“I am not!” Gar retorted hotly. “But what do you propose to do with this information? Where will you take it? What if itis the lie, something created by the Tzenkethi or the Federation to discredit—”

Darrah silenced him with a gesture, ripping the cables out of the connector sockets and stuffing the memory core into the bag again. “You’re right. He’s right. We can’t do anything with this. We have to give it to someone who canuse it, keep it safe.”

“There are deep reliquaries beneath the Kendra Monastery,” Gar said quickly. “Many places where it could be concealed.”

Syjin shook his head. “We can’t hide this! We have to use it!”

“The Chamber of Ministers in Ashalla,” said Darrah.

“We take it to them. Show them all what we have seen. They won’t be able to deny it, Lale and Kubus and all the other Union sympathizers.”

“How will you get in?” demanded Gar.

Darrah gathered up the bag. “Jas Holza is there. I can get to him.”

Gar called after them. “Jas? He’s nothing! He won’t lift a finger to go against the majority!”

“He will hear me out,” Darrah replied. “For Lonnic’s sake, I know he will listen.”

24

Syjin angled the police flyer into the sky and pushed the throttle to maximum. A thin rain was starting to fall, and it streamed off the canopy as the pilot guided them upward. “I’ll get over the clouds, get some altitude.”

Darrah watched Korto fade away as the thin white haze enveloped them. In a way, he was willing it to happen, for the city to be covered so that he wouldn’t have to see the blemishes of fires and rolling chaos in the streets. There was a riot of garbled communications overlapping across the Militia bandwidths. Darrah skipped down the channels and found nothing conclusive; only one fractured, static-laced report stood out. “Did you hear that?” he asked.

Syjin shook his head. “Something about Cardassians.” Sunlight flooded the cockpit as they burst out of the cloud layer.

“Troops. I thought I heard him say ‘Cardassian troops.’” The inspector rubbed his face with his hand. “It’s starting.”

“We’ll make it to Ashalla,” Syjin assured him. “We’ve got just enough fuel for the trip.”

Both men fell silent. Minutes passed and neither uttered a word, the two friends looking inward, trying to take stock of the terrible things they had learned. Finally, Syjin let out a sigh. “Mace?” When Darrah didn’t answer, the other man gave him a sideways look. “Mace? Look…I have to say this, because it’s eating me up inside.”

“Say what?”

“Those logs…I just can’t help thinking about what Gar said.”

The priest had decided to remain in Korto; he had promised to get to Vedek Arin and pass on the revelation from the Clarion’s data core to the senior cleric. Darrah eyed the pilot. “What are you talking about? You saw Lonnic, you saw the bioweapons! You saw it, for fire’s sake! With your own eyes.”

“Did I?” Syjin replied. “I mean, I just can’t help thinking, what if that was a fake? Something engineered by the Circle or the Federation or the Tzenkethi, who knows? What if it was left there and I was meant to find it? Maybe…maybe Grek led me there deliberately! He could be in on it.”

“No,” Darrah insisted. “Those log recorders are tamper-proof. A subspace signal, that can be manipulated, but that memory core is unalterable. That playback, that was what happened.”

“Can you be sure of that?” Syjin insisted. “Do you really believe that I found that unit because the Prophets wanted me to?” He snorted. “I haven’t seen the inside of a temple since I was a boy! I’m hardly the best choice!”

Darrah turned in his seat. “It doesn’t matter how or why! Why can’t you accept the evidence of your own eyes?”

“Why can’t you deny it?” came the reply. “You’re the lawman, you’re the one who distrusts everything. It could be fake! How is that idea any less likely than yours, that the Cardassians have been fomenting a conspiracy with men in our own government?”

“Because I’m certain!” Darrah roared. “More certain than I have been about anything in my life!” He glared at the pilot. “I’ve seen more lies than any man should…and I know the truth when I find it.”

Syjin sagged against his flight restraints. “I hope you’re right. Because if you’re wrong, we’ve both thrown our lives away.”

Darrah shook his head and rested his hand on the pack. “We get this to Jas, and he’ll make sure that Coldri and the others see the recording.”

“Jas Holza,” said Syjin coldly. “Everyone knows he’s weak. What makes you think you can trust him not to fold and give it to Kubus or the spoonheads?”

Darrah felt the shape of the device beneath his fingertips. “He won’t, he needs this. He needs what it represents. A chance to redeem himself.”

An alert signal blared, lighting a proximity warning glyph on the console. Syjin jerked as if he had been struck. “We’ve got company. An orbital cutter, dropping down from the ionosphere.”

Darrah looked out the window. He could make out a shape above, a dark dart with a thin white contrail. “Cardassian?”

“What do you think?” the pilot said snidely.

“How did they find us?” Darrah demanded.

“Right now, that doesn’t matter—” Syjin’s words turned into a yelp of pain as a searing white bar of light crossed the nose of the police flyer. The aircraft bucked and groaned as a string of emergency lights flashed on. “Warning shot?”

“No.” Darrah was grim. “His aim was off. He’s too eager. If he’d waited a second longer, we’d be atoms.”

Syjin gripped the control yoke and wrenched it back and forth. The blue sky beyond the canopy spun lazily, gravity tugging at them. “They cooked off the steering canards on the nose,” he reported through gritted teeth. “We’re losing height.” Another beam flashed through the portside windows, and the flyer resonated as if it had been struck by a huge hammer. Syjin’s console became a field of red warnings. “Ah,” he muttered. “My mistake. We’re not losing height. We’re crashing.” The nose of the aircraft began an inexorable drop, falling below the horizon.

“Can you put us down safely?” Darrah called.

The pilot released his straps, tossing them aside. “Not a chance. He’s coming back for another pass. We’ll be scrap iron before we hit the cloud layer.”

“What are we going to do?”

Syjin reached out and grabbed the pack from him.

“Well, I’m going to do this.” The pilot’s hand ducked into his jacket, and Darrah heard an answering beep; then with a glitter of light he dematerialized, leaving the lawman alone in the plummeting flyer.

He exploded with rage and shouted at the sky. “Syjin, you son of a whore, don’t leave me to die!” Darrah struggled out of his straps, ignoring the sun-flash off the Cardassian cutter as it turned to bring its guns to bear. He threw himself toward the hatch. “I’ll haunt you the rest of your living days, you cowardly little—”

Syjin’s face split with a grin as the column of golden radiance grew dense and formed into the shape of a man. Darrah stumbled forward out of the transporter alcove, saw him, and yelled. “Bastard!”

The punch came wild and hit the pilot in the jaw, throwing him to the deck. His head rang like a struck gong and he spat. “That’s a fine way to thank a man who just saved your life!”

Darrah shook off his moment of disorientation, glancing around the cramped interior space. “Where are we?”

“My ship,” said Syjin, gingerly probing the side of his jaw. “In orbit. Sorry about giving you a fright back there, but my transporter’s a basic model. It can’t manage more than one person at a time. If I’d brought us both up at once, there’s no telling what might have happened.” He sighed. “Honestly, I’m surprised the damn thing worked. Every time I use it I think I’m going to end up scattered to the solar winds.”