Chapter 12

Kira sat in her office, looking over the historical records she had been able to scare up from the Perikian region. There was distressingly little from as long as thirty thousand years ago. She had found no record whatsoever of the Lerrit, aside from some archaeological indications of some kind of empire from that time period that looked Lerrit-like to Kira.

Kira had taken care of a variety of administrative duties—not to mention assuring everyone from station personnel to First Minister Shakaar that she was, in fact, alive, contrary to reports—and also been sure to visit Taran’atar in the infirmary. He was fairly weak, but recovering quickly, though Julian had made noises about even laboratory-bred supersoldiers needing their rest when they have the stuffing beaten out of them. For his part, Taran’atar had only one thing to say: “It is good that we have both reclaimed our lives.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Kira had said.

Afterward, she returned to her office and tried to find out what she could about the Perikian region thirty thousand years ago.

The name of Torrna Antosso did come up in several texts, as did that of others with that family name. Historians had debated just who Antosso was and what form his apparently tremendous influence had been in the peninsula, but given the number of landmarks and streets and such that had been named for him or other members of the Torrna family, it was obvious to Kira that he had taken her advice.

Assuming I was ever really there, she thought, as she rubbed her left arm, which still had the scar. Julian had offered to remove it, but she had refused.

Shutting down the computer terminal, Kira stared straight ahead for a moment, then picked up the baseball.

Benjamin Sisko had always kept that baseball on his desk. The central element of a human game that he’d been inordinately fond of, the white spheroid with red stitching was a symbol of Sisko’s presence. When the station had been taken by the Dominion during the war, Sisko had deliberately left the baseball behind as a message to the occupying forces that he planned to come back—a promise he had fulfilled.

Even though the station was now hers to command, Kira had not been able to bring herself to remove the baseball. She wasn’t sure why she had left it there.

No, I know why. I kept thinking in the back of my head that the Emissary was going to return—hoping that he’d return and take the burden off of me, that he’d take the station back just like he did two years ago, and everything would be back to normal.

But that’s not going to happen. This station is mine, now. I may have lost the Emissary, Odo, Jast, and the kai, I may be Attainted—but I’ve got responsibilities, just like Torrna did.

And dammit, I’m going to live up to them.

She opened a drawer in the desk and placed the baseball in it.

I’ll hold it for you, Benjamin, for when you come back.

But I need this to be my office now.

She got up and went back into ops, knowing her journey was far from over.

Two gates for ghostly dreams there are: One gateway of honest horn, and one of ivory. Issuing by the ivory gate are dreams of glimmering illusion, fantasies, but those that come through solid polished horn may be borne out, if mortals only know them.

—Homer, The Odyssey