Waiting, Vaughn realized that these lessons and the learning were connections. The teacher and the student. The thoughtscape had tied itself to him.

Hear me, Vaughn screamed without words.I am here.

Vaughn searched for the right moments of his life. He peered across the thoughtscape and saw everything he had ever been, everything he had ever done, all laid out before him, each instant distinct from the next. He closed his eyes, and opened them on the bridge ofDefiant, returning again to the moment when he knew Prynn had gone.

Not this, he said as his heart ached.Not this.

He closed his eyes, and opened them on the distressed figure of Ensign ch’Thane, thrown onto the desolate plain of a dead planet.

Not this, he repeated.

Vaughn stopped waiting to die, accepting that he had decided to fight again, to struggle for even the smallest connection, for as many moments out of a lifetime that he could. No longer waiting to die, he saw that those moments, no matter how few, no matter how fleeting, were all worth fighting for. They were worth dying for.

His last conscious thought was of his daughter.

67

Kira strode purposefully down the corridor, the bright illumination and openness aboard Gryphona noticeable contrast to the dark, cramped corridors in Deep Space 9’s habitat ring. She read the room-identification plaques as she passed sets of doors, until at last she found the one Commander Montenegro had provided her. She reached up and touched the door chime set into the bulkhead there, and a moment later the doors parted and slid open.

Kira stepped inside, and although she saw Akaar immediately—across the room, seated in a chair—she could not resist looking around. The cabin was spacious, easily twice the size of most of the crew accommodations aboard the ship, she was sure. Unlike standard guest quarters, it had been decorated with more than a few adornments, and not just in a generic manner. Why wouldn’t he make these quarters his own?Kira thought. Akaar had been living here for several weeks now, and who knew how long would be here after today?

Some of the items she saw—including what appeared to be primitive ceremonial masks and totems—reminded her of similar items that Captain Sisko had kept in his quarters. In addition, though, numerous textiles hung on the walls: sashes, headdresses, capes, many of them in brocaded fabric, and in a mixture of both muted and vibrant colors. She also saw an object that appeared to be a weapon: three curved blades arranged in an essentially triangular shape, with a circular hole in the middle that she guessed functioned as a grip.

“Colonel,” the admiral said. “This is unexpected.” He did not stand.

Kira stepped farther into the room. She had come here after the summit had finally adjourned for the day. Now, in a moment of spontaneity, she raised her right fist to the left side of her chest, then opened her hand and held it out in front of her. “I come with an open heart and an open hand.”

Akaar’s eyebrows slowly rose. “Indeed,” he said, and now he did stand. “Then I certainly must welcome you with an open heart and hand.” He returned her gesture.

Kira smiled, skeptical. “Admiral,” she started. She brought her hands together in front of her and paced to her left. “I have to tell you,” she said, “I’m not really sure what to make of you.”

Akaar’s shoulders moved slightly, his equivalent, she supposed, of a shrug. “I am a Starfleet admiral,” he said. “I am here simply executing my duties.”

Kira stopped and faced him across the room, folding her arms across her chest. “And your duties included interrogating me?”

“Interrogating you?” Akaar said. “Yes, they did.”

“Why?” Kira demanded, throwing her hands up and out, and then letting them fall to her sides. “To understand Bajor through me? That’s not really fair. I’m not an elected representative. I don’t speak for my people. I can’tspeak for my people.”

Akaar nodded. “Is this the open heart you come with?” he asked her.

“It’s the open hand,” she said.

“I see.” He moved across the room, away from her and over toward a replicator set into the far bulkhead. “May I get you something to drink, Colonel?” he asked. Looking back at her over his shoulder, he added, “To celebrate.”

Kira did not know what to say. She did not particularly want to share a drink with this man, but she also did not wish to give the impression that she was not pleased about Bajor’s acceptance into the Federation. Before she could formulate a response, Akaar spoke again.

“Colonel Kira,” he said, turning to face her directly, “did you think that my questions to you, and your answers, would prevent me from fostering Federation membership for Bajor?”

“‘Fostering’?” Kira echoed. She found the claim that Akaar had been a proponent for Bajor difficult to believe. But then, she had come here looking for answers from the admiral, wanting to identify and understand his motives. She said, “I will toast Bajor joining the Federation.”

Akaar nodded once, then turned toward the replicator. Instead of ordering something there, though, he picked up a short, bulbous bottle from a shelf. Kira watched as he pulled the stopper from the dark green bottle and poured a clear liquid into two glasses. He carried the glasses back across the room and offered her one. “This is grosz,”he told her. “From my native Capella.” Kira accepted the glass. Akaar held his up and said, “To Bajor joining the Federation.”

Kira lifted her glass, and saw that the drink was not perfectly clear, but had a purple tint. “To Bajor joining the Federation,” she echoed. Akaar moved his glass forward, touching it to Kira’s with a soft ring. He drank deeply, and she took a gulp herself. The drink fired her throat as it went down, leaving behind an acerbic taste as the burn faded. She breathed out loudly through her mouth. “That’s a powerful flavor,” she said.

“Perhaps I should have forewarned you,” Akaar said. “I understood that, as a rule, Bajorans liked ‘powerful flavors.’”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Kira said, and to support her declaration, she took another swallow. Again, she exhaled loudly. “Just offering an observation.”

“Observation noted,” Akaar said. Motioning toward the sitting area, he said, “Would you care to sit, Colonel?” Kira walked around a low table and sat on the sofa below the windows. The admiral’s cabin looked out, not on the station, but on open space. Akaar sat back down in the chair he had been in when Kira had arrived. He drank even more of his grosz,and then said, “Am I correct in saying that you believe I have been attempting to judge Bajoran society through you?”

“Haven’t you been?” Kira asked, trying to keep any antagonism out of her tone, if not out of her words.

Akaar reached forward and put his almost empty glass down on the table. “No, Colonel, I have not been,” he said. “What I have been doing is attempting to judge youthrough your feelings about your people and through your relationship with them.”

“You’ve been judging me?”Kira asked, not sure that the revelation actually made her feel any more comfortable with the admiral.

“I believe that how a person sees their society, how they fit in and do not fit in, how they deal with internal strife, can say a great deal about them.” Kira supposed that there must be some truth to that, but—

“The Attainder the Vedek Assembly imposed upon me…” She let her words trail off.