Star Trek; Deep Space Nine
Blood Island

Chapter 10

Sisko's question was direct and to the point. He looked at the older Bajoran woman's face for any gage of her emotion. She sipped on her tea, and then responded.

"Gul'Dukat does have a very interesting personality, don't you think?" Lee'nija said with a wry tone to her voice.

Odo shook his head, "Interesting is hardly the word I would use." Odo said for Sisko.

"I hate to disappoint you, Emissary, and your friend" Lee'nija said, "but I didn't create the virus. But I was the one who designed the medical facility's computer network, years ago, when it was built for the citizens of the island."

"How did that come to be?" Sisko asked.

Lee'nija continued. "I had lived on the island for several years, decades even. If you do your research you'll find that my late life-partner, and I, were both instrumental in creating, and maintaining, the computer system and infrastructure systems on that island. She and I were schooled at the most prestigious technical schools on the island." She motioned to an old holographic picture showing Lee'nija posing with another Bajoran female. "Those were good times."

Sisko did not like her caviler attitude. "The Cardassian occupation of Bajor were hardly good times." Sisko said softly, but with disgust in his voice.

"Please, Emissary," Lee'nija said back to him, "what you now call the Cardassian Occupation I called the Bajoran era of Reformation."

Sisko searched for meaning in her words. "Can you enlighten me on the phrase Bajoran era of Reformation? I have never heard of that term."

"There were some Bajorans," Lee'nija said, "that welcomed the arrival of the Cardassians. My people, a very deeply religious people, were held back for centuries due to our belief structure. Our development, in terms of technology and social evolution, was far behind that of our Cardassian neighbors. I believe that resentment of Cardassian superiority is what drives most of the ill feeling my people have to this very day, in regards of Cardassia. They came in peace, and we doomed it to failure with the dogma of the Vedics."

Odo spoke next. "Excuse me, but you seem to have an interesting way of looking at Bajor's history with the Cardassians. They may have come to your world in peace, but ended up enslaving your entire population."

Lee'nija smiled at Odo's words. "The temper of history, as I am sure you are both well aware of, is generally shaped by those who control the pen and paper. Those who are bitter of our relationship with the Cardassians will point to the bad parts, and there were many. But they will leave out what good came of it."

"And what good would that be?" Sisko asked defiantly.

"For one," she said directly to Sisko, "the attempt to rid Bajor of this silly belief that the aliens who dwell in the wormhole are anything than that. The belief that there are Prophets who guide our way, who dwell inside a Celestial Temple, inside the wormhole, has done nothing but truly enslave us to archaic writings of our primitive ancestors thousands of years ago."

"And yet," Sisko countered, motioning to several Bajoran religious items scattered through out the abode, "you seem quite open to it now."

Lee'nija suppressed a laugh, and then stood up and walked over a painting on one of her walls depicting the discovery of one of the Orbs. She looked up at it, then back to Sisko. "I don't have this painting in my home," then she motioned to the other religious items, "or any of these idols, because I want to. You seem to think I live here, in total isolation on this hill, because I want to. This was my sentence for being one of those who collaborated with the Cardassians."

Odo looked at the religious artifacts, then back to Lee'nija. "Are you telling us that the Bajoran government has, in essence, put you under house arrest?"

She nodded. "When the Cardassians agreed to end the so called occupation, there were secret negotiations held with the provisional government on the fate of some of us who were more involved. Some, like my life-partner, and I, were forced to attend reclamation classes to reaffirm our faith in the Prophets. These items were given to us to reinforce certain aspects of the religion."

"Why not just execute you for the traitors you were?" Sisko said, not affected at all by her story.

"Take a look around," Lee'nija said to Sisko, "what do you see? You see religious trinkets, Emissary; why do you think that is? I'll tell you why. Some of the most important collaborators are sitting, right now, in the Vedic Assembly. They know their hands are covered in the same blood ours are. If they executed us, they'd have to execute at least a quarter of the Assembly."

Sisko shook his head. "If you're telling me that the Vedic Assembly was involved with the occupation, I don't believe you. The facts state otherwise."

