That morning, the story of the theft and recovery of the Orb spread swiftly across the Promenade, embellished with details of the murders of the young monk and the security deputy, the suicide of the thief, the involvement of the prylar, and a lot of speculation.

There were plenty of yawns in Ops, amid just as much discussion but fewer wild stories.

“I remain surprised that the Orbs do not appear on a normal sensor sweep,” Kaoron pondered, studying the results of the sweep he’d just completed. He wasn’t one of the yawners.

“If they were that easy to find, the Cardassians would have taken them all during the occupation,” Kira reminded him. “As it was, they took eight of the nine Orbs that most Bajorans knew about. We’ve still only gotten four of them back. The other four....” She shook her head, obviously disturbed. “They may be lost to us forever. The Orb that Captain Sisko found, and this one — you have no idea what they mean to our people.”

“At least we know how he planned to escape,” Nog reported. “We located a small ship orbiting a point beyond the Wormhole. Automatic pilot. Cloaked. My team’s bringing it in now.” He ran his tongue over his uneven teeth.

“That makes sense,” Kira acknowledged.

“The cloaking type is Dominion.”

That got everyone’s attention.

“Dominion!” A dozen scenarios ran through Kira’s mind, each more harrowing than the one before.

“As I recall,” Kaoron interjected smoothly, “the Orion Syndicate did offer its services to the Dominion, during the war. I believe there was an attempt to assassinate a Klingon ambassador, among other possible joint activities?”

“Yes, we learned about that....”

“Perhaps Dominion cloaking technology was part of the price, or was considered necessary for that plot,” the science officer continued. “And the Syndicate has simply continued to use the technology.”

“I don’t like the sound of that.”

“We’ll need to pass that possibility along to Starfleet Security,” Kaoron noted.

“Include the schematics of that ship. Nog, Kaoron, you’ll work together on that. Be extra careful with it, the ship’s probably got dozens of internal security programs of its own.”

“Yes, sir.”

Emyn caught a glimpse of Monrow moving through the throng that still mobbed the shrine. She calculated the distance between them and the number of people, then hit her combadge.

“Dr. Monrow, would you stop in Security on your way out, please?”

She saw the doctor pause, then look her way and nod, and change her trajectory through the crowd.

A moment later, the two women were in Security.

“What is it, Constable?”

“You are still ... friends with Morn?” she asked, almost hating to have to interrogate the doctor about the Lurian, who was one of the most popular people on the station.

Monrow smiled. “Yes, you could say that.”

“Doctor, I have information that Morn was spotted talking to this Rikkarin. Have you spoken with him in the last day or two? Do you know anything that might suggest he could ... know something...?” The question trailed off delicately.

The doctor answered honestly. “The Finnean did talk to Morn, your information was accurate. He’s already mentioned it to me. But Morn wasn’t part of anything that was going on, if that’s your thought. It was just....” She held out her hands and shook her head. “You know Morn. Everybody’s friend. The man bought him a drink, made a complimentary remark or two about how he handled the old Badlands run during the war, and he probably didn’t have to do anything but let Morn talk for the next few hours, with nothing more than a leading question or two here and there.”

“That would be like Morn,” Emyn acknowledged.

“He just left this morning for his regular run to Dreon VII, but I’m sure he’ll be glad to answer any questions when he gets back.”

“I’ll talk with him then. Thank you, doctor.”

Monrow nodded, smiled, and resumed her interrupted day.

The constable filed away the gist of her conversation with the doctor, making a note to follow up when Morn returned, but not really expecting to learn anything more. There was something else that was a relief about the conversation — with Monrow, Emyn never felt she was being compared to her predecessor or found wanting because of her lack of faith.

When Nog and Kalcheb walked into Quark’s that morning, the proprietor was waiting and watching for him. Quark all but flew from behind the bar and grabbed his nephew’s arm, dragging him off to the side.

“Hey!” the startled Tellarite said.

“He’ll be right with you!” Quark shot back. “Tell the waiter I said to get you a free breakfast while I talk to Nog.”

“Since when are you giving away breakfast?” Nog yelped, trying to pull his arm free.

“Who says I am? He could be lying. Nobody’ll believe I gave away a breakfast.”

