prophets required such costly sacrifices. He felt a new surge of anger, of incomprehension.

“Prylar Bek told me,” she said softly, “that he had been in contact with an Oralian on the station, those years ago when he sent word to us to evacuate from the shrine…”

“So—you were the one who told Prylar Bek?” He asked her in a thin voice.

Opaka’s voice was far away. “The Oralian had told him—had believed with unwavering certainty—that it was you, Bareil, who would be imperative to the future of relations between our two worlds, not me. It was you that he sought to save when we fled here from the shrine at Kendra.”

“Who told Prylar Bek?” Bareil repeated.

“Prylar Bek was reluctant to tell the secretary,” Opaka said. “I did my best to explain it to him, of course, but…” She trailed off.

Bareil struggled with her answer. “The people of Bajor…must never know that it was you who did this, Your Eminence.”

Opaka said nothing in answer.

“And I trust you, Kai Opaka…but I don’t know if there is any way that you could possibly explain this to make me understand your reasons.”

The kai made a mournful sound, her placid resolve finally cracking. “How can I explain them when I don’t fully understand them myself? I agreed to come to this monastery to be nearer to the Prophets, so that I might learn to translate the messages they send to me, but I am no better an interpreter of my visions than I was when I first encountered the Tear. I don’t know why They chose this outcome. I only know that They did.”

Opaka’s face broke, and she let out a low, plaintive cry of unrestrained grief, turning away from him. Bareil left her alone in the vestibule, closing the door behind him, though on any normal day the door would have remained open. This was most assuredly not a normal day. All he could do was pray for her, for all of them…and hope that it was all somehow for the best.

Yoriv Skyl had only been a member of the Detapa Council for a few months, but apparently the young man was already making waves. Legate Tekeny Ghemor noted, as he read the latest bulletin, that Skyl and some of the Pa’Dar family had put in a proposal to bring the Bajoran issue to the table for determination yet again. Ghemor reviewed the bulletin for a third time, picturing to himself the reaction of his friend Gaten Russol, wondering if the gul had read this report yet. He decided to contact the younger man, for a casual discussion of the bulletin, nothing more. It shouldn’t raise any suspicions—Ghemor felt reasonably certain of that.

But before he could put the call through to Russol, he received a startling announcement from Legate Danig Kell, a confidential transmission that was to be sent only to a handful of the highest-ranking officials in Central Command, Ghemor among them.

“My fellow legates,”Kell began. The old soldier’s expression was, as usual, bordering somewhere on the menacing. “I regret to report that the subjects on our Bajoran host world are in a state of complete insurrection, because of an unfortunate series of decisions made by that world’s prefect. I have decided to approach the situation from an entirely new angle.”