Star Trek Terok Nor 01: Day of the Vipers Page 16

  Kell didn’t look at her. “Dukat’s a fine officer, but he lacks an understanding of the nature of command. Some hounds need to be kept on a tight chain.”

  “Some hounds bite,” she added.

  They came to a halt at an oval space opening onto a narrow chamber. A humming force field hazed the view into the cell, traces of yellow sparks flickering at the edges of the glowing emitter bars surrounding it. Hadlo stood in the center of the holding compartment, watching them.

  “There’s no need for this,” he said, pointing at the field.

  “I’m not a threat.”

  Kell rubbed his chin. “I’ll let a tribunal decide that, cleric. Your fellow zealots have made quite a mess in your absence. I’m sure the people will be interested to know what hand you had in that.” He glanced at Ico. “How many deaths so far, Professor?”

  “Fifty-three,” said the woman. “Some of them children and the infirm.”

  Kell shook his head, concealing the relish he felt at having the priest incarcerated. “Terrible business. I’m sure you’ll be made to answer in full for it.”

  Hadlo came forward in an abrupt rush. “No, listen to me. Your attention is in the wrong place! This is not about Cardassia, it is about Bajor! About both!” His face flushed dark gray. “If you could open your eyes, if you could listen! I’ve seen it!”

  “Seen what?” A sneer crossed the gul’s face. “Has your silly little sect given you some holy revelation to impart to us?”

  “In the temple at Kendra, in the shrine there, I saw such things as a man like you could never comprehend!” thundered Hadlo, suddenly animated. “The Bajoran kai showed me, and the Orb…the Orb was the vision!”

  “Orb?” The word stuck in Kell’s mind, and he dwelt on it for a moment. He recalled a fraction of data from his pre-mission briefing, the vague intelligence reports from the Obsidian Order about the aliens and their culture. Doubtless the reports were deliberately unclear where the Order chose to keep the more sensitive data to itself—such a practice was not uncommon—but there had been mention of some sort of relics of religious significance to the Bajorans. He glanced at Ico and saw with some interest that the woman’s previously off hand attention toward the cleric had gained a new intensity.

  “I saw our worlds, the ashen wilderness and the snakes. Death and destruction laid forth, the blinding smoke…” He trailed off, gasping. “As real to me as you!”

  Kell snorted. “Oh, how pathetic. This is the best defense you can offer? Your perfidy is revealed and all you can do is play the madman? Visions? What idiocy.”

  “I saw tomorrow!” The cleric let out the words in a screech. “The future emerging from the Orb of Truth, skeins of possibility unraveling! And the shape of them vanishing, taken away and stolen by serpents…”

  Ico’s eyes narrowed, and she took a step closer to the force field. “Stolen,” she repeated. “You saw the Orbs being taken away?”

  He nodded curtly. “One by one.”

  The gul grimaced. “Rhan, please do not tell me that you of all people find some shred of cogency in this babble?” He shot Hadlo a hard look. “It’s clear to me. He is either arrested by some sort of dementia brought on by his primitive beliefs, or he is concocting a web of nebulous statements in an attempt to appear more knowledgeable than he is!”

  “Perhaps,” Ico said.

  Kell laughed. “Aren’t you a woman of science? A student of the rational? Do you actually put any credence in talk about Orbs that show the future? This is the desperation of a condemned man, nothing more.” He sniffed. “I have seen all I need to see.”

  “Science is the pursuit of knowledge,” she said quietly, speaking with steady intensity. “I want to know more about these Orbs.” There was something in her words that told Kell she knew far more about them already than either he or the cleric did.

  “Yes. Yes!” Hadlo came so close to the glimmering barrier that the emitters rose in pitch with the proximity of his body. “And that will only come through me, through the Oralian Way!”

  “If that was an attempt to convert us, it was a weak one,” Kell retorted.

  The old man’s face twisted in a snarl, and suddenly the gul was seeing the pious, imperial manner he remembered from their earlier confrontations. “I would never dirty my faith with you, Kell! I speak of larger issues, of survival and what must be done to ensure it!”

