RESURRECTION

Benjamin Sisko sighed; some time had passed since he had joined the Prophets, although time of course didn´t exist in this eerie white world of light and memories.

"Benjamin."

Sisko turned around in surprise at the sound of his first name. The Prophets usually didn´t call him by it. He was even more surprised when he saw the speaker. The person in front of him had the appearance of Dukat, although a little older and surrounded by an aura of peace that didn´t really fit with the Dukat he had known.

The man smiled openly at him. "Don´t look at me like that, Ben, it´s really me."

He was stunned. "Dukat?! But how-"

"I know what you want to say," Dukat gave him a sly grin, an expression so typical that Sisko was immediately convinced it was really him. "It´s not linear," Dukat said, "- isn´t that what you were about to say?"

Sisko had barely managed to get over his surprise, his guard was immediately up at the sight of the enemy he had not long ago defeated.

"What are you doing here, Dukat? You should be with the Pah-wraiths."

"Oh yes, I guess so. But you know, something quite strange happened. To be honest I´ve been waiting here for you for the past two thousand years now," Dukat told him in a light and clearly amused tone.

Still confused and suspicious about the strange turn that things were taking, Sisko remained distant.

"You wouldn´t mind telling me what this is all about?"

"Why, of course not, my friend..."

"Let me get one thing straight, we are not and never have been friends!"

Dukat simply ignored his remark and went on. "You see, not all of the Pah-wraiths were destroyed, some who still had the strength managed to escape. You merely weakened them enough for me to be able to break the link between us. I had no wish to be imprisoned with them, I don´t believe it would have been a healthy experience. By that time however, the Pah-wraiths were retreating to their own dimension, similar to this one. Time doesn´t exist there as well and when I broke the link while travelling, I was somehow dropped along the way, stranded in time. In short, I ended up on ancient Bajor as a free man." Dukat looked at Sisko to see if he could still follow, "You know, I wrote some of the prophecies."

"You did what?!" Sisko was too surprised to keep his voice down with the shock. He simply stared at Dukat´s calm smiling face for nearly a minute. "I should´ve known. Who else would write such confusing, cryptic, way-too-long prophecies!" he finally commented dryly.

"Okay, what else did you mess up back then... how did the Bajorans react to you anyway?"

"Now that was actually quite funny. At first they thought I was send by the Pah-wraiths and tried to kill me. Fortunately I was saved by a compassionate Vedek who thought I merely had some kind of skin disease." Sisko barely managed to surpress a laugh which was answered by a raised eyeridge. "I later tried to explain where I had come from. Of course he didn´t understand a thing and decided I must be an envoy of the Prophets instead." Dukat laughed and shrugged his shoulders. "That´s how I came to write down the prophecies, by the way. I admit I made them complicated on purpose. It took me quite some time to recover from my wounds after our fight, so I decided to give you something to think about."

A bit more relaxed and genuinely curious by now, Sisko kept on asking, "I´m not sure I get this and it doesn´t explain what you´re doing here."

"Oh, that´s simple. I got bored after some years on Bajor, so I decided to pay Cardassia a visit. Made it my past-time to build one of those ancient Bajoran spaceships..."

Sisko interupted him," You´re not going to tell me you were the first one to make contact between the two races, are you?" he asked, giving Dukat once more a reason to laugh.

"No. I´m telling you that I got caught up in the very same tachyon eddy as you, only it was taking an alternate route back then. When it dropped me I had completely lost orientation then, trying to get back somehow, I entered the wormhole."

"Wait a second," Sisko looked at him suspiciously. "Those ships were only developed 800 years ago."

"Remember Cardassian photographic memory? Anyway, it gave the Prophets quite a hard time to figure out what to do with me. I think they let me live because they realized I had changed. You know, it´s still hard to admit, but..." Dukat turned his face away, "during my time on ancient Bajor, I began to admit my mistakes to myself. When I came here, the Prophets decided to forgive me."

