Lost Time (5 page)

“Look,” said Kane, “I hate to interrupt this little lovefest, but we’ve still got a problem here. Either we figure a way to get 110 back in working order, or we can kiss this mission good-bye.”

“What do you suggest?”

“You ask me, 111’s got to be talked into establishing a link with her bondmate, that’s what. Can’t Bynars, I dunno, repair each other? I mean, they’re essentially computers, right? So, they worry about getting infected, but they’ve also got to have some repair mechanisms. Maybe 111 can reboot him, or something.”

“But if you observe, Doctor, 110 is in active communication with someone else. His chip,” Salek nodded at the Bynar’s chip that flashed and winked, “indicates intense activity. He appears to have interfaced with someone, or some other system.”

“It’s a Prophet,” said Dax.

“Will you give it a rest?” said Gold. “The only person who can tell us who or what is 111. We—”

His combadge beeped.
“Bridge to Gold.”

He patted the channel open. “Gold.”

“Incoming message from Captain Kira on the
Li,
sir.”

“I’ll take that in my ready room,” said Gold. He nodded at Kane, turned on his heel and left, Salek a step behind.

Kane waited until the doors to sickbay hissed shut. Then she turned to Dax. “You want to talk to 111, or shall I?”

“I’ll do it.” Jadzia Dax’s features hardened, the skin drawn tight across her mouth. “They will make contact with the Prophets—and then we’ll go back to Terok Nor, and Bajor.”

“Gee,” said Kane. “Swell.”

“Q
uantum twins?”
Gold repeated.
“Gomez, are you saying what I think you’re saying?”

“Yes, sir,” said Gomez, wishing the truth was otherwise. “I think that Soloman’s not only found himself. He’s found 111. That’s why he was so eager to reestablish contact.”

“But eager enough to lie? Soloman’s never lied.”

“That we know of. Maybe he didn’t have something worth lying about before.”

“Well, this is a hell of a thing. What do we do now? We can’t just wait around. Ever since he initiated this last link, those wavefronts have increased.”

“That follows. The channel’s open now, permanently, unless we can get Soloman to break off contact.”

“Can we do that for Soloman without harming him?”

“I doubt it. But since we haven’t found anything here, we have to assume that whatever device has initiated, or is potentiating this effect, it’s got to be somewhere else.”

“In this other universe?”

“I’d say that’s likely, sir.”

“What about getting them a message? Ask them to disengage. Can we do that?”

“Maybe they don’t want to either,” said Gomez. She sighed. “Remember, this is a search program. They’re looking for something. So we’re in the dark until we can figure a way to contact it, or them.”

“Well,” Nog scratched a lobe, “I might be able to piggyback a signal. Heck, I might be able to slip in the same way Soloman did.”

“A self-authorizing language?” asked Gomez.

“Worth a try.”

Gold said,
“What about destroying Empok Nor’s computer?”

“That’s kind of drastic. If I can get in, maybe I can shut them both down without hurting Soloman.”

“If they’re even willing to lis
—” And that’s as far as Gold got.

Suddenly, there was the squall of a red alert—and then a huge
boom
that was so loud Gomez clapped her hands against her ears. Stunned, ears ringing, Gomez fumbled with her tricorder to see where the problem was on Empok Nor.

Only the problem wasn’t on Empok Nor. Not that they could see. And when they tried to reestablish contact with
da Vinci
to find out what was going on, they couldn’t.

Because
da Vinci
was gone.

“Y
our Bynar’s
what?” On Gold’s vidscreen, Kira Nerys’s image flopped back in her seat, fingered her ridges and sighed.
“Well, that’s just terrific. What did Jadzia say?”

He was alone in his ready room; Salek was on the bridge. They were on a secured channel, so he could say what he thought. Kira was good that way; hell of a woman. She was the only Bajoran Gold hadn’t felt like throttling. The other religious types were so…pie in the sky, he wanted to punch in their teeth. “Dax thinks that the Bynars were getting messages from these Prophets or something equally absurd. If you want my opinion, I think the Bynars tripped into an Androssi snare. But try getting Dax to face up to it. She’s being totally unreasonable. Demands we go back to Terok Nor.”

“That could be a problem.”

