Catalyst of Sorrows

“Pretty anticlimactic, wasn’t it?” Uhura said. “Oh, and by the way, there was no Rhaandarite captain in the fleet. I checked. But I did a little investigating of my own once I was inside SI, and managed to track her down, just to return the favor.”

“Who was she?”

“That I can’t tell you. She’s dead now, so it doesn’t really matter, but she had her reasons for remaining anonymous. And, the truth is, I was at a crossroads; I wanted to jump at her offer. But I was a

“So all those years, even when you had command of your own ship—?”

“Yes. And before you ask, no, I never spied on anyone in Starfleet. Mostly what I did was what I always did, monitored every layer of multiphasic transmission that we passed through on our way from Here to There.”

“I’m sure there was more to it than that,” Curzon suggested.

“Well, yes, then there’s learning to interpret what you hear. What sounds like two merchant captains having a conversation about ion storms could really be a code for safe smuggling routes. What sounds like random static could be a Tholian numeric code revealing an attack plan on a Romulan outpost. If Starfleet is able—circuitously, of course—to get word to the Romulans so they can abort the attack before it happens, at some point that’s going to count in our favor.”

“Which brings me back to Cretak. Surely you two haven’t been incommunicado all this time?”

“No,” Uhura said thoughtfully, wondering if the years had been as kind to Cretak as they had been to her. “We never met face-to-face again. But we kept in touch. Sometimes not for decades, but we kept in touch. There are always ways to punch a message through, if you know how. Just a word now and then, a specially coded transmission that only the other would understand, which says ‘I’m still here, and you?’ And that’s all I can tell you on that subject, even here.”

“And eventually you ended up ru

“Something like that,” she said, feeling his arm slip around her shoulders and deciding to let it stay there.

Not surprisingly, Benjamin Sisko couldn’t sleep that night. He tried not to toss and turn too much, but Je

Sisko groaned and put the pillow over his head, as if that would make it go away.

“Ben? Ben, come out of there and talk to me,” Je

“Can’t a man have any secrets?” he wondered.

“Not when a shuttle comes all the way from San Francisco to retrieve you personally.”

He’d pla

He sat up and told her everything.

“And—?” Je

“And,I don’t want to go off on some open-ended assignment and leave you and Jake.”

“And you told this to Admiral Uhura without even knowing what the assignment was?” Je

“Je

“Every moment except when you’re up to your eyebrows in engine specs,” Je

There was a silence between them, a silence where he lost himself for a moment in the liquid depths of her eyes and forgot everything else.

“You think I’m being silly,” he said at last, a little sheepishly.

“I wouldn’t put it in so many words, but—”

“—but I’m being silly. I should at least find out what the assignment is before I say no. Curzon said something about it helping me to see the world beyond an engine room, but—”

“And how often is Curzon wrong?”

“Curzon is a poet,” Sisko grumbled, rolling over on his side and clutching the pillow beneath his head in case Je

“An assignment with Intelligence can only help your career, Mr. Pragmatist,” Je

Sisko rolled over and scowled at her. “That’s LieutenantPragmatist to you. Are you saying you don’t think I’m being promoted fast enough? Are you saying I’m a trophy husband?”

Je

“I’m saying you married another pragmatist. Someone who’s interested in seeing you become your best self.”

“No, that would be Curzon.” Sisko turned away from her again. He sighed. There’d be no sleeping until they got this settled. “Why is it everyone knows what’s best for me better than me?” he asked of no one in particular.

There was no answer from Je

“You want me to go back there tomorrow and tell Uhura I’m in,” he suggested. “Without even knowing what it’s about.”

“Oh, far be it from me to tell you what I think you should do!” was Je

This time it was Ben who said nothing.

“Ultimately, it’s up to you,” Je

“Of course it would!” Sisko said plaintively, turning toward her, stroking her cheek, cradling her head tenderly in one of his big hands.

He kissed her then, and for a long time neither of them said anything.

“You said yourself you don’t know where you want to go in your career,” she murmured later, snuggled against his shoulder. “Maybe this mission will help show you the way.”

“I just miss you,” he said, much calmer, settling down toward sleep at last. “Even when I’m with you, I miss you.”

“A man obsessed!” Je

The next morning, Benjamin Sisko scooped Jake up in a bear hug and danced him around the room.

“And how is Captain Jake this morning?”

“Going to kiddergarten!” Jake a

The elder Sisko stopped spi

“Kiddergarten, eh? That’s a very important assignment,” he said, lowering Jake to the floor. “Are you fully prepared, Captain?”

Jake stood up as tall as he could. “Aye, sir!”

“Well, then, we’d better get you there at warp speed!” Sisko a