“Uncle!”

“All right, all right, the breakfast is free. Do you know just what a risk you took?” Quark scolded.

“You’re talking about telling Kira and Emyn about the Orion Syndicate being here?”

“Shh! Not so loud! Of course I’m talking about that!”

“It was the right thing to do!” the younger Ferengi retorted.

“The right thing...,” Quark scoffed. “Hmmph! Well, don’t mention it to anybody else! If the Syndicate doesn’t find out what happened, they won’t know who to come after! And trust me, that’ll be in all our best interests!”

The next few days passed without incident. There was some uneasiness among the population at having security guards posted at both the entrance to the shrine and within — there were those who felt it was inappropriate, and those who found it an unwelcome reminder of theft and murder. But as long as the duty was held by Bajoran deputies and not Starfleet personnel, it was tolerated. After three days, as scheduled, Ranjen Shayl announced the Orb was returning home to Bajor.

As part of the departure preparations for the three vedeks and the Orb, Kira gathered several of the senior staff, and headed for the docking ring.

All but running to keep up with the longer legs of the other officers, Nog noted breathlessly, “They all came here separately, at least they’re leaving together — we only have to say good bye once.”

She didn’t take him to task for the comment. “They’re taking the Orb back to Bajor as a group, for the formal presentation to the Vedek Assembly,” she informed him, sotto voce.

“I’m surprised Hatha is allowing Carn and Ungtae to join him in that,” Monrow noted briskly. “They are, after all, the leading candidates for kai, and therefore his strongest competition. A solitary formal presentation could really enhance his status.”

“That’s not Hatha’s way. Besides, the people know who’s held the Orb for the last twenty years.” Kira didn’t break stride. “I think they’ll recognize who’s riding on the hem of someone else’s robe. And if Hatha tried to push the other two away, they’d probably make an issue of it as pride unbecoming a kai.”

“Didn’t stop Winn,” Nog muttered.

“She put on a good front until it was too late,” Kira said. “And our people were divided.”

“My understanding is that your people are even more divided now,” the science officer observed.

“If letting them be part of the festivities keeps Carn and Ungtae from making a big issue out of Hatha’s monastery hiding the Orb for so long, I don’t care if they both lead parades through the streets of Peri’ketra!” Kira declared.

“Do you expect this to be the start of a beautiful friendship?” Kaoron asked with an odd inflection.

“What? Oh. No.” She shook her head. “I’m sure that within an hour of arriving, it will be back to politics as usual, for all the vedeks, considering the election is only a month away.”

“Vedek Ungtae may have to talk fast, in that time — it doesn’t look good that Hedra was from his own order, and reputedly one of his trusted advisors,” Monrow said thoughtfully, keeping pace with the colonel. “From what I’ve heard on the Promenade and in the infirmary, there appear to be plenty of people who are questioning his judgment.”

“Good. Anybody who followed Winn the way he did should have their judgment questioned.”

It didn’t take long for the vedeks to arrive at the docking ring too, each in formal robes with their trailing retinues. Ranjen Shayl was with them.

Each of the vedeks gave a brief farewell to the clusters of Bajorans who’d followed them from the shrine to demonstrate appropriate respects. After those “few final words,” Kira was glad she’d missed their actual speeches back on the Promenade. She waited until their groups of followers began to disperse back into the station, and the vedeks gave signs of truly leaving.

Kira all but bowed respectfully to each. “It’s been an honor having you each aboard. We look forward to your returns. May the Prophets guide you in all things.”

Their responses were variously pleasant but noncommital and pre-occupied; only Hatha gave her a genuine smile.

Before they could embark, Kira had to ask, “Has the Orb revealed its purpose yet?”

They all paused, the vedeks exchanging glances with one another. For a fleeting second, Ungtae’s face looked haunted, and Carn’s expression closed down almost bitterly.

“No,” Shayl admitted, when none of the senior religious spoke.

“No?” Kira’s gaze slid to Hatha. “But—“

He smiled again. “You wonder how, after twenty years, we could not know?”

“That was what I was thinking,” she admitted.

