Cathedral by Michael Mangels (ebook reader color screen txt) 📕

Ro knew that Kira’s point, though made flippantly, was entirely valid. How could any Bajoran who’d endured the casual brutalities of the Cardassian Occupation keep a level head around a man who wore the face of Bajor’s most hated oppressor?

But Ro also knew that there were larger issues to consider, namely Bajor’s relationship with Cardassia during that world’s postwar reconstruction—and the Federation’s evaluation of the Bajoran government’s actions before formally accepting Bajor as a member.

An event that now loomed only days away.

Kira’s furrowed brow told Ro that the colonel was busy weighing those very same issues.

Ro followed Kira from the office and down the steps into ops, where Ensign Selzner stood beside a communications console. She was clearly awaiting Kira’s instructions as to how to handle Macet.

“Hail the Trager, Ensign,” Kira said before turning back to Ro. “Trust has to start somewhere. Even at the risk of misplacing it.”

Absurdly, Kira’s comment reminded Ro of her upcoming date with Quark.

“Thank you, Colonel,” Macet said, doing his best to smile in an ingratiating manner. “You’ve just made my life immeasurably easier. Macet out.”

Kira’s image vanished from the viewer on the Trager’ s cramped bridge. Macet’s smile likewise disappeared.

Macet turned his command chair toward the Bajoran man who stood less than two meters away, just out of range of the viewer’s visual pickup. “I am loath to do anything that might serve to undermine Colonel Kira’s trust. You have no idea how difficult it was to gain whatever small measure of it I may have squandered just now.”

“I understand,” Vedek Yevir said. “Neither trust nor true faith comes easily to Colonel Kira.”

“Yet you still insist on the necessity of all this…subterfuge,” Macet said as he stroked the tufts of hair on both sides of his chin and considered what Yevir was asking of him.

“I assure you, it’s entirely necessary.” Yevir’s face was overcome with a passionate intensity that Macet had rarely seen before. “I regret these deceptions every bit as much as you do. And I assure you, if our pilgrimage fails, I alone will assume the responsibility before your superiors as well as my own.”

Macet smiled, more than a little reassured. He’s a step away from the kaiship. He has more friends and influence in the Vedek Assembly than anyone else alive. Other than perhaps First Minister Shakaar, there are no superiors he’s obliged to answer to.

“All right,” Macet said. “But there are considerations here that are far more important than either of our personal reputations. And I’m still not certain what I can do to assist, other than providing transportation.”

“Oh, there’s a great deal you can do, Gul Macet, with the right help. Things that politicians and diplomats won’t or can’t do. And when the politicians and diplomats fail to do the right thing, then we must seek the help we need from others.”

Macet could no longer hold back the obvious question: “Who?”

“Get the ship under way,” Yevir said, his smile growing even more beatific. “And I will explain everything during the voyage.”

8

Bashir gathered up Ezri’s limp form and carried her toward the medical bay at a full-out run. Bowers ran alongside, using his combadge to alert Ensign Richter to the emergency as they sprinted through the corridor and into the turbolift.

Moments later, Richter and Bowers were helping Bashir place Ezri’s feverish, perspiring body onto the table in the operating room adjacent to the main medical bay. Bashir dismissed Bowers with a curt nod. He was grateful for this room’s Earth-normal gravity as he unlimbered his medical tricorder and ran its scanner quickly across Ezri’s torso.

The readings were grim.

“What is it, Doctor?” said Krissten as she entered the chamber.

“Her isoboramine levels are falling steadily.”

As Krissten studied her own medical tricorder, apuzzled frown creased her face. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. Is her symbiont in immediate danger?”

“It certainly will be in another hour or two, if nothing changes in the meantime.”

“What could have caused this?”

Afraid that he already knew the answer, Bashir chose to dodge the question for the moment. “Trill physiology can be tricky, Krissten. Run a full battery of deep-tissue scans. We’ll laser-biopsy as necessary.”

“Aye, sir,” she said, then calmly set about her tasks. If there was one thing Krissten Richter had proved repeatedly over the past four years, it was that he could rely on her to keep her wits about her during a crisis.

Ezri’s eyes opened and she let out a long, forlorn wail. The sound pierced Bashir’s soul to its core. Above the biobed, a monitor confirmed that she was experiencing intense neurological trauma. Her nervous system was on fire, and he had no clue yet as to why.

“Get me the delta wave inducer,” Bashir said. “I want her unconscious.”

He pressed the wafer-thin device against Ezri’s temple, and she immediately relaxed. Her eyes closed and she grew quiet.

Please come back to me, Ezri, he thought as he lifted an exoscalpel from the instrument tray. He found himself staring at it as though he’d never seen it before. His hand felt unsteady, and recollections of his earlier near disaster with the instrument did nothing to calm him.

Don’t blame yourself, Julian, she had told him long ago, on a similar occasion. Back when she had been Jadzia Dax, and Verad Kalon had forced him to remove the symbiont from her body. Jadzia’s voice, weak and fading, spoke from his private citadel of memory: Don’t blame yourself, Julian. You did everything you could.

He forced himself to place that unhappy memory back on the high mental shelf to which he normally relegated such thoughts. He concentrated instead on trying to recall the particulars of every disease agent that might cause a spontaneous separation of host and symbiont. If one of these turned out to be the cause of Ezri’s condition, then a cure might already exist.

Hope buoyed him as he quickly adjusted his tricorder to look for particular genera of viruses and retroviruses.

Bashir’s combadge chirped before he’d completed