Kalem shook his head. “But if the Federation truly knew—if we could make it plain to them what the Cardassians’ presence here has become…”
“They won’t listen,” Jaro said firmly. “It’s possible that Jas did try to tell them, Apren, but there simply wasn’t anything they could do to stop it—not within the realm of their own rigid code of sanctimonious laws. We must not pin our hopes on the Federation, or anyone else. There is only us.”
Kalem resisted the urge to argue; it would get him nowhere—they had been over this many times. “What about Keeve Falor?”
Jaro sighed heavily. “What about him?” he said. “My own attempts to reach him have still been mostly unsuccessful, and you tell me that you have had a similar experience.”
Kalem nodded in reluctant acknowledgment. Jas Holza was easy to reach, just as long as he wanted to be reached. He still had money, still had influence in alien trade partnerships. He still had a few warp vessels that he somehow managed to keep under the Cardassians’ notice—the Union paid little attention to what went on in the Valo system, too far away to disrupt their own business ventures. But it was another matter for Keeve. Valo II had fallen into dire poverty—the people there were struggling just to stay alive, to maintain a few strained trade relationships. If it hadn’t been for Jas Holza, probably the Valo II settlers would have perished decades ago. A reliable comm system was the least of Keeve Falor’s worries.
“We should keep trying,” Kalem said. “We should tell Jas to connect us. Bajor needs strong voices, strong leaders who will be ready to do what it takes when the time comes. Keeve is someone I know we can count on.”
“ Ifthe time comes,” Jaro said.
Kalem shook his head. “Major,” he said, “we cannot think that way.”
Jaro’s mouth tightened. “You’re right, of course, Minister,” he said faintly, but Kalem could clearly detect the brittleness in his tone. They had discussed such things often, but still, the years passed and so little had changed.
It will change, though, Kalem told himself. And we’ll have to be ready.
They talked over a few local matters—rationing their allotment of winter crops early this year, a minor boundary dispute between neighboring farms that they needed to resolve before the Cardassian “peacekeepers” got involved. After a time, Kalem rose to go, shaking the old Militia officer’s hand as he left, considering the wisdom of his own dogged optimism as he stepped out into the gathering twilight. Of course, his beliefs were not far removed from Jaro’s, but he could not bring himself to speak them aloud, even if Jaro could. Even if everyone else on Bajor could. There waslogic in making preparations to guide Bajor in the aftermath of a Cardassian withdrawal, and even if he didn’t quite believe that the Union would ever leave them, Kalem would keep moving, keep working to have everything ready. To stop, to hold still, was to welcome defeat.
The services at the would-be shrine had concluded some time ago, but Astraea remained behind, as she always did—sometimes to speak to individual followers about their concerns, but just as often for her own contemplations.
She had fashioned a small chamber in the cellar of this old storehouse, in the heart of Lakarian City, to be a sort of office for herself. As the guide of her faith, she needed a place where she could counsel her followers, though it had been difficult for her to accept the authority of guide from the very beginning. She had known almost nothing of the Way when she had taken on this persona, the name Astraea and everything that went with it.
The Oralian Way performed their rites now in secret, the once great faith having been reduced to the indignity of meeting in basements and back alleys, forced to communicate in codes and over scrambled contact lines as though they were common criminals. Anyone who could be associated with the Oralian Way in any capacity was immediately categorized as a wanted fugitive. Their crimes were no more serious than peaceful congregation, but Central Command had managed to paint the Oralians as dangerous dissenters whose ideals sought to destroy the very fiber of the Cardassian Union—and of course, no member of the military had any inkling of what those ideals truly were. They remembered only the threats of civil wars, and the angry public demonstrations of yesteryear, all conflicts that had been borne of misunderstanding. Modern Cardassians did not care to attribute their people’s achievements to anything beyond perseverance, hard work, and superiority. But Astraea and her followers believed it was not so simple as that, and for that belief, they were pariahs.
Alone in her chamber, seated at a desk before a small computer, her monitor chimed to indicate an incoming communiqué. She started at the sound; she had not been expecting to receive a transmission so late. The followers of her faith generally came to her in person if they had a query or concern, and there were very few of those who even knew her transmission code. She knew where the call was coming from with near certainty, but still her eyes lit up with anticipation when she confirmed that the message had indeed come from Terok Nor.
The call was scrambled, as it always was, and necessitated a code to access; but once the correct sequence was tapped in, the blank density of her screen broke with a horizontal snapping of blue light that settled into the image of her most cherished friend.
The soldier’s black hair was pushed back over a wide forehead that housed a pair of deeply scrutinizing eyes. His gaze flicked up and instantly softened as her countenance appeared on the screen in his office, far away on the space station that orbited Bajor.
“Astraea,”he said, the timbre of his voice almost turning it into a pet name—but the name carried much more weight than just this man’s affection.
“Is it safe to speak my name, Glinn Sa’kat?” she asked him, though she instantly regretted the question—he would not have spoken it aloud if it was not safe.
“I have full control over who reviews these transmissions,”he assured her.
“Even over the Order?”
His lips thinned in demonstrative impatience. “I have told you, we have nothing to fear from the Obsidian Order.”
She shook her head. “I know you think I’m being foolish, but lately I’ve had these feelings that I can’t shake…”
He leaned closer to his transmission cam. “Feelings?”he repeated. “Do you mean…like those you had before?”
A vision, he meant. Astraea shook her head; she was not talking about the kinds of feelings she’d had just after she’d come in contact with the Bajoran artifact at the Ministry of Science. The Orb. In those days, she had still been the Cardassian scientist who bore the name Miras Vara, but that name—that identity—was no more. Miras Vara had disappeared from the Union, from her family, from her job at the ministry. She had become the Guide for the Oralian Way, and had taken on the name used by her forebears as much a title as a designation.
The guide was supposed to be a vessel for Oralius, the noncorporeal being who was said to have dictated the tenets of the faith both in ancient and modern times, before the faith was forced to go underground. Astraea did not know if Cardassian officials were familiar with the title, but she thought it best not to take any chances. It was a well-known secret that the Oralians of past generations had been systematically exterminated by Central Command. The Way was still popularly perceived as a threat to modern Cardassian sensibilities, but Astraea knew better. She believed that the Way would be essential in rebuilding Cardassian civilization someday, for she had foreseen it—she could still see it, and often did, in her dreams. The near-total destruction of Cardassia Prime.
“Not a vision,” she told him. “At least, not about the Order.”
The soldier nodded, looked grave for a moment. “The Order can’t decipher the encryption that I have used. Our friend has assured me of that.”