The War of the Prophets Page 20

  at the same moment that Earth's calendar starts a new century with the first day

  of 240lA.C.E.?"

  Her question was so incredibly naive, Sisko couldn't believe the Bajoran had

  even asked it. "Coin­cidence, Commander." Now it was he who was expec­tant,

  waiting for her to say something more, to somehow explain herself.

  "Coincidence," she repeated thoughtfully, obviously not accepting his answer.

  Sisko regarded her with puz­zlement.

  "Did you know," Arla said, "that an old Klingon cal­endar system reverts to the

  Fourth Age of Kahless on that same date? That the Orthodox Andorian Vengeance

  Cycle begins its 330th iteration then also? That that very same date is the one

  given in Ferengi tradition when some groups celebrate the day the Great Material

  River first overflowed its banks among the stars and, in the flood that

  followed, created Ferenginar and the first Ferengi?"

  As Arla recited her list, Sisko observed her gesticu­late with one hand to

  emphasize her words, and was fascinated to see the sudden action in microgravity

  bil­low the commander's robes around her like seaweed

  caught in a tidal current, pulsing back and forth in time with the slow,

  floating motion of her earring chain.

  "Seventeen different spacefaring cultures, Captain Sisko. That's how many worlds

  have calendar systems that either reset or roll over to significant dates or new

  counting cycles on the exact same day the two worm­holes come into alignment.

  Two systems coinciding is a coincidence. I'll give you that. Maybe even three or

  four. But seventeen? There must be some better expla­nation for that. Wouldn't

  you agree?"

  Sisko took his time replying. He wished he knew the reasons behind the Bajoran

  commander's sudden obses­sion with the timing of events and timekeeping systems

  derived from religious traditions. When he had first met her on DS9, he

  remembered being impressed by her in­tensity and by her drive to do the best

  possible job. True, there had been an awkward moment when he had real­ized that

  she was discreetly communicating her interest in getting to know him on a more

  personal level, but she had responded properly and professionally the moment he

  had made her aware of his relationship with Kasidy.

  He had had no doubt that Arla would make her own mark in Starfleet. Though she

  had little interest in tak­ing command of a ship and had opted instead for a

  ca­reer track in administration, some of Starfleet's best and most

  forward-thinking strategic leaders had come from that same background.

  But most of all, Sisko knew that Arla had been one of the rare few Bajorans who

  were completely secular. By her own account, she had no faith in the Prophets.

  To her, she had maintained to him, they were merely a race of advanced beings

  who lived in a different dimen­sional environment, one which rendered communica-

  tion between themselves and the life-forms of Arla's own dimension very

  difficult. And she had told him emphatically on more than one occasion that the

  Celes­tial Temple was simply a wormhole to her, worthy of study, not for

  religious reasons, but because it was sta­ble and apparently artificial.

  So how did someone like that, he now thought, sud­denly become so interested in

  comparative religion? And even more intriguingly, why?

  Sisko decided to change tactics. "Do you have an ex­planation?" he asked.

  "I don't know," Arla answered simply.

  "A theory then? Something that we could put to the test?"

  A frown creased Arla's smooth forehead. "A week ago, if you had asked me about

  the Stardate standard, I would have given the same answer you did. That it was

  an arbi­trary timekeeping system. That absolute time didn't exist any more than

  absolute location." A fleeting smile erased her frown. The smile seemed slightly

  nervous to Sisko. "What's that old saying, Captain? Everything's relative?"

  "That's true, you know," Sisko said.

  The Bajoran commander shook her head vehemently in disagreement. "No ... those

  other timekeeping sys­tems ... Terran, Bajoran, Klingon, Andorian... they're not

  really arbitrary. They all share a common under­pinning—not relative but

  related."

  "Commander." Sisko spoke in his best authoritative tone. "The calendar systems

  you refer to date back thousands if not tens of thousands of years, to a time

  before star travel. There is nothing to connect them."

  "But there is." Arla's voice was rising with an ur­gency that was beginning to

  concern Sisko. The source

  of whatever had upset her was still not clear to him. "Don't you see? They all

  came out of religion. They're all based on some form of creation story. And

  maybe... maybe life arose independently on all those worlds, but maybe it also

  all arose at the same time— from the same cause."

  Sisko's concern changed to indignation. It appeared the Bajoran commander was

  simply guilty of sloppy thinking. "Commander, for what you're proposing—

  something for which there is no conclusive empirical proof, by the way—you might

  as well credit the Pre­servers with having seeded life throughout the quad­rant,

  as much as invoke a supernatural force. There's about the same amount of

  evidence for both theories."

  Sisko couldn't help noticing Arla's hurt expression, as she came to the correct

  realization that he considered her idea to be totally without merit. "Captain, I

  was just trying to explain why I disagreed with the commonly accepted belief

  that all the timekeeping systems were arbitrary. If they all stem from the same

  act of creation by the Prophets, then it makes sense that they all come to an

  end at the same time."

