Julian Bashir stood on the Defiant’ s bridge as Vaughn finished recording his log entry. On the viewer, a recorded image of the alien artifact hovered, its infinitely shifting, eye-deceiving surfaces still stubbornly guarding its secrets.

Most of them, anyway.

Across the bridge, Nog paced back and forth before the engineering console, examining data on a padd he held and periodically comparing them to the console’s readouts. He was no doubt doing his best to evaluate and expedite the repairs made necessary throughout the ship by the weapons of the Nyazen and D’Naali fleets. Although it had been only hours since Bashir had reattached the engineer’s biosynthetic left leg, Nog was already moving about with a surprising degree of confidence, refusing to use the cane he’d been offered in the medical bay. He had yet to speak in any great detail about his personal experiences inside the artifact, at least to Bashir. But judging from the spring in Nog’s step, it was hard to tell that the events of the last couple of days had ever happened.

You have to look into his eyes to see that, Bashir thought, feeling a surge of sympathy for his young friend’s renewed physical loss, as well as a twinge of guilt. Ezri and I obviously got the better part of whatever bargains we struck with the multiverse. At least we’re both whole.

The turbolift doors slid open, and Bowers strode onto the bridge, right beside Ezri.

Ezri Dax once again, now that the symbiont had been restored to her. It had been a near thing, so weakened had Ezri become because of her lengthy separation from the symbiont. But once Bashir had realized that the alien artifact had somehow restored his talents, he had become immovably determined to save the woman he loved. Of course, her own subjective experiences inside the artifact—to say nothing of her tenacious hold on life—might have contributed at least as much to her survival as had his and Krissten’s efforts.

Dax smiled brilliantly at Bashir as she handed a padd to Vaughn, who was sitting in the command chair, gazing abstractedly at the floating space construct’s haunting image.

“Ship’s status report,” she said, every inch the spit-and-polish executive officer. When he didn’t respond immediately, she added, “Sir?”

Vaughn took another moment to accept the proffered report. “Excuse me, Lieutenant. That object lends itself to woolgathering.”

She nodded, gazing out into infinity with Vaughn. “I know what you mean. You ought to see it from the inside.”

“I can’t tell you how badly I’d like an opportunity to do just that. As horrific as some of what you’ve told me sounds, the opportunity to confront one’s alternate selves—to take shortcuts onto the roads not taken—well, it’s hard not to find certain aspects of that compelling.”

As Vaughn spoke, Bashir saw the commander’s blue eyes fill with some unaccustomed emotion—regret, perhaps?—as they strayed toward Ensign Tenmei, who busied herself at the conn station. It was no secret that Prynn was Vaughn’s daughter and that, until fairly recently, a great deal of familial tension had existed between the two. But these weren’t matters one could simply ask one’s commanding officer about.

Bashir decided to broach something less sensitive. Gesturing toward the mysterious object on the viewer, he said, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

Setting Ezri’s padd aside, Vaughn turned the captain’s chair in Bashir’s direction, “Always,” he said, though his expression had grown guarded.

“Sir, I couldn’t help but notice that you left something rather significant out of your log entry just now.”

The commander raised an inquisitive eyebrow. “Oh?”

“Yes, sir. I’m speaking of our interference in the conflict between the D’Naali and the Nyazen.”

“Interference?” Vaughn repeated, steepling his fingers in front of his salt-and-pepper beard and arching an eyebrow. “Defined how?”

“By our direct participation in combat against the D’Naali,” Bashir said, glancing quickly toward Shar at the science station, who appeared to be listening attentively to this exchange. While Bashir had been reattaching Nog’s biosynthetic limb, Shar had visited the medical bay, where he had brought them both up to speed on almost everything that had transpired during the away team’s foray into the artifact.

“We did prevent the D’Naali from blowing the object up,” Bashir continued.

The commander chuckled, shaking his head. “Not at all. From what I observed, the Nyazen didn’t get particularly vigilant about guarding the cathedral until after we arrived. I think that’s because the D’Naali never truly had the ability to do any real damage in the first place. If they’d had that kind of power, then they would have found a way to destroy the cathedral thousands of years ago. One side would surely have wiped the other out long before now. The D’Naali themselves probably never believed they’d get the upper hand in their ancient little war—until Sacagawea informed them of our plan to use relays to beam an away team into the cathedral.”

Bashir allowed a tiny smile to tug at the corner of his mouth. “We did fire a few shots their way, sir.”

Vaughn matched the smile. “They seemed in need of a little…demonstration of our sincerity, Doctor. But remember: we never actually scored a hit. The balance of forces between the Nyazen and the D’Naali remains intact. And we recovered you and the rest of the away team.”

Bashir found he couldn’t fault Vaughn’s reasoning, and some subtle shift in the commander’s demeanor told him it might not be such a good idea to try. Instead, he merely nodded and glanced in Nog’s direction; he noticed that Nog, too, had been listening with interest—and seemed eager to make his own contribution to the discussion.

