Star Trek: Terok Nor 03: Dawn of the Eagles

The woman could speak to him only via voice transmission, but Odo still felt quite certain that it was really her. It had been the sound of Kira’s voice that had finally brought her identity back to him those few years ago.

“So, will you help me, Constable?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I still don’t understand why you’ve come to me.”

“Because I trusted you once before, Odo, and I want to trust you now. I believe that ultimately—despite your position, I mean—you are on our side.”

“I’m on nobody’s side,” Odo said firmly.

“If that’s true, then why did you help me before? Why not just arrest me?”

“Because,” he said, not immediately sure how to follow it up. “I…suppose I regarded you as an individual, in need of help. It wasn’t your cause that provoked my sympathy—it was just…it was just…”

“What?”

“I don’t know,” Odo said. He really didn’t know. It was true that he had helped her once, and it was therefore true that he had helped the Bajoran resistance movement once, too. But he’d been much less experienced then—he had been reacting to his immediate circumstances without thinking through the consequences.

“You’re lying,”
the woman said.
“You knew the Cardassians were wrong then, and you know it now.”

“Do I?” Odo said, trying to sound threatening, but it fell flat.

“Yes, you do. You’re not one of them, Odo. You’re one of us.”

S
. D. Perry would like to thank Paula Block and Marco Palmieri; James Swallow and all the
Trek
writers, past and present; her marvelous husband, two perfect kids, and the lovely ladies at the School of Autism who keep the faith. And again, thanks to Britta.

Britta Dennison wants to thank anyone and everyone who contributed to the
Star Trek
wiki sites, along with Marco Palmieri, Paula Block, James Swallow, and everyone who has contributed to the
Trek
universe. Thanks to my family, especially Thad. Thanks to S. D. Perry, who prevents me from friendlessness and joblessness, and to every teacher I’ve ever had, with the exception of my ninth-grade algebra teacher.

2360 (Terran Calendar)

O
paka Sulan was silently watching the landscapers as they worked under the direction of Riszen Ketauna, an artist from a nearby village in the Kendra Valley. She stood at the edge of a covered porch, one of the more recent additions to the shrine, and looked out at the patch of land that had been cleared of brush, trying to envision the finished product as Ketauna had described it. She had no doubt that the gardens would be beautiful within a year or so. But while she appreciated Ketauna’s hard work in planning the aesthetic of the grounds, she was concerned about the use of resources. She couldn’t help but worry.

Ketauna called out orders and encouragement to those who surrounded him on the crumbly blackness of the newly tilled soil. Later, they would break for what amounted to a feast, soup made from
porli
fowl and
kava
root, fresh berries, iced
deka
tea. One of the workers had gifted the new shrine with a sizable coop, and there had been eggs and meat for weeks now. It was a sunny day, the land bright with it, and Opaka struggled with a sense of guilt that they should have so much when their world was so troubled. The Cardassians had only tightened their grip since the resistance had truly begun to fight; elsewhere, she knew, Bajorans were hungry, were suffering…

She closed her eyes for a moment, praying that she would not take her own blessings for granted, that she would always be grateful for what she had. Besides, as Fasil was often quick to point out, they had to eat, too. Feeling guilt over that would feed no one.

She found Ketauna on the field. He was dressed in shabby and rough clothing like the volunteers around him. He had his back to Opaka as he bent to assist a woman who was planting a large rubberwood sapling. After a moment under Opaka’s gaze, the artist cocked his head and then turned, as if he had felt Opaka looking at him. He shaded his eyes with his hands to block out the midday brilliance of B’hava’el.

“Your Eminence,” he called up to her, waving. He started toward her, his expression as bright as the day. “I am pleased with the way the gardens are beginning to come together.”

Opaka nodded to him, putting her hands together underneath her robes. “Yes, Ketauna, it’s going to be lovely.” She walked down the steps from the porch to speak to him, a friend of hers since long before she had been named kai—and one of those who had accompanied her when she had recovered the last Tear of the Prophets, that which was believed to be the lost Orb of Prophecy and Change, missing since the time of Kai Dava. The Orb was safely hidden now, looked after by the monks who presided over the shrine at Ashalla. Opaka visited Ashalla when she could, but she did not do as much traveling now as she might have liked; her health would not permit it. In the past six years, she had come to spend more and more time at this location, a place that remained hidden from the Cardassians’ attention, nestled as it was in a remote location between two provincial boundaries.