Hatha’s confident gaze took in Ungtae and Carn, and the others. “In time, we will know. For now, it may no longer be a hidden Orb, but it will remain the Orb of the Hidden. May we all survive to see its final purpose revealed.”

With solemn expressions, the other vedeks and the ranjen all nodded; Kira noted a quick shudder run through Carn. The three vedeks and their monks then proceeded onto the ship without further ado.

Leaving Kira with a queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Ezri couldn’t seem to keep Endar focused that day.

“The Orb of the Hidden, they’re calling it,” he repeated for about the third time.

“So I’ve heard,” she acknowledged, also for the third time. She thought for a second. “Maybe it’s got more meaning than we know. Hidden names, hidden gifts ... hidden things. Things we hide from, or that we hide inside ourselves. What we don’t want to face, or don’t want others to know.”

He looked intently at her. “Is there something you’re afraid of, that you don’t want others to know?”

“It’s your counseling session, you tell me.”

He sat back, crossing his arms across his chest. “Hmm. Well, you’ve mentioned feeling like your previous hosts are disappointed in you—”

“I meant, about you.”

Endar grinned, then his expression altered. “Hidden things.... Secrets. Nightmares. Visions. Shapes in a mirror. Delayed reactions to experiences. But ... if that was from the Orb, why me? Why didn’t it affect other people?”

Ezri stared thoughtfully at the shelf on one wall, lined with mementos of Dax’s past lives. “Who says it didn’t?”

Kira headed for Security. As she walked in, the constable looked up, and her expression changed. She watched Emyn deliberately push aside the stack of PADDs on her desk and visibly steel herself.

“I thought I ordered you to be present for the farewell,” Kira said without preamble.

“I was busy. Besides, I very much doubt the vedeks missed me. I certainly didn’t mind missing them. And it likely saved you the trouble of having to defend yourself yet again for keeping an unbeliever like me around in the heart of the Emissary’s station.”

“Don’t be melodramatic.”

“Is that your way of saying you wouldn’t be defending yourself?” Emyn’s expression challenged. “Or were you planning on accepting the offer of a new security chief, this time?”

Kira glared. “What the hell does that mean?”

“You thought I didn’t do my job well enough. That if I’d figured out faster what the computer break-in meant, Jomsa and Kem would still be alive. That maybe I didn’t try hard enough because it was an Orb at stake, and it doesn’t mean to me what it means to you and most of the rest of Bajor.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“It was in your eyes.” Emyn leaned forward, resting her palms on the desk. “All right, Colonel. Let’s be done with it, one way or another. I told you what I did at Aoja. You said you had to think about it. You didn’t expose me. You didn’t let Carn replace me for not believing in the Prophets. I thought maybe you actually meant to give me a chance to do my job. But if every time something goes wrong on the station, you’re going to act like it’s my fault because of something I did twenty-five years ago, then maybe you ought to accept one of those offers to replace me, and let me go someplace else.”

“Someplace where you can hide your past again?”

“Someplace where I don’t have to wonder if everybody is judging me for it.”

“Then you’re better off staying here, where at least you don’t have to worry about your commanding officer finding out that you once betrayed the resistance, because she already knows!”

A wall of raw anger rose between the two women.

“I chose not to get rid of you,” Kira finally said, more quietly.

“And I still don’t understand why you didn’t!” Emyn’s voice dropped from the shout. “I would have. I don’t understand how you couldn’t. The old man said the Prophets had a path for me. You said the same thing, in so many words. I don’t believe that, and you know that too. What are you expecting, that some day I’ll have a revelation in the middle of the Promenade and see the light of the Prophets and we’ll become best friends? It’s not going to happen!”

“Oh, I’m sure not.”

“That’s right! Because I don’t believe in the Prophets. They didn’t save Bajor. And I’m a traitor. I betrayed my own people.”

The silence grew long.

Kira stared at Emyn, who now refused to meet her gaze.

“You betrayed your own people, to save your family and your home,” Kira finally said thoughtfully.

“I thought I was,” she acknowledged dully, her emotions collapsing.

“I know. You thought you were doing the right thing, the only thing you could do. Under the circumstances.” Kira nodded. “My mother did the only thing she thought she could. Under the circumstances.”