  “Go on,” said Ico.

  He stabbed a crooked finger at them. “You want to open the path to the Bajorans, but they will not listen to you. They see only aliens, the shadow of expansionist warmongers and soulless clinicians! Without weapons, you will never gain a foothold on Bajor! You know it and I know it! They reject you, they distrust you!” He laughed bitterly. “If it were not for us, if the children of Oralius were not with you now, they would have turned you away at the edge of their space!”

  Kell’s jaw stiffened. “Be thankful you had a use, you old fool. But now, like any tool that has failed to perform, you’ll be cast aside. You and your whole sect.”

  “Not if Cardassia wants Bajor!” roared Hadlo. “I can give it to you! Kai Meressa will listen to me, she trusts me. The Bajoran church holds great sway over their people…If the kai welcomes Cardassia, then Bajor will follow in her footsteps and not even the First Minister will stand against her. I can bring that to pass. Already she has granted my petition to create a theological enclave on her planet. I have taken the first step!”

  “You would make your faith the bridge between our two worlds? This is your bargain?” asked Ico.

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it? A channel to their riches and resources?”

  The gul folded his arms over his chest. His mind was racing. Here he was, hoping for nothing more than a chance to gloat over the cleric’s reversal of fortunes, and instead the old man had offered him a chance to gain the glory Ico had taunted him with earlier—a bloodless victory. The lure of the moment made his mouth flood with saliva. “And suppose you did this, priest,” he began, “what would you want in kind?”

  Hadlo rocked back, the flush of emotion on his face fading. “Assurances. You will use your authority with Central Command to call off the persecution of my kinsmen. The Oralian Way will be allowed to go on as before.”

  Kell spread his hands. “I am only a gul of the Second Order. I think you overestimate my influence.”

  Hadlo glared at him through the transparent barrier. “Spare me your false modesty, Kell. We all know you are well connected. You could do this if you wished to.”

  Kell shrugged. The cleric was right. “Perhaps so. But it will be difficult to withdraw after your fellow Oralians have done so much damage.”

  The old man’s eyes narrowed. “There is little doubt in my mind that the majority of the unrest was stirred up not by followers of the Way but by men who impersonated them at the government’s behest.” His voice was low and loaded with cold fury. “But still. I understand there must be closure for the common folk. I submit instead, then, that the Central Command might learn that the Oralians who did these things were not of my branch of the Way, but of another. Perhaps the followers of the Desert Path sect or the Church of the Love of the Fates.”

  Ico nodded. “Those are the smaller, less pliant factions of your religion, if I recall correctly. I imagine you would not be saddened to see them reduced in number?” She smiled coldly. “My dear Hadlo, I must apologize to you. I had thought you to be soft and idealistic, lacking in the ruthless instinct of the Cardassian spirit. I see now I was incorrect. You can be without pity if you want to.”

  “This ‘enclave’ of which you spoke,” said Kell, “it will be a retreat, then? An embassy of sorts on Bajor?” Hadlo nodded. “It would serve the Cardassian Union well if the pilgrims you sent there were to include certain additions among their number.”

  “If you wish,” Hadlo replied.

  The gul glanced at Ico, and then at the cleric once again. “To ensure your sect remains free of persecution, what you sp
eak of would need to be implemented in quick order. If I contact Central Command and tell them that I am ordering the Kornaire to remain in Bajor orbit, they will need assurances.”

  “Let me out of this cage and I will make it happen. You have my word. I will do this for the future of my world and my faith, I swear it on the Recitations.”

  “Gul,” said Ico silkily, “if I might prevail upon you to communicate with my colleagues at the ministry, I think I will be able to bring some weight to bear on the matter.” She smiled demurely. “I have some substantial contacts across the spectrum of our government.”

  “Those that exist toward the darker end of that spectrum, I don’t doubt.” Kell grimaced. “Very well.” He tapped a control, and the energy field stuttered and faded. The gul studied the cleric. “Cardassia expects much of her sons and daughters. If they are lacking, then her mercy will be fleeting and her anger quite terrible.” He tapped the comcuff on his wrist. “Bridge, status.”

