“I don’t give a damn about the Prophets,” he said. His face had turned to stone. “And they don’t give a damn about me.”
“You’re wrong, Najem,” she said. “It’s the Cardassians who’ve done this to you as well. They’ve stolen your faith.” She pushed herself closer to him, her hands moving over his chest slowly. “I want to give you that back. You’re going to need it for our children.”
He sat up sharply, inadvertently knocking her off the bed that was too small for two, and making her smile and laugh.
“Children?” he said. “You’re not-”
“Oh,” she said, climbing back up. “I think I am.”
“But we’ve only…” he stammered as she smiled and continued to kiss him. “I mean, we’ve barely-”
“Your father’s a doctor,” she said, laughing. “You should know once is enough.”
Again Vale felt herself being pulled away and was grateful. This wasn’t for her to see somehow, and she knew it. And, really, she didn’t want to see. This was a private moment, something of Jaza’s alone. It felt wrong that anyone should know of it.
There were other images then, other scenes-Najem and his father screaming at each other during his mother’s funeral; Sumari dying in his arms, the victim of a Cardassian disruptor blast that he still felt had been meant for him; the sniper who had killed her dying in his hands only moments later; the birth of his children, Esola for his mother and Kren for her father-but all of these moments rushed past in a blur. Something-Modan, she realized-was forcing her away.
What was all that?she thought.
Apocrypha, came the reply from Modan. Extra bits that weren’t intended for me but spilled over anyway. Ignore them.
They lingered on the vision Jaza had seen-or believed he’d seen-which Vale found odd and mystical and somewhat disconcerting. She was happy when it went away.
Here, said Modan’s voice in her mind. Here is what you need to see.
What’s wrong with the sky?thought Vale, looking up at it and seeing for the first time the chaotically oscillating Eye of Erykon. She had gotten glimpses of it during its eruptions, mostly the odd flash or strange multicolored ripple. These were all her human physiology had let her observe. Jaza’s Bajoran genes allowed him a better view, and she was seeing that view now.
He stood there, motionless, frozen in fear by the realization that he had stepped into the scene from his vision. Ever since his meeting with the Prophets he had wondered about the moment, sometimes dreading it, sometimes wishing it would come so that he could finally understand its meaning. Now it was here, and all he felt was the brutal cold of his own imminent mortality.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t think or, if he thought, it was only the one sentiment playing over and over and over in his mind.
I’m going to die. Here. Today. In moments or in hours, I’m going to die.
He couldn’t move. He didn’t want to do anything that would either disturb the vision or, worse perhaps, bring it to its predicted end.
Thoughts of his friends and his loves and his many adventures now flooded his mind like a storm. His entire life was suddenly laid before him. Every valley, every peak, every blemish, every virtue, everything rushed through him in its totality, and he was left breathless.
There was fear with all of it too, unexpected, unplanned for, and inescapable for all that. Now that his moment was finally here, he feared that he might try to avoid his fate, proving that he loved his life just a little bit more than he loved the Prophets.
It wasn’t true. It hadn’t been true since he’d regained his faith. But the fear, the terrible fear of oblivion ravaged him all the same.
And he still couldn’t make himself move. He was held in the grip of this moment and it wouldn’t let him go.
Then, as they always do, the moment passed.
The moment passed and he didn’t die. It was followed by another in which he did not die. Another moment passed and another and, defying his expectations, through each of them he still continued not to die.
The fear didn’t leave him then, but its effects began to drain away, allowing his rational mind to reassert.
What was it he had been taught as a child?
The Prophets reveal but they do not direct. We have to do the work ourselves.
That was all well and good, he thought, but his work, his life was a thousand years in the future. There was nothing to do here but get off this planet before he and Modan did anything irreversible to the timeline.
He suddenly remembered Modan. She had to be saved and both of them had to get away from here as soon as possible. If he died somewhere between this moment and that or in some moment yet to come, that must be part of the Prophets’ plan for him and he could only accept it as he had accepted their boon in the shrine so many years ago.
He still wore the isolation suit. He still had his phasers, and as long as Modan still wore her badge, he could use the shuttle’s sensors to pinpoint her location. A few well-placed shots should scatter these primitives and he would have her away before they could regroup and follow. Easy.
If he could manage it, no matter what else happened, he might be able to keep her from giving up her life for the Prophets’ vision, as had so many of his friends before.
The two soldiers were of different factions, each sporting intricate but differently hued tattoos that had been scrawled all over the sides of their carapaces and each bearing a selection of similarly lethal hand weapons.
Finding Modan, someone so outside their sensibilities that the words they used to describe her could not yet be translated, had caused them to put aside their differences for the moment while they tried to figure her out.
“You are a fool,” said the one with the green and gold tattooing. “It is obviously a [meaning unknown] sent from Erykon to [possible meaning: test] us.”
“You dare to claim to know the will of the Maker of the Eye?” said the one with the red and white. “You dare to speak the Maker’s name aloud?!”
“See its odd appearance?” said the first soldier, her glassy black eyes twinkling in the evening light like a helix of precious stones. “It is not a creature of this creation. It is from Erykon. There is no other explanation.”
“You are the fool, Tik’ik,” said the other soldier. “Your mind is broken if you think this is anything more than some [possible meaning: birth mutated] animal. How else could you have broken it and brought it to me?”
“It was in the Shattered Place.”
“We were in the Shattered Place,” said Kakkakit. “Are we sent by the Maker?”
“I was sent by my Mater to murder the sisters in your blasphemous clan in quantity,” said Tik’ik. “But you agree that this creature is more important.”
Kakkakit made a few skeptical clicks with her inner mandibles and began to circle Modan’s prone form, prodding her occasionally with a weapon that resembled a long walking stick with some kind of crystal formation at the top.
Modan twitched away from the contact and moaned. From his vantage point a couple of meters away Jaza could see that she’d been caught in mid-transition between her humanoid and feral forms. She was still mostly humanoid, but there were spines breaching her suit.
“I have a solution,” said Kakkakit at last. “We can eat it.”
“Your brain is broken.”
“Tell me, Tik’ik,” said the other. “Are you hungry?”
“Soldiers are always hungry,” she said. “If you had a soul you would know this.”
“I am as hungry as you,” said Kakkakit, leaning over Modan. “My soul tells me there is food here.”
“If you touch it,” said Tik’ik, leveling her own nearly identical weapon at Kakkakit, “I will kill you here and now. To harm one of Erykon’s things is to beg the Eye to open again.”