The War of the Prophets Read online

  Jake tapped his hands on the sides of his food tray. "So humans and Klingons are

  missing?"

  Bashir shrugged and turned off his padd. "There's a lot they aren't telling us

  about what's going on."

  Intriguing to Bashir, Jake immediately dropped his eyes to his collection of

  reconstituted rations and busily began peeling off their clear tops. When he had

  first visited the mess hall, Bashir had been interested to no­tice that what he

  thought were replicator slots lining one wall were actually small transporter

  bays with a di­rect connection to a food-processing facility a few kilo-

  meters away. Replicator circuitry and power converters were considered a

  critical resource and used for only the most important manufacturing needs.

  "So, how's Nog?" Bashir asked, trying to keep his tone innocuous, but wondering

  why Jake had chosen not to react to his statement. He took a sip of the tea he

  had requisitioned. It was too cold, too sweet, and tasted nothing at all like

  tea.

  "Different," Jake said, frowning at the contents of the containers he had

  uncovered. Again, it was not clear to Bashir if the frown was directed at the

  food or at his question.

  'To be expected, don't you think?"

  Jake gingerly dabbed a finger into the red sauce that covered a brownish square

  of... something, then ten­tatively licked his finger. He grimaced. "I actually

  miss the combat rations on the Augustus."

  Bashir smiled in commiseration. Vulcan combat ra­tions were logical and not much

  else. They consisted of tasteless extruded slabs which were mostly vegetable

  pulp compressed to the consistency of soft wax. Ac­companied by packets of

  distilled water and three un­comfortably large supplement pills to compensate

  for the differences between Vulcan and human nutrient re­quirements, 500 grams

  of pulp were sufficient to main­tain a normal adult body for thirty hours.

  Vulcans were proud of the fact that their rations only had to be in­gested once

  a day, and that the process could be com­pleted in less than two minutes. How

  much more efficient could eating become? All of the temporal refugees had lost

  body mass during their voyage on the Augustus.

  It was also possible, though, that Jake's joke might

  have another purpose—to change the subject. Bashir didn't intend to let such a

  ploy go unchallenged.

  "Were you having an argument with Nog?" he asked. "Before we all had dinner at

  the Starbase?"

  He saw the answer in Jake's guilty expression. "Jake, it's bad enough that

  Starfleet is keeping secrets from us. We can't keep them from each other, too."

  Bashir dropped his own voice to a near whisper. "What did he tell you?"

  Jake's shoulders sagged. "It's more what he didn't tell me... tell us."

  "About what?"

  Jake dropped his napkin over his untouched food. "He was lying to us."

  Bashir felt the unwelcome touch of alarm. He had con­sidered that possibility

  himself. "About the Phoenix?"

  "No... I don't think about all that. Like, the Phoenix and going back

  twenty-five thousand years and the deep-time charges in B'hala... I really think

  that's what Starfleet's planning. Or was planning. But... when he told us he had

  no doubt that the mis­sion would succeed ... that was a lie."

  Bashir put down his pad. "Considering the rather au­dacious nature of the

  mission, I'm not really surprised. It's perfectly understandable that Nog might

  harbor some doubts about the possibilities for success."

  But Jake shook his head emphatically. "I'm not talk­ing about doubts. Or being

  nervous. I mean ... look, it's as if Nog already knows the mission can't

  succeed."

  "Did he say that to you? Is that what you were argu­ing about?"

  Jake looked right and left,, obviously concerned about anyone overhearing their

  discussion. "That was part of it. But he didn't have to tell me. Not flat out."

  "I don't understand."

  Jake shifted uncomfortably. "He's been my best friend for... well, we were best

  friends for a long time. And I can tell when he's lying. He does this thing with

  his eyes and... his mouth sort of freezes in position."

  Jake was obviously developing some skill in obser­vation. "They call it a

  'tell.' Or they used to," Bashir corrected himself, "a few centuries ago. In

  gambling and confidence games, some people develop a nervous habit which gives

  away the fact that they're bluffing. You're very observant."

  Jake shrugged. "Not really. Uh, Nog sort of told me himself. His father and

  uncle kept giving him a hard time about it. They, uh, they claimed he had picked

  it up from me... a filthy human habit that would hold him back in business."

  Jake smiled weakly. "He tried to run away from the station a couple of times."

  "I didn't know," Bashir said truthfully.

  "I... talked him out of it. But anyway, he's still doing it. And he was

  definitely lying to us."

  Bashir sat back in the flimsy mess-hall chair and men­tally called up a Vulcan

  behavioral algorithm to try to calculate the odds that Jake was correct in his

  conclusion of Nog's truthfulness. Once the Vulcans had realized the failure of

  their early predictions that any species intelli­gent enough to develop warp

  drive would of course have embraced logic and peaceful exploration as the

  guiding principles of their culture, they had developed complex systems for

  modeling and predicting alien behavior as a form of self-survival. It was a

  difficult set of equations to master, but one could always count on a Vulcan to

  figure the odds for just about any eventuality.

