Star Trek: Terok Nor 02: Night of the Wolves (7 page)

Veja smiled, playing at being embarrassed. “Yes, it was Corat. He invited me to go to Terok Nor, in just a few weeks! Can you imagine how exciting it will be to tour a brand-new state-of-the-art facility just as it begins to go into full operation?”

“Hm,” Natima answered. “I suppose it would be interesting to have a look. I’ve been waiting for the service to send one of us up there to cover it, but I guess the military doesn’t want any correspondents touring until it’s better established.”

Veja’s face was dark with excitement. “Yes, well, now we have the chance!”

“What do you mean,
we
?”

“Well, perhaps Corat will have a friend for you. There are hundreds of eligible military personnel on that station—”

“Veja, I keep telling you and telling you—”

“Yes, I know. You’re not here to find a husband. But that’s exactly why you probably will find one. Don’t you see? That’s how it always works.”

Natima sighed. She didn’t really feel like tagging along on a date with Veja and her betrothed. But she wanted to see the station. She brushed at a dirty spot on her white tunic while she considered. The crumbly, ubiquitous Bajoran dirt had already ruined so many of her favorite things. It was enough to make her want to dress all in drab browns, like many of the Bajorans she’d seen. She regarded the smear of dirt for a moment before nodding.

“Okay, I’ll go with you. But don’t try to fix me up with anyone, please. And we should come up with some sort of signal, if you and Damar want to go off alone.”

“Oh, we won’t need a signal. If we want to go off alone, you’ll know it. Trust me.”

Natima rolled her eyes, hoping the station would be worth it.

Vedek Opaka bowed to her son, who stood at her left, and then she bowed to the woman on her right. She recited from Taluno’s Seventeenth Prophecy with the rest of the congregation, and then she closed her eyes, to silently thank the Prophets for another day.

Once a month, the vedeks were free to join the gathering of faithful like any other worshipers, their spiritual duties adjourned. Although Opaka loved serving the Prophets, she also looked forward to these days, especially for the opportunity to be with her son. Fasil usually stood with another family until services were concluded, waiting for his mother to complete her tasks so that they could go home to their small cottage, a short distance beyond the sanctuary, and prepare their daily meal.

She smiled at Fasil. He was a good boy, responsible, with a strong sense of right. She had truly been blessed. But he was growing so quickly…

Vedek Gar had stepped to the front, and she turned her attention to him. She was looking forward to his sermon. It was during services that Gar’s quiet, enigmatic qualities were temporarily suspended, giving way to reveal a fiery and inspirational spirit.

“My brothers and sisters,” he began. “It inspires me to see such a strong turnout on a day like today, when many of us would prefer to be outside, to enjoy the sunshine. I know that when the weather has been so unpredictable, many of us feel as though it has been an eternity since we have been warmed by the sun. I commend you for choosing to come to services, for remembering to honor Those whose light replenishes our spirits.” He smiled broadly, but then his expression gave way to one of deep regret.

“Of course, it brings to mind an allegory. One with which I know you are all familiar. For there are some among us who, in these times of despair, begin to wonder if the warmth and comfort brought to them by the Prophets will ever return. And as they lose their faith, they begin to lose their way as well. And even when the Prophets are felt again, like the sun on an uncertain spring day, it is not to Them that those wayward travelers attribute their good fortune. Instead, they believe that it is only by their own initiative that fate begins to smile upon them. They forget where proper thanks are due.”

The congregation responded with a collective affirmation.

“The Prophets ask so little of us. They ask for our faith, and nothing more. And if we have faith, we know that we must continue to walk in the paths laid out by our fathers and mothers.”

Sulan recognized the last bit as a fragment of familiar prophecy.
Let him who has tilled the soil till the soil, for the land and the people are one…

It was a common theme, one that appeared numerous times in prophecy.
The land and the people are one,
the importance of the harvest, and the importance of those who facilitated it; each Bajoran assigned to his or her role, an elaborate, ancient system meant to promote peaceful cooperation among all strata of society—no one role less important than another. Though some may have held more prestige, it was understood that without even one element of the
D’jarra
s, Bajor would cease to function. At least, before the Cardassians came, that had been the way.