“You’re telling me. You didn’t get shot at. Do you think you can talk sense into her?”

“Probably not.”
Kira took a sip from a tall mug of something piping hot; Gold saw curls of steam. Probably Reman coffee. Wretched drink; the stuff smelled like sweaty feet.
“You’ve got to remember that Jadzia
did
find that Orb, and she
does
appear to have accessed it before it went dark. But the stories go that only a select few are allowed to commune with the Prophets. So maybe Jadzia’s the Emissary.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Anything’s possible, David.”

“Yeah,” said Gold, rubbing the knuckles of his left hand with his right. “And maybe she needs her medication upped. Maybe she’s lying.”

“She got evaluated, remember? All the psychiatrists say otherwise. The Betazoids swear she’s telling the truth. Anyway, why would she lie? She’s a xenoarchaeologist; she’s Trill. Why should she care about Bajor? There was nothing in her record to suggest she was looking for an Orb, and it was only dumb luck that she stumbled on that Cardassian derelict.”

“Doesn’t it bother you a little bit that a non-Bajoran is the only person who’s talked to these Prophets? If they even exist, I mean.”

“I could say that the Prophets move in mysterious ways.”

“If you want to watch me get sick,” said Gold, “yeah, you could.”

Kira’s mouth twitched into a grin.
“Might be worth seeing. Of course, it bothers me, more than a little. Makes me wonder what we Bajorans are doing wrong. Maybe our faith doesn’t run deeply enough, or it could be that we just like money too much. What about you?”

“What about me? You mean faith?” Gold’s eyebrows arched for his hairline. “I’m a die-hard pragmatist and card-carrying cynic. I’m just following orders. Starfleet says jump; I say how high.”

“Oh, right,”
Kira drawled.
“That’s why you volunteered for this. I think you like rooting for the underdog.”

“Excuse me, but we
are
the underdogs, remember? This is a long shot at best. It’s something to which Starfleet could commit a limited number of ships—namely, the
Gettysburg.
It’s a big galaxy, Kira. Easier fights than this one.”

“So why aren’t you off somewhere else fighting the good fight?”

It was a good question. Because he hated injustice? There was plenty of that to go around. Didn’t have to go to Bajor for that, although he couldn’t exactly call the Cardassians unjust. More like benevolent dictators.

For the Federation, then? No, that wasn’t it either. Gold looked at Kira and saw her passion, the set of her jaw and the fire in her eyes; and he thought back to Dax who royally pissed him off—and made him envious as all hell.

Because I want to believe in something strongly enough that I’d be willing to die for it.
His gaze dropped to the gold circlet of a wedding band he still wore, and his throat balled as he thought about a girl with a mane of chestnut hair.
Because I’d like to care about something again as much as I loved you….

Kira must have read his struggle because she came to his rescue and said,
“Whatever your reasons, I’m grateful you’re here, David. The Assembly won’t be able to pull together a government to ratify the Cardassian treaty if we can give Bajor a reason not to. Nothing like a little miracle or two to get folks lining up on the right side in a hurry.”

“That’s all you need?” Gold managed a smile. “I got a miracle lying around somewhere, right up my sleeve. Piece of cake.”

They fell silent for a moment. Then Kira said,
“I’ve got some bad news. Word’s out that the Klingons’ll throw in with the Cardassians.”

“Damn.”

“Yup. They do that, all bets are off. The Remans are too busy putting down the Romulans to care, and even with the Vulcans on your side, I don’t think the Federation can help but watch its influence shrink. Then? Maybe we’re all going to start getting used to taspar eggs.”

“Maybe. What will your people do?”

“If Starfleet pulls out? I don’t know. I still can’t fathom that the Cardassians might get away with religious genocide. Boggles the mind that other Bajorans would stand by and let it happen just because the religious sect is a minority.”

“It happens,” said Gold. “Study Earth. It happens. Why not get off Bajor?”

“Bajor’s our home. We have a right to worship as we please. No, we have to take the battle right to the Cardassians.”