Opaka was reluctant to commit herself to a single place, but she had to admit that she was not getting any younger; her aging body would not sustain the nomadic lifestyle to which she had been committed when she had first begun to preach. But there was no small measure of selfishness in her acquiescence to allow this place to be constructed, for if she remained here, she would be closer to her son, Fasil, a resistance fighter who lived in nearby Kendra. It was generally understood that this place, in addition to being home to Opaka, was a place of sanctuary for the freedom fighters of Kendra, Opaka Fasil among them.

Ketauna bowed slightly as they met. “I would offer no less to the shrine that will become home to the kai.”

Opaka hesitated, and then smiled. “I agree that it is appropriate for the shrine to be a peaceful place, a place of respite and beauty,” she said. “But…sometimes the extravagance seems a bit…brazen, considering its purpose…”

“Oh, but, Your Eminence,” Ketauna exclaimed, “you know the workers have all volunteered their time. The resources we have used in the construction and adornment of the shrine—all have come from people who gave willingly. Your followers want this place to be the most beautiful shrine on Bajor, Your Eminence—as an offering to the Prophets who watch over us. It will belong to
all
of your followers, Opaka. To all of Bajor.”

Your followers
. She still never knew quite what to do with herself when she heard that. She nodded her concession instead. The shrine was nearly finished, and there was little reason to squabble over the particulars of it now.

I am not the potter, but the potter’s clay,
she thought randomly, watching Ketauna return to work. While she was grateful to the Prophets for Their many blessings, it was difficult at times to know that so many looked to her for guidance. She could only speak her heart, and hope that the men and women who listened to her would venerate the message rather than the messenger.

Ever since her vision, which had revealed to her the hidden Orb, there had been others. Of late, she’d had a recurring dream that had begun to intrude upon her waking time. A man’s name had been spoken repeatedly by various shadowy figures in her visions, a name unknown to her. She had not yet asked anyone at the sanctuary if the name was one she should have been familiar with, trying to find it somewhere within the archives of her own memory, but there had been so many new people, so many names and faces since she’d left her home, each with their own stories…

Fasil joined her on the porch to watch the planting. Her son had come every few months since the beginning of the shrine’s construction, sometimes for a day, sometimes longer. Opaka wished he would come to stay, but his allegiance to the cause kept him well occupied for most of the year.

Opaka slipped an arm around his waist. “What do you think of the progress Ketauna has made on the grounds?”

“The shrine will be a jewel in the wilderness,” Fasil said. “As it should be.”

Opaka gave him a squeeze, reluctantly letting him go. She wanted to enjoy their brief times together, but there was always an undercurrent of fear, that each visit might be their last. He did not share the details of his activities with her, but she overheard things, she listened to others talk of the resistance. The occupying forces’ advantages often made the Bajoran resistance fighters seem to have a deliberate death wish—though Fasil’s cell, along with a great many of the fighting Bajorans, continued to persist, and occasionally to triumph, year after year.

A third person came down the steps of the porch to join them: a ranjen who had come to live at the shrine shortly after the first structure was built here, over six years before. Her name was Stassen, and she was the daughter of one of Opaka’s oldest friends and followers, a man named Shev.

“There is a traveler here, Your Eminence,” Stassen said. “A prylar. He has come on pilgrimage—all the way from Relliketh. He says he must see you.”

“Relliketh!” Opaka exclaimed. “He has come a very long way.” She considered. Most seekers did not know exactly where she could be found at any given time, and it was alarming to be told that someone had found her here already. Especially someone as far away as Relliketh.

“Did you ask him his name, Ranjen Stassen?” Opaka climbed the steps of the porch to enter the shrine with the young monk, and together they walked across the glossy stone floors, made of locally quarried burnished rock that had been polished mirror-smooth. Opaka could see a hazy reflection of herself, seeming to float beneath her feet as she walked. Fasil followed them not far behind, his gaunt, hollow-eyed reflection moving quicker and more cautiously than his mother’s.

“His name is Bareil Antos,” Stassen answered.

Opaka stopped walking for a moment to reflect on the name. Did it mean anything to her? She was fairly certain that she had never heard it, and yet it had a distant ring of familiarity. Was it connected to the name in her dreams?

“What else did he say?” she asked.

Ranjen Stassen spoke softly. “Would you like to speak with him yourself, Your Eminence?”