  "Then what about Stardates?" Sisko asked. "Without question, that's a completely

  artificial system based in me necessities of interstellar travel."

  But Arla was not giving up so easily. "No, sir. You said it yourself. The need

  for Stardates arose in part from the religious need to chart Earth's festivals

  and holy days on other worlds. How do we know the reli­gious scholars of the

  time didn't build into their time­keeping system the same hidden knowledge that

  underlies all the other systems in the quadrant?"

  Sisko shifted in his accelerator seat, feeling the re-

  straints securing him in place. He felt trapped in both the conversation and the

  pod. It was all too obvious that he wasn't going to prevail in this argument As

  soon as any­one brought up anything like "hidden knowledge," all possibility of

  a debate based on available facts flew out the airlock. "I take it your

  religious views have changed in the past few days," Sisko said in massive

  understatement

  '1 don't know," Arla said, her voice declining in in­tensity. At last, even she

  was sounding weary now. Sisko knew how she felt. "What I do know is that there

  has to be some sort of explanation," she said. "And as someone trained in the

  scientific method, I have to keep my mind open to all possible explanations,

  even the ones I might think are unlikely."

  Sisko was aware that the Bajoran commander was chiding him for apparently

  closing his own mind to the possibility of supernatural intervention in the

  affairs of the
galaxy. But he felt secure in his approach. After all, he had

  dealt with the Prophets firsthand. And though explanations from them were often

  difficult to come by, subtlety was not their style. If there had been some sort

  of connection between the Prophets and worlds other than Bajor, Sisko felt

  certain that strong evidence for it would have turned up much earlier than now.

  "An admirable position," he said in deliberate tones of finality, hoping that

  Arla would understand and ac­cept that he wanted no more part in this

  conversation.

  Just then the hull of the travelpod creaked, and a slight tremor moved through

  the small craft.

  'Tractor beam?" Arla asked.

  "Or docking clamp. Do we seem to be slowing down?"

  Immediately, Arla held out both her arms, and watched them as if trying to see

  if they might respond

  to a change in delta vee. But except for the undulations of the sleeves of her

  robe, her arms remained motion­less. "Some tractor beams have their own inertial

  dampening effect," she said. "We could be spinning like a plasma coil right now

  and not know it."

  Sisko knew that was a possibility, though he didn't see the point. From what

  he'd learned so far, the Ascen­dancy, for all its apparent capabilities, seemed

  to be in favor of not expending any effort or supplies unless ab­solutely

  necessary.

  The lights suddenly flashed with almost blinding in­tensity, and there was

  another scrape and a stronger metallic bang, followed by the sound of rushing

  air. Sisko looked to the pressure door.

  "That'll probably be an airlock sealing against the hull "Arla said.

  "Not on DS9," Sisko said. "If we were at a docking port on a pylon or the main

  ring, we'd be within the ar­tificial gravity field."

  Arla was looking at him with concern. "Then where did we go? To another ship?"

  "I don't know," Sisko said. He braced himself against his restraints and half

  twisted in his chair to face the door. He debated the wisdom of releasing the

  restraints, but if a gravity field did switch on suddenly, he couldn't be sure

  in which direction he might fall.

  A new vibration shook the hull—something fast, al­most an electrical hum.

  "We're changing velocity," Arla said.

  Sisko saw the chain of her earring slowly begin to flutter down until it hung

  beside her neck. But whether it was the effect of acceleration or the beginning

  of a gravity field there was no way to tell. Einstein had de-

  termined that almost five hundred years ago and that, too, was still true.

  And then both he and Arla were abruptly shaken as a loud bang erupted in the

  pod. The sound seemed to come from the direction of the door.

  The next bang was even louder but not as startling.

  The third deformed the door, and Sisko tensed as he heard a hiss of air

  indicating that atmospheric integrity had been lost around the door's seal.

  But when the pressure within the pod didn't seem to change appreciably, Sisko

  revised his deduction. They had docked with or somehow been taken aboard

  an­other vessel whose atmosphere was slightly different from the pod's.

  A fourth bang rocked the pod. The door creaked and swung open.

  Beyond the pod's simple portal Sisko glimpsed a pale-yellow light fixture

  shining within a dark airlock. He could just make out the curve of a Cardassian

  door wheel in the gloom.

  "This is the station," he exclaimed. He touched the release tabs on his

  restraints and pushed himself from the chair. His feet gently made contact with

  the floor of the pod. Automatically, Sisko estimated gravity at about one-tenth

  Earth normal.

  He nodded at Arla, who then released herself to stand on the floor, still

  holding the loose restraints to keep her­self from bouncing into the pod's low

  ceiling.

  With extreme caution, Sisko began moving toward the open portal. The glare from

  the single dim light fix­ture in the airlock prevented him from seeing through

  the viewport in the far door. All he could be sure of was mat whatever was

  beyond, it was in the dark as well.