“With what? Harsh language? You have maybe ten ships? Fifteen? You know, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but most Bajorans don’t care. They’re not waiting around for you to rescue them. The Cardassians aren’t oppressing you. There are no Bajoran slaves. Your government’s in bed with the Cardassians, and no one gives a damn because life is good. There’s money, there’s food; everybody’s happy. So you’ll get yourself killed for nothing.” He rubbed his face with his hands, then scrubbed his hair. His wife used to complain about how he never really learned to use a comb. What
would
Rachel have said about all this Prophet nonsense?

Gold wasn’t aware that Kira had spoken until there was an expectant pause. “Sorry. You said?”

“I said maybe not for nothing. We’re willing to die for our right to worship as we please.”

“What…are you…are you serious? You’re serious. What, kill yourself to make a statement?”

“Not just me.”
Kira’s voice was hard-edged and sharp as a knife.
“We take a couple hundred Cardassians with us, then that’s a statement.”

“I’m supposed to stand by and let you?”

“I don’t see how you can stop me. Look, I think we can all agree that the wormhole is our primary objective in terms of yielding maximum dividend. If the Bajoran legends are correct, once the wormhole is open, it’s stable
—
and whoever opens the wormhole is the One, the Emissary the religious Bajorans must follow. Think about it this way, David: What would happen if your Messiah suddenly appeared? You don’t think your people would notice? I don’t see how Bajor is any different. Believe me, if we get the wormhole open, give something tangible for Bajorans, they’ll think twice about the Cardassians. Even if all we give to my people is a martyr or two that calls attention to our cause. We win either way.”

“I’m not sure dying’s a win-win proposition. You’ll get people’s attention with a nice, big explosion and a couple dead Cardassians, yeah. But there’s nothing noble in that, Nerys…and don’t even start with that these-are-desperate-times crap. What you don’t like is the suppression of your religion. That’s your beef. You think you’re going to get people to wake up by slaughtering Cardassians? Killing yourself in the process?”

“There are some things worth dying for.”

“Precious few.”

“You have a better idea?”

“Beyond living to fight another day? Not at the moment, no.” Gold sighed. “Just—hold on. Let us try working with the Bynars.”

Kira stared at him for a long moment.
“All right, we’ll wait. As soon as I get there, I’ll have my chief engineer beam over. That ought to speed up your repairs.”

“Thanks. He’s a good man.”

“Yes, he is. David, we have to give Bajor something to believe in other than money and science. Deep down a person wants to believe in something greater, whether those are prophets, gods, heaven, hell; angels and demons and everything else in between. Life doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

“No.” Gold’s gaze flicked to his ring, and he felt the prick of an old pain in his heart. “But you forgot one thing that’s even more important than being a martyr to a sometime god.”

“And what’s that?”

“Love,” said Gold, looking up from his memories of a girl who blew a kiss twenty years ago as she boarded a shuttle—and then disappeared without a trace, taking everything that was best with her. “You forgot about love.”

N
og and Gomez and Hawkins looked at each other. “That didn’t sound good,” said Nog.

“You’re telling me.” Gomez wasted a few seconds trying to reestablish contact. “Hell.” Then she felt something; no, correction: she
didn’t
feel anything. Well, not as much anyway. “The rumblings…the station’s not moving as much.” Gomez opened a channel. “Conlon, how you doing?”

“Deflectors are up and running. I’ve just got to work on this manifold relay circuit and get it to settle down, but I’ve managed to stabilize a portion of the station around the central core and habitat ring. I wouldn’t be so sure about those pylons, though. Anything we feel here is about eighty times worse out there.”

“That is not what I wanted to hear,” said Gomez. “We just lost contact with the
da Vinci.
”

“What?”

“Relax, it’s probably nothing,” Gomez lied. She frowned over her readings. Her tricorder had enough range to confirm that the temporal-spatial displacement waves were now propagating in all directions, reaching out far enough to wash over the
Kwolek.
“I don’t think it’s
lost
-lost. Probably just moved out of communicator range.”

“Without telling us?”
Then, after Gomez told her about their last communication with
da Vinci,
Conlon said, “
That doesn’t sound good.”

“Yeah, that’s what Nog said. Look, I’m going to secure the shuttle on one of the runabout launch pads. Beam-out will be faster than walking and now that we’ve got the deflector going, probably safe. I’ll check for the
da Vinci
with the
Kwolek
’s sensors. They have better range.” She looked over at the Ferengi. “You okay here, Nog?”

