Finding this Banaro was a lot easier than Valance expected. The crowd dispersed after Frankle was pulled back towards a looming distant tower Beckett guessed was a cathedral, and the tone had undoubtedly changed from a mixture of curiosity and fascination to a rumbling apprehension. The masses had come almost as the Starfleet officers had, following the rumours and reports of a prophet spouting the word of their god. A public challenge had taken some of the wind from their sails.

‘Let us hope that those who stand against Frankle are not dealt with as severely here as they were in the town,’ said Gov’taj as he led the way through the crowd, his burly frame good at blazing a trail.

‘People I talked to in the town hinted – or said – that Riggoria had pretty unchallenged authority,’ said Beckett, shaking his head. ‘But that Banaro looks like a priest, too. There are probably a lot of different priests here with different opinions who can’t just lock each other up for arguing. Even in public.’

Most of the crowd dispersed, splitting down the many roads into the expansive city, and movement became easier as Gov’taj led them in the direction he insisted Banaro’s people had ushered the renegade priest. Without the crush of bodies and the taste of urgency in the air, Valance could soak in the sights of this city and felt her hearts loosen as she reminded herself this was a pre-warp civilisation, a place untouched by the wider galaxy.

‘It sure is something, huh, Captain?’ said Beckett as he caught her peering. ‘I mean, look at those towers – they’re hella tall.’

Thawn wrinkled her nose at his gesture. ‘They’re not that -’

‘For this level of development, Thawn, c’mon!’ he protested. ‘I’ve been here a few days and could make educated guesses on their architectural sophistication. But I underestimated them.’

‘What does that mean?’ said Valance, more to stop them arguing. ‘That is, what are the implications of their having more developed construction techniques?’

Beckett shrugged. ‘Could be a lot of things. Maybe they just have plentiful material so they build a lot? It could be something social, like institutions of knowledge to help develop and study techniques. Or rich people put a lot more stock in these kinds of displays of their wealth so there’s a social motivation? But look.’ He pointed between a few spires towering over the city. All were built of the same brown stone, but the lower houses and businesses bore splashes of colour in drapes from windows, in banners stretching between rooftops, in green plants hanging from pots, while the spires were bare and stark and impressive. ‘Plenty of them don’t look like they’re the church’s.’

‘So maybe their rule isn’t absolute here.’

‘Maybe. It’s probably more complicated than that.’ He gave a sunny smile. ‘But isn’t it interesting to find out?’

It would be more interesting if we weren’t scrambling to stop ancient technology from riding roughshod over the whole culture. But Valance had to nod anyway.

‘Here,’ grunted Gov’taj a few minutes later after leading them down winding cobbled streets. Sunlight struggled to pierce these narrower roads as the rooftops above tilted together, and where it did break through it was cast in the brighter colours of drapes hanging overhead. The clientele of a local eatery had spilt from the inside into the street, sat on stools around makeshift tables that were once barrels, or standing in clusters as they gathered and chatted. Their garb was lighter than the hard-wearing travelling clothes they’d seen on the road, but still simple, of drab colours and plain fabrics, and they drank wines poured by serving staff into beakers and goblets rather than glasses.

‘A cantina,’ said Beckett, eyes lighting even more. ‘Let me find -’

‘You don’t even have a combadge,’ Thawn admonished him. ‘Don’t think of going off on your own.’

‘She’s right,’ said Valance. ‘We stick together. And ask politely.’

The shade of the cantina was something of a relief after the muggy streets, but though they couldn’t be far behind the firebrand priest he was not in sight. Valance decided to step in as eyes landed warily on the hulking Gov’taj, and turned to a serving girl who gave them a cautious look.

‘The priest Banaro. He’s here?’

She looked a little trapped. ‘I don’t… if you can’t see him, I don’t know if I can help you -’

But then a curtain across a back door was thrown open, and the burly figure of the Drapician priest himself emerged. ‘Thank you for your caution, Lisara. But they aren’t Riggoria’s people. They wouldn’t get this dust on them.’ Still, he dragged his eyes over the four and scratched his thick beard. ‘But you’re new to the city.’

Valance hesitated. It would be very easy for their massive ignorance of Drapician culture to be exposed if she weren’t careful. ‘We are,’ she said. ‘We came like lots of people, following reports of a prophet. Then we saw what happened back there.’

