“So what happened?” Judith asked.

“She died,” Miles confirmed, then added, “sort of. She wound up trapped on the surface of a moon in the Gamma Quadrant. There was nanotechnology—artifical microbes—in the biosphere that resuscitated anyone who died there, and Opaka had been killed when the ship crashed. She came back to life, but she was now dependent on the nanotechnology, which wouldn’t function outside the moon’s biosphere.”

“So she was trapped there?” Judith asked, apalled.

O’Brien nodded. “I’m afraid so. I know Julian—Dr. Bashir, DS9’s chief medical officer—worked for years on a cure, but he never had any success. Then we met the Dominion, and our dealings with the Gamma Quadrant became more complicated.”

“Why would anyone introduce technology like that to an uninhabited moon?” Dad asked.

“Well, it wasn’t entirely uninhabited,” O’Brien said. “It was actually a penal colony for two small warring factions of a Gamma Quadrant species. They had refused to stop fighting, so they were sentenced to fight, and die, and fight again, forever. From what Julian told me, Opaka believed that what happened to her was preordained. She dedicated her life to teaching the factions peace.”

“My God,” Dad muttered, shaking his head.

“She sounds like a remarkable woman,” Judith said.

O’Brien nodded. “I talked to Major Kira about it afterward. Opaka had been a force for peace and unity on Bajor for a long time. Her loss was a blow to everyone. But the thing is, she never doubted for a second that everything that happened to her was happening for a reason. She really believed she was serving a higher purpose, something bigger than herself.”

Judith saw that Dad was listening attentively. The point of O’Brien’s story clearly hadn’t escaped him. “I understand what your trying to say, Chief,” he said, shaking his head, “but my son—”

“Sir, with all due respect,” O’Brien said, “I knew your son as a father, a soldier, a diplomat, a ship wright, an explorer, a religious icon, a baseball fan, not to mention an exceptional cook.” This drew a smile from Dad, and Miles went on, “None of those things were responsible for what happened to him. From what I know, he sacrificed himself for a world he’d come to love more than himself. During his life he was responsible for saving countless lives. You should be proud of him.”

“And my grandson?” Dad asked bitterly. “For what was he sacrificed?”

“Dad,” Judith said. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but you need to remember that Jake was a grown man. He was already taking responsibility for his life before the war ended. Wherever he is, whatever happened to him, he chose it.”

“How can I know that, Judith? How can anyone know?”

“I don’t pretend to know anything,” Judith said gently. “None of us do. But are you so determined to assume the worst that you’re afraid to have any hope at all?”

“Judith—”

“And what about Kasidy? While you’re here missing Ben and Jake, she’s missing them on Bajor, about to give birth to your grandchild. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”

Dad looked at Molly, humming contentedly to herself as she finished the last of her jambalaya. His gaze went to Kirayoshi, who a half-hour ago had demanded to be held and subsequently fell asleep in his mother’s embrace.

With a sudden movement of his arms, Dad pushed his chair away from the table and stood. “I need to get up early. Judith, you’ll see to our guests, won’t you?”

Judith sighed. “Yes, Dad.”

“Then good night,” he said, and headed off to bed.

“That’s it, Molly—keep pedaling!”

Keiko knew there was little chance of Molly falling over, as her father was holding the back of the antique bicycle that she was struggling to learn to ride. She even kidded him that everyone must have ridden bicycles when he was a little boy growing up on Earth, but he assured her that he wasn’t thatold. “I learned a lot younger than you when I was a little boy in Dublin,” he said. “My brothers taught me. There’s no better way to learn balance.” He did admit that he’d skinned his knees more often than he made it from one end of the street to the other without falling off. But there was little risk of that happening to her, as he was holding on tight.

At least, that’s what she believed until she looked over her shoulder and saw that her father was no longer holding on, and was still standing next to her mother at the far end of the block.

“Aaah!” Molly screamed as the front wheel lurched to the left, then right; before she knew what had happened, she saw the wheels of the bicycle swoop over her head and could feel the back of her elbow scraping on the rough concrete.

“Molly!” Miles O’Brien and his wife Keiko shouted in unison as they ran to where their child had fallen. “Are you all right?” said Miles, bending down to lift her up.

“Wow!” laughed Molly with a broad smile. “That was great!”

“I’ll get a dermal regenerator,” said Keiko, brushing off the back of Molly’s pants as Molly stood her bicycle back up and started to climb onboard again. Before she could check Molly’s arm, the little girl was off running down the sidewalk.

“Scrape already forgotten,” said Miles, smiling as he watched his daughter wobble erratically off, fall, get up, laugh, and start over again. “She’s a natural.”

“She could never do this on DS9—or the Enterprise,for that matter,” said Keiko. “Can you imagine Captain Picard’s reaction to a child on a bicycle in the corridors?”

“Picard? What about Odo? I can hear him now: ‘No pedaling on—’”

“‘—my Promenade!’” thay finished in unison, Keiko dropping her voice down a couple of octaves. They laughed. “He always tried so hard to come across so stern, when you know deep down he probably wanted to turn into a bicycle just to find out what the fascination was.”

“How’s the bike working out?”

The O’Briens turned to see Joseph Sisko walking toward them.

“It’s been wonderful, sir,” Keiko said. “Molly’s having the time of her life. We want to thank you again for your generosity, and your hospitality.”

Joseph waved away Keiko’s gratitude. “You don’t have to thank me, Keiko. This visit has helped me to realize there’s a lot more I need to be thinking about right now than my own feelings. In fact, that was actually what I came out here to discuss with you. I have a request to make.”

Miles looked at Keiko, then back to Joseph, smiling. “Well, of course, sir. Anything.”

Joseph grinned wryly. “I think you may regret saying that when you hear me out,” he said. “I want you to take me to Bajor.”

21

Dax sat with Prynn in the ensign’s quarters, letting her vent the grief, the outrage, the anger, and the hatred she felt for Vaughn. He had tried to talk with her, Dax knew, but the shock of what happened was still too recent and too raw.

“He couldn’t have been sure,” Prynn was saying. “He says she was going to assimilate me, but how could he really know? Dr. Bashir said the autopsy was inconclusive.”

Dax nodded. “I know. But he insists on what he saw, Prynn. And this was right after the Borg corpse down the hall tried to assimilate the Founder. Do you really think he was imagining it?”