Vaughn had evidently noticed the same thing. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

Looking down at his inanimate leg, Nog said, “Sir, there’s still one main question about the, um, cathedral that nobody’s been able to answer yet—even with the translation of the alien text.”

“And that is?”

“What’s it for?” Nog said, an overtone of pain in his voice.

Bowers spoke up, his arms folded as he leaned against the bulkhead beside the tactical station. “The text gave us a pretty fair idea of why the thing’s builders made it. They wanted to tap into unlimited power, but they couldn’t control it, and they lost their homeworld because of it.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Nog said, shaking his head. “What I want to know is…what is the thing now? What exactly has it become during the half-billion years since it was built? And why?”

Ezri bit her lip, evidently considering Nog’s questions carefully before attempting to answer them. “For starters, whatever intelligence still drives the thing is strongly telepathic. And it appeared to use issues and problems each of us was already struggling with as the tether connecting us to our alternate selves in those other universes.”

Shar chose that moment to break his silence. "As far as the ‘why’ part of the question goes, I’d attribute a lot of it to the phenomenon of emergent properties. Because of its original function as an interdimensional energy tap, the object has always connected with and searched through many parallel universes and alternate dimensions. Therefore its ability to allow people to address alternate versions of themselves may be purely accidental—an emergent outgrowth of its original purpose, abetted by the object’s built-in multidimensional physical topography."

Bowers flashed Shar a that’s-sure-easy-for-you-to-say look before responding. “You’re saying you think that thing’s just…an accident?”

“Precisely. Just as the universe itself may be.”

Looking at Shar, Vaughn nodded sagely. “That makes perfect sense, Ensign. Still, the existence of a miraculous cathedral could be interpreted to imply the existence of a miraculous cathedral builder. And, by extension, some sort of Grand Plan. Those with great faith rarely believe that anything happens entirely by accident.” Bashir saw the commander turn his expectant gaze upon him, as though anticipating a debate.

But once again, he merely nodded. Prior to his own experiences inside the object—no, the cathedral—Bashir would have been inclined to dismiss its mystical ramifications out of hand.

Now he wasn’t quite so certain.

Tenmei finally transferred her attention from her console and spoke to the room. “I’m hearing the word ‘cathedral’ bandied about so often here that I’m beginning to think some of you have developed genuine…religious feelings toward this artifact.”

“Would that be such a terrible thing?” Vaughn said, a vaguely paternal smile playing on his lips.

“Not necessarily. Look, I don’t mean to criticize anybody’s private beliefs, but isn’t it just possible that everyone’s subjective experiences inside that thing were just…manifestations of the subconscious, like dreams?”

“I certainly hope so,” Ezri said almost inaudibly. Bashir wanted to ask her what she meant, but the bridge seemed the wrong place to pry into the matter.

“What little we know about the away team’s experiences does bear some resemblance,” Shar said, “to the neurologically created ‘ghosts’ that some people report seeing during so-called near-death experiences. These ‘cathedral experiences,’ so to speak, may merely have been subconscious surrogates for whatever objective process severed each person’s ties to the other alternate quantum dimensions.”

Bashir was surprised at how ambivalent he felt about that. Ezri said nothing, but looked doubtful.

Vaughn resumed staring directly into the infinite, as rendered on the viewer. “Perhaps we’ll never understand the extent of the object’s capabilities. Rather like the riddle of existence itself.”

Hence the need for faith, Bashir thought, mildly surprised to find himself so sanguine about the notion. At least on certain occasions.

Aloud, he said, “There was a time when my inquiries into imponderables like this would have been limited solely to the cold equations of science. But ever since the cathedral brought me face to face with…my self, I have to wonder whether those equations, by themselves, can ever be sufficient again.”

“Maybe there’s more to the universe than that,” Vaughn said, nodding. “More than we can see or measure.”

The entire bridge crew subsided into a thoughtful silence, with the exception of Shar, who was wordlessly keying something into a padd.

Bashir smiled as he watched the science officer work. No mystical experience, it seemed, could ever entirely displace those comforting, cold equations. But it was nice to have more than one thing to believe in.

From his seat at the bridge’s main science station, Shar watched and listened, semidetached from his friends and colleagues as they debated the purpose behind the alien artifact—as though its having a purpose were some immutable, foreordained law of nature.

Why is it that most humans can’t simply accept the universe as the cold, uncaring place that it really is?

Still, he thought he was finally beginning to understand the human religious impulse, at least on a certain visceral, reflexive level. How tempting it must be to believe that the artifact is some sort of divinely created holy object. Based on what the away team had reported so far, it might even conceivably provide a gateway into some parallel universe in which Thriss still lived. A place in which he and his bondmates would all survive, ameliorating Andor’s bleak future by contributing that most precious of all gifts—a child.

A child who will now never come to be.

Eager for the solace of work, Shar reached for a padd, keying in commands with fingers stained indigo with blood not his own.