"Oh yes, the pen and paper again." Lee'nija stated. "Listen to me; I didn't create the virus killing many of my friends, and most of my family. I did create pathways in the computer net on the Island so that all medical research would be altered, filtered, away from any progress. It was all a part of my penance you might say."

Odo nodded as he began to understand. "So, in essence, the doctors on the Island are unaware that any data they create, using the computers at the facility, is altered. Readings are slightly changed, false data is produced, and no one would really know because the changes are all coming from the same network."

"Precisely," Lee'nija said, "they may have found the cure four or five dozen times, but never knew it."

"I still do not understand why?" Sisko said. "What purpose does it serve now? The occupation, as I still call it, is over. Why not let them find a cure?"

Lee'nija set her tea down on the table that was between her and her two visitors.

"Contrary to Starfleet's beliefs, the so called occupation of yours' was going to come to an end, sooner or later." Lee'nija told them. "Even Dukat knew this to be true. Towards the end, the cost of prolonging it had taken a toll on Cardassia. But it was also taking a toll on those who lived on the island. We knew, very well, that there would be retribution for what we had done to curtail the efforts of the resistance."

"The resistance," Odo said, "is what kept the situation from getting harder on the Bajorans than it could have."

"Do you really believe that?" Lee'nija asked with a slight smile. "All it did was to cause the Cardassian's to use more effort. I truly believe, had there been no resistance, the Reformation, which my people so desperately needed, would have been over in a few years, not decades as it turned out. We have the Resistance to thank for that, and," she pointed at a painting of the Celestial Temple, "them. Our religion is what has retarded our development as a society, and it is what inspired us to resist against the natural progression of universal societal evolution."

"The meek shall fall?" Sisko retorted.

Lee'nija nodded her head. "Yes commander, precisely. History, through-out our galaxy, shows that there is a penalty for stagnation. And one of those causes of stagnation is such belief systems that put artificial limitations on the natural instinct to survive and succeed. Those societies that free themselves from the shackles of beliefs are the ones who progress father, and faster. The Borg, the Romulans, your Federation." Lee'nija motioned to the computer gear that also was quite evident in her home. "Only through technology, and intelligence, can we truly succeed. And nothing is more threatening to a belief system than technology and intelligence."

Sisko shook his head. "I couldn't disagree more." Sisko countered. "I believe that those belief systems, some of them at least, can be the ignition to strive to a higher purpose. But, I am not here to debate galactic matters," Sisko said to her, "I want you to come with us and help us put a stop to the virus that is killing so many innocent Bajorans."

"I won't help you, Emissary" Lee'nija said with a sarcastic tone. "Those of us who were among the leadership of the Island, decided long ago, that our inability to break our people from this stagnation would be our price-to-pay. If millions of us were to die for our resistance to believe in archaic Prophets, then it will be a lesson for future Bajorans to question the wisdom of believing in them as well."

"We will expose you, the provisional government will too." Odo said to her.

She chuckled at Odo. "No they won't," she said to Odo. "The provisional government does nothing more than prop up the very thing I am trying to end; belief. They, and more importantly, their Vedic Assembly puppet-masters, would be more than happy to see us swept a way in this manner. Our deaths help prolong their own shortsighted political careers. They know that millions of deaths will challenge dogma, in time, but they are willing to let it happen because religions, all of them, as their dominance nears collapse, will use every method they can to forestall their eventual end."

"If you believe that to be true," Sisko said to her, "why not expose them now. Wouldn't doing so help you in your cause to break the Bajorans from their belief system?"

Lee'nija smiled. "We are all shortsighted: Even I am."

Odo shook his head, "What is that supposed to mean?"

Sisko harrumphed. "I believe I know what she is getting at." Sisko said to Odo. "Think of it Constable. Why are the Bajorans rounding up the inflicted, putting them on an island which will soon have a force field surrounding it to prevent escape?"

Odo thought for a moment, and then he answered. "We already know commander. So that they will all eventually die under the guise of a medical establishment rigged to fail?"

Sisko nodded. "That is part of it," Sisko said to Odo, "but what about her? Why is she not on the Island?"

Odo looked at her, and slowly came to the only conclusion, "Because she doesn't have the virus."

"No," Sisko added, "she has been cured."

-continued