Sisko eyed him suspiciously, "In the seven years that I have known you, you´ve never said you´re sorry *and* meant it. Why should I believe you know?"

"During the Occupation I was never been able to respect the Bajorans. I might have felt pity from time to time, but after all they were nothing but slaves to me." Dukat´s voice showed regret, his face although remained calm and open. "The people I met on ancient Bajor, on the other hand, were worthy of respect and I realized that´s what Cardassia destroyed, what they´re trying to rebuild now. Living there for nearly a decade, I came to understand them in a far more personal way. Kira has been telling me this for years, but I´ve only then recognized their beliefs not as a weakness but as their strength. And I think it has made me stronger as well."

Sisko accepted the statement with a short nod, it was perhaps the most honest thing Sisko had ever heard from Dukat. He really wanted to believe him, maybe for once he could. Still, other questions needed to be answered.

"So, if you´ve been here all that time, why didn´t you talk to me before? It´s not like this is my first time here? And why didn´t you change things?"

Dukat let out a heavy sigh. The sadness that appeared in his eyes suddenly made him look very old.

"Don´t you think I´ve tried? Don´t you think I´ve tried to keep myself from the mistakes I made during the Occupation? Don´t you think I´ve tried to save Naprem?" His voice nearly broke, "...and Ziyal?" Dukat shook his head. "It was impossible, because that was my punishment. Observe my mistakes and all their consequences. There was nothing I could do, not even talk to you. The Prophets considered it too dangerous to change the past."

Sadness and pain were so evident in Dukat´s voice now that Sisko allowed himself to feel pity for his former enemy. He also felt a new fear rising.

"Is that what awaits me? Seeing the past, present and future but never being able to do anything?"
Dukat shook his head. "No. The Prophets are stronger now that the Pah-wraiths have been defeated. You´ll even have the possibility to go back one day. After you´ve learned enough." His tone grew more friendly and even a tad teasing as he continued, "Well, I don´t envy you. Believe me, it´s a torture having to listen to the explanations of unlinear beings; the Obsidian Order could learn from them." He tilted his head to one side.

Sisko smiled to himself - old habits died hard it seemed, and always complaining certainly was one habit quite typical for Dukat.

"It makes the time pass though." Dukat said, "Sometimes I spent a century talking to one of them, or something like that; it´s not as if time really exists here. Its quite confusing, but you know what it´s like. All in all, I´m glad you´re taking over."

"Taking over? You mean you want to go back? Like this?! They´ll kill you!"

Sisko was once more confused. Did Dukat really intend to go back in his current form? They´d probably lynch him on both Bajor and Cardassia and put him in court in the rest of the quadrant.

"Why Ben, concerned for me? Believe me I have no intention to commit suicide." Dukat´s sadness had completely been replaced by amusement now. "You see, the Prophets will send me back in the form of a Bajoran monk who came here some hundred years ago but sadly died. There shouldn´t be many problems that way, I think. Besides, " Dukat began to grin widely," they have shown me a very interesting future available to me which includes winning over the lonely Colonel´s fair heart."

Sisko winced at the thought "Maybe I should send Kira a vision to warn her."

"Oh, I promise to make her happy...and you wouldn´t want to bother our working relationship by revealing something that irrelevant, would you?"

"Dukat, which working relationship?" Sisko asked, fearing the worst.

"Why, they need a new Kai, don´t they? And who would be better suited for the job?"

Before Sisko was able to find an appropriate answer to that, Dukat´s shape became blurry and transparent, then morphed into the form of a middle-aged Bajoran. He made a short bow, "Farewell, Emissary" was his last mocking comment before he disappeared a second later.

Still puzzeled, Sisko stared at the place where just a moment ago his former enemy had been standing. For better or worse, he was stuck with Dukat once more. There was a chance the Bajorans would not make him Kai, but with Dukat´s political talent that wasn´t likely to happen. An evil thought suddenly crossed his mind. Wasn´t it a duty of his to send visions to the Kai. Some very unpleasant dreams might keep Dukat from whatever he was planning for the Colonel.

END