CHAPTER 24

WEYOUN STEPPED OUT onto the balcony of the temple in the center of B'hala and held out his arms as if to show off his new robes of intense, saturated red.

“The blood of innocents?” Sisko asked.

“The flame of faith,” Weyoun answered.

Sisko turned back to B'hala, concentrating on the heat of the morning sun, the dry scent of dust, and the silence.

The silence was absolute.

This last day of existence, as reports of riots on other worlds spread across the subspace channels, Bajor was still. Its population had long since been winnowed by expulsion and execution until it was only a home for believers. And this day, even the believers had been sent home, to pray and to wait for their Ascension.

Sisko wondered how many Bajorans were huddled in the stone buildings within his view. He wondered how many were whispering the prayers of the Pah-wraiths and how many were clinging fearfully to the prayers of the Prophets, trusting without trust in one last miracle, one last tear as the Prophets wept for their people.

“Still hoping there might be a bomb or two hidden down there?” Weyoun asked, as he came to stand by Sisko's side as if, somehow, they were equals.

“It would be a nice surprise,” Sisko said.

“Ah, but if Starfleet's brave chrononauts had managed to plant them and fool our sensors, they would have gone off by now, don't you think?”

“Maybe Starfleet sank a planet buster near the core,” Sisko said, baring his teeth in a facsimile of a smile. “Take out the whole planet any time now.”

“Benjamin, you know that's not Starfleet's style. Destroy an entire world, just to stop one man?”

“You're not a man, Weyoun. But I am glad to hear the lies have stopped. Starfleet wouldn't destroy a world. Wouldn't start a war. Wouldn't spread lies.”

“I wouldn't advise you to take that as a sign of moral rectitude. You should look at it as I do: as a sign of their weakness. Your weakness, Benjamin.”

“Starfleet's not weak,” Sisko said. “There's still time to stop you.”

Weyoun's laugh was derisive. “In twenty hours? No. Every attempt has failed—and failed miserably. Operation Looking Glass? That pathetic attempt to attack us in the Mirror Universe—a fiasco. Operation Phoenix? It literally fell apart—a Grigari ship found the bridge of the Phoenix adrift near the Vulcan frontier, filled with a crew of terrified Romulans. Don't you see, Benjamin? You people wasted too much energy fighting each other. That is your greatest weakness. No self-control.”

Sisko refused to be provoked. “Twenty hours. Twenty seconds. I won't give up.”

“And that's your weakness, too—refusing to accept the inevitable.”

Sisko concentrated on the smooth texture of the worn rock that formed the balcony's edge. This couldn't end. This wouldn't end. “You will be stopped, Weyoun.”

“Did I mention Operation Guardian?” Weyoun asked.

Sisko shrugged, uninterested.

“Fascinating plan. A sure sign of the sheer desperation rampant in what was left of the Federation.” Weyoun leaned forward to be sure Sisko could both see and hear him. “It called for a combined force of Starfleet vessels and Borg cubeships! Can you imagine? The Federation and the Borg acting together?”

Sisko was dismissive of Weyoun and his gloating. “What of it? It's our way to make our enemies our allies. Always has been. Always will be.”

“The combined force—fifty, sixty ships at least—were trying to regain a small planetoid with a strange alien device built into it. Have you ever heard of the Guardian of Forever?”

Surprised, Sisko studied Weyoun. That might work, he thought.

Weyoun smiled. “But they failed, of course. The Grigari were ready for them. To Starfleet's credit, or perhaps it was the Borg's—it doesn't really matter which,” the Vorta said, “the battle lasted for days. And then, when that noble Admiral Janeway finally managed to get her troops on the ground and within sight of the device—”

Sisko closed his eyes, willing Weyoun to vanish. Willing Bajor to be consumed by a bomb planted a billion years ago. Anything to end Weyoun's vicious prattling.

“—You really should pay attention to this, Benjamin . . . I assure you it is quite amusing. Just at that moment when Janeway thought she had won—knew she had won—the Grigari activated a singularity bomb.” Weyoun snapped his fingers. “Instant black hole. Borg. Starfleet. The Guardian. Even the Grigari. Sucked out of the universe just like that. A taste of what's to come for all of us, hmm?”

“I could throw myself off this balcony,” Sisko said, looking down on the silent city far below.

“You could,” Weyoun agreed. “In fact, I'm a little surprised you haven't tried it by now. Don't let me stop you.”

“If I fall and die, would you just bring me back to life? Or would I just not fall?”

“Why not try it? And I'll surprise you.”

Sisko turned around, his back to the city, leaned against the balcony wall. “Tell me, Weyoun. Do you really need me here to . . . to accomplish something? Or are you just desperate for an audience?”

Red sparks danced in Weyoun's eyes. “Oh, I do need you, Benjamin. Two Temples. Two groups of Prophets. Two Emissaries. It all has to be brought into balance.”

“How?” The question Sisko had wanted answered for so long hung in the air between them.

Weyoun looked up at the brilliant blue sky and to Sisko, it was almost as if the Vorta were staring directly into Bajor's sun. “Oh, the Temples are easy. And when they come together, the Prophets will know what to do. But the role of the Emissaries . . . you know, that's a puzzle.”

Sisko tensed, alert to the first admission from Weyoun that his power and knowledge were not absolute.

“There's something that's not written in your texts?” Sisko asked carefully.

Weyoun shook his head. “That's what's so intriguing, Benjamin. Everything is in the texts. Even your name—the Sisko. Your discovery of B'hala. The False Reckoning on your old station. The fall of the Gateway. Your return in time for the joining of the Temples.

“The texts make it very clear that whoever wrote them knew about you. And that you are an absolute requirement for the Ascension to take place as prophesied. But . . . just before the end . . . the text stops—not as if there's a missing page—the narrative simply ends, as if whoever saw this future didn't see its end, either.”

“Then maybe it doesn't,” Sisko said.

Weyoun waved a hand in the air. “Admittedly there are a few theological loose ends. But, really, physics is physics. Whatever you think about what might be in them, when those two wormholes come together these eleven dimensions of space-time around us will unravel instantaneously and irretrievably.”

“What kind of god would want that fate for creation?” Sisko asked.

As if in answer to Sisko's question, an intense red glow flared and then faded in Weyoun's eyes. Then the Vorta reached out to take his arm.

“What do you want of me?” Sisko demanded, drawing back.

Weyoun smiled and shook his head. Then firmly holding on to Sisko, he tapped his chest as if something were hidden beneath his robes.

“Two to beam up,” he said.

B'hala dissolved into light as once again, Sisko was transported.