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“Maybe she’s not a god,” Damar said.
When Weyoun said nothing Damar continued, “What have the Founders done for the Vorta since making you into their pets?”
“They have given me a purpose—”
“And that’s all. There’s nothing more to you. You’re a glorified riding hound.”
Weyoun frowned, “I wonder. How would you react if the very spirit of the Cardassian Union were to manifest as a perfect living entity.”
Damar, already half-finished with a bottle of kanar, allowed himself to wax philosophical. “I’d kill it and hope no one else had seen such a thing.”
Weyoun was perfectly appalled.
Warmed by this small victory, Damar pressed on before Weyoun could respond, “A god you can touch is as useless as a goal already achieved! Even the Klingons know that a dead god is preferable to a live one.”
Weyoun, unable to articulate a response, spent the next hour researching alien religions in order to refute Damar’s position. The computer only returned examples of deities destroyed by subjects who had become their equals in knowledge or strength, whole pantheons decimated by neglect, and gods forgotten with the passage of time.
With each anecdote, Weyoun became more distraught; his hands shook and his breath hitched. Damar could practically taste Weyoun’s despair; it mingled with his own sense of satisfaction, dark and savory, in the back of his throat.
“If you meet the Buddha on the road,” Damar read over Weyoun’s shoulder, “kill him. That’s funny. I’d never have thought that Human philosophy would agree with me.”
“I know too much…” Weyoun murmured, “If only I did not know! If I didn’t know I could continue to serve the Founders until the very end!” Weyoun, seeming to realize that he’d spoken aloud, excused himself.
Damar followed him down the corridor, “They’re all sick, aren’t they?”
“Unfounded speculation like that is exactly what I expect you’d find at the bottom of a bottle.” Weyoun turned the corner and stepped into his quarters.
Damar, inspired to cruelty by the naked desperation in Weyoun’s voice, stopped the door with his foot. He would have shouldered through but a Jem’Hadar guard leveled a rifle at him. Drunk enough to be more annoyed than intimidated, Damar pressed his forehead against the door and delivered his final retort through the crack.
“Your gods are drying up, Weyoun, and your tears aren’t going to save them.”