  Bashir completed his calculations. In the limited way

  he had trained himself in the Vulcan technique, he was forced to conclude that

  given the relationship between Jake and Nog, Jake was more likely than not

  correct in his assessment of his friend. Since there was nothing to be gained

  from questioning Jake's conclusion, the only logical course was now to determine

  the underlying reasons for Nog's behavior.

  Bashir began the requisite series of questions. "Did you tell him that you knew

  he was lying?"

  Jake nodded. "That's when he got mad at me."

  "But did he deny lying?"

  "How could he?"

  "Did he say why?"

  Jake appeared to be more profoundly unhappy than Bashir ever recalled seeing him

  before.

  "All he told me was that I should keep my... my ridiculous hew-mon opinions to

  myself. And then, well, he sort of let me know that it was really important that

  I not tell anyone what I thought."

  "With what you know of him, Jake, is there any rea­son you can think of why Nog

  would lie to us about the success of the mission?"

  Now Jake looked positively haunted. "I... I think so."

  Bashir leaned forward to hear Jake's theory about how Captain Nog was really

  going to save the lives of the temporal refugees—and the universe.

  And what he heard was utterly fascinating, and at the same time utterly

  horrifying.

  CHAPTER 14

  "You know how Stardates work," Commander Arla Rees said.

  "Of course." Sisko nodded, distracted, wondering about what was beyond the

  windowless hull of t
he small travelpod they were riding in. It reminded him of a

  two-person escape module, though he could see no indication that it carried

  emergency supplies or even flight controls. According to Weyoun, transporters

  were not permitted to operate anywhere within the Bajoran system—though he had

  provided no explanation why— and all travel here was carried out by pod,

  runabout, or shuttle. Thus, the survivors from the Defiant had been sent off

  from the Boreth's hangar deck two by two, in these tiny pods with no means by

  which to observe the somehow restored Deep Space 9 as they neared it.

  "Seriously?" Arla persisted. "You've actually looked into how the Stardate

  system was devised?"

  Sisko looked across the cramped pod—or down the pod, or up it. There was no

  artificial gravity field, and no inertial dampeners either. Essentially, he and

  the commander were the only passengers in a gray metal can with two acceleration

  seats with restraint straps, a pressure door, and four blue-white lights, two at

  their feet and two at their heads. Sisko even doubted if the simple vessel had

  its own engines or reaction-control system. He guessed they were being guided

  from the Boreth to DS9 by tractor beam.

  "I've studied timekeeping."

  Arla frowned. "When? They don't tell you a lot in the Academy."

  "Actually, I had reason to take an extension course a few years ago. I even

  built a few different types of me­chanical clocks on my own." Sisko tried to

  lean back in his acceleration seat, but of course there was no gravity field to

  aid his maneuver—only the two chest-crossing straps that kept him from floating

  out of the seat.

  "Did your course deal with how the system got started?"

  "Some of it. As I understand it, Commander, the im­petus behind devising a

  universal—or, at least, a galac­tic—standard time- and date-keeping system was

  primarily religious."

  From her seat beside him, Arla nodded her head in agreement, though Sisko didn't

  understand the reason for the odd smile that accompanied that nod.

  He continued, not knowing what she was looking for in his answer. "There's

  certainly precedent for it. Many of the religious festivals and holy days

  celebrated on Earth are tied to the calendar."

  "More often than not the lunar calendar, I believe," Arla said.

  "That's right," Sisko said. Though he still didn't know why they were having

  this conversation, it seemed harmless enough. He decided to run with it The

  com­mander would give him her reasons when she was ready, and mat was fine with

  him. "Now if my memory serves me right, when the first outposts were set up on

  Earth's moon, since everyone lived underground and the moon is less than a

  light-second from Earth, timekeep­ing wasn't a problem. But when the outposts on

  Mars were established, and it was common for people to spend years mere with

  their families, I recall learning mat it became awkward trying to reconcile

  Martian sols at twenty-four-and-a-half hours with Earth days at just under

  twenty-four. So a council of religious scholars on Mars came up with the first

  Stardate system—Local Planetary Time—based, I believe, on the look-up tables and

  charts the Vulcans had been using to reconcile their starships' calendars with

  their homeworld's."

  "The Vulcan system was based in philosophy," Arla said, as if making some

  important point, "not religion."

  "I... suppose you could say that," Sisko said ami­ably. "Now, for most people,

  once you have a few thou­sand starships and outposts and a few hundred colonies,

  it gets too cumbersome to keep using look-up tables and charts. But," Sisko

  smiled, "not for Vulcans. It's no secret they have no problem keeping forty or

  fifty dif­ferent calendar systems in their heads at the same time. But humans,

  we freely admit, tend to place more cul­tural and religious importance on

  specific days."