“Sure,” said Nog, though he didn’t seem too happy about it. “I got stuff to do, and Soloman’s not going anywhere.”

“I can go to the shuttle,” said Hawkins.

“Negative that. You’re security, remember? So, you and your nice, shiny phaser rifle watch Nog’s backside. I’ll be right back.”

Snapping her tricorder shut, Gomez slung the strap over her shoulder and tapped her combadge to contact the shuttle’s computer for a beam-out. An instant later, she heard the familiar whine. Her skin tingled as the annular confinement beam caught and read her pattern while the transporter’s phase transition coils simultaneously disassembled her body into a phased matter-energy stream.

But after that initial second of dematerialization, when her mind invariably froze for the span of a heartbeat, she saw something. In the stream.
With
her. Stasis or not, Gomez could still think, and her brain digested the suggestion of a face—yes, a
fac
e, because this wasn’t some
thing.
The pattern was some
one,
and she registered that
one’s
eyes widen in shock—just as the realization of who that was smacked her in the face as solidly as a good, hard slap.

No. It can’t…

Sonya Gomez was fit to be tied. The
Gettysburg
’s matter/antimatter reaction chambers were acting up, and she was still struggling with that pesky intermix…. She exhaled, blew hair away from her face because she was flat on her back, futzing with the damn valve, her hands smudged with grime.

Her combadge trilled. “Gomez.”

“Commander, we’ve made it to the rendezvous site. The
Li
’s chief engineer’s standing by. Thought you might need the extra hands.”

A surge of relief flooded her veins.
Oh, thank God…
She scrambled to her feet, tugged on her soiled uniform to smooth it into place. “Well, don’t just stand there, Feliciano, energize the crap out of him.”

Feliciano laughed.
“Hold your horses, lady. Energizing…”

A scintillating column appeared three meters away, and Gomez watched as the sparkles resolved into an outline, coalesced—then stuttered. Gomez’s heart leapt into her mouth. God, no, not a transporter malfunction, not
now
…But then the pattern stabilized and the glitter resolved, coalesced, and became a man. The sight of him thrilled her to her toes.

“Whoa, that was pretty freaky,” said Kieran Duffy, looking befuddled. “Déjà vu all over again.”

“Whatever the hell that means. But, God,” she said as she flew into his arms. “God, how I’ve missed you.”

…be.

The transporter beam let her go, and Gomez exhaled. Then she stood, rigid, her heart hammering against her ribs. A distortion wave rolled past; she felt the shuttle jiggle on the docking pylon. But she couldn’t move for a second, was afraid to.

It can’t be.

Numb, she tapped on her tricorder. Nothing but residua normal for a standard beam-in.
But I’m not going crazy; I saw…
She hadn’t blacked out. This wasn’t a dream. She’d been conscious the whole time; everyone was unless you overrode the system and programmed in a stasis loop the way Scotty had.

So. Transporter psychosis? No way. Multiplex pattern buffers virtually eliminated transporter psychosis. The distortion waves weren’t anything like interphase, so she could discount interphase-induced delusions.

Okay. What
if.
They’d already seen that Soloman had made contact with a quantum twin. So. What if the holes between universes also allowed for a phased matter transfer—as in a transporter beam?

Then he could be alive. No, strike that. Duffy
was
alive in some universe somewhere, maybe even the one where Soloman was now. Then she had another thought: The Duffy she’d seen hadn’t been wearing an environmental suit.

“God, I hope he didn’t materialize on the wrong part of Empok Nor.” She didn’t know if such a thing was even possible, although she knew DS9 had experienced its share of visitors from a mirror universe. Those people appeared to have the technology to go back and forth. Maybe that Duffy had been from
that
mirror universe?

No. Her nose crinkled. Didn’t feel right. Most humans in that universe were slaves. In fact…

She blinked back to attention as the deck jerked beneath her feet. The
Kwolek
’s onboard computer blatted a warning, and she hurried to the pilot’s chair. First things first: Look for the
da Vinci.
Secure the shuttle. Then, think about how she wanted to talk to Gold about this.

When she brought up sensors, she didn’t see the
da Vinci,
or anything that looked like debris.

“Oh, crap,” she said. “This isn’t good.”