Gar began to recite the rest of the verse as it appeared in her mind. “…
but the land will cry fallow without the efforts of the many. She who is a merchant, he who tends to the sick, she who guards the flocks, all must look to their own callings, and follow in the paths laid out by their fathers and mothers.”

Opaka bowed her head and clasped her hands together, feeling humility swell in her breast. She knew that Gar had chosen this message deliberately. Though it was a favorite topic of Kai Arin’s, Gar had never previously chosen to address the abandonment of the
D’jarra
s, not directly.

“My brothers and sisters,” Gar continued. “It may seem a small thing,
tradition,
in the face of hardship, in the fluctuations of a hard spring. But we all know that those Bajorans who choose to participate in acts of terrorism have begun to advocate for the dissolution of the
D’jarra
s. I know there are those of you who have become impatient, waiting for the Cardassians to restore our full privileges, to want to shirk your natural-born identity and perhaps take up the mantle of some other profession in the meantime. But those lost privileges will never be restored if the Cardassians cannot trust us. And if these uprisings of violence do not cease, I fear that this essential trust may never come to be. Only patience, and faith in the Prophets, will bring about the better world we so desire. The message of the resistance is tempting to those whose faith has faltered—fight, destroy, let our anger rule us. But make no mistake—the men and women who turn from the path that fate has assigned them, who encourage others to do the same, will serve only to hurt us all. They build a wall between us and our Prophets, Who weave the Tapestry in which all our lives are threaded.”

Opaka Sulan’s humiliation was soundly complete. She pressed clasped hands against her face. Tears of shame threatened.

“What’s wrong, Mother?” Fasil whispered, his hand—nearly an adult’s hand—pressing against his mother’s shoulder with still-childlike concern.

“Hush, Fasil. After the sermon concludes, I will speak to you.”

“I’m sorry, Mother, I didn’t—”

“Shh!”

Fasil turned his attention back to the service. Sulan watched as her son faithfully raised his hands and murmured the ancient chants in concert with the Bajorans around him. A heavy lump formed in Sulan’s throat to see Fasil so nearly grown, and so like his father.

Fasil regarded her with curiosity as they left the shrine. “You seemed unusually affected by this morning’s message,” he said cautiously, as the two walked the distance to their old stone cottage. The air was warm but humid from days of rain, the weeds suddenly knee-high at the sides of the worn dirt path. The cottage was located halfway between the shrine, with its adjacent monastery, and the ancient ancestral castle that still stood at the edge of the woods to the south, the Naghai Keep. The fusionstone structure had withstood much of the destruction that marked the early years since the Cardassians declared Bajor an annexed world.

“Yes,” she told her son. “Vedek Gar reminded me that I must never forsake the Prophets, no matter my personal misgivings about the occupation.”

Fasil was quiet for a moment. “I believe Vedek Gar was trying to manipulate the congregation,” he said.

Sulan was surprised. “Fasil!”

“I’m sorry, Mother.”

Neither spoke again as they came upon their little house, nestled up against a wide thicket of trees that was just big enough to be called a forest. The cottage had served many purposes throughout the centuries: as a buttery, a tool shed, even a coop for livestock. Opaka Bekar had claimed it years ago, just before the birth of their son, when he and Sulan were both prylars at the second Kendra Shrine. It was generally accepted that married couples lived separately from the rest of the priory. At the time, Sulan was anything but happy to accept the squat little structure as her home. The cottage had never been much, and it still bore evidence of its past as a storage facility and a pen for animals. But Opaka had come to love it. She knew how very lucky she was to even have a roof over her head, let alone one as sturdy and comfortable as this beloved little house.