  He stepped from the pod into the airlock, almost falling as normal gravity

  suddenly took over.

  The moment he regained his footing he took hold of Arla's arm. "Careful. They

  must be able to focus grav­ity fields better than we could."

  "Who?" Arla asked, as she cautiously entered the more powerful field.

  "Knowing Weyoun, this is probably some game he's devised."

  "Or a trap."

  "He already had us," Sisko reminded her. He pushed his face against the

  viewport, cupping his hands around his eyes to shield his vision and squinting

  to see some sort of detail in whatever lay beyond. But the darkness there was

  absolute.

  A sudden mechanical grinding noise caused him to spin around. He saw the other

  wheel door roll shut, cut­ting off any chance of their returning to the pod. In

  any event, with the pressure door damaged—by what? Sisko suddenly wondered—the

  pod would not be the safest place to be.

  Another rush of air popped his ears. Oddly enough, the effect made Sisko feel

  better, because he knew it meant that when the second wheel door opened there

  would be an atmosphere on the other side.

  He turned to check on Arla. "Are you all right?"

  Silent, she nodded, slowly raising her hand to point toward the second wheel

  door, her eyes wide with alarm.

  And then just as the second door began to roll Sisko caught sight of what had

  disturbed her. For just an in­stant, through the moving viewport, against the

  dark­ness of what lay beyond, two eyes glowed red.

  "It's Weyoun," Sisko said in disgust. Though what the Vorta was attempting to

  accomplish with this bit of theater was beyond him.

  Then a sudden wind of hot, damp air from beyond the airlock swept over him in a

  rush, and he gagged at the sweet, fetid stench that accompanied it Behind him,

  Arla did the same.

  Sisko looked up, eyes watering, the sharp taste of bile hi his mouth, knowing

  that whatever else lay in the darkness, there were organic bodies, rotting.

  Then, from out of the darkness, the two red eyes ap­proached him.

  Sisko's vision was still blurry in the assault of that terrible smell, but with

  a sudden tensing of his stomach he realized that the shadowy outlines of the

  figure who was entering the airlock indicated someone taller than Weyoun. And

  those shoulders—

  It was a Cardassian!

  Arla cried out in fear behind him.

  A powerful hand closed around Sisko's throat, its cold grip unnaturally strong.

  Red eyes of fire blazed down at him.

  And Sisko recognized the creature who held his life in one gray hand.

  It was Dukat!

  CHAPTER 15

  "where are my people?" Worf growled.

  Normally, Jadzia didn't like to see her husband give himself over to typical

  Klingon confrontational tech­niques. But in this case, as Worf glared down at

  Cap­tain T'len Jadzia was in full agreement. There were too many unanswered

  questions and too little time to use diplomacy.

  T'len stepped back from Worf, her Vulcan features re­vealing no outward sign of

  intimidation. Her
gaze, how­ever, moved almost imperceptibly to the closed door

  leading from the planning room to the corridor, as if checking for a path of

  retreat Good, Jadzia thought Here was where having three hundred years of

  experience paid off. And her experience was telling her now that mere was seldom

  a better person to negotiate with than a Vul­can who had a logical reason to cut

  negotiations short.

  She watched as T'len tugged down on her black

  tunic. "If you wish to determine the fate of your family members," the Vulcan

  captain told Worf, "you have been instructed in accessing Starfleet computers

  for all pertinent personnel records."

  Jadzia hid a smile as Worf slammed his massive fist down on the table beside

  him, causing a large schematic padd to jump several centimeters into the air and

  spilling a coffee mug onto the floor. Klingons could be so messy. It was one of

  their most endearing traits, she thought as she regarded her mate with loving

  pride.

  "I am not talking about my family," Worf shouted. "I know my parents have passed

  on to Sto-Vo-Kor. I know my brother died in the evacuation of Lark 53.1 am

  ask­ing, What happened to the Klingon people? And I want an answer now!"

  T'len narrowed her eyes, in what was to Jadzia a rather startling and misguided

  display of unalloyed Vulcan defiance.

  "Or you'll do what, Commander?"

  Worf didn't hesitate an instant. Jadzia expected no less of him. Once her mate

  made up his mind to do something, she knew little could dissuade him.

  "Or I will kill you where you stand," Worf said.

  T'len raised a dark, sculpted eyebrow. "You wouldn't dare."

  "I would rather die battling my enemies than wait passively for the universe to

  end."

  T'len looked past Worf at Jadzia. "Will you talk sense into your husband?"

  Jadzia took a moment to enjoy the undercurrent of fear in T'len's voice. It was

  so satisfying when people had their worldviews turned upside down. As she had

  discovered in her many different lifetimes, on a per-

  sonal level few events proved more rewarding. Though it might, of course, lake

  some time for the person caught in such turmoil to realize it.

  She shrugged as if completely powerless in this situ­ation, though she and Worf

  had carefully rehearsed the moment—and this confrontation. "What can I say? You