“Yes,” Vaughn acknowledged. “Thank you for coming. Let’s go to my ready room. There are some things I’d like to discuss with you.”
“Very well,” Taran’atar said.
Vaughn led the way off the bridge, anxious to consult with somebody who had already traveled the Gamma Quadrant.
“Please, sit.” Vaughn stood behind his desk, gesturing across to a chair there. Taran’atar regarded it with a look that bordered on contempt, and then sat down stiffly. Vaughn sat too, and then operated the computer interface on his desk. He brought up a chart, then swiveled the display around so that both he and Taran’atar could see it. “I wanted to confer with you about this region of space.” The wormhole’s Gamma terminus sat squarely in the middle of the diagram. Dominion space spread above it, the blur of the Omarion Nebula, the former home of the Founders, distinctively contained within its borders. Defiant’s course emerged and returned to the wormhole, stretching down and to the left on the plot. Vaughn tapped on the screen, pointing to the area through which Defiantwould be traveling. “We intend to explore this region. Are you familiar with it?”
As Taran’atar examined the display, Vaughn was struck by a sense of déjà vu. Or perhaps what he experienced owed less to a feeling that he had lived this exact scene before, and more to his long memory of the planning of uncounted missions. Vaughn had never sought assistance from a Jem’Hadar soldier like this, nor had he ever plotted a course for exploration, but this was how he had always operated: seeking as much information as possible, from different sources and different viewpoints, allowing him to paint as complete a picture as he could of whatever situation he would be entering, and to plan his actions accordingly. Vaughn did not like to be surprised.
“I am familiar in part with this area of space,” Taran’atar said. “Can you provide a more detailed view?”
Vaughn worked the controls again, and the chart he had been studying earlier returned to the screen. The green path marking Defiant’scourse looped out from the blue disk of the wormhole. Taran’atar looked at the display, then reached up and cut an arc across it with his fingertip. “Here,” he said. “I know something within this area.” Vaughn keyed in a command, and the neighborhood of space immediately bordering the wormhole, including the area Taran’atar had indicated, grew to fill the screen.
“Would you be more specific?” Vaughn asked.
“I have visited these systems,” Taran’atar said, pointing to the two stars closest to the wormhole along Defiant’s course. “And I have knowledge about these,” he went on, running a finger around the next three stars.
“Nothing beyond that?” Vaughn asked.
“To my knowledge,” Taran’atar explained, “the Dominion has never traveled beyond these systems.”
“I see,” Vaughn said. He should have been disappointed—the five stars Taran’atar had identified had already been mapped and surveyed by Federation vessels—but he found that he was not. “Do you know of any life in these systems?” he asked. “Or of any unusual or rare phenomena?”
“The systems are lifeless,” Taran’atar pronounced, “and entirely ordinary.” That matched the information that the Federation had collected.
Vaughn touched a control and blanked the display. “I’d like to ask you something else,” he told Taran’atar. “Do you think that the Dominion will try to thwart our attempt to explore the Gamma Quadrant?” Vaughn himself felt sure that the Dominion would pose no threat, believing—and with solid intelligence to back up his belief—that the Founders and their minions would remain in their own territory for some time to come. What interested him right now, though, was how Taran’atar viewed the situation.
“You watched the message I delivered from the Founder,” Taran’atar said. “He told you that the Dominion would not interfere with your peaceful exploration of the Gamma Quadrant, as long as you leave them alone.”
“Yes,” Vaughn said, “I did see that message. But I wasn’t asking you to repeat it for me; I was asking what your opinion was.”
“My opinion?”Taran’atar said, as though the concept did not extend to Jem’Hadar. “My opinion is not necessary. Noopinion is necessary. The Founder said it, therefore it is so.”
“I see,” Vaughn said. “Well, thank you for your time and assistance.” He stood up, and Taran’atar stood up as well, quickly, almost as though preparing to fend off an attack. “That’s all I needed.”
Taran’atar did not acknowledge the end of the meeting with a word or even a nod, but immediately headed for the door. But before he exited, he turned back toward Vaughn. “Why are you doing this?” he asked.
“You mean exploring the Gamma Quadrant?”
“Yes.” Taran’atar took a step back toward the desk. “You apparently know nothing about where you are going, and you worry about being attacked by the Dominion.”
“The point of exploration is the unknown,” Vaughn said. “We wouldn’t really be exploring if we traveled to a familiar place.” He smiled, but the humor seemed to make no impact on Taran’atar. “And I’m not worried about the Dominion.”
“There are other dangers,” Taran’atar said, his words and tone almost threatening. “So why do this?”
“Because it is our nature,” Vaughn said. “Humans and many other races find meaning for their lives in extending the knowledge of themselves and their people. The yearning to explore drives us.”
Taran’atar appeared to consider this, and then said, “It is a weakness.”
Vaughn smiled and sat back down. “What isn’t?” he said. “Thank you again.” Taran’atar looked at him for a moment, then turned and left.
Vaughn swung the display back toward his side of the desk, then brought up the display of Defiant’s full course once more. A small, yellow rectangle now enclosed the stars Taran’atar had referenced. The area was small, and Defiantwould sail beyond it in a day or two, traveling into the unknown. Vaughn realized that, for the first time in a very long time—perhaps for the first time in his career—he would be heading out on a mission with virtually no idea of what he would encounter.
Strangely enough, that suited him.
8
Kira stood back from the outer bulkhead in her office and took in the painting she had just had hung. A plain, gilded frame bordered the large canvas, a meter tall and half again as wide. In the lower right foreground, the greenish white form of Bajor sat nestled in the blackness of space, the land and oceans discernible beneath the wisps of cloud circling the globe. A sliver of Endalla, the first and largest of the five moons, peeked out from the middle left of the painting. Derna and Jeraddo and the other moons, smaller but still recognizable, danced with Endalla about Bajor.
Though Kira had an appreciation for art, never had any work captured her attention as this one had. Prior to the evacuation of Europa Nova, the Promenade Merchants’ Association had held an art festival, and Kira, ambling through the show as a sign of support, but with no intention of purchasing anything, had been taken with this piece. Done in short, narrow strokes, the painting—entitled Bajor at Peace—had been done by a woman named Acto Viri, from the province of Wyntara Mas. Kira had not found the rest of Acto’s displayed work very impressive, but she had returned again and again to Bajor at Peace.
On one of her later visits during the show, Kira had been stunned to discover something in the painting she had not noticed in her previous viewings: in the upper left corner, a hint of blue, slightly larger than the white lights of the stars, looked out on Bajor and her children. It almost seemed like a mistake, like an accidental brushstroke, but Kira knew that it was not. Though not visible to the unaided eye from Bajor, this was the Celestial Temple.