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

months earlier. Then she turned her gaze toward the bucket which she kept on one of the low shelves beside the desk. She was reminded forcefully of the two people in all the universe whose advice she could most use now.

A rage had been simmering within her ever since she had begun discussing the peace talks with Shakaar. Now the feeling moved within her like a tropical storm lashing at the Jo’kala coast. Still seated in her chair, she raised her legs until her boots made contact with the desk’s heavy wooden framework. Kicking out, she upended the desk, which made a very satisfying crash onto the floor. The force of her kick sent her chair flying backward into the bookcase. She rose to her feet, struggling to bring herself back under some semblance of control.

What have I done to Bajor? Kira thought, surveying the wreckage of her office. She looked out the window at the stars, sending a silent prayer toward the wormhole—the Celestial Temple of the Prophets. What have I done to the faith You have sustained me with?

Unbidden, a familiar line of ancient prophecy sprang into her mind: When the children have wept all, anew will shine the twilight of their destiny.

Stretching out a hand to touch the spaceward window, Kira suddenly began to weep. Convulsive sobs racked her body, and her tears spilled unheeded into the silent darkness.

21

The transporter beam chilled Ezri to the bone, as though the inky emptiness of space had reached through the matter stream to steal every calorie of heat from her body. But the sensation passed almost as quickly as it had begun.

Ezri stood in a chamber lit only by several small sconces, each of which stood about two meters off the ground and a few body-lengths apart. Rough-hewn granite walls trailed off into the stygian darkness. The air was warm and stale, though it moved in a steady breeze across her skin. Strange, discordant music reverberated in the distance, at the edge of audibility. Though it sounded vaguely familiar, she couldn’t quite place it.

Ezri realized then that her environmental suit was gone, as was her phaser. She found that she now wore a nondescript, lightweight jumpsuit. She carried a hard hat in her left hand. The gravel on the cavern floor crunched beneath her heavy boots. Work clothes, she thought as she paused momentarily to examine her new wardrobe. Running a hand through her hair, she noted that it was longer, and cut differently than before she had beamed over. Donning the hard hat, she made a complete turn, investigating what she could see of her surroundings in the dim illumination.

What is this place? And where are the others?

Noticing that she still had her wrist lamps, she raised and activated them. A ribbon of brilliance cleaved the darkness, revealing a craggy, gray-hued ceiling several meters overhead. The irregular passage and its chaotic tumbles of rocks and gravel seemed somehow familiar. It also struck her as odd to find such a place within the confines of the clean, deliberate geometries of the alien artifact.

Her wrist lamp held high, Ezri took a deep breath and began walking into the darkness. She called out, first to Julian and then to Nog, her voice reverberating to infinity and back, the aural equivalent of an endless series of funhouse mirrors.

There was no response. She was alone, with no company other than the thunder of her own pulse, the rhythmic crunch of her boot heels, and the distant peals of the weird almost-music.

She was startled by a voice that suddenly spoke from behind her. “Ezri.”

Ezri spun toward the sound, stepping quickly back to give herself some maneuvering room in case the owner of the voice intended to make trouble.

To her surprise, Ezri found herself facing her mother. Who was trouble, she reflected, almost by definition.

“You can’t be here,” Ezri said, realizing that she had unconsciously arranged her body into a combat-crouch straight out of one of her Starfleet Academy hand-to-hand training classes. Guess I don’t need Dax for everything.

“That’s really what this is about, isn’t it?” said Yanas Tigan, a smile stretching her skin taut. A condescending smile, Ezri thought. Typical.

“Excuse me?” Ezri said, scowling.

Yanas adopted the tone of a put-upon teacher addressing a willfully obtuse student. “About your relationship with Dax.”

“When did I mention Dax to you, Mother?”

“Oh, please. If you can accept that I’m here with you all the way out in the Gamma Quadrant, then why would you be surprised that I can also hear your thoughts?”

Fair enough, Ezri decided. But this being obviously couldn’t be her mother. It had to be some sort of manifestation of the artifact. But why would whatever intelligence guided this place select her mother as a communications channel?

The Yanas-thing smiled. “I’m sorry that Starfleet didn’t work out for you the way you thought it would. But I can’t pretend not to be glad that you’ve come back to New Sydney to help me keep the minerals flowing out of here on schedule.”

New Sydney? So that’s why this place seems so familiar. I’ve come back home to the pergium mines in the Sappora System.

All at once Ezri began recalling things, including what seemed to be more than one version of the last few years of her life. Conflicting recollections tumbled onto one another, overlapping like palimpsests: Brinner Finok, and the brief fling they had shared aboard the Destiny; the horrors of the Dominion War, which had taken Brinner from her; the cataclysmic arrival of Dax in her life; her deepening romantic relationship with Julian—

—and her withdrawal from Starfleet Academy, only weeks before graduation.

Her ignominious return home, with all prospects of a Starfleet career dashed by the irresistible force that was her mother.

Yanas was scowling at her, obviously still following the drift of her thoughts. “That’s not fair, Ezri. You came home because you understood where your real responsibilities lay. Unless you believe that what happened to Norvo