Prologue

SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING, OR HAD HAPPENED, OR WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. He couldn’t see it but he knew, and hoped that They would lead him to understand when it was time. He’d seen that They would.

There were aspects of him that knew time to pass, the way he’d always understood it. And there were other realities, beyond linear tempo, in which he easily achieved the kinds of comprehension that his highest mind had once blindly, vainly groped for. These realities were outside of his experience as corporeal, let alone as Benjamin Sisko, and he cherished them as the closest he could come to reaching a real awareness of Them, of Their vision. There were other places, far more of them, where he wasn’t even a child trying to learn, but a particle of an atom that was lost and always would be in a universe of complexities.

It had been strange at first, existing in the Temple, the awe he felt often bordering on terror

but he’d progressed, learned a kind of patience that only the nearly eternal could grasp, that kept the bulk of his consciousness focused. Patience and peace were linked more tightly than he had ever imagined, and mostly he was at peace. They had many questions, and were eager to understand. He wanted to learn, to teach and be taught. The possibilities were infinite.

But still

still, when he experienced himself as whole within the Temple, he remembered that the other reality kept grinding along without him, time passing, things changing. As wondrous, as amazing as his experience was, there was no warm hand to hold his own, no eager laugh to match his. No beloved to share his thoughts with, to be shared with in turn. These things, a thousand others, big and small—the smile in his boy’s eyes, a soft breeze at sunset, the good, rich smell of garlic in butter—these were home, and he wished for it. And now there was this something, this thing that no facet of him could see, that They couldn’t or wouldn’t explain. It was important. It was change, and though he didn’t know what it was, he knew that everything would be different when it was through.

He would watch. He would be patient. He would be ready.