Chapter 5 – Opening Round
Buckley crawled into the bed of her temporary quarters she had been given on DS9. The first round of these negotiations had been nearly enough to flatten her, emotionally speaking. She was very glad that the counselor of this station was human, with no telepathic or empathic capabilities. The woman would have been driven crazy by now if she had been. The station staff alone would irritate Alana to no end if she had a chance to allow it. Captain Kira was a passionate woman, but even though her face and outward demeanor were quite controlled, to Alana she was wearing every bit of stress blatantly for everyone to read. Commander Vaughn was very subdued, which was more than she ever could get from him. Lt. Dax was actually a very sweet woman, yet Alana could felt the different personalities surfacing as she spoke to her. Dr. Bashir's mind was constantly racing from one topic to another with his emotions running the same gambit. She knew that given time she would be able to learn how to deal with the problems of living with these people, but right now she was rather overwhelmed.
Worf had left her to visit with Dax for the evening. She thought of going down to the Promenade to see what was there to find. Food wasn't on the top of her list at the moment but shopping always gave her something to keep her mind on mundane affairs, which certainly beat what else she had on it. The last six hours of her day had been spent in a conference room with eight other diplomats, each from a different faction of Bajor's religious community. Every one of them thought the other was completely mad for feeling that the text they purported was accurate.
Alana had never been very religious. She however studied it as often as she could. The Captain had been right about her love of the subject. Once she had truly sat down to study the texts she had become so engrossed in them that she had nearly forgotten to sleep. While fascinated, she never truly subscribed to any of the belief systems that she found such joy in studying. Her reasoning was that all religions filled a need in an individual, as well as society. In that respect they were all equally valid. She did believe that there truly was a guiding force out there, but she staunchly refused to give it a name. It could have just as easily be the Christian God as it could be Kylin the Betazoid Goddess of the home. As long as the Deity in question did not demand a form of animal or sentient sacrifice Alana found some merit in their teachings.
As much as she wanted to scream at these people for allowing their religious fervor to cloud their judgment she did see the need for them to try to make sense of what they were witnessing. They truly did need the guidance of religious scholars. However all they were going to get at the moment was a Klingon and herself. While in some ways she could consider herself an expert on religion, she had never read more than a couple of papers on Bajoran culture and religion before yesterday
The biggest problem was going to be getting the Ministry and the Vedek assembly to agree on anything. The current Kai was actually quite flexible. She was actually willing to compromise to get the ball rolling. Where Alana was having trouble was telling them that every single one of their texts were as valid as the others. Even the ones that she saw evidence that some of the prophecies had not been fulfilled; none of them had had any prophecy that had been proven wrong. How was it possible for her to pass a judgment on this? She had to figure out something. But at the moment all she could see was a line that was getting blurrier by the minute.
Her mind continued to race for a couple of minutes before she settled on something to do. First she would change into civilian clothes and go find out what the shops sold around her. It would have the advantage of doing two things at once. First it would allow her to not focus on the matter at hand. Second, she would be able to simply listen to what was around her and find out what the local Bajorans on the station felt about the restructure of their religion. Lastly it give her a chance to sort out her own feelings on what was happening now that she was beginning to loosen up on the ship. Before now she had not allowed herself to even think about forming any friendships while serving as the Counselor. Deanna had warned her about that, although she had confided that she had formed the most valuable friendships while on the Enterprise. At this point she realized that she couldn't just stay the counselor, she would need one within a few months because of loneliness.
What she was discovering was that she wanted male companionship. Now that the Captain had come to grips with his love life, she was more than ready to concede that she needed someone as well. Especially after Geordi had talked to her last night. He was really a very sweet man, intelligent, witty, energetic and easy on the eyes. She never even noticed the ocular implants anymore. Now all she saw was the handsome face and heart-lightening smile. Emotionally she couldn't find someone more compatible on the ship. As a matter of fact she hadn't ever found someone that could have such an emotional response in her. That's it. I just hope I won't sound too forward if I do try to call him. I think I am going to eat, shop for an hour to think and then call Geordi. If nothing else I think I can definitely call him a friend and I could use someone to bounce ideas off of.