“What?” Emyn looked impatient with the switch in topic.

Silence again.

Kira stared through her. “The Cardassians took my mother away when I was only three years old. My father told me she starved to death. I believed him. I only found out two years ago that she was taken away to become a comfort woman.”

“A comfort woman—!” Emyn looked revolted.

“Yes.” Now it was Kira’s turn to look away. There were things she never wanted to admit to others about her mother, and she wasn’t about to start broadcasting her feelings here and now. But, she realized, it was only because of what she had learned about her mother, that had prompted her to keep Emyn on the station.

The truth about her mother, and about Kai Opaka, she thought, remembering what Bareil had shared with her about the deep pain Opaka had carried.

Kira’s thoughts folded in on themselves. Her mother, Kira Meru, had allowed the enemy to take her body to give her family a chance to live. And she had allowed herself to be convinced that the Cardassian who took her wasn’t a monster. Her father had understood and accepted it, had told his wife so openly. He had asked her to find some happiness in what she had to do. Then he’d let her go, and raised their children alone, protecting her memory.

Kira had been willing and ready to murder her own mother, along with her Cardassian lover, until she saw her father’s understanding and unselfish wishes for her, in his last letter to her. She would still have killed Dukat, but she hadn’t been able to let her mother die with him, to her personal disgust and turmoil.

Opaka had betrayed a resistance cell to the Cardassians. Among them had been her son. She had sacrificed her own child to save an entire village, twelve hundred people. Bareil had known; he hadn’t turned his back on Opaka or denounced her — he had given up his own career, his own chance to become kai, to protect her reputation. Kira hadn’t been able to condemn Opaka for what she did either. She had accepted it.

Suddenly she understood, much more clearly, what Opaka had been trying to tell her, on that brutal world in the Gamma Quadrant. She had to forgive herself for the things she had done during the occupation. And she had to forgive others for the things they had done.

She realized she still hadn’t truly forgiven what her mother had done. Did it make so much difference, that Meru sacrificed herself to save her family, and Opaka sacrificed her family to save so many others?

Emyn Lise had betrayed a resistance cell, trying to save her own village, her own family.

Sometimes life wasn’t as easy as picking up a phaser.

“Colonel?”

Kira looked up at the constable, tears welling up. “I accepted what our kai had done, because I could see the good she had done, and without her, our struggle was meaningless. I struggled with what my mother had done, in light of what I believed. My own mother. She was part of my reason for fighting, believing the Cardassians had killed her. In a way, they had. I have to accept it. I have to let it go.” She swallowed. “I remember once telling someone that some things couldn’t be forgiven.... But other things have to be, or they’ll consume us. I have to let go of what you did, and accept it. I have to leave the scars of the war behind. It is what the Prophets want for me. That’s part of what Opaka tried to tell me....”

“I....” Emyn looked like her feet had been kicked out from under her. She obviously didn’t comprehend any of what Kira had just said. She shook her head. “The Prophets have no place for me,” she said stubbornly, going back to something she understood.

“That’s all right,” Kira said huskily. “When their place is ready for you, they will reveal it to you. And in the meantime, you may not be here for you — you may be here for me.”

Was that what the vision meant, what the Prophets were trying to tell her? Was that why she saw Meru, and Opaka, and Emyn, and herself, all unable to enter the garden?

The constable stared at her as though she’d lost her mind.

“Never mind. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken my fears out on you. You stopped Rikkarin from getting off the station with the Orb, and you arrested Hedra and got the story from him. You did your job. And now—“ She squared her shoulders. “It’s time for me to get back to mine.”

“All ... right...,” Emyn said hesitantly, eyeing her warily as she turned toward the door.

Kira headed out into the Promenade. It was quieter than it had been the last four days. Almost back to normal. Normal enough to give her time to think.

She and Emyn might still never be friends. She suspected the other woman had isolated herself for too long, and she had her own issues that would be difficult to move beyond.

Kira drew a deep breath, and was surprised to smell Bajoran lilacs in the air. Glancing around, she saw that one of the kiosks had several bouquets of fresh flowers. Maybe it was another sign.

She stopped at the kiosk, contemplating the flowers. “I’ll take the lilacs.”

The End