As they entered, Fasil went immediately to the cupboard in the corner where the wooden dishes were kept. He removed two bowls and watched his mother as she lifted the lid from an iron kettle on the woodstove.

“‘For the land will cry fallow without the efforts of the many,’” he said, after a moment.

Opaka, tending to the
kava
root that had been stewing all afternoon, nodded as she watched her son lay two ceramic spoons down at the table. “Yes, that is the prophecy, Fasil. I’m pleased that you know your verse.”

“Mother, the land is crying fallow now.”

She began to say something but then stopped, realizing that she had no appropriate response. She moved to the far wall and used a long stick to prop open the window situated just below the peak of the high ceiling. She grunted with the exertion of the task; she had often wondered why whoever built this cottage would have put the only functionally opening window in such an inaccessible position. She supposed it was for security reasons, but that didn’t explain why the glassed-in window was fashioned much more like a heavy door than a window.

“Much of Bajor goes unplanted these days, it’s true,” she told her son. “But it isn’t as though the entire world is in famine. Most of us have enough.”

“How can the efforts of the many serve to sustain Bajor, when so many of the
D’jarra
s have become obsolete? Only a handful of pilots are allowed to fly, and most can’t afford their own ships. Soldiers and police ceased to exist when the Militia was dissolved. Writers and artists have been all but outlawed. Scientists and engineers are deprived of the opportunity to work, unless it’s directly in the service of our occupiers. Fishermen and farmers still thrive where the land and waterways have not been poisoned by mining, but even then, Bajor’s bounty is forcibly given up to feed Cardassia Prime.”

It was an argument he’d made before, one she’d sidestepped as best she could. It was not for a vedek to concern herself with politics, only to tend to the faithful and serve the Prophets. But Fasil, it seemed, was determined to discuss the matter.

Sulan turned and regarded her son with a glimmer of wonder. Had she thought him a boy, only a short time ago? He was no mere extension of his parents. He was his own individual, and was fast becoming an outspoken adult.

“Mother,” Fasil went on, “I heard you speaking to Gar about your concerns the other day, and I know he agreed to speak to the kai for you. But either Gar missed your point entirely, or he just used your faith in order to placate you. You did not tell Gar that you wanted the kai to denounce the
D’jarra
s; you told him only that you wished to speak upon the matter, to have a reasonable discussion. I believe that Gar is trying to distract you.”

“To what purpose?”

Fasil shook his head, and Opaka stared at him. Her training and her faith labeled his words blasphemous, but she knew Fasil, too. Knew his heart. Knew that his mind was one of the keenest she’d ever encountered.

“Don’t you remember what Kai Dava once said? He said, ‘It is in the time of struggle that we must become as one.’”

Sulan was familiar with the verse, though it had been written long ago. It seemed to reference the ancient era before Bajor had become a united world, when its many nations had finally begun to lay down the arms they had raised against one another. She had not considered that those words could apply to their present circumstances. She nodded slowly, and sat down at the table. There was truth in what he said, but there were many truths. He did not yet understand the complexities of such things.

“Fasil, I know that you are no longer a child,” she said softly. “And you are so like your father. He would be proud of you. But Kai Arin’s beliefs are not without—”

“My father would still be alive if it weren’t for the
D’jarra
s.”

“Cardassians killed your father when they attacked the city, Fasil. Not Bajorans.”

“I blame them both,” Fasil said stubbornly. “The doctor who refused to treat him because of his caste—”

“It was out of respect that a doctor of the laity refused to treat a prylar.”

“And it cost my father his life.”

Sulan did not want to continue this line of conversation. She rose from the table and went back to the
kava
at the woodstove, trying her best to chase memories from her mind. She could not block them out, not entirely. The recollection of when she had first learned of the attack on what was left of Korto, and the following realization that Opaka Bekar had gone into the city that morning…Her husband had decided to sell a small piece of heirloom jewelry, determined to make that year’s Gratitude Festival a memorable one, with a proper feast. But he had chosen the wrong day to travel.