  “Bridge here, this is Dukat,” came the reply. “Drive control reports systems at the ready, sir. Homeward course is laid in. We are ready to break orbit once the last of the ground party has been secured.”

  Kell’s lip curled. “My previous orders are rescinded. Stand down from flight stations and remain in orbital mode. Prepare a Priority Black hyperchannel link to Cardassia Prime and connect it to my quarters.”

  “Sir?” Confusion was evident in the other man’s voice.

  “We are not leaving?”

  “No, Dukat. There’s been a change in the mission.”

  The applause faded away, and Jas nodded into it, maintaining the same careful expression of studied intellect that he had grown up seeing on his father’s face. Camera drones drifted over the assembled dignitaries like untethered balloons, moving this way and that so the view of the podium could be transmitted to screens around Bajor. Unlike the relative privacy of the Eleda memorial, this was a big affair, outside the keep walls in the gardens where the city and the plains beyond were clearly visible as a backdrop. The setting was a good bit of theater, and Jas made a mental note to compliment Lonnic on her deft placement of the stands. His gaze ranged over the faces around him and he forced himself not to dwell on the gray expressions of the Cardassians. Even after weeks of seeing the aliens in the corridors of the castle and elsewhere, he was still finding it difficult to adjust to them; but he was a politician and he was experienced at concealing things.

  He launched into the concluding part of his speech. “And so, it gives me great pleasure to announce that our new friends from Cardassia will join us here in Korto District on a permanent basis, so that we might learn from one another and build a stronger understanding between our two peoples.” Jas gestured toward the plains; from this distance a good eye would be able to pick out the square of land marked for construction, purchased by the aliens through Kubus Oak’s corporate holdings. “This enclave will be a symbol of friendship and cooperation, and an opportunity for Bajor to look beyond her own horizons, to the galaxy beyond.” There was more applause, and the minister bowed slightly before stepping away from the podium. Regal in her full formal robes, Kai Meressa stepped up to take his place, with the Oralian cleric Hadlo at her side. As they stepped past one another, Jas could not fail to notice that the fatigued, wary cast to the old man’s features—so evident when the aliens had first arrived more than a month ago—was gone, replaced by a new, boundless confidence. The kai reflected the same energy and passion; Jas had no doubts that anyone here did not understand that the enclave had only come to be because of her single-minded drive to make it happen.

  Verin had opposed the proposal to welcome the Cardassian priests from the moment Meressa had announced it on the floor of the forum in Ashalla. Jas recalled the stony cast to the First Minister’s face as the kai had given a heart-felt entreaty to the Chamber of Ministers; while she talked of “hands across the stars” and twinned faiths, Jas stole a glance at Kubus and found the other minister smiling to himself. Kubus had been correct when he had told Jas that the Prophets would provide the impetus for a Bajoran-Cardassian treaty, and that was exactly what had happened. For his part, Verin all but called the kai naïve and did his best to exercise his influence to reject the proposal. But Bajor is a world of the faithful, thought Jas, and the word of the kai carries greater weight than a politician’s ever could. She spoke with the will of the people and the clergy behind her.

  He wondered if Verin Kolek understood where his isolationist outlook had taken him; with a little over a year remaining in his term of office as First Minister, his defiance of Meressa and his continued intransigence toward the offworlders had done nothing but weaken his position in the eyes of the people and the other ministers. Verin’s political allies were leaving his side one by one, shifting to follow the same path as Jas and Kubus; foremost among them was Lale Usbor, a moderate from Tamulna. He was everything Verin was not—warm and open, thoughtful and considerate. Kubus was already talking about Lale in terms of the elections, grooming the man for high office. The current First Minister would not return to that posting for another term, that was as clear as the sky. It was telling that Lale was here at the ceremony and Verin was not; the First Minister had cited some poor reason not be in Korto for the announcement, but it was a snub, pure and simple. Jas imagined Verin fuming in his office in Ashalla, unable to comprehend why the people were ignoring his conservative counsel; for all the man’s political acumen, at heart Verin was a staid, inflexible traditionalist. It was remarkable how the arrival of the Cardassians had rotted the roots of the old man’s power. Bajor was fascinated by the aliens and wanted to know them, while the First Minister just wanted them gone.

