At the Doors of the Temple

SISKO OPENED HIS EYES, half expecting to see nothing, half expecting to see white light.

Instead he saw a room.

Familiar.

Comforting.

An observation lounge. On a starship.

He shook his head, clearing it of the disturbing dream he had had.

That's it, he thought with relief. It was all a dream. A simple disruption in his sleep during the journey out here. The journey to . . .

He looked out the curved viewports of the room.

Bajor.

A beautiful planet, he had to admit. Though he didn't want to stay here. Not really. A space station was not the place to raise his son.

But his eyes kept turning back to Bajor, so perfect and green and blue.

A dream . . . ?

Had he even had a dream?

He closed his eyes a moment, rubbed them, saw again the disastrous ruin of the Promenade of Deep Space 9.

He had just been on it, touring his new command.

He had been awake twenty hours, between reviewing reports and briefings, even to squeeze in an hour with Jake at the fishing hole.

So when had he managed to have a dream? Let alone a nightmare?

The door slid open. Another man entered.

Or maybe he had been there all along.

“Commander, come in,” the man said. “Welcome to Bajor.”

He pronounced it in the old way, with a soft j.

Sisko reached out to shake the man's hand, thought the man looked better than he had just a few . . .

Sisko recognized him.

“It's been a long time, Captain.”

Picard! Sisko thought. Of course . . .

Picard looked at Sisko with a puzzled expression. “Have we met before?”

Sisko grinned with relief, all the pieces coming together.

“That depends,” he said to Picard. “What does ‘before’ mean in nonlinear time?”

Picard did not answer the question, said what he had said before. “I assume you've been briefed on the events leading to the Cardassian withdrawal.”

“It's all right,” Sisko insisted. “I know what's happened. I know where we are. This is the Celestial Temple. We've met before, or will meet, or have always known each other.”

It isn't over, Sisko thought in excitement. Some realm beyond the universe still existed. There was still hope. . . .

“Incorrect,” Picard said. “Even here, there's a first time for everything. . . .”

Through the viewports, Bajor suddenly dissolved like a child's sandcastle, flying into billions of fragments as the shockwave of the sun's detonation hit.

Sisko shrank back from the heat of that destruction. The viewports cracked. The top surface of the conference table curled up and ignited.

Sisko looked for Picard, saw him at that table leaning forward, appearing to be falling—but no—he was—

—growing.

—transforming.

Eyes now afire with the same flames that were consuming the ashes of Bajor.

Sisko stepped back, hit something, turned to see—

—his command chair.

He was back on the Defiant.

The bodies of his crew around him.

All dead.

Because of him.

Everything—everyone—dead because of him.

The thing that had been Picard loomed over him, and whether it was the admiral or Grigari or Weyoun or Dukat, Sisko had no way of knowing.

All he did know was that it was coming for him, its eyes ablaze with the insane fury of the Pah-wraiths.

The creature leered down at him, slime dripping from its yawning

maw. “Welcome to Hell, Emissary!”

The flames reached out for Sisko and their heat seared his flesh.

The universe had ended.

But in the Temple of the Pah-wraiths, his punishment had just begun.