Banaro said nothing for a moment, watching them. ‘If you’ve come for answers, I can’t tell you what to think. I’m not Riggoria or his puppet.’

‘But that’s exactly it,’ chirped Beckett at Valance’s elbow. ‘Everyone talked about this prophet’s miraculous work, how he knows our troubles and how to soothe them, but everything he was saying there was – like you said. The same kind of words we get from priests who want to line their coffers rather than help us.’

Again Banaro watched them. Then he sighed and turned to the serving girl. ‘Lisara, a carafe of purple in the back for me and my new friends? We have theology to talk.’

The back room he’d come from, a dim and smoky chamber inviting intimacy and close gatherings, was abuzz with more people but had an air of privacy. Valance recognised some of them from the crowd who had pulled Banaro from the square and assumed he had a following of dedicants. More of them wore the symbols of the faith Beckett had pointed out, and by garb, she thought some might also be lower-ranked priests or some manner of lay preacher.

At Banaro’s gesture, one group of young men and women abandoned a table for the priest and his new guests to claim. The broad-shouldered Drapician took a stool at the head of the table and waited for them all to settle down before he eyed them up. ‘So you wanted, what, this time of revelation and instead saw a charlatan?’

‘I don’t know what we saw,’ said Valance cautiously.

‘I can’t tell you what to think,’ Banaro replied. ‘I can only tell you what I think. I think Riggoria has found one excellent con man and is trying to use him to get closer to the Pontifex, if not to set back religious discourse a century.’

‘It seemed unclear to many people back home what the prophet was saying,’ ventured Thawn. ‘Only that he was important.’

Banaro sighed with the sympathetic air of a man who thought he had to handle the feelings of some disillusioned bumpkins. ‘I am sorry you have come this way for perhaps nothing. I am glad you heard my words, though. I hope others do. But those who accept the “prophet’s” words seem to not have noticed that they all uphold the interpretations of scripture that benefit the Pontifex, the high priests, the nobility. It’s as if the decrees and reforms of the Council of Vicarane never happened, if you listen to this prophet, and Riggoria would much rather they hadn’t…’

It was impossible for them to not have blank faces, and Banaro groaned again. ‘I apologise. I am a theologian, and you want – as you should – guidance on how to live a good life. I am sorry that church politics and corruption are pulling you, and others, into their machinations.’

Beckett leaned forward. ‘Riggoria said he’d bring the prophet to the Pontifex. This was just to help his position?’

‘And the Pontifex is no fool,’ said Banaro with some relief. ‘He’s holding Riggoria at bay, so Riggoria is putting his performing animal in the public eye with the hope the crowds will clamour loud enough he has to listen. So I have to confront him and stop him getting a foothold.’ The serving girl arrived with a fresh carafe and goblets, and wine of a deep, violet hue was poured for all. ‘I know. You didn’t think me a cardinal.’

Valance and Beckett exchanged glances, and she drew an awkward breath. ‘I’ve never met a cardinal to know one,’ she said honestly.

He laughed at that. ‘I try to remind the Pontifex and the council that we are here for the people. Perhaps he just thinks my reformist ways are a novelty. And there’s no denying that what Riggoria and his prophet are spouting is the view of the majority – the majority of the church, the majority of the powerful, likely the majority of people, seeing as they’re not much exposed to other ways of thinking.’

Beckett’s brow furrowed. ‘The easiest way to control us,’ he mused, sounding like he was thinking aloud.

But Banaro shrugged. ‘The simplest of answers. The ones we give without thinking about our world. The collective wisdom of a faceless majority, without nuance, without contemplation.’ He shook his head. ‘I hope that’s food for thought, regardless. I won’t bore you with how I and Riggoria and the “prophet” disagree on what many would view as the details of scriptural interpretation.’ One thick hand wrapped around a goblet, and he had a swig of wine. ‘So, tell me of yourselves, pilgrims looking for a better way.’

‘We want to see the prophet,’ Valance said instead, leaning forward with an intent expression. ‘You’re a cardinal and he’s being kept around the cathedral.’

Banaro’s eyes narrowed. ‘He’s a danger, but I won’t see any harm come to him.’

‘No, we…’ Valance hesitated, unsure how best to lie.

‘It’s embarrassing. Shameful, even,’ Beckett jumped in, with a nervous glance at her. ‘You see, we do actually know the prophet.’