  Hadlo and Meressa were speaking of the great import of this moment, of the historic coming together of two cultures and two faiths, of their hopes that the Korto Enclave would be the first of many. Jas nodded in all the right places, just as he knew he should, but inwardly he was elsewhere. The churn of anxiety had returned, the questions rolling over one another in his thoughts. Is this the right path? Am I making a mistake? He caught Kubus looking at him, and the Minister for Qui’al gave him a shallow nod. The other man had wasted not a moment in applying his political and business capital to the development of the Oralian enclave, and Jas was going along with him. For better or for worse, Korto was now at the center of things on Bajor. Where that would lead his city was something that Jas Holza could not predict, and the thought chilled and excited him in equal measure.

  The reception inside the Naghai Keep was, if anything, more opulent than the gathering laid on for the Cardassians on their first arrival. Dukat ate and drank nothing, feasting instead on his own frosty anger. Not for the first time, he wondered if Gul Kell was deliberately placing him in circumstances that would test the dalin’s patience. The dalin had grown increasingly withdrawn and sullen since his commander’s abrupt alteration of orders. One moment Dukat had been there on the bridge, ready to give the word that would take the Kornaire back home—he had Athra’s face in his mind’s eye, and the reality would be only a day or two away at high warp—and the next Kell had told him to stand down.

  How many times had he run the holograph rod through the player since then? How many messages had he sent to his father, to the medical clinic in Lakat, without answer? Every day they remained here was like razors over Dukat’s flesh, the wounds worsened by the silence from the homeworld. Only communications of a military nature. He hated that phrase. And Kell, constantly pushing him and gently mocking him, denying him even a moment to step back from his duties and look to his family. For a Cardassian, it was torture, and Kell knew it.

  Is he pushing me to see how much it will take to have me break? There was cold malice in his commander’s behavior. Kell knew as well as Dukat did that now that the Bajor mission was hailed as a success on the homeworld, Dukat would be rewarded for his part in it. The promotion he deserved would finally come to him; and so in one last attempt to spite his first officer, Kell wanted
to make Dukat lose his control. He glared at the gul across the chamber. Nothing would make him happier than to sign off my last performance report under his command with a negative rating. I will not give him the satisfaction.

  His comcuff chimed, and Dukat raised his wrist to his mouth. “Responding.”

  “Skrain?” Although it went against military regulations, although it would have given Kell exactly the excuse to chastise Dukat if he had been aware of it, in sympathy to his plight, Pa’Dar had agreed to do what he could to assist the dalin in keeping lines of communication open to Cardassia. However, for the most part the man’s contacts at the Ministry of Science had been able to give him little more information than the censored government newsfeeds that played in the Kornaire’s common room.

  But now the tenor of Pa’Dar’s voice made Dukat go tense. He heard something there that made his bones chill. “Kotan. What is it?”

  There was a pause as the civilian tried to find a way to frame his next sentence. “Skrain…one of the adjutants from the medical division was conducting a survey this week, of the fallout from the situation in Lakat. They showed my colleagues records from the clinic…”

  The room around him seemed to become hazy and indistinct. Dukat heard the rumble of his blood in his ears, the chatter of the voices merging into incoherence. His boots felt rooted to the spot.

  “I’d left some messages to contact me if anything matched…if there were any names…” He sighed. “Your father ensured that the data would find its way to me.”

  “Tell me,” Dukat said in a leaden whisper.

  “Your wife was released from medical care four days ago. She has made a full recovery.”

  “My son?” he demanded.

  When Pa’Dar spoke again, it was as if the marble floor of the keep was yawning open to swallow him whole. “The data indicates…an unnamed male child of the Dukat clan perished from complications due to a lack of medical supplies. I’m so sorry, Skrain.”