  "Just like Bajorans," Arla said as she turned to him, her eyes filled with a

  passion Sisko didn't recall having

  noticed before. She then paused expectantly, as if she had still not heard what

  she needed to hear.

  "Is there some point to this conversation?" Sisko fi­nally asked.

  But Arla's answer merely took the form of another question. "What happened next?

  According to the ex­tension course you took."

  Sisko sighed, tiring of their exercise. He wondered how long it would take for

  the pod to drift over to the station. He was surprising himself with his need to

  touch the metal walls and feel the decks of DS9 beneath his boots again. And

  with his desire to have someone tell him how it was that he could have seen DS9

  destroyed, and yet see it now restored. Weyoun had been of little help. All he

  would answer in reply to Sisko's questions was, 'In time, Benjamin. All will be

  explained in time."

  Only because there was absolutely nothing else to do at the moment, Sisko

  continued to humor Arla. This time his answer came straight out of the Academy's

  first-semester text file. "The underlying principle of the universal Stardate

  system is that of hyperdimensional distance averaging."

  "Which is?"

  Sisko grimaced. The last time he had had this basic a conversation with anyone

  about Stardates, Jake had been five and sitting on his knee, struggling to get

  bis Plotter Forest Diary program to work on the new padd Sisko had given him for

  his birthday.

  "If you insist" Sisko then rattled off the requisite in­formation. "Any two

  points in space can be joined by a straight line. The length of that line,

  divided by two, will yield the midpoint. If the inhabitants of both points

  convert their local time to the hypothetical time at the

  midpoint, then they both have an arbitrary yet univer­sally applicable constant

  time to which they can refer, in order to reconcile their local calendars." He

  paused before continuing. "You know, of course, it's the exact same principle

  developed on Earth when an interna­tional convention chose to run the zero

  meridian through Greenwich, establishing Greenwich Mean Time. It was a

  completely artificial standard, but a stan­dard everyone could use."

  "And...," Arla prompted.

  "And," Sisko sighed. The Bajoran commander's per­sistence was fully up to Vulcan

  standards. "Any two points can be joined by a straight line. Go up a dimen­sion,

  and any three points can be located on a two-dimensional plane. Go up another

  dimension, and any four points in space can be located on the curved sur­face of

  a three-dimensional sphere. Any five points can be found on the surface of a

  four-dimensional hyper-sphere, and so on. The standard relationship is that any

  number of points,«, can be mapped onto the surface of a sphere which exists in n

  minus one dimensions. And that means mat all of those points are exactly the

  same distance from the center of the sphere. So, just after the Romulan War, the

  Starfleet Bureau of Standards and the Vulcan Science Academy arbitrarily chose

  the cen­ter of our galaxy as the center point of a hypersphere with... oh, I

  forget the exact figure... something like five hundred million dimensions, okay?

  So theoreti­cally, every star in our galaxy�
�along with four hun­dred million and

  some starships and outposts—can be located on the surface of the hypersphere and

  can di­rectly relate their local calendars and clocks to a com­mon standard time

  that's an equal distance from

  everywhere. Just as everyone on Earth used to look to Greenwich." Sisko gripped

  his restraints and pushed himself back into his acceleration couch, trying to

  com­press his spine. The microgravity, not to mention his traveling companion,

  was giving him a pain in the small of his back, as his spine elongated in the

  absence of a strong gravity field. "Is that sufficient?" he asked sharply.

  "What do you think?" Arla replied.

  A sudden shock of pain pulsed through Sisko just above his left kidney. He

  remembered the sensation from his microgravity training decades ago in the

  Academy's zero-G gym. He forced his next words out through gritted teeth. "I

  think it's a damn simple sys­tem. One that works independent of position and

  rela­tivistic velocity. And since it's based on the galactic center it's

  blessedly free of political overtones." Sisko smiled in relief as his back spasm

  ended, as suddenly as it had begun, and as he at the same time relived a sudden

  memory of the one sticking point Jake—like most five-year-olds—had had when it

  came to learning Stardates. "And once a person gets used to the idea that

  Stardates can seem to run backward from place to place, depending on your

  direction and speed of travel, it becomes an exceedingly simple calculation to

  con­vert from local time to Stardate anywhere in the galaxy.

  "So—if you're asking me if I'm in favor of Stardates, Commander, yes, I am. Now

  what does this have to do with anything?"

  Arla's expression was maddeningly enigmatic, and Sisko could read no clues in

  it. "So you consider the system to be completely arbitrary?"

  "Any timekeeping system has to be. Because the uni-

  verse has no absolute time or absolute position. Now would you please answer my

  question."

  "Then how is it—" Arla said, and Sisko's attention was caught by her tone. The

  commander was finally ready to make her point. "—nine days from now, when the

  two wormholes are going to open in the Bajoran system only kilometers apart from

  each other and... and supposedly end the universe, or transform it some­how,

  that that completely arbitrary Stardate system is going to roll over to 7700.0