Opaka hesitated for a moment and then nodded, recognizing that Stassen knew her well.

“Mother,” Fasil said, placing a warning hand on her shoulder, “Perhaps I should see him first. We cannot be too cautious regarding visitors…”

“I know, Fasil,” Opaka replied, “but if this prylar knew where to find me…there is no sense in turning him away.”

Opaka followed Stassen through the front gates of the sanctuary, her son protectively at her heels. The young prylar stood with his head slightly bowed, dressed in the saffron-colored robes of his order, his earring tilted forward with the inclination of his head. He raised his face to greet the kai, and a hesitant, nervously eager smile spread across his face when he saw her come through the gates.

“Your Eminence,” he exclaimed, and took one of Opaka’s hands to press his lips against her fingers.

“Please,” Opaka told him, squeezing his hand reassuringly, “there is no need for such a demonstration. Tell me, Prylar Bareil, how is it that you have come to find this place?”

He bowed his head slightly once again. “I followed my own heart, Kai Opaka.”

Opaka studied him, searching for dishonesty. “Do you mean to say that no one told you where to find this place, Prylar?”

Bareil looked a bit sheepish for a moment. “Well,” he confessed, “I may have had a very little help…from the locals. I pestered many of them quite significantly—but only to confirm what I already knew was true.”

Opaka smiled. “Is that right?” She could tell by his constitution that he was an honest man. There was no need to take his ear, examine his
pagh
. The sincerity of his youth and spirit were written plainly on his face. She nodded slightly to Stassen and Fasil, and they stepped back slightly. Not enough to give them real privacy, but an illusion of it.

Bareil seemed to study her in turn, his eyes alight. “You see, Your Eminence, I…knew that I must come to you…to be under your tutelage…. I…I have had a vision, Your Eminence.” He bowed his head.

“A vision,” Opaka said quietly. “Tell me about it, Prylar.”

He continued, his words tumbling out with long-pent-up anticipation. “It told me that I must come to be in service to the kai during the time of the Emissary.”

Opaka took a small step back. “What do you know of the Emissary, Prylar Bareil?” She herself had lately been reading many prophecies that concerned the Emissary, a few of which had become interwoven with items from her dreams, and she had shared her revelations with no one. A name had come to her lately, and she had begun to believe that it was somehow associated with the fabled Emissary of the Prophets, though whether the name—Kalem Apren—was the name of the Emissary himself, Opaka did not know.

“I—not much, your Eminence,” the prylar said, looking somewhat embarrassed. “But…I was hoping that perhaps you could tell me the things that I wish to know.”

Opaka opened the gate where Fasil had closed it behind them. “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps I can…and perhaps there are some things that you will be able to tell me, as well, Prylar Bareil. Please, come inside.”

Opaka could immediately sense hesitation in her son, but she touched his arm in an absent-minded gesture of reassurance, and went on speaking to the prylar. “I bid you welcome to the sanctuary of the kai.” She gestured to the youth in the saffron robes, and he followed her through the gates.

“Tell me, Prylar Bareil,” Opaka said as they entered the sanctuary, “have you ever heard of anyone named Kalem Apren?”

“Yes, I have,” Bareil answered without hesitation. “He is one of the locals from the Kendra Valley that I spoke to when I was attempting to locate you.”

“From the Kendra Valley,” Opaka repeated, thinking to herself that he must be someone that she had already known before, in some capacity.

Fasil cut in. “Kalem Apren is an arbiter in the Kendra Valley,” he told his mother. “He was a member of the Ministry, before the occupation—from Hedrikspool, originally. He is still well-respected among many in the region, and has taken up the mantle of informal governing.”

Opaka was taken aback at her son’s casual reply. It seemed Fasil had possessed the answer to her question all along…and suddenly, she was afraid. Sometimes, there were associations made, feelings that she’d learned not to deny in spite of the seeming implausibility of their connection. As they walked with the prylar whom she had just admitted to the sanctuary, observing him as he took in his new surroundings, she felt it strongly; the young man belonged here, she had no doubt of it, but something about his arrival, Fasil’s awareness of the name that had settled into her thoughts…

She continued to walk and smile, but felt something inside of her closing, shuttering against the implications. Something had underscored her constant fears, lent them a credibility that went beyond the usual—that her only son might leave her soon, to walk with the Prophets.