Valance tensed. ‘That’s enough…’

‘We know where he’s from, and we want him to come home. He’s not a con man. He’s just being used by people like Riggoria.’ Beckett didn’t look at her now, eyes locked on Banaro. ‘If we can see him, speak to him in private, we can convince him to go with us.’

Banaro folded his arms across his chest, ponderous. ‘Where did you say you were from again?’

Valance and Beckett froze, and she almost jumped out of her skin when Thawn said, quietly, ‘Treksial.’

That made the cardinal stop again, then slowly nod. ‘The hermitage.’

‘They sent us,’ said Thawn, sounding apologetic.

He nodded like that made sense, and Valance exhaled slowly. The Betazoid must have read his mind, fished out an answer he had contemplated to make sense of their suggestions. Now the cardinal looked considerably mollified. ‘I would expect better of the hermits. If one of their brothers was tired, he should be helped, not…’

‘If you get us in to see him,’ Valance pressed, leaning forward, ‘you don’t have to see him again. Or us.’

Banaro leaned back, now looking about the crowded room, to the windows beyond which the city still tumbled. ‘I had hoped things were changing,’ he mused. ‘That scripture could guide individuals to make their own best choices, rather than tell them to obey those in power, suspect outsiders, look after themselves and those who rule over them. And it’s not just scripture, is it?’ He sighed. ‘This prophet arrives, and I see just how much small-mindedness lies at the heart of our people…’

‘I like to think,’ offered Beckett, ‘it’s actually on the surface. That it’s the consequences of people not thinking very hard, and when they do put their minds to it, they’re much better than they seem.’ He glanced back at his fellow officers. ‘I think that’s what the prophet is on about. Speaking of – to – the shallowest parts of a whole culture.’

‘Maybe,’ sighed a distracted Banaro, then shook his head. ‘Come back here at dusk, and I shall get you in to see him. And if you hurt anyone, my followers will find you. Understood?’

Valance nodded with relief. ‘Absolutely.’

They did not speak until they were around the corner from the cantina, and Gov’taj gave a short bark of laughter. ‘That was most successful. Excellent work.’

‘Yes,’ said Valance, looking to Thawn. ‘Judicious work, Lieutenant.’

She flushed. ‘I hate doing that, Captain, but reading his mind so he might believe us seemed like a lesser offence than risking the Prime Directive…’

‘I trust your judgement,’ Valance said sincerely and turned to Beckett. ‘You sounded like you had a theory.’

‘Yeah.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Especially after Commander Dashell’s report. So there’s a chance this circlet’s been plugged into a box, plugged into a system, that’s been conducting scans for thousands of years. Telepathic scans.’

‘You think it’s reading thoughts of the entire society?’ said Thawn.

He nodded. ‘I still think the whole thing exists to figure out how to best control and manipulate Drapice. Maybe even telepathically if there’s an emitter. So for whatever reason the Vorkasi leave it on for millennia to pick up a whole culture’s thoughts,’ he said with the ebullience he reserved for particularly excitable theories. ‘But that’s why Frankle’s spouting the most… basic interpretations of scripture. The least controversial ones.’

Valance raised her eyebrows. ‘Gather that many opinions – majority opinions – over a few thousand years and there’s a risk of a sort of… blend of the most mainstream and unchallenging perspectives if you have to summarise them into one line of argument?’

‘There’s a risk of the resulting opinion only upholding and reinforcing systems of power, like Riggoria wants,’ Beckett countered. ‘Not challenging them, like Banaro wants.’

‘To what end?’ asked Gov’taj. ‘Frankle hasn’t come here to rule or take over. He seems like a puppet, of the circlet as well as Riggoria, and uncertain of his convictions if challenged.’

‘It wasn’t made for humans,’ Thawn pointed out. ‘Who knows what the circlet would do with a mind it was designed for? Especially a trained one.’

‘But when challenged,’ mused Valance, ‘the control of the circlet wavers. Presumably because it’s not good at providing information on that level of nuance. Which means we have a plan for how to deal with Frankle.’

‘Lie and cheat our way into the heart of the faith of a pre-warp civilisation,’ said Beckett, lighting up even more, ‘and defeat the insidious outside influence of ancient technology through rigorous theological debate. Seriously, didn’t everyone join Starfleet for this kind of adventure?’